Digital transformation is the saving grace for future-proofing your company and investing in your employees. However, there’s a divide among companies that believe their employers are making a significant investment in their professional development (47%) and the 34% of employees who are content with the investment their companies have made in improving skills and offering professional development, according to Deloitte research.
Business technology is a driving source of employee appreciation. However, a simple lack of best practice understanding can perpetuate a digital disaster, hindering the investments you make in your employees and the growth of your company in the digital world. The solution is to follow the fast changes in hiring trends and finally go for digital transformation in 2022. Both actions will help you continually appreciate and invest in your employees, and see a successful growth rate in your future.
Digital Transformation as a Business Model
Digital transformation is a forward-thinking business model that is not solely fixed on a strong online presence. Companies can be connected to numerous social media platforms, have a responsive website or sell products online, but there’s more you need to grasp. Digital transformation can be integrated into every aspect of your business.
Implementing changes like adding chatbots on an ecommerce platform or cloud computing are part of future-proofing your practices and processes for a greater digital transformation that will increase operational efficiency and deliver more value to customers. In addition to those small changes, companies will need a near-total overhaul on most processes and a reminder that business technology is not the same as other technology.
To perform a digital transformation, businesses have to learn how to harness the right technology, which is why most companies seem to struggle with the transition, especially if they are not backed by a forward-thinking team or a third-party consultant.
How Small Business Can Start a Digital Strategy
There’s no doubt that small businesses that undergo a digital business transformation are investing in their company and employees. In fact, Altimeter found in a study that digital transformations are typically driven by growth opportunities.
Having a well-defined strategy in place will help your business navigate growth and be adaptable as new technologies emerge. That can look different based on the number of employees you have, their specific roles, or the size of your business.
Answer these questions to get a better sense of your current digital transformation and its future. From there, you can decide if a third-party company will be beneficial to your growth.
- What are you hoping to achieve by having an online presence?
- What can be improved or changed?
- Are you tracking metrics, and if so, what are its current benefits to your growth?
- Can your company support a digital transformation?
- What integrations would your employees find useful?
- Are your employees equipped with tools they need to advance?
After you’ve asked yourself these questions, now you can consider, will a third-party help your small business deliver a strong digital transformation? In most scenarios, hiring a third-party consultant can save the company time and money if they are implementing the right technology and processes. Risk reduction, long-term cost reduction and employee training are traditional areas that a consultant can help develop.
Aspects of Successful Digital Business Transformation
After visualizing areas that need improvement, you can begin a digital business transformation. Successful transformations have a few stand-out factors that will drive success.
Patience & Perseverance
Patience and perseverance are necessary factors in future-proofing your company. Some of the changes you might want to make could take months. If that means implementing cloud computing, for example, that takes research and data migration, patience is key.
As long as you’re working with the right person, they will have best practices at hand to monitor changes and make tweaks and alterations to the strategy in order to achieve long-term results.
Engage Employees and Stay Analytically Driven
Measuring employee engagement is a key driver in digital transformation. Shifting business practices and installing new technologies into the workplace can only be successful if the people behind those new technologies are thriving. They are the people who are using the technology and making your company run.
The first rule of thumb is transparency: communicate your strategy with your employees and provide them with proper training to adapt to the new technology. Show them how the technology advances your company and their skills as professionals. Engage and encourage them to be open to the transition process.
Whether you’re revving up your social media presence or trying to measure employee adjustment to a new chat function, it’s a good idea to remember where you started and you can do that with analytics. Because digital transformation is different for every business, analytics will help you understand what’s working and what’s not. Then, you can make changes according to the analytics and foreseeable growth.
Forward Thinking
If you’re unsure of what might come next, it might be hard to think about the future. But that’s exactly what you should do. Technology is a fast-changing phenomenon; it could be different in one year or two. As much as you can, think about the future and instill forward-thinking within your company culture. A third-party consultant can help you develop a forward-thinking mindset, ensuring you’re not investing in outdated software or technology.
Starting The Business Transformation
Digital transformation can be overwhelming to say the least. To make the process easier, shift your optimism and future employment opportunities to employees who will help you through a digital transformation. How do you do that in 2022? Give them desirable benefits including the right retirement benefits.
For example, Wealth Stack has a great retirement package for you and your employees. Not only will it help them build wealth, but together, we can provide the financial counseling they need to educate themselves about all aspects of investing in their future selves!
