How to Identify Digital Transformation Solutions To Help Your Business

Digital transformation is the process of adapting existing manual data entry to meet new needs and take advantage of new tools introduced by digital technologies. In short, digital transformation is a restructuring of the way we do business to keep up with the progression of technology in society.

In one regard, digital transformation is a reaction to customers’ evolving expectations due to technological advancements. For example, the availability of digital customer support channels means customers often expect faster customer service than they did before digital solutions were around. 

However, in another regard, digital transformation is also a means of improving business productivity. Digital tools can help businesses across almost every industry improve speed, efficiency, accuracy, cost-effectiveness, and more in a variety of areas. We call these tools “digital transformation solutions.” 

Most often, digital transformation is a win-win scenario. In our customer support example, a business can use digital transformation solutions to help more customers in a shorter amount of time (thereby improving productivity from the business’s perspective), and customers can receive the help they need faster (thereby fulfilling expectations from the customer’s perspective).

Solutions like cloud computing, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and many more are all drivers of digital transformation. Mckinsey & Company research indicates that more B2B customers than ever are using digital channels to evaluate and order products and services, and the numbers have steadily risen over recent years.

Digital transformation solutions take many different forms. Nearly every aspect of a business’s operations can be improved in some way using digital tools. For instance, Rossum’s document processing solutions can help B2B organizations process documents such as invoices much more efficiently. 

While most modern document processing systems rely on limited OCR (optical character recognition) technology, Rossum’s solution takes a radically different approach to data capture and analysis that mimics the way human brains quickly locate information on documents with variable formats.

What are some digital transformation frameworks?

A digital transformation framework is like a blueprint or a strategy that a company uses to guide its digital transformation efforts over the course of time. Some of the key elements of digital transformation frameworks include process transformation, business model transformation, domain transformation, and cultural transformation.

An integral part of almost every digital transformation success story is an effective digital transformation strategy. MIT even offers a professional certificate in digital transformation — that’s how important it is to understand how to develop a reliable digital transformation framework. 

Examples of companies that completed a digital transformation and experienced positive effects almost always begin with a digital transformation framework. BCG (Boston Consulting Group) or another digital consulting group can help companies that want to invest in digital transformation but aren’t sure where to begin.

Working with a consulting partner is one way to learn how to build an effective digital transformation framework. PDFs or other online resources can also provide helpful information about establishing a successful digital transformation framework. 

Mckinsey & Company can offer additional resources to help businesses in a wide variety of industries take major strides toward completing a successful digital transformation.

How can you build a digital transformation strategy?

There is a great deal of evidence to suggest that business success is positively influenced by a well-planned digital transformation strategy. McKinsey & Company research from 2020 reports that at the time, only 16 percent of surveyed executives felt their organizations’ digital transformations were going well. 

However, when companies utilize a structured digital transformation framework and implement the proper tools, they are able to achieve positive outcomes such as more convenient customer experiences, lower product development costs, and more.

There are four main areas of digital transformation: 

• Process
• Business model
• Domain
• Culture

These four elements of digital transformation play a central role in nearly every digital transformation strategy, regardless of industry. Countless digital transformation strategy examples across many very different types of organizations have been arranged around these four aspects.

Let’s take a more detailed look at each of these four elements of a complete digital transformation strategy framework.

Process transformation

Process digital transformation involves tailoring business processes to make better use of digital tools and meet digital needs. Process transformation looks very different in each different business because it depends heavily on what kinds of processes a business begins with. 

To determine what steps to take to undergo process transformation, it’s helpful to determine specific goals, assess why current processes are not meeting those goals, and identify digital solutions that could help.

Business model transformation 

Business model transformation is less about changing the individual processes a business uses to produce products or services and more about changing the business’s high-level strategy to suit an increasingly digital world. Some common examples of business model transformations include:

• Price changes
• Changes to target demographics
• New product or service categories

Domain transformation

Unlike process transformation and business model transformation, which both look very different from organization to organization, domain transformation is very similar across all kinds of companies. 

Domain transformation mainly refers to the process of relocating business operations to the cloud. A business might decide to switch to cloud-based operations for many different reasons, including improving scalability or lowering expenses. 

Cultural transformation 

The fourth major area of digital transformation is cultural transformation. Cultural transformation is sometimes also called organizational transformation. 

This is often the most difficult aspect of digital transformation to complete because rather than entailing implementing new tools or updating processes, it entails encouraging workplace culture to evolve  — a much less concrete objective.

It’s usually up to an organization’s leadership team to take steps to keep company culture aligned with company goals. When the goal is digital transformation, this means encouraging employees to adopt new tools and processes, but it also means promoting attitudes and mindsets that center around forward-thinking digital solutions rather than the way it’s always been done.

What’s the digital transformation process?

A successful digital transformation process almost always begins with a well-structured transformation framework. Having a blueprint to guide digital transformation efforts can be a very helpful way to keep the process on track. 

Digital transformation in business comes in all different forms. Different types of businesses in separate industries may have totally different digital transformation goals and take very different approaches to reach them. 

Instead of studying a single digital transformation meaning, it’s usually more worthwhile to narrow in on a specific industry or type of business. For example, a B2C retail business would need to take a very different approach to digital transformation than a B2B SaaS business would.

There are also specific kinds of digital transformation solutions that cater to particular business needs. Each organization’s digital transformation will have different objectives that will benefit from different digital tools. 

One great example of this is Rossum’s automated document processing solutions. For companies that need to process a large number of documents, such as invoices, automating document data capture and analysis can play a significant role in the digital transformation process.

What are current digital transformation trends?

The principles of digital transformation, by their very nature, are continually evolving. It’s good for business leaders to remain aware of the most recent digital transformation trends. Mckinsey and other digital strategy firms can be great sources of insight to help anticipate digital transformation future trends. 

For example, Mckinsey digital transformation case studies that share success stories can help executives learn how to effectively structure their own digital transformation strategies.

Some of the most impactful ongoing digital transformation trends include: 

• Migration to cloud technology 
• Increasing reliance on artificial intelligence 
• Further development of blockchain technology
• Increasing prevalence of the hybrid work model

What are some digital transformation examples?

One of the best ways to get inspired to undertake digital transformation at your own organization is to learn from the successes of other organizations’ digital transformation examples. Companies across all different industries have adapted to the changes in the business world that digital technologies have induced. 

It doesn’t take much searching to find digital transformation examples in banking, digital transformation examples in manufacturing, digital transformation examples in telecom, and many more. While different industries approach digital transformation in unique ways, successful digital transformation examples often have a few things in common. 

One of the most common technologies used in digital transformation strategies is artificial intelligence. AI is an extremely powerful and versatile type of technology that can transform business processes in many different ways. 

For example, Rossum’s document processing AI improves upon traditional OCR data capture by reimagining document processing AI to analyze documents more like a human brain would.

What is a digital transformation PDF?

Digital transformation is a complex subject, and a thorough and effective digital transformation is challenging to accomplish. Business leaders should take advantage of all the resources they can find. 

Educational materials from reliable organizations can be some of the best sources of information and advice — for example, a digital transformation PDF. Digital transformation presentations, PDFs, case studies on digital transformation, Deloitte PDFs, and more can be very useful sources of strategy tips. 

Accomplishing digital transformation in business can be easy with the right resources. PDFs or other sources of information designed to help business leaders establish successful digital transformation frameworks can be valuable assets. 

Whether you’re looking for an advanced guide or simply an introduction to digital transformation, PDFs can often be the perfect place to locate the information you need.

Some organizations make it their whole business model to help other organizations with digital transformation. These organizations often conduct research and make the findings available to businesses that want to learn more about digital transformation. 

Reports like Mckinsey digital transformation PDFs and Mckinsey digital transformation framework PDFs can make it easier to identify trends in digital transformation. McKinsey PDFs and other sources of reliable research can serve as guideposts to help keep the focus on the most impactful areas of digital transformation for your industry.