February 12, 2020
Transformation is one thing, disruption another. The former is necessary, the latter a regrettable consequence. Both are often used to describe digitalization, but they are two different things. Digital transformation rarely means the invention of a new business model but rather the digitalization of processes. Disruption, on the other hand, is a radical upheaval and realignment of the corporate concept. This blurring ensures that many SMEs and mid-sized companies shy away from tackling the topic of digitalization at all and consequently holding themselves back.
Why are companies having such a hard time with digitalization
Digital transformation is necessary where the ability to compete through agility, efficiency, and speed is required. Customer needs have changed and can no longer be met by the existing value proposition. Or simply to maintain competitiveness and acceptance on the market among customers and business partners. An "analog" appearance seems old-fashioned and can, in the worst case, lead to a loss of acceptance among customers and business partners.
End-to-end Digitization
The digital transformation's key success criteria are end-to-end digitized business processes and their regular auditing for improvement. The major pitfall is that companies tend to digitize only those processes that contribute directly to service delivery or those that have direct touchpoints with customers. What is missing is the digitalization of the invisible processes, including the back end. This is where there is enormous untapped potential.
If you examine a companies' day-to-day business, you see much manual work, how many media disruptions, and huge Excel sheets that take more and more time to maintain and are even sent out and back to customers are present. These are not the hallmarks of High-quality customer service. End-to-end digitalization of the processes is essential to delivering timely and anticipatory customer service.
Digitalization platforms offer the opportunity to digitalize business processes quickly easily. They form a lean agility layer that docks onto existing systems and then orchestrates and leverages their functions, data, logic, and business rules to make information available to customers, employees, and partners at the right time. Furthermore, digitalization platforms are easily scalable. Thanks to graphical modeling and low coding, the business department can also be used by the business department without tying up large IT resources.
Managed business processes
Using the digitalization platform, the users are guided through the processes, directed through the needed Tasks with the platform aiding the users by applying any business rules and considering any deviations from the standard cases. Due to the entire process's digitization, tedious and time-consuming tasks can be performed by the platform itself. This, in turn, benefits the customer. Customers benefit directly when services and processes run smoothly and timely and their needs are met simply and easily.
For companies, introducing a digitalization platform is an important step in keeping pace with the ubiquitous digital transformation and success in the market. This is not necessarily disruptive. But for most companies, a complete focus on a new "digital business model" is not necessary either. Digital transformation, on the other hand, belongs at the top of every company's priority list for continuous improvement.
