Digitalization in business can be defined as using digital technologies innovatively to change a business model for good and to leverage the same to open up new avenues for revenue and provide value-added services or products to its customers. The impact of digitalization on business was felt during the pandemic as the businesses that have embraced digitalization have suffered less and bounced back quicker than the ones that have not transformed digitally. And those businesses that have incurred losses during the pandemic have understood the importance of digitalization and are opting for a digitalization business model for their businesses. But how can a digital business transformation help survive various calamities, disasters, and disruptions – whether expected or unexpected and why is digitalization a must for any business? Let’s find out!
Digitization, digitalization, and digital transformation are the key terms associated with the use of digital technology in any form of business. Digitization is the process of converting text, image, sound, or any information into a digital format that can be understood by a computer for further processing, storing, and retrieving. Digitization is converting any information into bits and bytes or “on” and “offs” to be more precise because that is what a computer understands! We have already covered digitalization as the means for progressing in a business using digital technologies. Digital transformation or digital business transformation is the adoption of digital technologies into every aspect of your business, completely transforming the existing business processes through modification or renewing the existing ones. In simple words, digitization is a subset of digitalization which in turn is a subset of digital transformation
As you are aware, the world is changing technically almost every day with some sort of new technological innovation or discovery at regular intervals, more than in the past. These technological innovations, while offering their fruits to various tech-savvy businesses, have also led to some serious disruptions at various levels for others, especially the ones who stuck to traditional and legacy methods of doing business. Businesses not waking up to the technological advancements and are reluctant to digitalization in business have borne the brunt of lagging behind their peers who adopted the digitalization business model. Let’s find out the impact of digitalization on business and how the lack of digitalization in business knocks you out of the competition, and ultimately out of business.
Making your presence felt, all over & always:
Today’s world is exposed to various social media like never before and this has led to a shorter attention span in the general public. Traditional ways of advertising your product seldom work in the present scenario. Unless you constantly remind your consumers of your product, chances are that they might easily forget, and if your product is new, it would be next to impossible to market without the help of social media and relying only on banners, ads, and hoardings. Digitalization in business can help you reach your target consumers through various social media platforms. Based on the users’ track record and their search elements on social media, you can make your presence felt and even tailor-made your ads that suit various types of consumers.
Having different social media handles helps you take your business to various consumers and can greatly impact your business growth. Also, you can enhance your presence on social media through search engine optimization by using appropriate keywords and phrases that describe your product more precisely on your website and other social handles. This SEO strategy can help target consumers find you quickly on the web and can make a contact with you to initiate a business deal. As you can see, all this can be possible only if you have a proper digitalization business model in place. Unlike in the traditional business model where you need to worry about posters, hoardings, and pamphlets to advertise your product, when you have a digitalization business model you can rest assured that your presence is always felt by the target consumers automatically.
Also, post-pandemic, there is an increased demand for online stores more than traditional offline ones. People are finding it more comfortable to order online than to visit an offline store for any product. No wonder most businesses today realize the importance of digitalization and opt for only digital presence as it is more convenient, easy, and more profitable than having a physical establishment which increases overheads. So, even if you have a well-established business presence physically, having a digital, online presence is a must with the changing times, changing demands of the customers, changing business landscape, and most importantly, for keeping up the race! Needless to say, only digital business transformation can help you achieve this!
Driving your business through data insights:
The data of your business is very crucial and having it in physical form is prone to various accidents, disasters, and attacks, or can even be worn out naturally. Apart from occupying huge space, they need to be guarded round the clock and once it is lost, it can spell doom on the business. A room full of physical records can be stored on a thumb-sized pen drive. Not only that, the data stored can be worked upon in various ways to draw insights about your past performance, where you stand today, how to better your business, and what would be your future in business.
These important insights cannot be inferred without digitalization in business as it is not only quite a tedious task for humans to sweep through vast physical data which consumes a lot of time but also becomes an impossible task as the data grows. The insights provided by using various data can be used for important decision-making in your business, finding out the latest trends, realizing where you went wrong in case your business is going southwards, and steps to improve your business and put it back on track. That’s the impact of digitalization on business. Not only that, unlike physical data, data stored in digital format cannot be lost and can be stored in backup copies in a secure place for future retrieval in case the original data is lost.
So, digitalization in business not only makes your important data safe but also uses the same to take some important business decisions by subjecting it to various analytics.
Enhancing customer experience:
A happy customer always returns! So, focusing on improving customer experience is one of the major tasks in any business. The various information the customers sought from a business they are interested in dealing with should be readily available for them lest they move to another that offers the same. It is important for businesses not only to retain old customers but also to attract new ones through enhanced customer experience. Digital business transformation can help you deal with all customer queries and complaints so that you can address them at the earliest and earn their appreciation. Customer experience can be enhanced in various ways if you have a digitalization business model in place.
The information about your product can be hosted on your company’s website for prospective customers to know about the product thoroughly, you can employ chatbots on your site that are readily available for any queries from customers, and you can make the customers place an order online, track their order, take a complaint and raise a ticket in case there is one, and so on. The better you enhance your customer experience, the better your prospects to attract more customers and this can greatly depend on how you adopt the latest digital technologies available to your advantage.
The above-mentioned areas are the major ones where you can clearly see the positive impact of digitalization on business viz., greater exposure, valuable insights, and enhanced customer experience. The following are the other typical advantages of having your business digitalized –
- Digitalization business model greatly improves operational efficiency which leads to better productivity.
- Automation of all the processes in a business helps reduce manpower, saves time, and improves overall quality.
- Errors on the part of humans can be avoided to a large extent in the digitalization business model.
- All your business data will be safe and secure.
- Provides new opportunities to generate new revenue sources through technological innovation.
In conclusion, the greatest advantage digitalization in business would give you is resilience and that is what is needed the most in today’s unpredictable and uncertain times – the power to bounce back and withstand all odds and succeed. And that’s precisely why digitalization is a must for any business!
The world is fast changing and unless you are in tune with that change, chances are you will not only miss the bus, but quite often, you may come under it! This applies to both individuals and businesses because change is the only constant in this world!
