As the world has become increasingly entrenched in the use of technology, there is an impetus for businesses to follow suit. They can do this through various means — including setting up ecommerce operations, accepting online payment methods and embarking on digital marketing.
These days, though, digitizing a business isn’t simply a nice idea; it can be essential to that company’s survival. If your business is struggling, you could have overlooked many valuable digitization opportunities — like those mentioned below…
Many companies are trailing in their digitization efforts
While it could be said that the corporate world has been in the process of digitization for more than two decades now, you could be surprised to learn what proportion of companies are still lagging in this transformation.
According to a statistic from the MIT Center for Information Systems Research (CISR), just 28% of established businesses have successfully digitized. So, by making a concerted effort to increase your own firm’s adoption of technology, you can help to get ahead of the pack.
Digitization can save your company money
For example, storing printed business documents can necessitate added spending on labor, supplies and office space compared to saving and storing these documents digitally.
Corporate digitization can also generate financial savings more indirectly by saving your business time. Simply clicking a ‘save’ button before dragging and dropping a digital file into a cloud-based storage folder can be far more time-efficient than printing out and physically filing a document.
You can enhance the customer experience
Many of your customers are likely to be hard-pressed for time and so delight in you enabling them to use online processes where, with just a few clicks on a mouse or taps on a phone, they can engage with and buy from your company.
Imagine, say, letting these customers buy through an app emblazoned with your brand name and colors and pay for goods via digital payment methods like Apple Pay and Google Pay.
Digitization makes it easier to engage customers
Startup Savant observes that the “amount of time customers spend online is increasing”. Furthermore, when you digitize many elements of your marketing, you can more easily reach out to customers in a way that does not come across as ‘salesy’.
You could succeed in driving customer engagement with webinars delivered over the ON24 platform, allowing any marketing messages spread along the way to remain subliminal. Another idea would be to post a series of educational blog posts on your website.
Your business can respond more quickly to emerging trends
The Digital Marketing Institute says that digital speed is “as much as five times faster than traditional businesses”, adding that modern marketing “is uber-successful when it’s agile and shows the ability to jump on viral and trending subjects”.
One good case in point — and one highlighted by the Institute — is when, in 2014, Apple’s iPhone 6 was found to be prone to bending. The KitKat marketing department responded to ‘bendgate’ by humorously boasting on Twitter that KitKat bars break rather than bend.
