Playing an important role in the process of running a business, technology has been the focus of most management meetings and more important than ever to date. The phrase “Digital Transformation” appeared early in the years 2012 and 2013, however, at that time, information networks and online social networking platforms were not as popular as they are currently.
In essence, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) – on one hand – are easily affected by the technological globalisation wave; on the other hand, are the units that easily be able to convert digitally because of the leanness. Once you have the visions, goals, and other necessary conditions, the question is, “How can small and medium-sized businesses conduct digital transformation in the most flexible and effective way to save human resources and finance?”. The following article will outline 5 factors that you may need to consider before making a decision for your own business.
Digital Transformation Towards SMEs – What Is The Proper School Of Thought?
In 2018, Tech Pro Research conducted a survey of a large number of employees of different businesses. Accordingly, only 22% of employees said their companies have a comprehensive digital strategy, while 49% said their companies are “in the stage of digital learning and finding solutions.” Significantly, the remaining 21% said their company “had no direction for digital development and digital transformation”.
In Digital Transformation, businesses do not only focus on exploiting technology to improve operational efficiency, but also constantly listen to customer opinions, in order to explore the potential for further innovation in the near future. Besides, SMEs, on the one hand, are more likely to change their structure and digitise transformation thanks to the streamlined scale and simpler procedures compared to large companies; on the other hand, they may easily encounter knowledge gaps and negligence when conducting the assessment and digital transformation.
Five Factors To Consider When Conducting Digital Transformation
For businesses in general and SMEs in particular, the digital transformation campaign should be led by senior leaders or business owners, in order to have the most accurate overview of challenges and risks, or the change may come to the psychology of customers. Company leaders must learn and have thorough research to consider the digital topics, achievements and benefits that this new business model will bring to businesses.
Sort And Organise The Important Tasks To Prioritise And The Jobs That Follow
First and foremost, before embarking on shaping and implementing an innovation plan is to classify the importance and priority of items to be considered. It is impossible for us to proceed deeper into the overall achievement if we look down or ignore the small details.
A review of the capabilities of the resource and the gathering of the necessary information is often required before deciding whether to work with an external service team or finding a true consultant.
Take Advantage Of This Digital Transformation Opportunity To Refine How You Run Your Business
One opportunity – two benefits. Why not take this digital transformation opportunity to refine how you run your business? For current employees, you should create an awareness of the basic conditions, ensuring that all employees have overall knowledge and understanding of the final product of digital transformation.
In addition, we should also recognise the ability to adopt new technology of company employees. With the “human” element as a core point, we should put the importance of our employees first, not new technology processes or techniques. Make sure that orientation will be held so that all company employees have the opportunity to capture and better understand new plans, technology products…
Integrate External Supporters
After reviewing and assessing the actual potential from internal business resources, you will probably need to consider this factor: Integrate external supporters. If your existing internal resources are not enough to make it, consider hiring outsourcers. Do not try too hard to force or push your employees to support digital transformation, because this is a completely new aspect of the market economy game, not in the professional category of any employee or a business leader. For some companies in heavy industry, agriculture… even the marketing & communications division was not focused on development. Then, what do we expect from such an existing human resource situation?
In today’s marketing ‘playground’, finding a team or an individual who specialises in digital transformation is also quite easy. You can refer to the results of talent search from popular search engines like Google, Bing … or through other sites that attract professionals.
Consider The Tangible Goals
According to Azhari et al., The model for digital transformation consists of eight aspects of digitisation, namely strategy, leadership, product, operations, culture, people, governance and technology. As a business owner, you are definitely the one who knows your business goals better than anyone else.
Don’t rush into digital transformation when you don’t fully understand the nature of your company’s business goals. Because, the results obtained will not be very positive when everything is still unclear and not grasped thoroughly. Thus, make sure you understand each of your short- and long-term goals to make the right decisions.
The Balance Between Strategy – Operating And Creative Working Environment
In my opinion, it will be weird if we carry out digital transformation but still maintain the old-fashioned attitude, working style, process of handling and the cumbersome paper-based business model as before.
Digitalisation requires fundamental changes not only strategically, but also culturally within the company. An apparatus that is too old and not in a spirit of progress will be difficult to maintain future steps when applying new digital technologies. Therefore, always make sure that the working environment in your business is creative and comfortable enough for employees to adopt a new working style with ‘technology associates’.
SMEs Digital Transformation
We have to admit that SMEs play an important role in the inclusive growth of the world economy or the nation particularly. SMEs developing innovative digital models to promote economic growth also contributed significantly to the plan to expand the market and attract more customers.
The process of digital transformation in real SMEs is not too cumbersome and cumbersome due to the fact, the operating structure of SMEs is inherently streamlined. In order to change themselves, the business model, in my perspective, SMEs need to focus primarily on customer data to be able to hold a part of success. Applying digital transformation to the operations of a business may have an impact on the speed and efficiency of work, even across the board. Therefore, please seriously consider the above 5 factors to have a multi-dimensional and most general look for yourself before conducting digital transformation.
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Bruce Pham
I am also the author in Forbes, Business.com, and Tech In Asia. I am also a proud member of the Forbes Technology Council.
Latest posts by Bruce Pham (see all)
- 5 Factors For A Digital Transformation In SMEs - November 3, 2020
