Ignacio G.R. Gavilán / @igrgavilan
Industrial Engineer, Executive MBA and PMP (Project Management Professional)
She loves me, she loves me not, loves me, loves me not…Your feelings are mixed. You’re not sure whether to take things a step further, whether to take the plunge. And while you’re wondering, you pluck the daisy petals…It’s undoubtedly attractive… Digital technology is attractive.
You’ve heard that digital technology is transforming the economy, companies, and homes, that never before seen efficiency levels are being reached and that you could achieve exponential revenue growth. They say that digital technology allows you to know everything about your customer and to provide fully personalised offers. They tell you that you can move your applications to the cloud and pay for the service only to the extent that you really need it. They surprise you with an Internet where machines talk to each other and to people. They say that the machines are capable of understanding your voice and speaking your language. They surprise by saying that machines can even learn autonomously, that cars drive themselves, and that machines interpret images and videos. And many, many more fascinating things…
Yes. It’s very attractive… Digital technology is very attractive.
So you’d like to take the step and get on board with the Digital Transformation. But you’re confused. What actually comprises digital transformation? What can it do for your business?
You’ll see. Digital Transformation is a broad concept, which is why it may seem confusing to you. And there’s no single way to do it, but a different way for each organisation, for each company.
First of all, you must know that there are multiple digital technologies and solutions and are constantly evolving. That’s why it seems so difficult to tackle this topic.
There are certain basic technologies such as digital communications and information systems and increasingly more advanced technologies and solutions which are built on top :
- New IT models that make it possible to no longer house applications in your own data centre, but in that of a provider (cloud computing) and to pay according to how much you use their services, for example, infrastructure (Infrastructure as a Service, IaaS) or applications (Software as a Service, SaaS).
- Solutions that, by using mobility communications and sensors of all kinds, are capable of interconnecting machines (The Internet of Things) and even people (wearables), and, when combined within the urban environment, can make cities more sustainable and intelligent (Smart Cities).
- Technologies that enable real time analysis of massive quantities of information, including unstructured data such as message on social media, images, or videos (Big Data).
- Hardware and software that enable the creation of such immersive illusions that these seem to constitute a parallel digital reality or complementary reality to the physical tangible one (virtual and augmented reality).
- Algorithms that allow machines to learn and adapt their behaviour based on incoming and outgoing data (Machine Learning / Deep Learning).
- Software that makes it possible to perform tasks that indicate intelligence and that until now seemed reserved for humans (artificial intelligence), including the ability to speak and see (speech recognition, image recognition, natural language processing).
- And much, much more…
Digital Transformation is nothing more than the use of technology to radically change your company, its operating mode, and how it addresses the market. If digital technologies are varied, what you can change with the digital transformation process is no less than:
- You can review your portfolio of products and services, offering digital solutions or surrounding physical assets with digital characteristics.
- You can change how you relate to your customers, offering them an personalised, innovative and omni-channel experience by using, for example, apps, intelligent voice assistants, or augmented reality experiences.
- You can redefine your business processes, how you operate and work internally, by automating currently manual tasks or by carrying out adaptive and self-calibrated processes
- You can choose to recreate your entire business model, particularly in how you obtain revenue, by taking advantage of the zero marginal costs of digital goods and their scalability. You can adopt freemium, trilateral or platform models.
- You can make cultural changes and changes to how your employees interact with each other, or to how they train and learn
This and more, much more… anything your imagination can conceive of for your business… It’s normal to feel confused because there are a lot of technologies and many different transformation options. Just know that there is a digital transformation for you and your company, and there’s no point to waiting around and wondering…
Ah! Digital technology! Oh so attractive! Won’t it? Still plucking off those daisy petals? Still asking yourself ‘she loves me, she loves me not’? Don’t think twice! It loves you! And you love it! Take the plunge!
