This article gives consultants and other professional advisors an overview of the best digital transformation practices from different business perspectives. With these learnings, we want to inspire consultants to think about digital transformation and help them to transform and scale their business. Here we go!
Companies like Nike, IKEA, and McDonald’s are leveraging technology to serve their customers and deliver great experiences.
In the words of Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft Corporation, “Longevity in this business is about being able to reinvent yourself or invent the future.”
While digital transformation is often hard to get right, a lot of companies are investing heavily in intelligence tools to drive this movement and win more customers as a result.
According to research by Accenture, senior executives spent $100 billion to scale digital innovations across a wide range of industries.
Whether you’re a CEO, a business manager, or a consultant, … embracing digital transformation can help you scale and dominate your industry.
In this article, you’ll discover some examples of companies that are doing digital transformation right, the best practices to adopt, and how your consulting business can benefit from this new wave.
What is digital transformation?
Do not worry about the big terminology but focus on what it means.
During the pandemic, a lot of brick-and-mortar stores understood the importance of having an online platform. So a lot of them transitioned from having a physical store to an eCommerce store.
Now even with lockdowns implemented, their businesses can still operate but this time it’s online. This transition is called digital transformation.
A cab that transitioned to the use of taxi-hailing applications also falls under digital transformation. The same goes for businesses that used to do print advertising and are now using social media.
Digital transformation is the inculcation of digital technology into a business or a process to make the business or process faster and better.
For example, a business that used to sell merchandise held in stock might transition to a print-on-demand model. Instead of maintaining a large inventory of products, this approach allows the business to print and fulfill orders as they come in, thereby reducing inventory costs and minimizing waste.
If you want to thrive in this ever-competitive business environment, it’s important to prioritize your company’s culture in digital transformation.
Many consultants haven’t embraced digital transformation yet. It’s important to seize the opportunity to digitize your advice.
You already know that technology makes life easier. This transformation can improve business operations, deliver good customer experiences – while ensuring that all business cybersecurity protocols are adhered to. The usage of cybersecurity tools such as password manager or VPN can help to protect sensitive information and avoid unnecessary data breaches. You can compare the best VPN services available in the market at PrivacyJournal.
And If you want to step up your cybersecurity measures, consider activating Threat Protection—an additional layer of security for your VPN connection. Threat Protection is powerful enough to disable ads, block malicious websites, and prevent any invasive trackers.
Digital transformation can come in the form of using automated processes and replacing manual ones.
An example of this would be a business consulting service wherein the owner was previously responding to each inquiry manually but now is using an automated responder.
If your business adopts automation, it will make it even more productive.
With the help of automated softwares, your business can hold and gather large amounts of f.y firmographic or technographic data and process them faster with fewer human errors or none at all.
This means you’ll have more accurate insights and form efficient strategies for many areas of your business. This can be good for your sales, operations, and supplies.
Revolutionizing your consulting business doesn’t only involve the replacement of a manual process with an automated one, it also means the exchange of older digital technology with newer ones.
An SEO agency that started in the late 1990s should have updated the softwares they’re using for them to give results for their clients. Even though they were already using digital softwares, keeping up with the latest innovations in their niche is a must especially if they want to bring value to their clients.
To achieve a resourceful transition, it is pertinent to adopt the most recent ideas and use the latest tools as part of your marketing plan so you can solve the problem of your business that a previous conventional method could not solve. It’s not the best practice to make use of tools that are half a decade old if there is a newer alternative.
Another example of such a transition is the development of email platforms to replace post offices’ mail. If you were an adult in the early 70s, it would take a couple of days for you to exchange official mail with firms.
The manual process would start with a visit to the post office, and after a certain period, which is determined by the distance of the receiver of the mail, the mail would then be delivered to the firm you sent it to.
In the context of old businesses, you can only imagine the opportunities missed when emails weren’t present in their time. They didn’t have the opportunity to connect with people from other states, cities, or countries. Their customers were limited to the people near their stores.
Luckily, with the help of the internet and its innovations, a faster means of sending mail was created and it came in the form of emails.
Businesses were able to cater to far-flung customers, advertise with ease and less cost, and follow up or check on them.
With digital transformation and adoption, it helped businesses scale a lot faster.
Digitalization has occurred in many fields you can think of. It makes it easier for clients to deal with a company.
Worthwhile activities like learning foreign languages in a few months, which were previously harder, have been made easy by user-friendly tutoring platforms.
It would be best if you had an experienced team to be efficient. It is not in your best interest to experiment with solutions to the problems of your establishment. A failed experiment can make a business lose clients and resources that may never be replaced.
Try to involve professionals in the team that seeks to transform your company digitally. A great example is Home Depot, a retail brand that hired a strong team in 2017 to drive its digital transformation strategy.
Having seen some remarkable success, the brand intends to invest $11 billion to improve customers’ in-store and online shopping experiences.
Another example could be a life coaching company that’s used to face-to-face interaction can onboard an experienced digital team to take its brand into the digital world.
A traditional bookkeeping service company can hire a professional to lead them on how they can continue their service digitally.
If you have the resources to hire a professional or a team to help your business transition online, go for it. It will make things easier and remove the risk of trial and error.
This strategy led to the growth of the company’s stock from $39 to $109/unit in a few years.
This just shows how important strategizing is. If done correctly, it can boost your revenue or gain insight into your customer’s behavior.
Strategizing enables you to plan against your competition. It is through planning that you’ll know how to penetrate a market and avoid losses despite the heavy competition in the market.
Adequate preparation enables you to get effective results at low costs. Your venture will be cautious of its spending if you plan well and evaluate the possible outcome of your investment in improving your firm.
No matter how saturated the industry is, a good strategy will help your business perform well.
For instance, if you are worried that many tutors have already gone online, you can think outside the box like this online school which offers free digital marketing courses or a considerable discount as a strategy to survive in a saturated market.
Yet another example is this mattress reviewer who offers results to sleep studies as a way to help potential customers understand the need for high-quality mattresses designed to optimize sleep.
Communication with your employees should not be a one-way thing. It would be best if you did not do the talking alone while you expect your workers to listen without contributing ideas.
You should ensure that communication goes both ways. As an employer, you should also listen to the opinion of your employees about the whole process.
For you to improve the state of your business, communication, and effort needs to be done by the whole team. No one person can change a business alone, it’s always a group effort to move towards one goal.
Nike has been at the forefront of digital technology with its digital retail experience. However, it started by improving its supply chain, getting ideas from its employees, and driving the overall company’s culture.

Before you begin the digital transformation journey, take all you’ve read here into consideration and watch your consulting business change for the better.
If you want to expand, then you need to discard archaic methods and introduce recent technology to your brand. You need to join the growing culture of digitalization.
Digital transformation is a necessity for consultants that want to scale. Many businesses have been digitalized in recent times. Digital transformation can herald the beginning of your business’ revolution.

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