Debunking Myths about Digital Transformation

Category Industry Insights

Leaders today are actively looking toward replacing their conventional way of doing things and discovering different routes to staying sustainable, profitable, and providing unique, differentiated value for their customers. While the early adopters are well into their respective digital transformation journeys, the laggards are slowly coming to grips with terms of how their legacy systems are hindering the growth of their businesses. The relevancy of digital transformation in today’s technology climate has never been more pronounced and though there has been a lot of clarity surrounding its conceptualization and execution, several myths and hyperboles give rise to confusions and assumptions that hinder leaders from the beginning or even taking the next step in their digital transformation journey.

Here are 6 common myths about Digital Transformation.

Myth: Small organizations do not and cannot undergo digital transformation

Fact: SMEs play an integral role in the world’s economy through significant contributions in various areas such as productivity, trade, and employment. A survey by Techaisle found that 82% of these SMEs have turned to digital transformation to enhance and deliver better business value. Digital Transformation allows SMEs to strategically adapt and optimize their business goals in a changing digital environment while enhancing several focal areas such as customer centricity, cross-departmental collaboration, and operational efficiency across the organization.

Myth: Digital transformation is expensive and has a certain amount of risk to it

Fact: It is true that digital adoption does not come cheap but by adopting or partnering with the right organization to drive the adoption process, it becomes possible to profitably compete and sustain in the changing digital landscape. It is important to focus on the way in which the money is spent rather than the amount of cost associated with it. Finding cost-efficient and scalable means such as cloud-based or subscription-led services is a good example of enabling the right technology for your digital transformation journey.

Myth: Only IT companies undergo Digital Transformation

Fact: Technology adoption can help reap a number of business benefits for companies that fall outside of the IT sector. By leveraging the power of technology through the use of state-of-the-art technologies such as AI, ML, IoT, and bringing in a data aspect to their businesses, sectors such as Manufacturing, Automobile, Government, Retail, Banking, Health Care, Real Estate can help reach business goals faster, remain sustainable, and become more profitable.

Myth: Digital Transformation is Optional

Fact: New-age technology adoption has become a mandate for businesses that aim at being sustainable and profitable in the coming future. By adapting to the digital landscape using technology, businesses can advance their processes, build more customer-centric products, create an empowering workforce, improve operational efficiency and create better opportunities for organization-wide growth and revenue. Treating digital transformation as an option rather than a mandate might lead to redundant growth, lesser profitability, and vulnerability among the competition. A classic example would be in the case of Netflix vs Blockbuster. The former embraced technology and went on to become one of the top streaming services in the world while the latter trusted its existing capabilities and was ultimately put out of business.

Myth: Only B2C companies benefit from digital transformation

Fact: This is definitely not true. A study by McKinsey indicated that about 25% of the top B2B organizations digitally transform themselves to keep themselves up to date with the changing digital climate. These early adopters saw an increase of about 3.5% in revenue and achieved a 15% higher profitability than other B2B organizations that participated in the study. 

Myth: Focusing on only one aspect of digitalization will be enough

Fact: A successful transformation initiative needs to begin at the core and not at the outliers. Leaders today realize that only digitalizing individual aspects such as customer services/experience would not be enough unless the core of their business can sustain itself in the new data landscape. Successful transformations being in the modernization of legacy infrastructure, removing and fixing core technology issues and lags, treating legacy bottlenecks, etc, Scalability of the business becomes a vital part of the digital transformation outcomes to further propagate towards achieving the business’s strategic goals.

Digital transformation has never been more important than it is now. With the biggest and the most common myths dispelled, you can begin your digital journey with a focus on the things that really matter.

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