FACT CHECKED
Before you embark on any digital transformation activity, you need a clear understanding of your digital transformation goals.
Clearly defined goals accompanied by a strategic roadmap are fundamental to digital transformation success. Let’s get into the top 7 digital transformation goals you need to be considering.
Top 7 digital transformation goals for enterprises
1. Better customer experience
“The most critical objective of any company’s digital transformation is to better meet customers’ needs. On the way to achieve that goal, your company well might achieve increased revenue and profit margins.”
My Data Scope
The first of our digital transformation goals is in many ways the ultimate objective of any business optimization activity. IDC reports that it’s the most common goal of business executives.
The customer experience is essential to a thriving business, now more than ever. And digital transformation can help you to improve the customer experience, customer care and satisfaction dramatically.
2. Agility
The agile business structure has taken the world by storm. The concept of an organization as an adaptable organism, as opposed to a rigid, autocratic body, is a compelling one in the digital world.
Technology enables agility, the trademarks of which are:
- Empowered, connected teams
- Strategic direction embodied by employees
- Rapid decision and learning cycles
- Passionate, cohesive community
- Next-gen, enabling technology
3. New business models
The digital revolution has opened up an entirely new world of business models and opportunities for traditional enterprises willing and able to take advantage of them.
Virtually any business now can adapt and use the following digital-first business models:
- The subscription model, e.g. Netflix, Spotify
- The “free” model, e.g. Facebook, Google, Instagram
- The access-over-ownership model, e.g. Airbnb, Upwork
- The on-demand model, e.g. Airtasker, Menulog
- The freemium model, e.g. Hubspot, Moz, LinkedIn
4. Cost reduction
Technology is allowing businesses to reduce their costs in so many ways. It began with the industrial revolution, as mechanized tools took the place of costly human labor.
Now, AI is allowing businesses to reduce their labor costs in call centers, administration, market research, even media buying. As far as digital transformation goals go, cost reduction is an obvious one to have.
WalkMe’s Digital Adoption Platform is an example of a digital tool that is saving enterprises money. Shelley Huber, Senior Lead Process Analyst at Centurylink Business says it has revolutionized their support center.
“We have had a 31% decrease in the number of calls for support and that has greatly impacted our bottom line. It’s allowed us to take our training resources and support resources and move them to where they’re needed most.”
5. Employee performance
Fostering a work environment where employees are able to achieve flow in their workday can result in upwards of 127% more productivity, according to Forrester analyst Charles Betz.
If an employee is on hold for phone support, or spending chunks of time throughout the day going back and forth via email to get an incident resolved, that’s going to have a noticeable impact on their productivity.
A significant digital transformation goal is therefore switching to digital tools that empower employees to self-serve or otherwise complete their tasks without encountering roadblocks.
6. Compliance with data security
Data security is a major concern for businesses today. An organization’s network is only as secure as its weakest point. Once hackers are in, they can move laterally through the system.
Today, in the age of IoT, more devices are now internet-connected, meaning they could be hacked. For example, hospital equipment and vehicles all now have digital components. These businesses need to make data security compliance one of their digital transformation goals.
However, it’s not only IoT-connected businesses that should be careful. Technology today changes rapidly. While this provides benefits, it also makes it more difficult to keep up with security processes.
“This increased speed of change makes it easier for security vulnerabilities to slip through. Cyber criminals are also continuously coming up with new methods, meaning security professionals need to work constantly to come up with new ways to provide protection.”
Information Age
7. Competitive advantage
Digital transformation is the major reconfiguration of business and organizational activities, competencies and models to improve the way we do business.
The main component of this is process optimization. After all, technology is an enabler. Digital transformation began with converting information into zeros and ones, a format that allowed it to live on a computer.
It then moved into the space of digitalizing processes. As technology progresses, more and more processes are being enhanced or automated thanks to AI. Enterprises that can harness the power of AI can give themselves a serious competitive advantage.
Final words of advice
Whatever your digital transformation goals, make sure they’re clearly defined from the onset. Your digital transformation strategy should break these goals down into manageable objectives and measurable outcomes.
By embarking on digital transformation activities with clear goals and plans to achieve them, you’re giving yourself the best chance of success.
