Recent studies show the rapid pace at which the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the adoption of digital technologies and accelerated the business transformation process across industries.
An increasing majority of consumers are now more comfortable transacting, learning, and solving problems of all sorts online. Whereas before, they may have preferred in-person interactions and solutions, now most customers demand digital business solutions as a minimum requirement.
To survive and thrive, organizations, regardless of size, must accept this change and begin implementing digital transformation strategies to create a user experience that fits today’s trends.
This article explains all you need to know about creating a transformation methodology for your business. We'll share the benefits of working with a digital transformation consultant or service provider to make your move into a technology-first world.
What Is Digital Transformation?
Before discussing digital transformation consulting, let's take a closer look at digital transformation itself. What does it mean?
Digital transformation means reimagining how a business operates so it can thrive in the digital age. It's the process of using digital technologies, software, and platforms to create new products or microservices and to improve existing processes in a way that increases business value and improves customer experience.
For a successful digital transformation, it's essential to pay attention to data analytics and implement a personalized digital strategy to meet new market requirements. This will look different for every organization.
What Is Digital Transformation Consulting?
Many businesses and executives at large companies aren't prepared to move forward post-COVID. They may be held back by old ways of thinking, siloed organizational structures, and limited knowledge of the changing business landscape.
Digital transformation consultants assist these businesses and executives in overcoming activation barriers to digital transformation. They help plan and oversee the entire change management process from start to finish, bringing in a fresh, data-driven perspective. They guide teams and employees through the adoption of new digital platforms, workflows, and processes that can vastly improve their company's bottom line for many years to come.
With the guidance of digital transformation consultants, businesses can achieve consistent improvements through their transformation initiatives. The consultants work closely with CIOs (Chief Information Officers) and IT departments to develop a coordinated set of moves focused on creating value for the business in their context. For example, a healthcare facility would require very different transformation projects than a financial services company.
How Businesses Can Leverage Digital Transformation Consulting Services
Businesses can benefit significantly from using digital transformation consultants to navigate this time of change. This means remaining open to adopting digital automation tools, applications, and workflows to improve efficiency and customer experience.
Companies consider digitization enablement so they can improve their businesses in two main ways:
- Transforming the business core: In this scenario, digital transformation is focused on reengineering core business processes and legacy systems to become more agile, efficient, and customer-focused.
- Building new businesses, products, or microservices: In this scenario, digital transformation is focused on expanding the business's offerings to cater to the tangential needs of their customers.
To begin, the digital transformation consulting service providers may focus on:
- Capitalizing on new technology
- Harnessing the power of data and artificial intelligence
- Modernizing legacy technologies
- Optimizing and automating operations
- Fueling digital growth
- Creating captivating digital experiences
- Building digital talent and culture
This all depends on what a business is lacking and where they can provide the most value for their customers, e.g., an old banking institution may find more value in harnessing the power of data and AI, and modernizing legacy technologies. So, the consultants will prioritize those over other digital transformation options. Whereas a brick-and-mortar retail store may find more value in creating captivating digital experiences and automating operations.
Other business processes that digital transformation consulting services can improve include:
- Commercial processes: Digital transformation efforts focus on providing more value and delighting customers. This may be through a streamlined multi-channel customer experience, personalized digital marketing and pricing, or targeted sales digitization.
- Operations processes: These are meant to optimize a business's ways of working and improve efficiency. Depending on the business operations, this may focus on supply chain and procurement or other operational activities like claims management, medical management, throughput, etc.
- Back office processes: These types of digital transformation initiatives focus on automating mundane aspects of the administrative duties of a business. Transformation may focus on robotics process automation, or employee management and other corporate functions.
Determine If Your Business Needs a Digital Transformation Strategy
A good place to start is by asking yourself and your teams whether your business can remain economically viable through this period of digitization and afterward. According to a recent McKinsey report, 92% of companies do not believe their business model will remain viable through digitization.
Once you can objectively answer this question, begin to note the gaps and opportunities digital transformation consulting can solve for your business. Go through our checklist below to determine if your business is ready for digital transformation:
- Do you have a business-led technology roadmap?
- Do you have talent (in-house or consulting partners) to execute and innovate quickly once you begin?
- Are you able to move fast once you put your transformation practices in motion?
- Are your business leaders, technologists, and control functions working together to continuously deliver improvements for the good of the entire organization?
- Do you pay attention to the data and business logic you would need to power transformation?
- Where in your data management are you gaining a competitive advantage?
- Do you have the data governance and capabilities to create an advantage?
- Are you investing at least as much in conviction and ability to act as you are in technology?
This list is by no means exhaustive, but it's a good start to determine your readiness for transformation before you begin the process.
Begin Your Digital Transformation Journey With Pulpstream
Finding the right digital transformation consultants and partnerships is important when you're implementing transformation initiatives. The right partner can guide you through the process seamlessly and efficiently, while normal operations continue for the rest of your team.
Pulpstream's no-code tools help to accelerate business process improvements with workflow solutions you can customize to fit your business needs and improve employee and customer experience. Using Pulpstream, you can run transformation projects alongside the day-to-day of your business. Here are three impactful ways to use Pulpstream to fast-track your transformation.
1. Empower Employees
Pulpstream puts the power of transformation in the hands of employees and business users, limiting reliance on the IT team. Employees can streamline, optimize, and automate their own everyday processes. Pulpstream users can easily transform entire process flows, data points, decisions, and tasks. Once transformed, this unlocks efficiencies and enables operations to run smoothly.
2. Strengthen Workflows
Pulpstream helps reengineer outdated workflows and systems, bringing in an easier way of delivering service and meeting customer expectations. Using Pulpstream, your teams can easily create agile visualizations of your processes to refine, scale, and execute them no matter where they're working from — remotely or on-site.
3. Automate Processes
Pulpstream enables alerts, notifications, and process kick-starters to keep processes moving and track when and where tasks get stuck. This not only maintains and even improves operational momentum, it also ensures that your teams are delivering successful projects and it creates visibility into ongoing projects.
Taking the First Step Toward Digital Transformation
The digital transformation journey is not a one-and-done affair. As the world continues to change rapidly, there will no doubt be more changes to the way we work and live. To be on top of your game, you need a digital transformation consulting partner with robust capabilities to keep your business ahead of trends and satisfy customers' needs.
Are you ready to begin your digital transformation journey to provide even more value to customers? Request a demo of Pulpstream and discover a partner that can transform your business.
