How To Start Your Business Digital Transformation in 2023

Did you know that 63% of the world is on the internet? 

If we take the present internet penetration rate, we can expect anywhere from 70% to 80% of the global population to be on the internet. No other technology has brought this amount of people on the same platform.

Digitization is essential for any business, organization, entity, or person to use the internet to its full potential. Simply having your business listed on the internet is not a measure of digitization. The more technology you use in your day-to-day operations, the more digitized your business becomes.

At the same time, there are both efficient and inefficient ways of digitizing your business. Technology should make your business better in every way. If technology is not making your operations more efficient, either of the following possibilities is true:

• You’re using the wrong technology
• You are being inefficient in your use of tech solutions

This guide will guide you through everything you need to know about digitizing your business in 2023. 

 

How to start your business digital transformation

Digitizing your business is not a one-time project. It’s a continuous and iterative process, that is, you grow as you go.

Surveys have revealed that 70% of businesses are actively or passively working on the digital transformation of their processes. However, ignoring digitization in 2023 is a huge mistake that some companies continue to make. Let’s find out how not to make the same mistakes. 

1. Digitize finance and accounting

Finance and accounting (F&A) is a core component of all businesses, large or small. If your accounting is not efficient, every other aspect of operations will suffer.

It’s also easy to digitize accounting. Depending on your scale and needs, there are multiple SaaS accounting tools to choose from. These applications integrate within your existing workflow and make accounting processes more efficient.

There are many benefits of digitizing finance and accounting. We can broadly classify the perks as:

Accuracy: Making fewer accounting mistakes

Staying up-to-date – with the newest regulations, policies, and laws

Digitizing your finance and accounting can help you:

• Cut costs
• Make better investment decisions
• Save on tax payments
• Avoid paying penalties and fines
• Gain insights on spending
• Get better at budgeting and allocating funds

Additionally, there are a range of other areas where you can benefit from digital accounting and finance management. 

a) Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software 

We can look at digital document management as a part of digitizing financial operations. Physically storing and sorting documents is inefficient. Companies use the best OCR software to overcome this problem. OCR helps convert images of texts into readable data for computers.  

The combination of digital documents and financial management will help your business in different ways. It’s the easiest way to manage your finances, documents, expenses, savings, and investments. Digitizing accounts and finances is the best approach to start digitizing your businesses. 

b) Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software 

ERP technology is used for managing procurement, accounting, supply chain management, governance risk and compliance, and change management. Digital transformation in this area would mean adopting intelligent ERP tools, with the industry leaders being Oracle ERP Cloud and Microsoft Dynamics 365.  

2. Digitize customer service

A McKinsey survey revealed that digitization of customer service can increase customer satisfaction by 33% while reducing up to 35% cost. Digitizing customer service is not easy, but it’s worth the effort.

It’s crucial to consider the long-term benefits you will gain with digital customer service. Customer service is resource intensive. It demands the presence of customer executives 24/7. Managing a customer service infrastructure can be a huge expense for companies. Digital solutions are the only way to reduce customer service expenses while maintaining the quality of service.

Here are some strategies to digitize customer service and improve customer satisfaction: 

a) Chatbots

Surveys show chatbots can handle 68% of all conversations up to the resolution of the issue. Considering the use cases of chatbots, it makes very little sense to not have one for your app and website.

Chatbots do not necessarily replace human customer executives. But they reduce the workload. Issues that chatbots cannot solve get passed on to humans. This integrated process of customer service reduces time and cost and improves efficiency.

You are missing out on a plethora of benefits if you aren’t using chatbots yet. It’s one of the best innovations in recent years for businesses. 

b) Live chats

Live chats are convenient, fast, and accessible for most customers. Offering live interactions over chat improves customer satisfaction. It also accounts for customers who prefer not to get on calls for every minor issue.

Live chats also help per query time. Customer executives can easily solve many minor problems over a few texts. It also allows a single customer executive to manage multiple customers.

Cart abandonment is a common issue for eCommerce stores. Live chats can effectively reduce cart abandonment rates while building trust. As a result, it helps boost sales both directly and indirectly. 

c) Customer communication channels

Customers and potential customers use various channels to communicate with a business. For example, they use messaging apps, social media platforms, emails, live chats, calls, and even conversations with chatbots.

With so many communication channels comes the problem of unifying them. CRM, or custom relationship management, tools are generally used to tackle this issue. Unified CRM allows you to track customer interactions across touchpoints and bring it all together.

With consolidated customer data, you can create better buyer personas. It also helps in converting leads, increasing sales, and giving customers a better buying experience. 

d) Engage buyers on social media 

Social media helps brands improve their image and awareness. At the same time, it also gives brands a feedback loop. Companies can collect data on pain points, complaints, and what the market wants through comments, tweets, posts, and other forms of social media communication.

Having social media presence is not enough by itself. How you use the various social media platforms is the bigger concern. Almost every business uses social media for marketing and advertising. But incorporating a customer feedback system into your social media platforms helps you make better business decisions. 

Also read: A Marketer’s Guide to Using Customer Testimonials and Feedback

3. Digitize marketing

Digital marketing and marketing have become synonymous over the last decade. As a result, marketing automation tools are among the most popular SaaS tools on the internet.

Every aspect of marketing can be digitized for efficiency. Standard marketing channels like social media marketing and search engine marketing are the most popular approaches. But digital marketing is about more than that. It’s about automating and digitizing every possible aspect of marketing.

A digital marketing strategy includes long-term plans to expand your business and improve brand awareness. A complete strategy includes aspects of customer acquisition, brand marketing, converting leads, and enhancing customer relationships.

You can use the following channels to create a long-term and sustainable digital marketing strategy:

• Influencer marketing: Using social media stars and influencers as the voices and ambassadors of your brand. Incorporate both paid and organic influencer marketing to get the best results.
• Email marketing: Email marketing continues to be one of the most cost-effective ways of reaching more people. It may seem outdated, but email marketing is as effective as ever. Email marketing also allows more customization and personalization than most marketing channels.
• Brand story: Creating a unified brand story is a considerable marketing challenge, but the results are well worth the effort. You need to sell a story more than you need to sell a product or service. Creating brand stories makes this possible.
• Experiential marketing: Attaching experiences with products and services is an innovative marketing tool. You can use digital solutions to create memorable buying experiences for your customers.

As you can see, digital marketing is more than social media and content marketing. The core idea is to connect with customers across channels and digital touchpoints. Aim to create a cohesive and unified experience for your customers whenever they interact with your brand online. 

4. Digitization for a more efficient workforce

Even if you have a small team of employees, the business’s success depends on its performance. Digitization is not only about making the customer experience better. It’s also about making employees more efficient and the working experience better.

There are several strategies to digitize your team and office. Using remote work strategies is one of the best ways to do so. You are missing out on multiple advantages if you aren’t recruiting remote employees.

Apart from a few departments, most arms of a business can work remotely. It helps a business cut costs while getting high-quality work. Choose from any of the remote working platforms to make your workforce more efficient.

Consider using digital solutions for a better employee experience as well. Cloud-based time tracking tools, internal communication systems, and project management tools are some of the many ways to improve workforce performance and satisfaction through digitization. 

Is digitization the future of businesses?

Yes, digitization is both the present and the future of business. Everything around us is digitizing rapidly. 

There are many advantages to getting onto the digitization bandwagon at the earliest. Digitizing more and more processes is the only way to future-proof your businesses.