Digital Transformation and Data

Digital Transformation is the integration of digital technology into all areas of a business in order to create new or modify existing business processes, culture, and customer experiences. This will make business more effective and efficient. The use of technology is to transform service into something significantly better than to just replicate an existing service in a digital form. As businesses move from paper to spreadsheets to smart applications it is important to create a more mindful change and reimagine how technology can help better manage and administer some of the most critical processes. This reimagining of business in this digital age can be called digital transformation.

Digital transformation is just not about doing a task faster but it is about understanding what technology is really capable of doing for the business and revamping the existing traditional processes. For example, earlier people used to watch movies by choosing to rent CDs by going to the stores and finding their discs. Now, libraries of digital content are streamed on personal devices, with recommendations and reviews based on user preference. By embracing streaming, Netflix with the help of Artificial Intelligence used technology to innovate the content-based recommendation systems. Similarly, during the Pandemic as personal meetings were not possible, most of the meetings were taking place on the online platform.

Digital has changed the way how smart entrepreneurs and pioneering executives are changing the earlier established economic order. Before social media, the business model was that the customer will find the seller. But with coming in of social media the buyer and the seller are able to interact with each other on an online platform without meeting each other on a personal platform. For example with Amazon’s influence over retailing to Facebook’s impact on publishing; traditional firms and sectors are being challenged by digitally-savvy operators.

Digital transformation has seen significant growth in spite of the global pandemic. According to International Data Corporation (IDC) as of May 2020, the spending on the digital transformation (DX) of business practices, products, and the organisation continues to grow at a solid pace despite challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. IDC forecasts that global spending on DX technologies and services will grow by 10.4 percent in 2020 to $1.3 trillion in 2020.

Consumer behaviour has significantly shifted post the pandemic and this will play an important role in shaping the Digital Transformation in the time to come. On one hand, there has been an accelerated shift towards streaming and online fitness. There has been an increase in home cooking and online grocery shopping. Cashless transactions are gaining momentum. On the other hand, optimised automated systems in areas like supply chain management were seen breaking down when seen with a rapid shift in demand and supply in the pandemic. All these consumer behaviour will define digital transformation in the long run but it’s early to say right now that how the long-term consumer behaviour will shape.

Role of Data in Digital Transformation

At the heart of digital transformation is the intelligent management of data throughout the organisation. Those organisations will be successful with Digital transformation which obtain a clear handle on the foundations of modern data management, in specific in the nexus of data quality, cloud, and artificial intelligence (AI). Organisations should ensure generating quality data and insights at a quick pace. According to a survey, only about 20 percent of the data of the company is used; the rest of the data like an untapped energy source has a lot of benefits waiting to be used. Therefore, the wise use of data is one of the most important aspect of successful digital transformation.

Data shared between various application has become a core component of product structure, decision making, strategy, and outcomes. The amount of data businesses collect, produce, use and store has increased exponentially. In December 2018, IDC announced that data worldwide will grow from 33 zettabytes in 2018 to 175 zettabytes by 2025. A staggering growth of 61 percent. The ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT) devices will explode by 2030; with estimates that there will be 125 billion IOT devices by 2030 out of which 75 billion will be consumer devices.

Data Governance

In order for Data Assets not to lose their strategic value, getting Data Governance right is the key. Data Governance is the process to establish methods, layout clear responsibilities, and develop robust processes to standardize, protect, and store data. It ensures that the right data is being used to derive insights; and it ensures that sensitive information is not misused. All this improves the overall efficiency of the processes, reduces errors, and provides the business solid data to work with. Data governance ensures that business define its core area and rules governing the core data.

Data is the fuel of Digital Transformation. Having the data and cleansing of the data is of the utmost importance to make good use of the data. Besides this, the available technology, the processes in the organisation, and the readiness of the organisation to change are the key determinants to Digital Transformation. The successful integration of all these elements will ensure the accomplishment of organisations in their Data Transformation strategy.

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