Everybody heard about digitalization, but the concept is still vague for many. In most cases, it is about business. But it can be misleading. It is not even a question of reaching your customers on the Web – it is a new lifestyle you can’t avoid.
What is Digitalization?
Digitalization concerns all aspects of your business, like storing the data, communication, workflow, training, and so on. In brief, it means that you add the most cutting-edge digital technologies to all spheres of your work, and use them at full-load.
At the same time, there are enough myths as well. You know them – it is too expensive, it is so difficult to master the new products and so on. In fact, it is not.
- Digitalization does not demand to spend lots of money. Tools and services available now make everything faster and cheaper than you expect.
- Each new generation of technologies is more comfortable to master. New professional products often work under the same UI/UX principles as the most popular public services. Exclusive innovations look and perform like good old friends. Besides, it encourages your employees to improve their skills.
- Digitalization is vital for customers. They are impatient, but you can meet them on their home territory and immediately react to their needs. If they ask urgent questions, you get a chat-bot to answer them at any time. To make it simpler to use your services, offer them a mobile app. When customers get what they need quickly and easily – they become satisfied, loyal clients.
- Innovations help your business grow. Most of the significant players of today are young companies, and the market changes rapidly. As soon as your business becomes prosperous, you will have to serve many more demands. Here is where you need helping digital tools. Even if you are small right now, think about the more prominent future. Digitalization gives you flexibility and speed, and this is vital.
Digitalization in Practice
It suits any business. For a small team, it gives useful tools to communicate with customers. As for large companies, they also need digitalization on all levels – communication, internal processes, training, document flow, and so one.
The thing is, you can always find an appropriate solution for your business. If there is not a ready thing at the moment – you can get it created for you.
Customer experience
The most evident field changed by digitalization is customer experience. It is valid for all businesses, big and small. At the end of the day, it is all about people.
Old persuasive means don’t work as before – the customers get far and further. That’s why sophisticated systems gather data on people’s behavior. Each case of interaction becomes the food for thought. What makes our users happy or sad? What do they expect to get from us? How do they react to changes? How can we speak the same language?
Digital wonders can help. They compile tons of the patterns, and Artificial Intelligence analyzes them more precisely than any human being could. It is their job to calculate how efficient the new strategies will be.
Digital marketing
The retail sphere is the most obvious example of digitalization benefits. We can relate it to the more general Marketing field of customer researches.
Digital media are faster and available via many channels. The influence of social networks is crucial, as they are sources of information for many users. People want to see or get the same things they learned about on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Hence, every company utilizes these services to learn more about their customers and influence their decisions.
There are more practical means, as well. Remember all those smaller things like discount coupons and loyalty cards? You don’t need to keep another piece of paper or plastic in a wallet – you can get the digital card and present it on the screen of your phone.
And though interactions between suppliers and customers are evident samples, new technologies help in more areas. Digitalization comes to healthcare, finances, education, and even world politics.
Medicine
Healthcare got the most efficient digital tools for daily tasks – running tests, diagnoses, and managing sophisticated machines. We also have telemedicine to obtain quality medical consultations from leading experts online.
Or, did you ever think about how many people use mobile apps to track vital statistics in real-time? And how important is that information for medical researches? Digitalization in medicine is no less important than the invention of antibiotics.
Banks and finances
Banks were always the strongholds of traditionalism. But now they are among the primary clients for digitalization. Perhaps, it was not an easy decision to reconsider the whole structure, but it turned out to be a winning choice.
You have to attend your bank in person in rare cases, as almost all regular transactions and services are online. There are web portals and mobile apps for your convenience. Major payment systems like PayPal introduced alternatives to plastic cards – you can already pay for anything with your smartphone!
With a digital transformation, anyone can visit the world’s best museums in virtual reality, or translate any language in passing. Both governments and citizens need digital services. It is our life now: digitalization is everywhere.
The Digital Future is Waiting Around the Corner
Remember futuristic predictions from the end of the XIX and the beginning of XX centuries? The great futurists of the past were mistaken in many aspects – the future turned out different from what they imagined. Can we predict the future for, at least, the next five years?
The things we imagine are based on evident trends. It looks like there won’t be “Terminator” or “The Matrix” variants – at the current stage AI are far from becoming so advanced. However, the importance of AI and automation will only grow and dominate. Many aspects of blockchain came into prominence in the last couple of years, and this technology won’t disappear. There are many more capabilities of blockchain hidden so far. The world technological leaders experiment with quantum computing that itself can be a revolution.
Speaking of more practical cases, we can’t omit communication. The world will let the people of all cultures understand each other better. Language barriers will eventually be broken by machine translation, as it becomes more accurate every day. Digitalization will help to preserve the best works of art and make them available for everyone.
We will get more breakthroughs in medicine and new ways to diagnose and cure diseases. There will be more online universities and new jobs. The digitalized world will definitely have much more freedom and transparency.
Governments will have to lead these trends to survive and evolve. There will be more threats too. People are always people! But we will be able to fight them more efficiently.
Maybe we’ll see the optimistic future from science fiction books. Things are changing rapidly, and tomorrow may bring us a new invention that will become the giant leap for all humanity.