If you run any U.S. business, you’ve likely heard the digital transformation buzzwords. You may think it just means upgrading to the best tools for your IT department, and while that’s certainly part of it, the truth is that it’s about upgrading in innovative ways across all departments. It isn’t just about your technology either—digital transformation is also about the people at your company. It would help if you had leaders who can implement new technology quickly and employees who understand how to use it and why it’s needed.
Many companies struggle a bit as they pursue digital transformations, which is to be expected. Still, a failure to commit means that your company will lag behind legacy systems and approaches that don’t work anymore. Look at the latest Magic Quadrant Data Science report to see some of the greatest vendors in telecommunications, retail, manufacturing, logistics, and more to see what companies you should work with to modernize your business. A Magic Quadrant combines research publications’ findings about a specific market to see which vendors are performing best in each niche.
Here are some of the most important areas to focus on for your digital transformation.
Search and Analytics
As companies become more entwined with big data, they find themselves needing reliable search and data analytics options. Enterprise organizations, in particular, tend to have unique needs compared to other companies since they often have thousands of web pages to run, not to mention customers and employees to keep track of. It doesn’t take a data scientist to know that you need a fast and accurate way to sort through all your data and glean actionable insights to improve your business processes. That’s where an artificial intelligence-powered search and text analytics solution comes in.
Advanced analytics platforms that take advantage of AI and machine learning can simultaneously index data from multiple data sources and return relevant results for even your most complex questions in practically real-time, thus greatly cutting down on research time. Additionally, AI assistants can be deployed in the cloud, so you won’t have to worry about storage space or installing on-premises, making these great options for any technology user.
Software Development
If you want to edge out your competition, then you’ll need custom software that does things they can’t do or does the things they can do better. Fortunately, you don’t have to be a software visionary to get this done since you can hire another company to make your solutions for you or take advantage of developer resources to help you.
You may find that a development company can make something that you can integrate easier into your current solutions compared to off-the-shelf products. Custom software is also great if your company has particular needs that are difficult or time-consuming to meet with typical software. You can even have custom mobile apps to improve communication within your team or make it more convenient for customers to shop.
CRM solution a major focus of your digital transformation is a great idea. These systems help your sales team pursue leads more effectively, making storing and recovering customer information easier than ever.
As far as creating a better customer experience, modern CRM programs let customers contact your support agents, not just through phone calls. They can still use any digital communication channel, including text, social media, mobile apps, live chat, etc. Intelligent routing enabled by machine learning means customers aren’t placed on hold either and are quickly connected to the best agent for their concerns, thus alleviating a great deal of frustration associated with call centers.
The full benefits of digital transformation are practically limitless. If you can find the provider that best matches you for each particular purpose, you’ll likely stand far above your competitors.
