What is digital transformation?
At Precise Future we understand digital transformation as a process through which companies increase their profitability through the use of technology and have control over the results obtained.
This could be considered the main indicator of a digital transformation process. In order for this process to be considered successful, it must have a positive impact on the profitability of the company, either by saving resources, increasing sales, increasing production capacity, etc.
What is digital transformation and what is not?
Let's fix the idea that we seek to increase profitability, it may seem repetitive but many times it is lost that this is the main focus.
Then we could consider that any new use of technology that impacts the results of the company can be considered digital transformation. However, from our point of view, this process is not complete if it is not possible to measure this impact on the results, either directly or indirectly.
From this point of view, measurement is fundamental in any digital transformation process.
Therefore, if your company has created an online store or an account on social networks, it is not necessarily a digital transformation or at least it is not complete. In this case, your company has increased its sales channels, its online presence, it can improve its brand image, it can create a community and with good management of these channels it can perceive an increase in sales.
However, if we add to the above a system that allows your company to know which are the sales channels and products that generate the most income, which have been the campaigns that have offered the highest profitability, etc. yes we could consider it digital transformation.
Examples of digital transformation
This is a case that we have come across frequently. A company that has x workers dedicated to customer service. His main tasks are managing the company's social networks, sending emails to clients who must be followed up some time after receiving the service, and scheduling appointments that are currently made by phone, email, and WhatsApp.
As the business grows, these people cannot cope with these tasks, so eventually they begin to respond to fewer comments on social networks or they do not respond to any of the scheduling channels or the response times are too long. Let's say that in this example what is affected is the management of social networks
Under these conditions, software for scheduling appointments and for email automation can greatly reduce the workload of these people, so they can spend more time managing the company's social networks.
This is a fairly simple example, but it represents the essence of what we call digital transformation.
It is worth emphasizing that impact measurement is quite simple. For example: number of appointments scheduled with the system against the total number of appointments scheduled.
Another example occurs with companies that perform services in which the price varies greatly depending on several variables. Let's say that a removal company provides services for all of mainland Spain. Currently, customers request a quote through a contact form on the website and the company collects the customer's requirements by phone and at the end delivers a quote. Currently, the company manages to close 1 in 10 requests because:
- The customer is no longer interested in the service
- The customer did not answer the phone
- The client contracted the service with another moving company
- The client does not agree with the price of the service
In this case, a software that allows the potential client to make the quote online can significantly increase the sales made by the company.
This system must logically be capable of exactly reproducing the quotation process that is carried out by telephone.
This last part is essential: the digital transformation of a process must reproduce the same results (or outputs) as the initial process.
How to know if the transformation will be successful?
The team that works in the digital transformation process must be able to understand the processes of your company in detail. Remember that we are seeking to obtain the same outputs from each process but improving its efficiency and/or effectiveness through the use of technology to positively impact profitability.
Before starting to develop the solution, you must have an estimate of the impact that the digital transformation process will have on your business. In this sense you have 2 options.
Option 1: You take it upon yourself to determine in which parts of the company this transformation should be implemented. Using the previous examples, you can come to the conclusion that what you are most interested in is a system that allows email automation, for example, and in this case you can directly contact a company that is dedicated to this
Option 2: It is the most recommended option and consists of hiring a company that takes care of the process from scratch.
How do we develop this Process in Precise Future?
You can see the details here, but it is summarized in the following steps.
- Company analysis: An in-depth study of your company's processes is carried out to determine the places where the digital transformation would have the greatest impact on your organization.
- Digital transformation plan: We provide you with a detailed report with the above information, which also includes development costs, estimated profit, technologies that could be used, development times, and roadmap. At this point you can decide whether to do this implementation with our team or not.
- We begin the development of solutions for your business
Team to develop the digital transformation of your company
This point has the staff of your company as the main member of the team. There are no options in this part. Your human capital must be part of the process yes or yes since nobody can know your company better.
The external team must be multidisciplinary, in the first place with personnel capable of understanding and modeling your business in detail with knowledge of process engineering, quality engineering, industrial engineering, etc. On the other hand, specialized personnel in the development of technological solutions. In this case the spectrum is more varied since with many different technologies the same solutions can be developed. Finally, you must have qualified personnel in Data Analysis and BI.
But is it essential to hire an external team to carry out the digital transformation?
The answer to this is… It depends. If your processes are not very complex and the company since it was created took into account that it wanted to be a digital business that did not depend on increasing staff to scale and also your work team meets the above requirements, even at a basic level, it is very They are likely to be able to face new challenges, improve productivity, and generate more income with technological tools without the need to hire an external company. I reiterate that no one knows your company better than you and your team.
So, if you are able to estimate the impact of the digital transformation of your processes, you are also clear about the objectives to be achieved and your team is capable of developing the solutions, they can probably develop internal digital transformation processes without external help. To do this, remember that they can have no-code or low-code tools that make it easier to reach the solution.
This is true for a company of any size, however, as the size of the company increases, the difficulty of carrying out the transformation increases.
The same thing happens when the company has been created for longer or is less digitized. Digital transformation in these cases can have a greater impact but is more complex.
Important technologies in digital transformation processes
You must take into account how your company has developed, think about how many times what you do or the way you do it has changed, also take into account how the requirements of your customers and the quality characteristics of your products have evolved. or services.
These elements are not necessarily going to remain static, so the technologies used must be flexible and easy to modify or integrate with new processes.
In turn, these technologies used must be able to meet peak demand without requiring large extra investments, so they must be scalable solutions.
In addition, you may need to handle sensitive information about your clients or your company's staff, so they must also be secure.
Cloud technologies (cloud) are an excellent solution to ensure compliance with the above requirements as they provide highly scalable, flexible and secure infrastructure and/or services.
Another important element that could also be considered a requirement in digital transformation projects is that the information that is generated is accessible by whoever requires it at the time they require it. This is a more specific requirement and is closely tied to software development processes. However, we consider that it is an element to take into account from the beginning of the process, since in the long term and as the project scales or new solutions are added, it guarantees the elimination of duplication of information and improves communication between the different departments. of the company
Other technologies commonly used in digital transformation processes are Data Analysis, Business Intelligence, ERP, Big Data, CRM, DevOps tools and processes, among many others. Of course, for each of these technologies there are numerous tools and these vary depending on the needs of the project, but what is essential is that their use guarantees a return on the investment made and a positive impact on your company. Here you can see the specific tools we work with at Precise Future.
Finally, if you need to automate processes in your company, you are interested in developing the digital transformation or part of it, or you simply need more information on this topic, do not hesitate to contact us.
And if you are a person who is dedicated to offering these services, we hope that this reading has been useful to you, in addition, we would be very interested in knowing your opinion about this article, if you think that we were missing something to mention or if you have a different way of working. We are always open to suggestions with the aim of guaranteeing the continuous improvement of our processes.
