Digitalization is among the most proven strategies for business growth, second only to prominent business solutions like offshoring. However, digitalization still struggles to qualify as a solution. Why is that?
It is pretty evident that digitalization process is the path where all businesses meet moving forward. Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, organizations of all shapes and sizes pursued digital and online advancements because of the many success stories associated with it. Estimates suggest the global spending tally for digitalization will reach 1.8 trillion (!!) dollar region in 2022, with experts saying it will break the 2 trillion mark by 2023.
Businesses are taking the initiative to transform or replace their previous operations with as many digital tools and programs as possible. Regardless of the reason, companies deem digitalization as a step forward. It is a means to improve operations, enhance productivity, maintain cost-efficiency, and more. However, they are precisely why digitalization received the false narrative of being a means to address complicated business problems.
As much as technology helps us solve problems, it does not automatically translate to more profits or better results. When approached without a plan, digitalization could prove more costly than beneficial. In 2019, 70% of companies investing in digitalization produced results far from their expected goals. Over 900 billion dollars spent on digital transformation projects end up getting wasted, an eye-opening amount that tells you all you need to know. Digitalization isn’t a business solution. It is merely a process.
Many businesses hailed digitalization as the savior of operations, and deservedly so. But before you roll out the red carpet for the declaration, here are a few things you need to know.
Digitalization's Benefits
Of course, the endless benefits and advantages will position digitalization process as a must-pursue project for your company. Technology’s primary purpose is to accomplish tasks and processes that no human or humans can perform. Thousands of minor inconveniences, operation bottlenecks, and time-consuming activities received significant enhancements due to digitalization. The premise seems simple for companies. If you need to improve something, you dedicate your efforts to achieving it. Here are a few ways businesses use technology to solve business problems.
Efficient Task Completion
The business operation is a complex system of tasks and processes that keeps the organization running and profiting. Every step requires resources, personnel, and routines to accomplish. However, one element dictates if the business operation can keep up with goals or fall short. Time is valuable for businesses. It applies to every task in the system. The faster the turnover, the faster the path to profit.
Businesses invest heavily into incorporating technology in operations. As a result, organizations notice a drastic improvement in productivity and efficiency. Those benefits come in multiple forms. Automating repetitive tasks, storing business data, managing resources, and streamlining processes fall under those advantages. Efficiency is technology’s best feature and is why businesses pursue digitalization process.
Content Creation and Discovery
Information turns out to be the most revolutionary and consistent thing that improves businesses overall. Thanks to the internet and online technologies, companies now have everything they need to attract customers. Employees have more access to knowledge and resources to support marketing campaigns, sales strategies, and customer experience. As a result, companies receive significant boosts on that end of the operations. Perhaps the biggest contribution of digitalization in that area is content creation.
Audiences consume content in every online platform imaginable. Business websites, social media, digital marketplaces, academic journals, and other web pages multiply the ways businesses can interact with people, especially potential customers. Digitalization is becoming synonymous with a company’s presence on the internet, making it beneficial to get started on that aspect.
Customer Targeting
Perhaps digitalization’s best feature is its ability to connect businesses with the widest audience possible. Digital marketing and advertising strategies can turn into fun approaches where marketing experts can experiment. One of them is segmenting the audience into different personas. The strategy revolves around identifying where they might find and converting them better. With marketing being one of the most costly departments for any business, the utilization of digital tools, programs, and platforms could ensure effectiveness as soon as companies invest.
Marketing strategies need to be cost-efficient to ensure that companies believe their money is helping profits grow. As a result, marketers utilize tools and programs to know more about their potential customers. They can personalize the experience of ads and marketing strategies to gain higher conversion rates. Such a tactic would be challenging without automated data and reports from digital tools, making customer targeting an innovative approach.
However, solving those business problems doesn’t mean it is directly in accordance with increasing profits. They are a means to reduce costs while improving results, but the latter isn’t a sure thing. Perhaps meager results are the reason why some companies avoided digital transformation in the past. However, they are left with no choice as of 2020, a year when a global crisis hit businesses hard.
Covid-19's Role in Digitalization's Acceleration
Most businesses refuse to pursue digitalization because of a simple quote: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Traditional strategies that remain efficient and productive might no longer require improvement. Changing parts of the operation can significantly alter the production, results, quality, and other elements. Not to mention the training and onboarding process the staff requires to work on those tools. Adjusting the operations to keep up with digitalization seems inefficient and unnecessary if what you have already worked well. Unfortunately, the Covid-19 pandemic left businesses without a choice.
The active cases and the death toll continue to rise as the virus spreads worldwide. Businesses that rely heavily on traditional and face-to-face operations had to close their doors for employee safety. As a result, production and profits plummeted significantly. Companies had to shut down temporarily because of social distancing protocols. The economy collapsed, and entrepreneurs saw their lifelong dreams crumble. Fortunately, those that pursued digitalization process were able to survive. If anything, the Covid-19 pandemic urged businesses to continue the journey to digital operations, even if it means overhauling existing processes. The thought of abandoning commercial establishments like offices and headquarters might be costly, but the move to digital channels cultivate business continuity better than waiting for social distancing protocols to relax and on-site operations to continue, especially with the new variants popping up.
The way forward for businesses is digitalization. The Covid-19 pandemic accelerated digital transformation for every company and industry. For a brief period, digitalization isn’t just a long-term and cost-efficient business strategy. It became a savior.
The Confusion Behind Digitalization
There is no question that digitalization solved a significant problem for businesses amid the Covid-19 pandemic. They needed an alternative to traditional on-site setups, and digitalization delivered. As a result, businesses can continue their operations without violating social distancing protocols. In hindsight, it feels like companies make significant progress when pursuing digitalization. However, it doesn’t hide the fact that it is a replacement for an existing system that might already be at its most efficient and productive version.
Digitalization became the norm, with nearly every business resorting to it for survival amid the pandemic. Advantages surrounding efficient task completion, content discovery and creation, customer targeting, and cost-efficiency are now expected outcomes. Organizations would be happy to resume operations after a disastrous adjustment period in 2020. However, the digitalization process will not save a company from laying off employees, reducing operations to bare minimum standards, and even shutting down doors temporarily to recover financially. Even the process involves financial expenses, especially when purchasing digital tools and programs from third-party service providers. This situation is where digitalization provides the most challenges. If you weren’t expecting to invest in it, the costs of digital transformation amid the pandemic might blindside you despite hearing the cost-efficient benefits others achieved.
The Reason Behind Digitalization's Success
If this was the world without the threat of the pandemic, digitalization could position itself as a business solution. Not every company will want to invest heavily into purchasing digital tools and programs to improve effective processes. Also, those technologies require someone who can operate them. As a result, recruiting and hiring people with those qualifications become necessary. As everyone in the business world knows, labor costs are the most significant expenses. Employee wages, benefits, compensation, bonuses, and other taxes make up about 70% of the entire monthly business budget. When you take into account the pandemic’s effects on business profits, it won’t feel like your business is improving while pursuing digitalization.
You’ll need as many capable hands as possible when onboarding operations to the digital realm. However, how are you going to do that without swallowing too many costs amid a financially crippling global crisis? Fortunately, this is where businesses found offshoring solutions.
On-site operations continue to be fickle because of Covid-19 and its mutating variants. It could take years before the pandemic officially ends, which means digitalization will remain dominant for a long period. Offshoring solutions revolve around remote work services, providing businesses with qualified professionals in different parts of the world. They are most popular in countries with low-cost economies and high-quality professionals, such as the Philippines. Most businesses often start with IT outsourcing , securing IT professionals and services for a low price compared to setting up the department themselves. However, it might not take long before you find that offshoring services are also applicable for the rest of your digitalized business divisions. When creating offshore teams from countries with low-cost economies, you can prevent labor costs from becoming financially disruptive for your digitally adjusting organization.
iSupport Worldwide is among the leading offshore ventures in the Philippines. The US-owned BPO company eliminates staffing problems to maintain fast growth for its clients. With top-of-the-line IT and HR support services, fully-branded facilities, and up to 70% cost savings on labor costs, iSupport Worldwide can assist companies of every size and industry with usually costly and time-consuming digitalization processes.
Conclusion
Business owners know that resiliency is among the top qualities of a successful entrepreneur. The Covid-19 pandemic might be one of the most challenging obstacles you will ever face. It’s one problem after another, and many have already given up. However, digitalization process offers a fighting chance. It might not be the solution that everyone needs to improve profits, but it is a path to help organizations thrive amid an unfamiliar and hostile business environment. If you need a helping hand in setting up your IT infrastructure or digitalizing other business divisions, iSupport Worldwide is ready to help. Book a meeting here so we can get started on turning digitalization into an advantage.