Editor's Note: Take a look at our featured best practice, Digital Transformation Strategy (145-slide PowerPoint presentation). Digital Transformation is being embraced by organizations across most industries, as the role of technology shifts from being a business enabler to a business driver. This has only been accelerated by the COVID-19 global pandemic. Thus, to remain competitive and outcompete in today's fast paced, [read more]
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It may surprise you to learn that many businesses today are not digital. If it doesn’t surprise you, it’s time you joined the rest of the market.
Digitalization, or using technology for all your processes, is essential for many reasons. It makes organizations more efficient as their employees are able to complete tasks and communicate more quickly.
It also promotes better customer experience because customer queries are resolved immediately, and these benefits provide much stronger long-term growth when more technologies are added.
Barriers to overcome before enjoying these benefits are outdated processes caused by legacy approaches and employee resistance to change, who are used to doing things the same way.
This article explores five ways to digitalize your business, including:
- Moving operations to the Cloud.
- Adopting digital payment and invoicing solutions.
- Improving employee management with digital tools.
- Using customer relationship management (CRM) software.
- Automate marketing and customer support.
1. Move Operations to the Cloud
The first action is to move all of your operations onto the Cloud, which is virtual storage you and your employees can access from anywhere. These days, this process is cheap and quick, as it’s the industry standard for data and software storage, so it is a cost-efficient and effective way of streamlining operations.
The Cloud features many benefits, such as:
- Cost Savings: Cloud reduces infrastructure expenses by eliminating physical servers and lowering maintenance and hardware costs.
- Scalability: Organizations can scale resources up or down quickly, supporting business growth and seasonal demands.
- Accessibility: Employees access applications and data from anywhere, improving collaboration, remote work, and business continuity.
- Security: Cloud providers offer advanced encryption, monitoring, and compliance support, protecting sensitive business and customer data.
- Innovation: Cloud platforms provide modern tools, automation, and AI integration, enabling faster product development and experimentation.
But there must be other benefits if most organizations are investing in Cloud technology, right? There are. It also improves collaboration across any organization, since employees are able to use communication and other functional tools wherever they are located across the globe.
2. Adopt Digital Payment and Invoicing Solutions
When you work with contractors, you will be faced with several issues. They offer flexibility as they don’t require regular training, benefits, and other costly considerations, but they do require reliable payments. How does this work if they are based nowhere near your physical office? Digital payments are essential here. And not just for contractors, but your full-time employees too.
Digital payments are faster, easier, and more accurate than physical ones. They are easier to send en masse and adjust on the go. Reduced errors are a particularly strong perk of automated invoicing, too, as it will make your organization appear professional, as this system leads to higher accuracy and fewer errors.
The final point is that adopting online payments ensures faster, secure, and traceable transactions, reducing administrative workload while improving contractor satisfaction and overall operational efficiency. It’s the best way to ensure contractors want to work with an organization again in the future.
3. Improve Employee Management with Digital Tools
Digital tools can also help streamline HR and workforce tasks. A key step to this process is learning how to organize employee files electronically. This approach guarantees easier access, higher compliance, and lower amounts of paperwork.
Another point to consider is that digital tools for organizing employee files centralize information, making scheduling more accurate, performance tracking seamless, and onboarding smoother.
When you integrate them with scheduling and performance systems, these tools really shine, enhancing efficiency, accuracy, and accessibility while supporting compliance and employee experience improvements.
4. Use Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software
The next stop is your CRM (customer relationship management) software. These tools are great for centralizing all your crucial customer data, making it easier for sales, marketing, advertising, and any other relevant departments to access, and improving communication between customers and all these departments.
A CRM can make the difference between an effective and ineffective sales strategy, because it can automate customer sentiment collection, allowing customer experts to create insights from the data and make adjustments to strategies to give customers what they need and increase revenue.
5. Automate Marketing and Customer Support
When customers are unhappy, you need to satisfy their needs immediately if you want them to continue to give you their business. The best way to meet needs quickly is through automation.
Use these tools to automate marketing and customer support:
- Email Automation: Ensures timely, personalized communication at scale, increasing engagement, retention, and consistent customer experiences.
- Chatbots: Provide instant responses, resolve common questions efficiently, and maintain 24/7 availability for improved customer satisfaction.
- Analytics: Automates data collection, revealing insights quickly to guide targeted marketing strategies and optimize customer experiences.
Automation saves time, offers personalization far beyond any manual customer support, and satisfies customer needs more quickly than human support.
Conclusion
The five most effective ways to digitalize your business are:
- Moving operations to the Cloud.
- Adopting digital payment and invoicing solutions.
- Improving employee management with digital tools.
- Using customer relationship management (CRM) software.
- Automate marketing and customer support.
But this journey won’t be quick or easy. Small steps will lead you to victory as you slowly and carefully digitalize all your processes, while supporting your staff with the stressful changes along the way.
The best approach is to begin with one area and expand digitalization gradually to increase efficiency and competitiveness and succeed in your industry.
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Digital Transformation is being embraced by organizations of all sizes across most industries. In the Digital Age today, technology creates new opportunities and fundamentally transforms businesses in all aspects—operations, business models, strategies. It not only enables the business, but also drives its growth and can be a source of Competitive Advantage.
For many industries, COVID-19 has accelerated the timeline for Digital Transformation Programs by multiple years. Digital Transformation has become a necessity. Now, to survive in the Low Touch Economy—characterized by social distancing and a minimization of in-person activities—organizations must go digital. This includes offering digital solutions for both employees (e.g. Remote Work, Virtual Teams, Enterprise Cloud, etc.) and customers (e.g. E-commerce, Social Media, Mobile Apps, etc.).
Learn about our Digital Transformation Best Practice Frameworks here.
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