Digitization is inevitable and it is imperative for every business be it food, manufacturing, oil & gas , automobile healthcare or education. We have changed the way we work and hence, is now even more essential that we think differently on how we used to work, what are the offerings and advancement in technology that can support this enablement.

We can hear about the digital change all the time in every keynote, seminar, and discussions. They all talk about how technology can be used for a better future and how we can bring about a change with the help of modern tools and applications. They also talk about how it can produce better opportunities for companies and for the world.

Decision makers are however, not aware about how we can adapt to such a transition as also the necessary steps required in the overall business strategy.

So what is Digital Enablement and how does it affect business? What can be done for successful adaptation of digitization?

What is Digital Enablement or Transformation?

Digital enablement is the process of transforming our existing work processes / activities by making use of available digital technologies for enhancing the way we work, communicate, and drive our business forward.

Some of these technologies are transforming how we work. Employees sitting at different locations are collaborating from around the world to work on a project. Office staff can access the data from anywhere, complying with the demands of the modern work place. All this can happen by staying secure at all times. Professionals are adopting a “data-driven” thought process for taking routine decisions using “Predictive Analytics”. Competent algorithms are allowing swift, innovative and accurate analytics that allows for greater productivity.

Offices are connected 24*7 to work through various hand held devices, laptops , mobile apps, emails, SAP, web apps etc. An amalgamation of highly efficient hardware along with supporting software is creating a strong network of an inter-connected workforce.

How Digital Enablement affects our business and productivity

There are too many examples for highlighting the express benefits of digitization. For the purpose, I’ll take the liberty to share a few of them. A large portion of any company’s success is dependent on how seamlessly is its team collaborating with each other. Technology helps connect the workforce and it is one of the critical aspects to achieving business goals and bringing the competitive edge.

Another credible benefit of digitization is gathering of data and analyzing it for providing useful statistics that helps in making routine decisions faster. Intelligently configured algorithms are able to provide insightful trends through the empirical data sets. This paves the way for future growth plans.

Finally, with the advent of mobile technologies (including competent hardware), activities and decision making has moved from work desks to work sites on the field. This gives a whole new world of flexible opportunities for enhancing productivities.

How to prepare your business for this digital transformation

Contrary to popular belief, digitization has the potential to reduce costs and also provide larger scale of operations.

Any company’s digital enablement can be measured using these key attributes.

Accessibility – The extent to which the companies and their customers can access data and services universally.

Price – The extent to which the services and products are available to people at the right cost.

Reliability – The quality of the service and the integrity of the organization.

Speed – The availability of the application or service that can be accessed by companies and customers.

Usability – The use of these services and ability for future use by syncing them with the existing ecosystems.

Skill – The ability to make use of these services for improving / adding to the skill-sets of any organization.

The need to adopt digitization

Easy access to technologies are making digital technologies available across all levels of businesses, whether small or big. Digital enablement (as the need of the hour) will help an organization stay with the times. With the rapid growth in the development of technologies, organizations that are unable to adapt to it, are likely to fall behind. Here are a few more reasons for making the business case;

1. According to a survey by Forrester Research,it is predicted that half of the revenue will be driven by digital transformation by the year 2020.

2. Companies that have adapted to this change have seen a 26% more profitable growth as compared to others

3. Increased efficiency as the old legacy system has its limitation and is preventing business by slowing potential growth.

4. With the advent of mobile devices and technologies, one is living in the age of an information tsunami that is enabling faster decision making.

Synopsis

Digital platforms have the ability to create better customer experiences, smarter business processes, greater ROIs and innovative business models which can be molded according to the changing needs and times. Easy access to technologies will help an organization sync with digital tools easily and seamlessly.