How do you make digital transformation a reality for your business?
An increasing number of entrepreneurs are embracing digital transformation. In the process, they start using more digital solutions to make their work more effective and to improve the service they provide to their customers. Even if you are a relatively small company, you can easily reap the benefits of this ever-increasing digitalisation. In this article, we are going to explain the best way to tackle this issue.
Do you want to start the digital transformation of your business today?
E-commerce, videoconferencing, online collaboration tools... Since the beginning of the coronavirus crisis, many companies have started to adopt digital technology. The time has therefore come for entrepreneurs to fully embrace digital transformation. And those who hesitate may be left behind for good.
What is digital transformation?
Digital transformation is the process of change that organisations go through as they deploy (more) digital solutions with the aim of working more efficiently and focusing more on their customers.
As a company, undergoing digital transformation will bring you four key benefits:
- It helps cut costs
- It increases the level of accuracy
- It enhances speed
- It makes your business more efficient
How to make digital transformation a reality?
You can use many different digital tools and solutions to make your work more efficient. In this overview, however, we will limit ourselves to a few digital must-haves that you can quickly and easily implement in your company:
1. Optimise your online visibility
Today, companies need to be visible online. Studies show that 70 to 80 % of consumers conduct research online before making an important purchase. This means that if you do not have a website, you will only be able to reach 20 to 30 % of your market. In B2B sectors, these figures can be even more extreme.
So, if you want to be successful (and stay successful), you have no other choice but to be online.
There are three things you need to build your online presence:
- A domain name: That is your online address, or the name of your website.
- A mailbox: That is your digital mailbox where customers and partners can e-mail you.
- Web hosting: Your website consists of a lot of data, which are stored on a web server.
Read more about this subject in our article "What you need to get your website online".
Combell can help you host your website, register your domain name and create your mailbox.
Get me online as soon as possible
2. Collaborate with colleagues online
You can also run your business while your employees work remotely. However, working on joint projects is not always easy. Some documents are stored on a local PC or laptop, meaning that not all team members have all the information or the latest version of a document.
You can avoid such problems by getting your office online using Microsoft 365. This will allow you to store all your documents online so that they are available to all relevant colleagues, and possibly also partners or customers. When a document is edited, everyone immediately has the updated version available. Moreover, you can always use the latest stable versions of all Microsoft applications.
You can also read "How to start teleworking in 3 simple steps".
3. Go for digital accounting
As a company, you often have to deal with challenging amounts of administration and paperwork. There are quite a few tools available to help you digitise your paper documents. The digitalisation of your accounting has many advantages:
- Exchange documents with your accountant in no time
- Gain insight into your current figures anytime, anywhere
- Use less paper
- Process everything faster
- Automate processes, such as invoicing or purchase and sales management
- Reduce the risk of human error
4. Digital meetings
Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams… Thanks to the coronavirus crisis, almost everyone is now familiar with these online meeting tools. Digital meetings will continue to exist even after the full or partial lockdown periods. They are extremely convenient for holding a meeting with team members who are located in different locations. These applications are also ideal solutions for meetings with customers or foreign partners.
If you use Microsoft 365, Microsoft Teams is the simplest solution. It is integrated into all Microsoft applications, including the full Office suite and Skype. Teams combines business VoIP, collaboration and video features in a single app.
The core of digital transformation: focus on your customer
The main goal of any digital transformation process is to improve your customers' experience.
If you work more efficiently, your customers will reap the benefits as well. Faster answers, better service, clearer communication... Digitalisation always leads to a better customer experience. Because you have to spend less time on your internal processes, which means you can spend more time taking care of your core business and your customers.
Would you like to work on your digital transformation?
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