Blog Post
What is Digital Transformation and How Do I Start?
Liza Rodrigues • April 20, 2020
It is a new world… As we all stay home and do our part in this public health crisis, we are adapting to a new way of working.
There are so many questions that remain unanswered, such as how long this will last, what will be the cost in the tragic loss of life, and what toll will it take on our economy?
The one thing we do know is that there will be a new normal when this all over. All we can do is prepare for that reality, with the understanding that the world markets have adapted to a digital way of life.
Of course, we are all eager to get back to going out and doing the things we love to do, with the people we love to do them with, however, the way we work will not be what it was pre-COVID 19. That’s an unavoidable reality.
Is your business getting prepared for a new way of engaging with your market?
What is Digital Transformation?
Let’s start with understanding what we mean by digital transformation. Digital transformation is the use of digital technology in all areas of a business. It fundamentally changes how you operate and how you engage with your customers to deliver value. It usually results in a cultural change to an organization.
What is the Goal of Digital Transformation?
Before the lockdown, digital transformation was a smart move for businesses because it improved customer experiences and increased scale:
- Greater efficiency to execute tasks and share information
- More informed interactions between customers and teams, as well as amongst team members since information is readily available via digital tools
- Improved service for the customer as interactions are available 24/7 and communication is made easy for them
What are the 6 Main Elements of Digital Transformation?
1. Customer Touch points
Customers are now forced to engage virtually, whether this is their preferred method or not. Therefore for those that have been adverse to digital communication, will now become accustomed to it, and likely see the benefits of it. Creating efficient and effective customer touch points is essential to capturing data and leveraging it for other purposes.
Example:
| Yesterday | Today - Digitally Transformed |
|---|---|
| Sales staff visit prospective clients, deliver the sales pitch, nurture the relationship with phone calls and visits, and transact with a paper agreement and an exchange of a cheque payment. | Prospective clients are referred to well-thought-out webpages that provide relevant information to the prospect and lead them to an online form to purchase or request-for-quote. Payments are executed online. |
2. Customer understanding
Understand your customers better with improved data capturing and analysis using digital technologies. This does not need to include a massive investment in technologies, but rather a strategic approach to define the types of analysis you would like to do, and to build up the amount of data you capture over time to enable that analysis. Digital solutions
for capturing data can be easily accessible for smaller businesses, again if planned well from the beginning.
| Yesterday | Today - Digitally Transformed |
|---|---|
| Sales staff get to know their roster of clients and prospects and build personal and long-term relationships. Creating campaigns to capture prospects that are similar to existing customers is dependent on the sales team and the information they find relevant to share. | Customer demographics, webpage browsing activity (interests), and engagement history is in a data format, from which real-time automated reports can be generated at any time. This gives a full view of this customer, regardless of which team member has been the main contact with them. |
3. Enhanced sales pitches
It doesn’t matter whether your sales pitch is delivered via a sales call, webpage, online ad, or eblast - the most effective sales pitch is one that is most relevant to your prospect. Identifying your ideal prospect
comes from understanding who your ideal existing customers are and knowing their interests and triggers. Study the data about your existing customers to identify how to engage prospective customers.
| Yesterday | Today - Digitally Transformed |
|---|---|
| Sales pitches are delivered based on the sales person’s personality and their relationship with the prospect or client. This relationship is developed over time and maintained by specific sales team members. | Sales pitches are developed based on the centralized brand narrative and the needs or interests of that particular type of prospect or client. This targeted approach is created from data captured for successful sales transactions and ideal clients. |
4. Automation
Automation of operations enables you to more quickly and reliably service your customers, while allowing your team to focus on the customer relationship and overall strategy. Automated operations lead to informed decision-making and increased profit margins by reducing errors and increasing insights.
| Yesterday | Today - Digitally Transformed |
|---|---|
| Orders are taken by sales staff on a paper form. Details about orders are passed to the fulfilment team via Excel spreadsheets. The fulfilment team uses these spreadsheets to package and ship packages, printing shipping labels manually. Invoices are sent based on spreadsheets and clients send cheque payments via post mail. | Client accounts are created on the brand website, orders are filled on the secure website, reports on orders are managed via online reporting tools and are updated by the fulfilment team when sent. Invoices are sent automatically via the website when the client submits the order, with online credit card payment required upon submission. Accounting reports are available via online reporting tools. |
5. Virtualizing individual work
Digital automation paints a clear picture of the tasks involved in processes. With this comes the ability to enable your team to work more independently and in a virtual environment. In today’s lockdown, this has been forced upon businesses around the world. Remote teams are learning how to work via online project and collaboration tools, and video conferencing. It is fair to expect that many businesses may see the benefits in continuing with this approach.
| Yesterday | Today - Digitally Transformed |
|---|---|
| High level tasks are assigned to team members that are perceived to have capacity to take them on. Tasks are not broken down requiring team members to understand the steps needed to complete the task. This approach usually ends up with inconsistent procedures. | Tasks are assigned to team members using an online project management tool. This tool provides reporting features to view tasks assigned to each team member to get a detailed view of their workload. Task status is updated by the team member as status changes, again providing automated reports to supervisors or managers on progress. Sharing of information and assets is made more efficient with online project management tools, so that multiple versions of files are no longer an issue. |
6. Performance management
As tasks are more clearly defined, so will be the way in which tasks are carried out. Performance management will become easier as the monitoring of tasks and operations are digitized.
| Yesterday | Today - Digitally Transformed |
|---|---|
| Regular performance reviews are infrequent and based on feedback of peers and customers. Usually, it is assumed that if no active feedback has been shared on a particular team member, everything must be fine. | Performance reports can be viewed via the business’ online project management tool, by viewing the progress of assigned tasks, and how long it takes to get tasks done. If this is a sales staff member, reports on sales vs targets are easily evaluated, and broken down by various criteria relevant to the business. |
What Does Digital Transformation Cost?
There are so many factors involved in the cost for taking a business from where they are now to where they need to be. Every business is unique and requires a leadership team that is willing to critically evaluate the way in which they are operating now, and what they need to do to get to a point to successfully grow their business in the new more digital normal after this lockdown.
This does not always need huge investments in complex technologies, but it often does require a change in mindset for the leadership, in culture for the team, and an overhaul in how things are being done.
Do you have any questions on the above, or would you like to share your experience? Just email ideas@mawazo.ca or call +1 (833) 503-0807.
At Mawazo Marketing we work with owners of B2B companies who want to accelerate their business. We help them with a concrete digital growth plan, a website that saves operational cost, and a digital marketing system that generates leads. For qualifying clients we offer a 5x ROI guarantee: if we don't reach the objective, then we pay back the difference. Book a Free Strategy Session to find out more.
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