Today we will talk about digitization. What is it? What benefits can it bring to your business? In what areas has it already shown excellent results?
What is digitization
It started at the end of the 20th century, when the first digital devices appeared. With the widespread advent of the Internet and the advent of smartphones, the transition to digital rails has affected the majority of the world’s population.
Digital media have replaced analog ones, and online stores have replaced the usual offline platforms. Even the learning process has now largely moved to online formats. There are, of course, critics of the new digital world, but, in fact, this is no longer the future, but the present.
Digitalization is the process of transitioning a traditional business to the use of the latest technologies. This is literally what we can see all over the world right now.
And it’s not just about the fact that you, for example, convert your workflow into digital format or start using the possibilities of social networks and e-commerce.
This process implies a more global optimization of the company’s business processes, including ways of communicating with customers and within the company, information storage and processing processes, product development, services, and much more.
So what are the benefits of digitization?
- Business process optimization and cost savings
The costs of time, human resources, and money are minimized. This is achieved by simplifying and automating all processes, including collection and analytics, communication, forecasting, etc.
If earlier, for example, offline formats covered a large percentage outside the target audience and it was very difficult to hook exactly your client, now the possibilities of targeted advertising in social networks and mobile applications allow you to very accurately select the recipients of advertising campaigns, up to what interests have potential clients.
By saving money, a company can invest the accumulated budget in the development of social networks and help its accounts grow. For example, entrepreneurs can take advertising from more popular accounts or buy Instagram followers for their company. This helps them grow their business faster and reach a larger audience.
- Competitive advantage
Digitization brings the quality of goods and services to a new level. A simple example: online trading. Now the client can find the right product in a few minutes, buy it in two clicks and arrange delivery to any location. Yes, there are areas that today necessarily involve offline processes, but there are fewer and fewer of them every day.
- Improving communication with customers and within the company
Digital technologies help the company’s employees to quickly resolve issues and tasks, avoiding paperwork. For example, postal services are launching an interface for tracking parcels online, as well as searching for shipments by phone number. Such measures help speed up customer service and slightly improve the reputation of companies.
Examples of successful cases in various areas of the economy
The Amazon platform has implemented an augmented reality function in its mobile application. The user can view a 3D model of the product in the interior of their home. This allows you to visually see the color and dimensions of the goods and reduce the number of returns.
The car seat factory has become a major logistics service for Schnellecke Logistics. It all started with the fact that the company decided to optimize the supply of chairs. They automated the shipment and acceptance of goods, created a centralized management of equipment at the plant.
As a result, the company began to track the number of seats from retailers, saw their needs and helped customers save millions on new purchases. Thus was born the universal logistics automation system, the first on the market.
The world will never be the same again
A new stage of digitization began with the introduction of a lockdown in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic. The rapid transition to online has allowed a number of business industries to maintain profits and avoid losing staff.
Is there an alternative to digitization and can it be avoided? Apparently not.
However, the pace of movement in this direction differs depending on the countries and sectors of the economy. For example, for large agricultural and industrial companies, this transition is not as easy as for start-ups and IT corporations.
This trend is typical not only for the economies of almost all countries of the world. Even in the United States, which is one of the leaders in digital transformation, companies whose activities are related to large industrial production, real estate development, healthcare, agriculture and hospitality are the slowest to get involved in this process.
But even these sectors of the economy are rapidly digitalizing. And those companies that do it first have a significant advantage over their competitors. Moreover, digitization in our time is the only way to survive in the market.
