It seems every year businesses become more digitized, creating a dramatic shift in the way commerce is conducted. Digital businesses are efficient and effective, and that creates competition for you. If you want to keep up with the rapid pace of business evolution, digital transformation of your business is essential.
What Is a Digital Business?
Previously, a digital business brought to mind one with non-tangible assets dispersed digitally, for example, music or software downloads. Nowadays, a digital business refers to one in which processes are digitized at each step of the way -- from product manufacture to customer delivery. Process machinery, customers and employees are heavily dependent on digital technology. This allows for quick access to information, immediacy of visibility, constant connectivity, and ease of consumption.
Linear Value Chain
Traditionally, your business was considered as a single entity along a value chain. Each step of the process formed a chain that began with product manufacture, continued with delivery to a supplier, and then delivery to a retailer who sold it to a customer. It was business-driven, predictable and slow.
Extended Enterprise Ecosystem
A digitized business is more cyclical, adaptable and immediate. Service providers, manufacturers, salespeople and customers interact with one another along the process. They exist together in an ecosystem rather than a step in a process.
Customers build their products and services according to their need, rather than choosing cookie-cutter options. The exciting thing about this business model is that it allows for greater capabilities, leverage of those capabilities, and expansion of revenue streams. Your business can respond quickly to customer customization, operate globally and continuously, and respond to product demand in real time. This is the consumer-driven way.
As business process management continues to shift toward greater digitization, enterprise ecosystems will drive down the cost of manufacturing and suppliers while allowing for a greater global reach to specific populations of consumers.
Moving your company to a digital business model permits flexibility and dynamic responsiveness for delivering value to your customers. The digital age fosters innovation at warp speed, and it's up you to stay abreast of and adapt to the changing landscape.
Interesting articles around digital transformation & Government:
What drive the current digital transformation?
Understanding and accounting for digital disruptions in BPM initiatives
