What is Digital Transformation? Definition, Strategies, and More

Defining digital Transformation
Why is digital transformation important?
What are the main areas of digital transformation?
What are the benefits of digital transformation?
Digital transformation strategy
Getting started

What is Digital Transformation?

Digital transformation is the new normal today. Technological advancements have ushered in the digital age, and keeping up with change is imperative and vital for business. Transforming processes by harnessing technology empowers organizations of all sizes to keep up with the times and not fall behind their competition.

Defining digital transformation

Utilizing technology to fundamentally change the way an organization functions is the essence of digital transformation.

Digital transformation (DX) is the process of harnessing technology to bring about sustainable change in an enterprise for holistic organizational transformation.

Why is digital transformation (DX) important?

Digitization is the utlization of technology to convert manual processes into automated processes. To digitize means to transition any endeavor from its analog nature to its digital counterpart, enabling seamless automation.

Many advancements in science and technology have brought us numerous innovations like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data analytics, facilitating a digital mode of process execution.

In a time when digitization is already everywhere, DX is essential for enterprises to stay even relevant. Moreover, the technological innovations mentioned above have made DX very important to have, and today’s digital age mandates DX for all businesses, organizations, and enterprises.

DX is important because of the following factors.

Outmoded manual processes

Manual processes like paperwork, data entry, and other clerical tasks are slow, time-consuming, and cumbersome. Typically requiring lots of personnel to execute, many of these tasks have become outmoded. Processes powered by technology have replaced them, and are more reliable for reasons such as accuracy, speed, and efficiency.

The demand for improved customer experience

Today, people demand a seamless customer experience. They increasingly expect that the organization serves their requests faster and more effectively, with minimal room for dissatisfaction during the entire span of interaction they have with the organization. This makes DX all the more important, as its various advantages confer an improved customer experience.

Widespread digitization

We are in the digital age, and digitization is everywhere. Ubiquitous automation demands DX. Relying on paperwork is a relic of the past. To keep up with widespread digitization, business digital transformation is imperative.

What are the main areas of digital transformation?

Business process transformation

Generally, you model traditional business processes on manual efforts. However, the time and costs associated with manual efforts can sometimes be difficult to predict, measure, and replicate. Establishing a baseline model requires dedicated personnel laboriously working through the business process, but any inconsistencies can have cascading effects to the requisite time, effort, or budget.

DX seeks to eliminate these downsides. It identifies manual processes, and maps them from start to finish. It specifies where you can harness technology to automate, execute processes faster, more economically, and with fewer personnel than before.

Business process transformation is a primary domain of DX.

Overhaul of enterprise dynamics

DX focuses on revamping the entire operational infrastructure of an enterprise. You can overhaul the core processes, with manual effort being largely eliminated by automation. Nifty tools, rapid workflows, and streamlined processes have become the norm. No more delays, protracted deadlines, and unnecessary wait times for customers.

Workforce empowerment

Manual processes can consume worker productivity. DX empowers employees with the right set of tools needed to quickly execute their everyday enterprise workflows. With fewer constraints and faster turnaround times, you can empower your employees to do more with less, facilitated by DX.

Data modelling and data insights interpretation

Organizations tend to generate lots of data when executing daily business processes. With manual data collection and processing methods, it is a herculean task to dig through data and derive insights.

DX processes allow stakeholders to generate models based upon data gathered during process execution. From this data, insights and inferences can be quickly derived, which leads to the identification and resolution of process bottlenecks.

Data modelling and data insights interpretation allow enterprise stakeholders to make informed decisions based on data, enacting DX’s promise of enterprise-wide performance upheaval.

What are the benefits of digital transformation?

Simplification of complicated processes

Enterprise workflows and processes such as approvals, when manually executed, tend to become complicated due to the intermediary stages involved. Add to it the time taken to transition from one stage to another and they can easily become time-consuming. With DX, stakeholders need only do a fraction of the work, as technology takes care of the finer details, thereby simplifying complicated processes.

Reduced turnaround times

Rather than relying on manual processes, such as using heaps of paperwork for data entry, DX speeds up workflows and processes alike. Turnaround times are reduced thanks to instantaneous alerts, and you can execute processes and workflows much faster, contributing to improved employee productivity and customer satisfaction.

Improved efficiency and accuracy

When manual processes are the norm, the human factor is always subject to inaccuracies and inefficiencies. Digitized processes and workflows, on the other hand, maintain a level of accuracy. What's more, fewer errors confer improved efficiency.

Increased organizational productivity and throughput

DX simplifies complicated processes, reduces turnaround times, and improves efficiency and accuracy, resulting in increased organizational productivity and throughput. This guarantees higher profits—much higher than those attainable by manual process execution.

Digital transformation strategy

A multi-pronged approach to DX will yield the best results. The typical steps in digital transformation strategy for process automation are:

Identify the manual processes

Define process input and output parameters

Identify the process stakeholders

Assign stakeholder responsibilities such as workflow approval privileges

Create workflows using the digital transformation software

Execute and automate the processes

Study process execution data and improvise

What are digital transformation software?

Digital transformation software refers to software programs, tools, suites, and utilities which assist in the DX of your organization. You can accomplish DX with several types of software.

Through custom software developed from the ground up

This method uses the conventional approach to software development in general. You enlist the help of developers to bring in DX. They develop custom software by choosing a Software Development Life Cycle methodology (SDLC) and a tech stack.

Advantages

You can do DX the way you want to.

Solutions are developed to be bespoke.

Disadvantages

It involves enlisting the help of developers, who tend to be expensive to hire.

It is time-consuming, as you need to build solutions from the ground up.

Through application development platforms.

These again have several types, such as no code and low code application development platforms.

No code platforms

No code platforms require no programming whatsoever to develop applications. They provide drag-and-drop tools for app development.

Advantages of no code platforms

They require no programming experience whatsoever to build apps. Anyone can build applications.

Rapid deployment of apps.

Disadvantages of no code platforms

You cannot customize no code applications as per your unique requirements.

Low code platforms

Low code platforms offer all the functionalities of no code platforms; that is, they provide drag-and-drop builders, but they also offer much more.

Advantages of low code platforms

You can implement custom logic through simple scripting in easy to learn scripting languages.

Like no code platforms, they also offer rapid deployment of apps.

Disadvantages of low code platforms

Familiarizing oneself with the scripting language of the low code platform can take some time.

Getting started

Looking for a way to implement DX in your organization seamlessly? You could try evaluating ManageEngine AppCreator—it’s a pioneering, easy-to-use low code platform which you can harness to transform your organization.

DOWNLOAD APPCREATOR