Digital Transformation: The Future of Work is Now
November 27, 2020Digital transformation has changed due to COVID-19 and businesses are having to adapt to this. Examining what the biggest barriers to innovation or collaboration in your organisation can help you create solutions to ensure growth. Is it people, processes, or technology that is preventing collaboration in your business? Fintan Murphy discusses how Damson Cloud can assist your company with digital transformation and help determine the future of work for you today.
The Future of Work: Who is Damson Cloud?
Damson Cloud’s mission is to help organisations leverage the most value from their investments in cloud software by driving digital transformation. Damson Cloud has been a champion for remote working, understanding that the cloud workplace doesn’t have boundaries and isn’t bound to the restrictions that a traditional work environment can pose. This flexibility determines that work can happen anywhere and anytime that you need it to.
Through years in the digital industry, Damson Cloud offers expert advice in change management and business transformation. This is achieved by examining outdated business processes and constructing new, innovative methods to create freedom in a business’s digital workplace.
Digital Transformation Before Covid
Businesses that fail to adapt to the times lose their market share swiftly and eventually become defunct. An example of this is Blockbuster. In 2004, Blockbuster had over 9,000 stores with $5.9 billion in turn over. By 2005, they had lost 75% of their market share and their CEO, Jim Keyes, mentioned in 2008 that the business wasn’t concerned with one of their major competitors - Netflix. They filed for bankruptcy only two years later. Being unwilling to change your company structure could cost you your business.
Companies like Amazon, Uber, Revolut, and Airbnb have taken processes that are mundane or, at times, complex and streamlined a process to make it easier and more manageable using technology. A company like Revolut can set up a bank account within a few hours. This is in comparison to the traditional banking process which can take days.
Digital Transformation After Covid
COVID-19 has accelerated digital transformation as companies update their working systems to ensure that remote working is feasible and successful for their needs. One company that has scaled in revenue and scope is Zoom.
Zoom is a software that operates as a video conferencing service which can be used to virtually meet with people. They made $27 million in their first quarter and their market capitalisation is $140 billion. They have performed better than their competitors like Google Meet, Skype, and Microsoft Teams through their focus on tools that people needed specifically for video call.
Competitors have caught up in terms of the features that Zoom provides but Zoom were prepared at the beginning of the pandemic to provide businesses with the tools to communicate effectively over a video call. Consumers now have multiple choices but Zoom has the majority of the market.
The Future of Work: Defining Digital Transformation
Understanding and defining digital transformation is an important process for being able to implement it in your organisation. Digital transformation is the process of using digital technologies to create new or modify existing business processes, culture, and/pr customer experiences to meet changing business and market needs.
Damson Cloud can sum digital transformation in a single word - speed. Digital transformation allows you to do things faster and accelerates the rate that your customers are able to engage with your products and services and can contact you. Internally, digital transformation benefits the speed at which you can get work done. Damson Cloud has grown as a company, with a relatively small team of employees, due to their willingness to engage with digital transformation.
How to be Successful
Real-time collaboration can transform your business. You can get work done in real-time and it can aid you in speeding up processes that would have been much slower through traditional methods like email.
Your digital transformation has to incorporate internal and external factors to ensure company success. Internal or business systems could include things like email, document management, HR, payroll, and design tools. This stands in comparison to your customer or customer-centric output. This could include things like your website, booking forms, online purchases, payment gateways, and communications like chat and emails.
Digital transformation isn’t the only important factor in digital transformation. There are three key areas that need to be addressed to ensure successful digital transformation. Technology, of course, makes up one of these parts, but processes have to be created or streamlined, and the people involved in that process have to be trained and supported to ensure that they know what they are doing. This combination creates real transformation in your business.
The digital transformation process can be broken down into a road map of three key areas: people, process, and technology. Under people, leadership needs to be considered. Is your leadership team ready to accept digital transformation? What is the culture of your organisation? Does it need workshops and training to ensure that they are innovative and collaborative? Is your skillset there for your company or do you need external support?
A key part of your processes is looking at your business model. Is your team fully distributed or are they based in the same place? Looking at processes and updating them to aid digital transformation is a crucial part of development. Cost is naturally an important factor when assessing investment in digital transformation.
Auditing your technology is another integral process for digital transformation. Assessing your technology stack and ensuring it is able to engage in digital transformation is important. Administration and security cannot be used as an excuse to prevent digital transformation. Companies have had to adapt overnight to these changes and finding effective and efficient ways to work in a secure manner is key. Infrastructure is another important consideration. Things like broadband or backup solutions all feed into the effectiveness of digital transformation.
The Transformation Process
The digital transformation process that Damson Cloud and Google recommends is known as I.D.P.I - Inspire, Discover, Prototype, and Iterate. These are the four-step processes in most organisations to ensure digital transformation.
The idea of ‘Inspire’ encourages companies to assess competitors and other organisations within your industry and become inspired by what they have done. Attempt to iterate on what they have done and attempt to create an even better process for your customers to experience.
The process of discovering allows you to evaluate your processes and map them out for your business. It is important to not focus on solutions here but view how your business processes are implemented currently.
Once this has been implemented, prioritise your ideas. What needs to be worked on immediately? How easy is it going to be to execute these new processes and what impact will they have on your business? Taking things that are easy to implement and will have a high impact should be first on your change of process agenda.
After this has been gauged, the prototype phase should be introduced. This is where you evaluate the tools in the marketplace on Google or Microsoft and see is there a way to transform how you work or improve a process. Having access to someone who is technically minded is advised here.
Lastly, iterating is important. Constantly improving your process is important. Damson Cloud is constantly iterating their technology and being willing to digitally transform. This can help your business, and save you time and money. Running a transformation lab is a great way of evaluating your business and finding ways to implement digital transformation in your organisation.
The workplace is changing so make sure that your business is changing with it too. Digital transformation never stops and neither should your business.
As a longstanding member of the Google Cloud Partner Program, Damson Cloud specialises in bringing people and ideas together through new ways of working. We champion the very best practices in remote working and change management, helping companies and their teams collaborate productively from anywhere in the world. To find out more about our services, check out our library of tutorial videos or our blog.
