Impact of digital transformation on companies

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Technology has had an undeniable impact on how we carry out our daily routines, but it has also changed the way we do business.

In today's business environment, "digital transformation" is a well-known and much-hyped concept. In this post, we're going to cover several important aspects of digital transformation and what it means for a business.

This industrial revolution has brought success in some areas of business, while others are suffering a particular collapse, with no idea where to direct investment or innovation decisions. Whatever the critical factor, it does not deserve such high consideration, because here, at this point in history, many variables are at play.

Technology has been updating and adapting to the demands and needs of each era for centuries. However, in the last industrial revolution, there was talk about “machines” and how they would end up creating an apocalypse. Nothing could be further from the truth. The conclusion is that the market’s capacity, due to its obvious technological gap, can be as attractive as it is disconcerting.

Current digital challenges
If there is one thing that characterizes the current times, it is that buy cell phone number list technology itself is also undergoing a revolution. Incorporating central, real-time data or machine learning to optimize processes based on them. As if this were not enough, devices and graphical windows have become easy to use and reality is as digital as it is physical or virtual. It is rather a combination of these three concepts.

Established brands with proven success are wary of the emergence of new technology-based competitors such as Uber, Airbnb, Amazon or Just Eat, which represent a disruption in terms of price, service or customer service that they cannot (or do not know how to) cope with, at least for now.

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And it is not about costs, but about investment and above all about the capacity for innovation. Traditional companies do not know how or in which technology to invest, while new companies take advantage of the added value of technology, with hardly any competitors on the horizon. They become the first to capture global market share and open up their experience, products or services to new expectations.

Change of an era
There is a lot of information about how technology is influencing eminently digital markets, such as the media or advertising… But it is difficult to determine its scope in other sectors or in more traditional businesses such as logistics, sales or manufacturing.

Digitalisation has brought with it an adaptation of people to a more agile, convenient and connected world. This has given rise to a new consumer profile, the Prosumer, an empowered customer with the ability to influence the entire destiny of the brand. On the other hand, technology allows companies to receive information in real time, analyse data and follow the customer throughout the entire value chain to keep them loyal and secure, which in turn makes it easier (albeit specific) to coordinate decisions for the proper functioning of a business.

2 key indicators
Digital transformation in companies fluctuates between two variables. It measures the revenue that each action brings in relation to competitors and adds value to the customer through technology, creating an easy shopping experience or controlling the entire supply chain. According to McKinsey, a consultancy specialising in transformation, the digitalisation of companies is still less than 40% of its potential. Communication companies, the retail sector and the technology industry are the vectors in which there is greater penetration.

Digital transformation puts the customer at the center of everything
Since 2014, Forbes has referred to digital transformation as a way to optimize all customer contact channels by leveraging technology. This is another definition, but it is very specific in terms of the Customer's position in the supply chain and, therefore, in the business in general. This approach has given rise to new models that place the customer at the center of the entire experience, shaping a new way of producing, but also of working.

Thanks to WhatsApp, smartphone apps or telephone payment alternatives, the purchasing experience and manufacturing processes can be even more fluid.

Technology enables the development of new products and services
Companies like Thai Tea Rooms in the United States, a sector that no one (or very few) devoted any effort to at the end of the last century, have been really making a profit since 2019. These “new” tea rooms are overtaking traditional ones with an innovative mobile-based service, but they are also affecting the business of those establishments where people came to have a drink, such as coffee shops or soda shops, which cannot resist the blow. The phenomenon of tea rooms, or eSports in the promotion of goods, is useful to understand how the analysis of all forms of contact with the consumer (what is also known as omnichannel) results in new business ideas, new products or services and different forms of customer-brand connection. In short, new marketing.

Accelerators and Hype Techs
A few years ago, particularly in some sectors, the idea that it is not only important to follow technology but to anticipate it became established. Brands seek to be an active part of the transformation of their sector and invest in innovation.

Obviously, this can widen the gap, but it will also set a standard in each industry that determines the real value of the technology, based on the future decisions made by these leaders, for whom the search for accelerators requires dedication, decision-making and risks.

The Financial Brand published a diagram on “dominant and emerging disruptions” last November, similar to what Gartner did a few years ago with its adaptation curve. It seems that topics such as automatic payment, hybrid cloud and machine learning are becoming established as a reality, while quantum computing and Blockchain are seen as a bit further away (but increasingly present). The application of these technologies gains momentum when combined with the possibilities of Big Data and Machine Learning. Contactless technology for paying without cash, through mobile phones or chip cards, has breathed fresh air into the banking sector, which has found in microtransactions a new way to earn a commission (and income) for its services.