Organizations have traditionally looked to technology as the catalyst for achieving business objectives in the never-ending pursuit of innovation and sustainable growth. Technology has accelerated value creation through business transformation, whether the goal was to obtain data as the only source of truth to determine analytics capabilities for decision making, to cut costs through process optimization, or to drive business continuity for economic survival in a competitive environment.
Let’s consider how business transformation is defined more broadly. A business transformation focuses on making fundamental adjustments to processes and business models while developing digital business models to obtain large value increases. To anticipate and respond to disruptions, shifting customer wants, and new market opportunities, decision-making, operations, and data must be coordinated. A clear digital transformation strategy, hybrid cloud architecture, deep analytics, technology support, and a suite of sophisticated technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, automation, edge computing, and the Internet of Things, are all tools for business transformation in the digital world (IoT).
The speed of change that clients who are undergoing digital transformation are currently experiencing has intensified over the last two years. In three key domains, we are observing trends in technological transformations, or “digital transformation.” The adoption of the digital-first customer, business partner, and employee experiences is known as digital transformation. To put it another way, these trends have emerged as strategic forces behind the technology-driven business change, and they are coordinated by technology support:
Let’s examine each of the drivers in detail:
The type of transformation and technology required to drive value creation will depend on the industry in which a business operates. The numerous types of datasets that an organization needs to collect, curate, organize and direct into the different types of AI/analytics models depend greatly on the sector in which it operates.
For instance, the pandemic has altered the manufacturing industry. The availability of the workforce, supply networks, and sustainability objectives have all changed substantially. To hasten their digital transformation, businesses are reevaluating their operations and supply networks.
Through its products, Lysol, Air Wick, Calgon, and others, one of these companies, Reckitt, is one of the most well-known and dependable consumer brands in the world for cleanliness, health, and nutrition. To link and digitize their factories for Industry 4.0, Reckitt teamed up with IBM. The objective was to give their employees the knowledge they need to foresee, predict, and improve factory maintenance, energy efficiency, and overall equipment effectiveness (OEE). These initiatives, which are mostly influenced by market trends, are assisting Reckitt in developing resilience and agility to support people’s buying expectations for its products.
Outside pressures are not necessarily what drives transformation. Many businesses rethink some activities for efficiency, process optimization, and cost control. Examples include customer procedures, people management, finance, and supply chain operations. According to a recent Gartner study, 82 percent of CFOs are increasing their digital transformation to increase the competitiveness of their companies.
Deploying intelligent workflows—achieved through digitizing and automating data-driven workflows—is the main focus of this concept. Companies will need to integrate technologies like automation, blockchain, AI, and edge throughout these workflows and their consequences, with data serving as the foundation. The advantages of implementing intelligent workflows are considerable. Business leaders claim that AI-powered and automated workflows increase customer experience, efficiency, and decision-making in a recent IBV report on the virtual enterprise.
Intelligent workflows are being used by IBM to revamp its internal procedures. By adding automation and AI to 65% of workflows, IBM was able to save 4 million work hours. This enhanced productivity and decision-making throughout the customer, supply chain, and financial operations.
We are observing a significant movement in the purchasing power of technology from IT to LOBs. IDC predicts that by 2023, corporate spending on technology would surpass that of IT leaders. We are seeing LOBs need curated data to support their analytics and insights as LOB leaders become more active in decision making, customer transformation, and operations transformation. As a result, it is even more important to incorporate technology like analytics and AI into a comprehensive business strategy that is supported by data. Businesses will save time and money when creating a growth strategy by involving the IT and LOB stakeholders early on.
A significant financial organization in Spain and Portugal, CaixaBank, has a customer base that is 70.6% digital. To become a digital bank, the organization has concentrated on digital transformation. With a focus on enhancing the user experience for both customers and agents, Caixa teamed with IBM to build a Salesforce platform that helped manage the contact center effectively, consolidate customer service channels, and integrate their technological platform. These client transformations are increasingly being owned by LOB leaders as the world becomes more and more hyper-digital.
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Businesses find it difficult to decide where to start and what role that technology should play in their growth strategy due to the technology’s rapid evolution. Organizations must concentrate on exploiting technology within the context of industry, domain, and function in the race to innovate and drive sustainable growth.
They must stop using technology just for the sake of using it and start integrating it into their overall company strategy in these three scenarios. Businesses must organize their IT to switch from a strategy centered on cost reduction to one centered on growth and value generation. Companies will start to rely on a new breed of strategic ecosystem technology partners in this new world in addition to their IT departments to assist them to manage new imperatives. These strategic partners can assist in the synthesis of a strategy made possible by complicated technological integration, analytics, data, and data-driven data to create human experiences that change industries.
How does technology support change in businesses? Read more here now.