Embracing innovation: How digital transformation can revolutionize a business

Digital transformation has revolutionized industries across the globe, and according to an analysis by Deloitte, it has the power to unlock as much as $1.25 trillion US dollars in extra market value across all Fortune 500 companies. 

The adoption of digital strategies creates new trends and can result in some big changes to the ways companies work, so it’s important to stay up to date with these changes in such a fast-paced environment.

This article will talk about the drives, benefits, and impact of digital transformation on different sectors, providing ideas on how businesses can adapt and thrive in the digital era by looking at some successful examples as inspiration.

A digital transformation definition

Digital transformation refers to the process of integrating new technologies throughout the business processes, culture, and customer experiences of a company.

As a general rule, this process will make deep changes to the way a business operates, and there is evidence that the move to digital is essential for many companies to meet constantly changing market conditions.

Key drivers of digital transformation

Clearly, there must be some reasons that relate to the drive for this business innovation. In terms of technology, there are a number of factors that can be attributed to this. It is often the adoption of technology itself that creates even more digital strategies. 

The key drivers can be reduced into four main categories:

Customer behaviour and expectations  

As technology has opened up the door to even faster communication, the expectations of customers have followed. Customers are very aware of easy companies can now resolve issues faster than ever before thanks to new technologies like live chats. 

On top of this, a customer-centric digital strategy improves more than just business-customer communication. According to IBM research, companies also want to reshape the value of customers and use digital technologies for collaboration, not just communication. 

Digital shifts in the industry 

The past few years have perfectly shown how digital shifts across industries can arise, almost out of nowhere. In a survey by McKinsey & Company, Covid resulted in the adoption of digital technology in all sectors and regions extremely quickly. 

The lockdowns and work-from-home plans pressured executives into quickly starting with entirely new strategies and ways of meeting the demands across all parts of their business.

A changing competitive landscape

Another big driver is the disruption that tech itself causes. As new technology is introduced, it enables existing products and services to mix with digital ones that favor services over products. This can result in a reduction in the competitive advantage of existing big industry names.

Company hurdles change as competition moves from the physical to the virtual. The music industry, for example, was once limited to physical sales but technology has opened the door to a new digital market and a new form of subscription-style plan in the industry, like monthly Spotify payments.

Changes to regulations 

As more technology is introduced across a growing range of industries, the people making the rules and regulations must respond to these changes. This means that there is a constant evaluation process with the goal of bringing in new regulations. 

The result of these changes means that many businesses are forced to rethink the way they work. For example, practices that were once considered safe in terms of data protection might not apply as new changes are made. 

What are the benefits of digital transformation?

We have already hinted at some of the advantages of embracing digital change. Here, we’ll head into these benefits in a little more detail.

Enhancing the customer experience

As mentioned, one of the drives of digital change is the customer. This new focus has meant that the customer experience is now a big factor in the decisions made by a company.

Some of the latest statistics show that as much as 76% of consumers expect companies to understand their needs, and 62% of companies view technology-driven communication like contact centers give a competitive advantage.

Because of this, the customer now plays a vital role as a collaborator. Collaboration with customers is achieved by a better understanding of what the customer needs, and why. 

The result of this is a business that can develop even more innovation through the use of online communities. GitHub, sometimes referred to as the social networking site for programmers, is an amazing example of how this collaboration is achieved. It’s used by companies to directly interact with developers and customers to give updates and take onboard new ideas. 

Increased operational efficiency

Using technology to automate and streamline workflows such as document management results in increased productivity. Better efficiency means saving time and money, as well as having the effect of adding even more to the user experience mentioned above. 

Technology was also found to massively reduce the time it took companies to respond to challenges relating to increased customer demand and remote work.

Administrative tasks that involve sending, signing, or converting PDF files could waste huge amounts of time without solutions like Digital Signature tools. On top of useful online and offline tools, document management API’s play a huge role in saving companies time and money that can be invested elsewhere in the business.

Increased company revenue 

Ultimately, happier customers and more efficient ways to work should result in one thing—increased revenue. A study by the Boston Consulting Group found that banks with strong digital strategies were able to increase revenue by 15% thanks to growing customer satisfaction.

Deloitte Insights also found that digital transformation continues to drive financial performance with increased efficiency, revenue growth, product/service quality, customer satisfaction, and a focus on growth and innovation. This research suggests a clear link between higher revenue growth and the level of digital integration.

Successful digital transformation case studies 

Here we’re going to take a look at some of the successful digital strategies that demonstrate the power of embracing technology and innovation with a focus on retail, banking, and healthcare. 

Retail

Within the retail industry, Ikea is a great example of a case study with a successful digital transformation strategy. From impressive warehouse stores and famous meatballs, their traditional business plan was transitioned to a more digital model after hiring the tech veteran Barbara Martin Coppola. 

Changes made to the online strategy resulted in improved navigation, search functions, and inventory management which made e-commerce growth rise from 7% to 31% in just three years.

Aware of the importance of company culture, in an interview with the Harvard Business Review Barbara addressed some concerns about digitization and work culture.

Financial services 

Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) implemented a digital transformation strategy to enhance the consumer experience and optimize its operations. After moving their operations to cloud services and automating forecast processes, SCB began making savings within eight weeks.

SCB found that by increasing the amount of automation in their operations the manual processing requirements dropped 40%, resulting also in improved accuracy and higher customer satisfaction.

Healthcare

This case study carried about by the OECD found that countries and companies implementing digital technologies in healthcare were more financially stable, better prepared for challenges, and more able to provide high-quality healthcare. 

Using technology is a key way to make processes more efficient and improve patient care while cutting costs at the same time, especially within countries or institutes that are faced with underfunding and overcrowding.

Tools to streamline and automate document management workflows

This article has outlined the benefits and success stories of using digital transformation to guide business strategies. Explore the document management tools available from iLovePDF to revise your document workflows and embrace new ones using over 25+ tools available across the Web, Mobile App, Desktop App, and API.

Are you looking for more detailed advice on how your business could take advantage of these tools? Contact us and we’ll be happy to talk about custom Premium plans that offer digital signature solutions and time-saving document management tools.

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