Changing customers demand a smarter approach to digital transformation
Whether digital native millennials, savvy Gen Xers or increasingly capable silver surfers, digital customers are demanding changes in how they engage with businesses – in their private and professional lives. Pretty much every business is trying to put digital transformation at the heart of what they do. But how many clearly know what and why they’re transforming, and the goals they’re trying to achieve with it?
What people are most concerned with is getting quick, easy and effective results from any interaction; whether in their working lives or when engaging with a business as a customer. And with their digital behaviour and preferences changing all the time, your business needs to change with them. In fact, a recent study in digital consumer trends *highlighted 46% of consumers are using only digital channels for their banking, with their expectations outpacing experiences at most organisations.
We live in a time when convenience, personalisation and speed are the bare minimum people expect. To stay relevant, businesses need to invest in the technology that brings them closer to the people that matter. In order to differentiate in the eyes of customers, businesses need to adopt new digital practices or deliver digitally-enhanced products. Increasingly, this is where competitive advantage and higher revenue come from. Cloud and other technologies either form the backbone of new solutions and products, or create a platform on which they can be built or delivered. Implementing tools that simplify processes or facilitate new ways of working can bring innovations to life.
What’s important is that your transformation keeps these objectives in mind. In the world of digital change, strategic thinking is more important than tactical. And the level to which a business understands its transformation goals directly impacts its success.
The question is then, is there a smarter way to transform?
From smarter to success
Understanding why you’re doing digital transformation doesn’t necessarily make it any easier. The challenges are numerous and it’s often hard to know what the best choices are. It’s a unique journey that every business has to take and there is no defined timeline, it’s an ongoing process.
To find out how to get it right, we interviewed over 1,000 IT and business decision-makers all over the world, asking them about their digital transformation journeys. In doing so, we identified a small group – just 15% of them – who are experiencing noticeably higher growth and profitability as a result of their approach to change.
These smarter businesses are much further along in their digital transformation – making the right decisions to get closer to customers and drive innovation in their products.
From the research, we’ve distilled what makes these businesses different. They all share the following traits:
Confident Culture – a relentless focus on innovation
Technology Advantage – a wholesale implementation of cloud
Skilled IT People – a highly skilled and efficient workforce
These are the building blocks of successful businesses, and the focus of our report, How to Build a Smarter Business. As well as exploring each building block in turn, the report also compares and contrasts the goals, priorities and challenges of smarter businesses with those of all respondents.
The scale of digital transformation has created opportunities for all of us. At Vodafone, we believe every business can be smarter in its approach to culture, technology and IT skills, so it can ultimately become ready for anything and able to thrive in a continually changing world. Read the report to find out how you can be smarter about digital transformation.
