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What Is Digital Transformation?
Digital transformation is the process of incorporating computer-based technologies into an organization's products, processes and strategies.
Which digital technologies are used, how they are implemented, and what are the goals guiding the implementation can differ from company to company. But all digital transformation initiatives aim to improve business results by adopting modern digital technology.
A digital transformation initiative can contain many different aspects. At one extreme, it can involve reinventing all facets of an organization, including supply chains, workflows, employee skill sets, the product itself, how customers interact with the organization, and organizational structure. More limited initiatives can involve adopting digital technology to improve a specific business process, product, or service, reduce costs, or solve a specific business problem. This is part of an extensive series of guides about software development.
In this article:
- Why Is Digital Transformation Important?
- 5 Types of Digital Transformation
- What Are Digital Transformation Drivers and Technologies?
- Digital Transformation Use Cases and Industry Examples
- How to Create a Digital Transformation Strategy
- Cloud Transformation with NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP
Why Is Digital Transformation Important?
The digitalization of society began in the second half of the 20th century and accelerated during the early 21st century. It led to global cultural changes, and a new generation of consumers who are digital-first, discovering and interacting with the world through the lens of a digital device. In this environment, businesses must adapt to appeal to consumers and speak in their language.
For many companies, new technologies can make their products obsolete, and are thus at risk of being taken over by competitors who are more agile and technically savvy. Emerging technologies enable new business models, more engaging customer experiences, innovative products and services, and other innovations, and companies must undertake digital transformation to stay competitive.
In addition, the pace of digital business transformation is accelerating. Digital transformation cannot be a one-time activity. Organizations must develop a mentality and culture of ongoing development, adapting services and systems faster and more often, continuously incorporating new technology and practices to better meet customer expectations.
5 Types of Digital Transformation
1. Business Process Transformation
Business process innovation changes the way companies work internally. It affects how employees gain access to new technology and use it for their day-to-day jobs. This includes automating manual processes and maximizing investments in marketing and R&D by gathering new data and incorporating it into business decisions.
A key objective of business process transformation is cost reduction. Other objectives include reducing time to market, improving the quality of the products and services, improving customer experience, and improving brand image.
2. Business Model Transformation
This type of transformation changes business models to adapt them to the new digital environment. This requires careful consideration of how the core business of the industry operates. A successful change can disrupt an entire industry—like Netflix did for home videos and Amazon for retail.
Business model transformation often involves the strategic part of the business to explore the potential of new ways of doing business, beyond what is currently established in the industry. It focuses on innovation and “thinking outside the box” to improve business outcomes.
3. Domain Transformation
Domain transformation means transcending traditional boundaries currently facing a brand’s markets and possibilities. For example, the online retailer Amazon launched Amazon Web Services, now the world’s largest cloud computing provider with billions of dollars in revenue. Amazon took existing capabilities (their large, highly advanced data centers) and turned them into a new opportunity that created a whole new market.
This potential for domain transformation exists in many industries and is driven by the use of technologies like artificial intelligence, new types of mobile and wearable technology, and the internet of things.
4. Cultural Transformation
Digital transformation has a cultural component, which is critical to the success of any digital transformation initiative. For many organizations, this transition can be challenging. Digital transformation must start with education for existing staff, to ensure everyone understands the potential of new technology for improving the business, forging internal collaboration, and creating new methods for engaging customers.
Leveraging technology, and creating a process of continuous innovation, requires a workforce that can adapt to change and is willing to continuously learn and develop. These skills and capabilities are necessary to integrate technology into the fabric of a company and transform processes, business models, products, and communications.
5. Cloud Transformation
The cloud transformation process helps organizations migrate information systems to cloud computing environments. It can take various shapes—for example, a company can migrate only specific applications, data, or services, and retain some legacy infrastructure, or move their entire infrastructure to the cloud.
Another dimension of cloud transformation is ownership—some organizations leverage the public cloud, a third-party data center operated by a cloud provider. Others set up cloud computing infrastructure in-house, which is known as a private cloud. Many combine the two models to create hybrid cloud management of infrastructure.
Cloud innovation offers many benefits, including more efficient data sharing and storage, faster time-to-market, and greater organizational scalability and flexibility. At the same time, it raises major organizational challenges including governance, security, and cost control.
What Are Digital Transformation Drivers and Technologies?
Here are key technologies enabling digital transformation:
- Cloud computing—enables organizations to quickly and affordably access computing resources, advanced software, new updates and functionalities. Instead of waiting weeks and months to set up on-premises resources, organizations can use the cloud to access resources over the Internet from any location in the world.
- Commoditized IT—enables organizations to shift the focus of investments and human resources from infrastructure to innovation that provides value to customers and differentiates the organization in the marketplace.
- Mobile platforms—enable work from anywhere in the world, at any time, providing quick access to corporate resources.
- Machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI)—provide organizations with intelligent insights that empower more accurate and faster decision-making. It helps inform various strategic areas like marketing, sales, and product development.
- Automation—enables organizations to delegate repetitive tasks to machines, freeing up time for human resources to improve productivity and efficiency.
- Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR)—provide access to services remotely in a gamified way that encourages engagement.
- Internet of Things (IoT) devices—provide data to inform AI services, which offer automation and personalization.
- Edge computing—helps process data at the device level, keeping it private and accessible and enabling low latency data processing.
- Blockchain technology is revolutionizing the entire technology landscape, enabling decentralization across numerous industries. Payment processing through ledgers that anonymize transactions is the basic use case.
All of these technologies are employed by businesses worldwide to deliver unique services and experiences. Digital transformation strategies help organizations keep up with this ever-changing pace, identify relevant technologies, and implement them at scale and on budget.
Learn more in our detailed guide to digital transformation technologies
Digital Transformation Use Cases and Industry Examples
Here are some of the common objectives of digital transformation in organizations:
- Improve customer experience—use analytics to build richer content experiences and forge deeper relationships with audiences across multiple channels.
- Rethink computing infrastructure—migrate from a physical data center to a cloud platform to accelerate development, improve reliability, and shorten time to market.
- Improve internal collaboration—use collaboration tools like video conferencing, online task management, and messaging platforms to boost productivity of employees.
- Improve content accessibility—most organizations rely on content, either for internal activities or as part of customer-facing activity. Digital transformation can make content accessible in new ways through enterprise search and new delivery platforms.
Here are some examples of how digital transformation can contribute to organizations in different industry sectors:
- Manufacturing—the internet of things (IoT) can increase efficiency and profitability by enabling predictive maintenance and process improvement, reducing machine downtime and scrap.
- Retail—digital technology uses digital devices, channels, and platforms to create an improved customer experience. For example, many retailers are extending the shopping experience from brick-and-mortar stores to websites and web applications. Chatbots, artificial intelligence and advanced data analytics enable retailers to deliver personalized recommendations. Digital technology is also providing a more engaging in-store experience.
- Healthcare—the healthcare industry is introducing a range of digital capabilities that can adapt medical services, making them more patient-centric and value-based. For example, many healthcare providers are offering virtual medical appointments and networked electronic health records (EHR). Digital capabilities can benefit not only patients but also providers and payers, while reducing service provisioning costs.
- Smart cities—by combining existing physical infrastructure with digital technologies, digital smart cities are becoming more efficient, providing citizens with a higher quality of life. For example, smart cities can monitor and solve environmental issues, optimize public transport, and promote citizen participation and collaboration through digital means. Smart cities leverage technologies such as sensors, artificial intelligence, and video analytics.
- Banking—financial institutions are transitioning from the traditional operating model of branch offices with bankers providing face-to-face service, to a variety of digital models. Banks are rolling out web applications and mobile applications to provide access to bank services, and are collaborating with FinTech startups to provide new mobile payment solutions. Learn more in our guide to digital transformation in banking
See more examples in our detailed guide: digital transformation examples
How to Create a Digital Transformation Strategy
Here are a few ways your company can create a successful digital transformation strategy.
Learn more in our detailed guide to digital transformation strategy
Identify and Measure Business Goals
Start by clearly identifying the business drivers of your digital transformation initiative. Consult with stakeholders to see where technology can have the biggest impact, and make sure the relevant teams understand the motivation and buy into the project, even before you start.
The most effective digital transformation goals come with key performance indicators (KPIs) that can be tracked as they reach their goals, helping you justify the effort and investment to everyone involved.
Hire Experts
In many organizations, there is insufficient internal expertise to lead a digital transformation. There are several ways to bolster internal skill sets. You can hire full-time employees with digital transformation experience or bring in a consulting firm. As the digital transformation project evolves, many companies hire specific roles required in IT, marketing, analytics, and other areas.
Build on your Strengths
When considering a digital transformation project, think about the strengths of your company today—your existing customer base, successful products, and the values your brand has become known for. Make sure you are not erasing any existing value. Digital transformation should be a natural extension of your previous efforts, preserving your company’s strengths and taking them to new heights, rather than erasing them and starting anew.
For example, a retailer with a strong brand image might be tempted to revitalize their brand and create a new look and feel for the digital space. However, continuing the same logo, branding, and voice from existing retail stores and traditional advertising could make the digital efforts more successful.
Establish New Operational Policies
Before you deploy a new tool or technology, think carefully about how you want your employees to use it. When procedures are not clearly defined or are not practical in the context of current business operations, employees will naturally return to the old way of doing things.
Work with departments and teams to define operational policies that will leverage new technologies, provide value to employees, and make them more productive. This often requires a cultural transformation and ongoing educational process across the company.
Establish an Iterative Transformation Process
Digital transformation is not done overnight. Make small changes, evaluate their value, and continue from there. Don’t be afraid to revert changes or change strategy according to the results and feedback from the field. A digital transformation project that evolves through a series of stages is more likely to succeed than a “big bang” change. Keeping the strategy agile, will help you learn what works and rapidly adapt to changing circumstances.
Consider Following a Digital Transformation Framework
Several analysts and consulting firms have developed digital transformation frameworks, which you can use instead of building your strategy from scratch.
Starting from a recognized framework ensures you don’t miss important steps and avoid repeating mistakes that other organizations have made. This can be especially important if your management team has no experience in digital transformation. Of course, it is important to adapt frameworks to your organization’s specific goals and requirements.
Cloud Transformation with NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP
Cloud computing is at the core of digital transformation, elevating it from the adoption stage of digital technology to include also the tools, rebuilding process, and the experience of a virtual environment that is accessible from anywhere. In order for an organization to achieve its goals and secure future viability, it needs to adopt a cloud-first or hybrid cloud management strategy.
NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP, the leading enterprise-grade storage management solution, delivers secure, proven storage management services on AWS, Azure and Google Cloud. Cloud Volumes ONTAP capacity can scale into the petabytes, and it supports various use cases such as file services, databases, DevOps or any other enterprise workload, with a strong set of features including high availability, data protection, storage efficiencies, Kubernetes integration, and more.
NetApp and Cloud Volumes ONTAP play a key role in the cloud transformation process, helping enterprises move workloads and data to the cloud securely, manage them efficiently, and integrate them with modern cloud technologies. This frees the organizations from the burden of managing large-scale storage infrastructure and allows them to focus on their core business.
In particular, Cloud Volumes ONTAP assists with cloud migration in digital transformation projects. Learn more about how Cloud Volumes ONTAP helps with lift and shift cloud migration.
Read how Cloud Volumes ONTAP helps customers in these Cloud Migration Case Studies.
Read More About Digital Transformation
There’s a lot more to learn about Digital Transformation. To continue your research, take a look at the rest of our blogs on this topic:
8 Digital Transformation Technologies and Their Business Impact
Digital transformation sometimes involves changing existing services into digital form, but it can be even more impactful when it uses technology to improve existing services, or even create completely new ones. Learn about the exciting technologies driving business transformation - including cloud, AI, IoT, AR, and additive manufacturing.
Read more: 8 Digital Transformation Technologies and Their Business Impact
What Is Digital Transformation in Banking?
Digital transformation aims to integrate computer technologies into an organization's business processes, strategies, and products. In the banking sector, digital transformation requires migrating to digital and online services. Learn how this trend is changing the industry and discover cutting edge technologies are being adopted by banks worldwide.
Read more: What Is Digital Transformation in Banking?
The Future of Cloud Computing: 5 Trends You Must Know About
Cloud computing has grown into a major paradigm in the tech world. It enables ubiquitous and simple on-demand access to shared computing resources via configurable Internet services. Get a brief history of cloud computing, current adoption trend, and key trends driving the cloud computing industry forward.
Read more: The Future of Cloud Computing: 5 Trends You Must Know About
Digital Transformation in Healthcare: 4 Key Trends
Digital transformation involves incorporating computer-based technologies into the organization's processes, strategies, and products. Understand how digital transformation in healthcare can benefit healthcare providers and patients, and discover technological trends driving the revolution.
Read more: Digital Transformation in Healthcare: 4 Key Trends
Digital Transformation: Examples from 5 Industries
Digital transformation involves building digital technologies into an organization's products, processes, and strategies. Understand the general use cases of digital transformation and see digital transformation examples from banking, healthcare, retail, and additional industries.
Read more: Digital Transformation: Examples from 5 Industries
Digital Transformation Strategy: 6 Tips for Success
Any digital transformation requires a well-planned strategy to help businesses achieve their desired outcomes. Learn 6 tips that can make your digital transformation strategy a success and help you build a winning team.
Read more: Digital Transformation Strategy: 6 Tips for Success
Cloud Adoption Strategy: What’s the Best Approach for Your Organization?
Adopting the cloud is an important part of a digital transformation. Choosing a cloud adoption strategy will be a crucial decision point along the way. This article dives deep into each aspect of today’s cloud architecture options, looking at the benefits and the drawbacks to each approach— from hybrid deployment that keeps one foot on-prem to cloud-only deployment—so you can see which is right for you.
Read more in: Cloud Adoption Strategy: What’s the Best Approach for Your Organization?
Cloud Computing Deployment Models and Architectures
If the cloud is part of your digital transformation, it’s key to understand the basic cloud computing models and deployment architectures available. Knowing the difference will be key to making your cloud adoption a reality.
In this post we’ll give you a primer on the basic structure of the cloud’s offerings, and the different ways that users are adopting the cloud.
Read more in: Cloud Computing Deployment Models and Architectures
Modern Data Estate: What IT Leaders Need To Know
With enterprises shifting to multi-environments such as the cloud and on-prem among others, the need to build a data estate is essential for managing data. Creating a data estate for your organization takes some planning both in terms of mindset and finding the right technologies to use.
In this article, we look at the factors businesses need to take into account to create and operate a successful data estate.
Read more in: Modern Data Estate: What IT Leaders Need To Know
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