Technology drives the modern business world forward, and it is nowadays the foundation of long-term success no matter the industry or the niche. Or at least it should be. If you’re still trying to manually handle and optimize all the processes in your business in this time of remote and mobile work, you’re holding yourself, your company, and your entire workforce back. Most importantly, though, manual management directly impacts your bottom line – in a negative way.
With that in mind, it should go without saying that digital transformation, and using digital tools, should be at the forefront of your business strategy. Digital transformation is a broad term used to describe a whole host of tech you can use in your company that involve the implementation of software and hardware solutions. Whether you want to design and sell an amazing digital product, manage a highly-efficient marketing team, or work with developers to create a better IT infrastructure, you need the right digital solutions.
Let’s delve deeper into the concrete tech you can use and how digital transformation can take your entire organization forward in 2021 and beyond.
Build true omni-channel experiences
In the oversaturated digital world with so many possible customer touchpoints, you can’t try to force people to engage with your brand, buy something, or inspire them to become your loyal advocates through a single online channel. People want freedom in the online realm. They want the freedom to engage with a brand on their own terms, the freedom to control those interactions, and the freedom to buy products and services on the channels that suit their needs and preferences.
So, are you engaging your customers across all possible touchpoints to maximize conversions and CX? The term used to describe these interactions is omni-channel, and the most successful companies out there know that building omni-channel experiences is what drives customers to engage and fall in love with a brand. And you can do this yourself through digital transformation, specifically by implementing an ERP (enterprise resource planning) system.
It doesn’t matter if you’re running a global tech firm or a local auto body shop, you need to engage with your customers through many different online and offline channels. Look at it this way, would you buy something from a company that’s asking you to place the order on their site when you’re in a rush and want to do it via chat on Instagram?
You would probably close the app and move along, and so will your customers if you don’t engage with them across all possible touchpoints.
Digitizing and unifying your communications
Effective internal and external communication is the foundational pillar of efficiency, productivity, and of course, customer satisfaction. Good interpersonal communication is crucial for your in-house and remote employees, because it eliminates department silos and bottlenecks, and keeps information flowing freely. This improves collaboration and productivity, and keeps all projects moving along.
The same can be said for your customer-facing departments, like support, marketing, and sales, that are always communicating with customers on various channels. You can’t hope to manage your communication structure manually anymore, which is why it’s so important to unify your communications with a dedicated tool.
A comprehensive tool like MeetFox allows you to build an effective internal and external communication system to drive efficiency across the board. You can run effective stand-up meetings with your teams, communicate with partners, clients, and customers, and utilize numerous integrations with your other tools to elevate productivity and keep your business moving forward at all times.
This is the kind of digital transformation that allows business leaders to cut time and financial waste, but also empower their employees with the right tech to achieve better results.
Increased IT staff productivity and talent allocation
Every company nowadays needs an IT infrastructure to run efficiently and effectively. Now, before the rapid popularization of cloud technology, companies had to endure the costs and operational burdens of provisioning, managing, and scaling their own IT servers and infrastructures. This is a costly challenge, but luckily, digital transformation and specifically cloud computing allows you to offset these problems.
If you migrate your business to the cloud, and choose a good cloud provider like Amazon or Microsoft, you solve all your IT problems for a single fee, and make upkeep and management a breeze. You still need some in-house IT staff who took the right AWS courses to help manage your cloud infrastructure for maximum efficiency, though, but for the most part, things will be running on autopilot.
Most importantly, though, this allows you to free up all that IT brainpower to address other challenges in your company, drive innovation, and bring new tech-driven ideas to life. Just imagine what your IT experts could achieve if they could use their talents and expertise to align IT solutions with your business needs instead of spending their days just making sure that the IT infrastructure is working properly.
Another benefit of digital transformation for many businesses is being able to cut overhead costs. For example, streamlining in-house IT resources and working with an IT outsourcing partner can provide the experts needed for particular project cycles. This way an organization ensures that it has the IT experts it needs at any time. Also, without the fixed overheads, organizations can free up yet even more resources.
Boosting automation and eliminating menial tasks
Speaking of freeing up all that awesome brainpower in your company, let’s not forget that you have some pretty talented people working for you in every department. If these people spend their energy tending to repetitive and menial tasks, then your company is not going to go anywhere anytime soon.
Repetitive tasks are not only the killers of productivity, they’re also terrible for morale. One of the worst nightmares of talented workers is being stuck at a dead-end job doing the same thing every single day. Not only is that demoralizing, but it’s also holding your company back.
So, what can you do? You can automate.
Automation can power your business in so many different ways, and fortunately, nowadays there is a smart piece of tech to automate almost any menial process in any department. A good CRM tool can automate numerous marketing processes, a communications tool can help you maintain a cohesive remote team with ease, while a good project management tool will automate everything from project visualization, to reporting and beyond.
The possibilities for automation here are endless. From task management and marketing to finance and contracts, and sales every tech solution you implement should help you automate something in that department that will make the lives of your employees easier.
Elevating employee engagement and culture
Digital transformation nowadays plays a vital role in boosting employee morale, productivity, and day-long zeal. It can also help you build a thriving company culture that will keep your in-house and remote employees engaged and passionate about their work. How? By keeping projects moving along, by ensuring efficiency and transparency, and by boosting accountability across the board.
People want to feel like their work matters, and they want things to be transparent in your company. When something goes wrong, the last thing you want to do is to make people feel like they are paying for someone else’s mistakes. Luckily, a good employee and project management tool will keep a clean record of all interactions, and thus keep people accountable for their actions.
As a good leader, you can then address any issues privately, while praising the team for the things they did right. This is just one example of how a comprehensive digital tool can help you build a positive culture where everyone feels respected and appreciated for their work.
Over to you
Digital transformation should be at the forefront of your business strategy, as there are many ways the right tech solutions can help you cut costs, keep your people and your customers happy, and drive your company to new heights. Consider these benefits and digital solutions for your own company, and watch as your brand starts reaching its long-term goals much faster than you ever anticipated.
About the author:
Tamara Novitović is a content specialist that has many articles published with the main focus on brands that want to grow in the fast-changing and demanding market. Her personal favorites are the successes of SaaS startups and young IT entrepreneurs.
