What does Digital Transformation really mean and how do you go about it?

According to IDC, 40% of all technology spending in 2019, that is over $2 trillion dollars globally, will be spent on “Digital Transformation”.

But what does that really mean? Is it all chest beating on the part of those CTOs fortunate enough to have the budget to spend, or just a euphemism for modernisation? 

The truth is that it means different things to different people. In its purest form, it is not all about technology; it demands a profound cultural change at an organisational level in order to deliver a truly excellent experience at every point of contact with the customer.

The widely accepted model for Digital Transformation looks something like this :

• Develop a long term Vision and Strategy for your business.
• Foster an environment of change and innovation.
• Re-examine your ‘Customer Journey’ – is it delivering what your customers really want?
• Adopt a Disruptive Business Model and encourage staff to engage with customers in innovative ways.
• Constantly evaluate new technologies to satisfy your needs.

New technologies can help Membership Organisations deliver a better  experience to their Members by enabling them to work in a smarter and more efficient way.

By moving to a leading CMS like Episerver Digital Experience Cloud, which is positioned as a “Visionary” in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Experience Platforms, you can:

• Improve efficiency by combining content and commerce in a single platform.
• Improve Engagement by delivering dynamic personalised content.
• Do more with less by enabling your editors to update content more easily.
• Integrate your legacy CRM to provide a single view of a Member’s activity. 
• Use AI and Analytics to trigger personalised emails and recommend content based on real-time behaviour.
• Use Responsive Design to deliver the content your members want, where and when they want it.

How Ready is your Organisation?

Episerver (now Optimizely) have produced a useful guide which will help you to decide. The report describes how to assess your Digital Agility: can you “Crawl”, “Walk”, “Run” or “Fly” and the strategies you can use to methodically move up to the next level.

The first step is to decide what you need to do to deliver an engaging, valuable and worthwhile digital experience for your Members.

In practical terms, organisations should acknowledge where they are now, select 2-3 areas to improve immediately and 2-3 more to implement once those initial areas are off the ground.

Episerver’s Digital Agility Model focuses on the two areas of business activity which have the most impact on an organisation’s growth and reputation: (1) Customer experience and (2) Digital operations.

By evaluating themselves honestly, organisations can climb to a place where technologies are fully integrated, data is freely exchanged, interactions are entirely relevant, all devices are always accounted for, and internal and external stakeholders are completely empowered to accomplish their goals.

---

For more information give us a call on 0161 260 1500 or drop us a message at info@ultimedia.agency