Are you ready for the next wave of digital innovation and are you taking advantage of its current trends? As digital innovation reshapes the business landscape, many companies are desperately playing catch-up or simply left in the dust of their tech-savvy competitors.
It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in or how long your company has been in business – in today’s world where the Internet of Things reigns, digital innovation holds the key to your efficiency, visibility, and competitiveness. Timely digital improvement is, therefore, vital for your business if you hope to keep up.
IMAGE: PIXABAY
History’s Take On Embracing Digital Improvement
The recent history of digitalization clearly shows the tremendous positive and negative impact it can have. Here are two quick examples:
Coffeehouse giant Starbucks invested in a mobile app which lets customers pre-order and pays for food and beverages, then pick up at their convenience. Customers save time not having to wait in line in the store and the company has been reaping big rewards since the app launched in 2009.
In the 2000s, digital innovation gave rise to entities like Spotify, which offers consumers videos, movies and music in a manner they were becoming more and more comfortable using – streaming and downloading to internet-connected devices.
On the flip side, Blockbuster, which had previously seen rapid growth with its video rental and DVD-by-mail services, started losing market share and went out of business around the same time. Spotify and Blockbuster provide powerful evidence of the capacity of digital innovation to revolutionize on an industry-wide scale.
These stories show that how well you adapt to new technologies plays a pivotal role in your company’s success or failure.
Is Your Company Ready For Digital Innovation?
The digital improvement or digital transformation of your company is not a one-shot deal, but rather an on-going process in which you:
- Realize that there will come a time for a change and that time could be now
- Analyze IT trends and upgrade your systems when necessary
- Broaden your reach using the most effective modes of customer engagement
- Emphasize data security and privacy
- Improve your operational efficiency
- Seek out the benefits of innovation consulting, data mining and big data analytics
- Keep track of new developments such as robotics and wearable computing and how they could impact your industry
- Make the idea of digital improvement for growth a part of your company’s culture
Some Common Barriers To Digital Improvement
The unwillingness to let go of the processes you have become accustomed to may be your biggest challenge. In some instances, companies fail to make the improvements required because they are over-protective of their core product or service and the market share they already enjoy. They hang on, disregarding all the evidence which might point to the industry changing course and heading off in a brand new direction without them.
The Kodak story is one infamous example of this. You can read more about it at https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/the-real-lessons-from-kodaks-decline/.
Don’t let your business get washed away by the wave of digital innovation. Ride that wave to continued success by having your company digitally prepared for the future.
If you are interested in even more technology-related articles and information from us here at Bit Rebels then we have a lot to choose from.
COMMENTS