At the least, it’s a buzzword. At the most, it’s a completely transformed business.
Digital transformation has become a hot topic over the past few years, but in reality it’s been happening for at least the past 20.
Whether or not you like the term, the ideas behind it are still highly relevant; continually critiquing how you do business, becoming more collaborative and agile and taking a more experimentative approach, all in the pursuit of providing more value to your customers.
Before we delve into what it actually means to digitally transform, let’s talk about why it’s important.
It’s no heavily-held secret that in order to stay in business, you have to continue to stay competitive.
And that’s because the one constant in the world is change; economies change, teams change, suppliers change, people change, and so do their expectations.
And as these things change, so must we as businesses. As Benjamin Franklin aptly put it, albeit a bit bluntly:
“When you are finished changing, you are finished.”
This sentiment is reflected in a recent survey by McKinsey, showing that only 11% of the 1,140 business executives surveyed believe that their current business models will still be economically viable in 2023, with 64% saying their companies need to invest in building new, digitally-oriented businesses.
Furthermore, with the pressures of Coronavirus, this change has been accelerated even further as organisations scramble to understand how their business looks in a peri- and post-pandemic world.
If change is inevitable, the question then becomes, how do we manage it?
So, what is it?
At Flume, we define digital transformation as a step change in your organisation prioritising how it uses technology, it’s people and processes, to change the way you do business, in order to meet changing consumer expectations.
Change can be difficult to overcome for many organisations, which is often why many lag behind with their adoption of it. It takes bold leaders from within to champion this change. This can be extremely challenging, but those who are bold enough to overcome this inertia, will not just survive, but thrive.
Putting this approach into practice can mean very different things between organisations. But, that’s kind of the point: your digital transformation strategy is unique to you, as it should be. The important thing is that you begin the journey.
Starting to think that you may need to change, but have no idea what that might look like? Read on to see how other organisations have transformed, remarkably.
We’ve had the good fortune of working with some really brave leaders on their journey of remarkable transformation.
Jarrett from the Samoa Observer has been able to transform the way that the people of Samoa get their news.
Johan and Vlad from MoleMap have raised the benchmark for patient care through a cutting-edge patient portal.
Sarah from Big Mouth is now connecting voice artists to businesses across the industry and the world, through automation.
Digital transformation has previously been thought of as something reserved for large businesses and corporations but it’s our belief and experience that there is a true opportunity for small and medium-sized businesses to take advantage of this approach as well. You can see the remarkable results above.
We at Flume want all organisations to be able to benefit from a transformed business so we’re publishing a series around what digital transformation is, what it means for your business and how you, too, can get started and achieve remarkable results. Sign up to our newsletter below or follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook on Instagram to be notified of this series as it unfolds.
Don't stop here...
Part 1 – What is digital transformation?
Part 2 – Adopting a mission of “customer centricity”
Part 3 – Going agile; slowing down so you can speed up
Part 4 – Technology and infrastructure; from the ground to the cloud
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