Credibility, vitality and competitiveness are just some of the challenges of integrating technological tools as part of the digital transformation of companies. These require a profound overhaul of the internal organisation and processes, in order to adapt them to their customers’ needs. Find out what the key steps are for a company’s successful digital transformation.
What is the digital transformation of companies?
The digital transformation of a company is the process of digitising the entirety of its business through the integration and use of available technologies (CRM, marketing automation, etc.), aimed at maximising its performance. It is now at the heart of business priorities, but its implementation remains a significant challenge: It requires profound changes in operational, commercial, but above all human terms. Indeed, it fundamentally restructures the organisational culture, its operation and its business model. By definition innovative, the digital transformation breaks with the past and disrupts established processes and the connection with its customers.
It is based on four essential pillars that directly impact internal organisation and its external relations:
• the ubiquity of the Internet: a prospect now has a multitude of channels to approach a company and its offering. While the latter have become strongly digitised in their uses with the emergence and multiplication of the tools available, the company must be able to follow this trend and meet their new needs;
• the abolition of temporal and spatial obstacles: the development of digital has been accompanied by the disappearance of the limits of distance and time;
• dematerialisation: it allows you to remain connected and alert at all times, even when a person is on the move. This development has witnessed the rise of teleworking, a trend that has become a right for workers who want to feel free and more than ever concerned about their quality of life;
• the concept of the Internet of Things: physical objects are now connected to the Internet and able to communicate, creating bridges between the physical world and the digital and virtual sphere.
But the digital transformation of companies is not just about adopting tools and technologies to improve existing processes; it involves a global change, requiring companies to constantly innovate and question their models.
The goals of the digital transformation of companies
Improving, consolidating and harmonising processes are the core goals of the digital transformation of companies. These processes structure its management and define how the activities are organised in connection with the customers’ needs. Using new technological resources must streamline the in-house organisation to facilitate the work of the teams, with the aim of enriching the customer experience and positively impacting the company’s results. A successful digital transformation must include the integration of tools that will meet the following objectives:
o Create operational agility, fluidity and transparency: the use of management tools designed to streamline processes improves the quality of exchanges between colleagues to foster collaboration. They also help responsiveness, in order to speed up sales cycles, changes and decision making;
• Harmonise and optimise the organisation: redefining processes increases the efficiency of the teams, facilitates the integration of new recruits and represents a time-saving thanks to automation;
• Improve the customer experience and convey a strong corporate culture: knowledge of one’s target enables a company to offer a better customer experience, reinforced by a smooth way of working in terms of exchanges. Powerful tools boost team responsiveness and increase visibility to better serve customers: the company strengthens its legitimacy, reflecting positively on its brand image.
The digital transformation of companies responds to a need for performance and growth for the company, in order to develop, increase its turnover, be more attentive to what its customers say and strengthen its credibility. This implies the creation of a global ecosystem, one that questions the established order and requires a review of the company’s strategy.
Increasing performance
Automation of business processes is one of the foundations of the company’s transformation. This aspect involves not only internal reorganisation to encourage collaborative work, but also the implementation of dedicated, powerful digital tools, such as CRMs. At a time when immediacy is appreciated, the company must process a customer’s request instantly and therefore automatically. Automation promises enormous opportunities, as McKinsey research reveals that Europe’s most advanced companies in terms of digital-transformation are growing at rates almost 5 times higher than those that have not made any changes. These figures illustrate the importance of outsourcing time-consuming, repetitive and time-consuming tasks to machines as much as possible. Accelerating processes with technology frees up valuable time for employees and improves a company’s competitiveness.
Thus, freed from a dull workload with low added value, employees can focus on tasks that add value to the company according to their skills. As a result, the company capitalises on its staff, who feel more fulfilled and it can make significant savings in terms of staff recruitment and avoid problems of excessive staff turnover. Automation also offers a higher level of quality: an automated machine is almost infallible. Finally, the renewal of its processes is reflected in a change and a dynamism that increases the motivation of the teams and leads to concrete results for the company.
Strengthening its credibility
Regardless of the area of activity concerned, the credibility and attractiveness of a company in the market is measured by its degree of digitisation. An active presence on social media convinces a prospect of its strength and seriousness; a company must be connected to exist. Even before any consideration of acquiring leads, a brand’s visibility serves its image and its reputation and for the prospect it establishes a sense of trust. Similarly, a website will shape the prospect’s first impression; it is the first point of contact to discover the company’s world. The use of digital tools shows a company’s ambition and ability to adapt to maintain its innovative image. This is particularly important in the area of customer relations, where use of a CRM is almost obligatory. These platforms are designed to collect and store data for analysis, what is called Big Data. Mining this information results in in-depth knowledge of the company’s customers, particularly as regards their buying journey. It is thus easier to advise them in a personalised way and to offer them a tailor-made service, the guarantee of quality. With increasingly sophisticated customers, the company can meet their demands and prove its credibility by offering services that match their expectations.
Standing out from the competition
Despite its inevitable nature, not all companies have yet decided to undertake their digital transformation. It can therefore be a major competitive advantage in order to stand out in one’s market and thus become a benchmark in this regard. Using available technologies and tools is a first step; but taking the initiative to create new uses to continue to deliver a unique, engaging, and innovative experience is an opportunity to attract more prospects and to make the customer relationship the focus of concerns once again. Future technologies promise high growth rates and respond to the gradual shrinking of physical reality in favour of virtual reality. The human being is connected, the object must be connected too, and they must be able to interact more and more strongly. Meeting the challenge of the digital transformation of a company requires rapid implementation, because it is better to test a strategy and fail, rather than allow competitors get ahead of you by keep putting it off to a later date.
The steps in implementing the digital transformation
Devising a strategy may seem an easy task, but operationally implementing a digital transformation is a different matter. You need to be agile in identifying and exploiting the growth levers, and regularly question your objectives and methods when performing this large-scale undertaking. It requires being methodical, while listening to new uses and consumer behaviour that will intuitively raise questions about companies’ marketing and business strategies.
Assessing the level of needs
Analysis of the resources used is essential to assess the level of the company’s digitisation and thus develop a strategy based on relevant areas of deployment. As more than simply acquiring new technologies without any real thought or clearly defined objectives, the challenge of digitisation is to transform the systems. What are the problems we face today, and why will this tool help us to do things better? If the main objective is to improve the customer experience, a CRM will enable exchanges with customers to be handled with care with better responsiveness and productivity. Using such software also provides the opportunity to collect and store valuable data on prospects and customers to understand their buying journey. In addition, leveraging data is a prerequisite for increasing sales and performance; customer relationship management and measurement tools are essential to achieving the company’s goals.
Implementing a strategy
The digital transformation is not a single, established model structure; it will necessarily vary according to the needs and objectives of the company and continue over the long term. It relies on an innovative vision that combines the use of new tools and an alignment of processes with an agile tactical approach to achieve better results. The fungibility aspect is also at the heart of the challenge of a digital transformation; the tools put in place must be constantly adapted to respond to ever-changing circumstances.
Because although some adjustments and renovation improve certain aspects of the company’s business, other areas need innovation to achieve results and generate significant opportunities. One of these powerful drivers of business growth is the deployment of an omni-channel communications strategy. Increasing the points of contact with the consumer contributes to providing a unique, holistic experience that places the consumer at the centre of the experience. Such a marketing strategy attracts more qualified traffic that will transform into a customer faster and simply increases the power of its message. Digital signage is a new communication tool available to companies to adopt this innovative and attractive approach. Digital signage increases the effectiveness of a company’s communication campaigns directed at customers in sale outlets or at its in-house employees. Thanks to screens placed in strategic locations, the company delivers relevant multimedia content remotely and in real time, to arouse the curiosity of and to interact with their target audience.
Securing the digital transformation
To ensure the success of a digital transformation, it is important to focus on talents. Existing employees must be assisted with upgrading their skills, with the aim of adapting them so that they, too, can adopt this modernisation. Such a transformation also leads to the recruitment of new profiles supporting the company’s renewal momentum. The digital transformation fundamentally changes the company’s organisation and requires openness to new ways of working. It encourages a test and learn culture, a philosophy that encourages employees to test out their ideas and collaborate, giving them the opportunity to fail and to correct their mistakes. This mindset improves responsiveness and agility so that one’s positioning is constantly adjusted. Because henceforth, companies need to make decisions faster, and especially more regularly; flexibility and versatility help innovation and help resistance to competitors. Adherence to this logic involves the definition and analysis of the relevant KIPs (Key Performance Indicators) to measure results and quantify the company’s return on investment. These data highlight the most successful approaches, those that need improving and those that should to be abandoned as lacking benefits. The digital transformation is disrupting existing models, and requires a learning process that is approached with humility and going beyond one’s limits thanks to innovation.
Considering the human dimension
To adopt a digital transformation that promises results, it is essential to undertake thinking about change that is directed towards the needs and expectations of the company’s customers. First, the company must be able to understand their persona, analyse their interactions, and measure their behaviour by using means to understand them and cater for their needs better. The customer must therefore be at the heart of its concerns and its strategy: this evolves faster than the company and dictates the rules to which it must adapt. Increasingly informed, aware and expert, the customer is the strong pillar for companies. The company must therefore place itself one the same level in order to hope to meet their requirements and thereby win them over.
Digital signage in driving companies’ digital transformation
Digitising companies is a real challenge, but it also represents innumerable opportunities for development and growth. Digital signage is a marketing channel that many companies use in this context to deliver unique experiences to their customers and employees. More than simply an innovative communication tool, it enables you to create a strong connection and to interact with your target. Cenareo participates in the digitisation effort of companies, thanks to its management system tailored to digital signage. To boost sales or improve internal communication, digital signage offers a vast space of expression to disseminate increasingly impactful content. The Cenareo solution is very easy to use and is naturally deployed within a company’s organisation. Your teams can manage your fleet of screens in real-time, remotely, and intuitively.
Are you looking for powerful tools to implement in your digital transformation strategy? Choose Cenareo and its digital signage management system to increase your target’s engagement. Agile and flexible, this solution with strong ROI provides organisations with the ability to instantly build and deliver screen campaigns for a unique experience and tailor-made communication.
