What could digital transformation do for your business

As an ambitious business owner, you’re always looking for new ways to help your business develop, improve and grow, no matter how successful it already is.

You’ll also want to improve the experience for your customers.

And of course, you’ll be aware that your IT infrastructure plays a big part in this growth and the overall experience.

That works both ways. Sometimes it’s that same infrastructure that can limit how your business evolves. If you’re running older systems, or perhaps systems that don’t fully meet your needs, growth can be held back.

THIS IS WHERE DIGITAL IT TRANSFORMATION COMES IN.
Maybe you’ve never heard that term before. Or perhaps the concept is new to you.

Here’s a one line explanation:
Digital IT transformation is about using modern technology to create or modify business processes, culture and customer experiences.

It involves a complete reassessment and overhaul of your technology, with the goal of improving the eﬃciency and delivery of your products or services. We can make this easier with a few case studies of how big businesses you’ve deﬁnitely heard of, used digital IT transformation. Just because these are big names doesn’t mean it isn’t relevant to you… this is for all businesses, of all sizes.

NETFLIX

Are you old enough to remember when Netﬂix’s business model was based on direct mail?

They’d post their customers in the US a DVD. Customers would watch it, post it back, then wait a few days for another DVD to arrive through their letterbox. We had a similar service called LoveFilm here in the UK (which was eventually bought by Amazon). Of course, Netﬂix led the way to the streaming world we enjoy today. That was digital IT transformation. They used technology to ﬂip their business model on its head.

This has not only improved customer experience (now you wait seconds instead of days for a movie), but it’s also increased customer loyalty too. As of March this year, Netﬂix has a market value of £123 billion.

LEGO

Believe it or not, in 2004, Lego was on the brink of bankruptcy.

This pushed the company to start its digital IT transformation journey, which is still ongoing today. First, Lego digitised its supply chain processes, which allowed it to gain more in sight into production delays and manufacturing costs. Then between 2008 and 2016 the company centralised its HR applications, moved to a digitised shop ﬂoor system, and streamlined its decision-making processes.

To improve customer experience, Lego added mobile apps, games and even movies to its products. The ﬁrst Lego ﬁlm generated an additional £354 million in revenue (oﬀ a production budget of £45 million).

KODAK

When you think of Kodak today, you think of a dead camera company.

As the digital revolution took hold at the start of the century, cameras evolved from using ﬁlm to storing photos digitally. Kodak held ﬁrm with ﬁlm (despite inventing the ﬁrst digital camera!) under the impression that launching a digital camera would cannibalise its existing business. Which we now know was not the case. Kodak’s failure to digitally transform at the right time led to the company losing a lot of money, and bankruptcy in 2012. Eventually, after a big ﬁnancial loss, Kodak took the step towards digital photography, but it was too late.

Of course, these are extreme cases and big famous businesses, but they highlight just what a diﬀerence embracing digital IT transformation (or failing to embrace it) can make to your business.

Read what we think are the 4 main areas of transformation that you need to consider

Ready to talk about this for your business? Get in touch