Digital transformation is essential for businesses – no one has any disagreement here. The successive waves of the COVID-19 pandemic have proved the importance of digitization, as the new normal made its presence felt across industries.
Experienced outsourcing services provide comprehensive digitization solutions for businesses. The latest Omicron variant of the pandemic reminded everyone that an emergency situation could crop up anytime. Work-from-home protocols would need to be launched, and digitization and cloud document management could ensure that work disruption is kept to a minimum even in such situations.
But, while understanding the importance of digitization is the first step, it is also important to be aware of what it takes to carry out successful digital transformation. It is important that it is done the right way, so that your business can truly benefit from the transformation with minimum downtime. Unlike data entry outsourcing or any such service, comprehensive digitization requires a great deal of time and resources.
The Why of Digital Transformation
Before embarking on comprehensive digitization for your business, you need to be really convinced of the advantages. It is important to have a clear picture of how digital transformation would benefit your organization. Beyond the general fact that it would improve the way your organization works and increase efficiency, there are specific goals digitization could help achieve:
- Data Gathering & Analytics
For one, it could facilitate greater data gathering. The systems that put digitization in place could provide you with a lot of actionable data that can help you make the right decisions for product strategy, marketing, customer interactions and HR efficiency. This data can also help you improve security and avoid data breaches.
- Meeting Customer Expectations
With digitization, you can better meet customer expectations. Customers can have a positive impression about your business when you give them the digital experience in customer interactions, product sales, marketing and follow-up. You could also get more data on customer perceptions, desires, preferences and requirements. That can help you serve them better and even offer them more personalized experiences, which could all add to your revenue.
Identifying the Steps Towards Digital Transformation
There are clear steps that must be taken and targets that must be met while digitizing. Let’s take a look at the factors you need to consider for taking your business through a digital transformation journey:
Identifying the Reason for Digitization and Aligning Your Goals
Here are some factors to consider:
- Why do you want to digitize now?
- What business goals are you seeking to attain with digitization?
- What are the 5-year or 10-year plans for your organization?
- How can digital transformation align with those goals?
That’s how you need to approach it, not embarking on digitization and then expecting it to align with your goals. That could end up being wasteful since the digitization wasn’t carried out in a way that would benefit your organization. Remember, digitization transforms the entire way your business operates. It is supposed to prepare your business for the future. So, start with the goals and then move towards digitization rather than the other way round.
Taking a Measured Approach
Realize that digital transformation isn’t a one-time event like mere document digitization. It is a process, or a journey. So you need to approach it in a measured manner. It isn’t something you must rush through.
- Start slow
- See how your staff and processes are adjusting to the journey
- Study how your hardware requirements are changing
- Decide the kind of training your staff need to undertake, and
- Realign your goals
How you start is really important since it can determine the success of your entire digitization.
Plotting the Areas of Digitization
Plot the different segments or areas where digitization needs to happen. It is important that you have a specific idea of them. What are the technological elements you must incorporate to facilitate digitization? For example, you need to think of aspects such as:
- Cloud implementation
- IoT (Internet of Things)
- Artificial intelligence (AI)
- Augmented reality (AR)
- Robotics
These technologies could be essential for a total digital transformation. Your organization may not need all of these, but that again depends on what you and your outsourcing partner figure out based on your requirements. But for the complete digital transformative results, you may need to be open to adopting these.
Being Prepared for the Cultural Shift
Digital transformation could bring about a significant culture shift in the way your organization works. That’s the tough part, but your digitization partner could help you here. You would need to train your employees significantly to the new way of doing things. There could also be a change in the kind of projects your company takes on. Efficiency is the key here. Having put in place digitization elements, you want the organization to work in such a manner that these elements are fully optimized. Only that would contribute to greater productivity and earnings. That means you would have to accept projects accordingly and probably say “no” to any work that won’t bring out the best of the efficiency of your employees, in line with the new digital way of working that has been put in place. There could be a resistance to change that must be overcome.
Choosing the Right Outsourcing Partner
Finally, the right outsourcing partner for digitization can make a big difference in your digital transformation. There is a great deal of experience, expertise and technological resources needed. But beyond that, the provider must also be able to offer customized solutions depending on the requirements of the client organization. The provider must be able to support scaling, be a partner for your long term goals, and have experience in other digitization projects.
A comprehensive outsourcing provider can offer businesses a lot more than just data conversion services. In the digitally transformed marketplace where companies compete against each other, the presence of such a partner could give you an edge over the competition.
