Business has always faced the necessity of adapting to change, but in the 21st century, Digital Darwinism has brought a tsunami of developments which threaten to overwhelm organisations struggling to catch up and remain competitive.

Many businesses now face the daunting prospect of uprooting familiar systems and processes to remain current in this new age of digital interconnectedness.

However, there are options available which provide opportunities to make a gradual shift into the new market culture, rather than perform a sudden and complete overhaul that will leave the business facing the culture shock of new and unfamiliar systems and processes.

Here are five ways in which a digital transformation will help improve your business and keep it relevant in today’s digital market space.

Digital Communication Channels

Customers demand that organisations keep in touch with them through many different communication channels. They require invoices to arrive in their inbox in PDF format, promotional material by email or social media channels, and hard copy payment reminders via traditional mail.

Centralising these disparate systems into a cohesive whole is a challenge for most businesses, and digitisation is the key to a more efficient business process automation with the aim of creating a more streamlined process.

In 2017, a survey by Billentis reported electronic billing to be a $3.6 billion industry. Compare that to the $17.4 billion it is forecast to be in 2024, and it is not hard to see the vast potential a digital communication transformation offers.

Digital Automation

Manual systems are vulnerable to human error. Data gets entered incorrectly, and documents disappear into the filing system. Amazingly, the IDC discovered that on average 3.5 hours per week are wasted by employees looking for misplaced reports – what’s worse, they often fail to locate them! Digital automation is the key to implementing processes that are error-free and will never get lost in the clutter.

Creating Accurate Data

The world has 2.5 quintillions more bits of data than it had yesterday, and tomorrow promises the same. In the last two years, the world produced 90% of its total data output. With so much data pouring into systems all over the world, it’s not hard to see there’s a challenge in ensuring each piece of information is accurate and usable.

An M-Files report revealed that a business incurs 20% to 35% of its operating costs from working with poor quality data. Establishing digital systems which ensure the validity of data has the potential to increase a company’s profit margin substantially.

Creating A More Compatible Business Ecosystem

As organisations evolve over time, they can become a hodgepodge of incompatible systems that are jury-rigged to play nicely together. Unfortunately, it’s not always possible for a business to do away with a system altogether. A PointSource survey revealed that 84% of those surveyed said that legacy systems were responsible for bringing their digital transformation to a grinding halt.

A digital transformation has the potential to eliminate incompatible systems and create more streamlined and accurate processes.

Saving Time And Increasing Profit

When you combine all the above benefits for digitally transforming business processes and systems, the end result is a saving in both time and money. Digital systems remove many of the bottlenecks inherent in manual systems, while also removing many of the potentials for inaccuracy.

A Billentis report reveals that an organisation can reduce their billing department costs by 60% to 80%, while also increasing the convenience for the customers. If even one of the above scenarios applies to your organisation, incorporating a digital system has great potential for increased profit margins.