5 Ways to Digitally Transform a Business

Digitizing your business today does not mean the same thing it meant ten years ago. It definitely doesn’t mean what it meant at the turn of the millennium. While digitizing operations back in the early 2000s literally meant computerizing paper records, today, it will have more to do with transferring information to the cloud.

Digitally transforming your business essentially means taking advantage of rapidly evolving technologies to streamline business operations and offer customers value. Visionary business owners will realize that going digital is not a nice-to-have option but a necessity.

If you don’t have an e-commerce website, your customers will move to a rival who allows them to buy online. If customers can’t comfortably navigate your website from their smartphones, you risk losing them to a competitor who allows them to complete orders on the go.

Here are some specific areas you need to digitize to survive in today’s tech-driven business environment.

one. Enter the Cloud

Cloud-based operations can save your business tons of cash in data storage while making your information more secure. There was a point when you had to have a physical server for each of your business’s functions. A server for staff/payroll records, a server for the sales and inventory records and another for your admin systems.

Businesses also needed servers for their core operations and peripheral systems. All this meant substantial expenses; besides purchasing the servers, you had to see their maintenance and have a team of experts to look after them.

Introducing the cloud or moving your operations to the cloud means you don’t have to invest in all that hardware. It will reduce your data storage and processing expenses to a monthly fee paid to a cloud services provider.

These service providers will also take away the headache of securing your data as they are up to date with the latest and best in data security. They will do a better job of this than you can as it is their core business.

two. Develop a Website

Having a website was something you could have or choose not to have back in the day. But in an age where 60 percent of the world’s population

use the Internet, you cannot afford not to be online. Your first step should be having a place on the World Wide Web where people can find information about you and your products.

But you cannot afford to remain at that first step. To ensure that website contributes meaningfully to the growth of your business, you need to, first of all, make it easy to find. It’s easy for your site to get lost among the millions of other sites on the Web. You need to make it easy for search engines to find by employing appropriate search engine optimization (SEO) techniques.

You also need to make your site contribute to your overall business goals. Why only offer information about products on your site when you can sell them right there as well?

3. Grow an Online Presence

Growing your online presence means using all available means to expand your website’s viewership. One of these is developing SEO content for your site. And one of the key components of good SEO is good content that adds actual value to your site’s visitors.

Another question you have to address when seeking to grow your online presence is using social media to market your brand. Establishing a steady following on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and other social platforms can help you drive substantial traffic to your website. Hiring a social media expert or using an agency is an important step to fully harnessing the power of social networks for the growth of your business.

Four. Use Mobile or Applications

With more than 90 percent of the world’s Internet users

accessing the Web from their mobile devices, you can’t afford to have mobile-ready content for your business. Your first step in this direction should be making sure your website is mobile-friendly. This means that visitors to your site should be able to navigate your site easily and access all the functionalities of your site from their phones just as they would on a desktop.

Mobile apps provide another great marketing avenue for your business. You can, for instance, place your ads strategically in apps that are popular with your target audience.

5. Automate Processes

There are many ways you can automate business processes to make them more efficient. You can acquire a payroll system that does all the spadework that goes into maintaining your employees’ payment records. You can institute a point-of-sale system that allows your customers to get the menu and order their meals without waiting for a server.

The key to successful automation is basing it on your overall business goals and having a well-thought-out implementation strategy. There are systems that can help you ensure that end-to-end process automation is aligned with your business goals.

And there are a number of suitable options, each with its own merits and shortcomings. You may have heard discussions relating to this, like the UiPath vs Power Automate debate.

No Overnight Fixes

Digital transformation entails several steps and doesn’t happen overnight. For it to be successful, it needs to start with a strategy that identifies areas for automation and prioritizes them. You then need to embark on implementation, focusing on your overarching business goals.