A digital transformation occurs when your business’s processes and procedures are redefined or refocused due to advancements in technologies. It’s important to be open to these changes so you can streamline your processes, remain a leader in your industry, and gain a competitive edge over other companies.
One of the most monumental technological advancements that may directly affect the way you do business is big data. This is the extensive data your business collects and analyzes. It helps your business make educated decisions about products, consumers, systems, procedures, and goals. Businesses that use big data as a resource experience profit gains and productivity that is 5% to 6% higher than competitors who aren’t tapping into data analysis.
While big data is one of the best ways to embark on a digital transformation, many businesses underutilize this valuable resource. By reviewing the ways in which big data can digitally transform your business, you’ll better understand its importance in your operations.
1. Goal Identification
Goal identification is one of the most essential steps to motivate yourself and your employees to improve upon systems and processes. When you focus on measurable goals, it’s easier to identify the steps you need to take to achieve them. Measurable goals also make it simple to conclude whether your business was successful.
Setting measurable goals takes skill, data, analysis, and calculations. When you use big data to determine your measurable goals, you’re more likely to choose goals that are ambitious yet achievable. You can also use data and data analysis to identify smaller and more short-term goals for your business. By working with your data in this way, you can develop touchpoints as you work to achieve larger goals to ensure you’re on the right track.
2. Predictive Analysis
Predictive models allow you to learn about consumer behavior as it relates to your business. When you use big data to develop predictive models, your analysis of these models will help you to improve your systems. These numbers may also help you predict and prepare for potential equipment upgrades or surges in sales or supply needs.
For example, your big data on social media analytics may tell you at what times and on what posts most followers engage with your brand. Using this data as a predictive model, you can create a social media marketing campaign that attracts more engagement and caters to what your followers want to see.
Your data analysis may also help you to predict the times of the year when you sell the most product. You can prepare for these potential upticks in sales with extra backstock in specific product lines that sold well. Predicting what is likely to occur in the future by analyzing past data ensures your processes are efficient and you’re better prepared for what’s to come.
3. Customer Experience
Big data is instrumental in improving your customer experience. When you collect and analyze data, you can better understand what your customer wants and the typical pain points your customer experiences.
For example, your big data may tell you that your online customers usually back out of completing their sales when they get to checkout. This data helps you and your team identify that you need to analyze your customer experience with checkout and use agile methodology to recreate the process. If the changes you make to this process provide a more pleasant checkout experience for customers, it can increase your online sales.
When you use data to make big business decisions, you can distinctly identify the problems you’re attempting to address. Using big data when making these decisions makes you and your employees feel more confident in the changes you agree upon. Your data may also be used to determine if the changes in your customer experience are truly working or need to be tweaked again.
4. Collaborative Teams
As a business owner, you may already be aware that compartmentalizing your departments is never good for the company as a whole. When teams can collaborate and bounce ideas off each other, it’s easier to implement a plan to streamline and improve processes. When teams understand what goes on in other departments, it’s easier for them to unite and create procedures and improvements that benefit the company.
Big data helps all departments better understand what’s working and what’s not. By using datasets and analysis, teams can collaborate to identify problems and cohesively decide how to solve them as a unit.
Digital transformation and the implementation of new systems may be intimidating for some employees. By allowing teams to collaborate, these departments help each other understand how to harness the power of this technology to be more productive.
For example, teams may work together on cognitive systems to design a website chatbot that answers common customer questions. When all departments collaborate on this project, a more robust set of potential questions and informed answers is discussed and included in the final outcome.
5. System Integration
An extensive team that includes remote workers, employees who travel, or large teams across several departments may call for systems integration. With an integrated system, team members can access data and software from anywhere and all employees can view this data to assist them in making decisions or tackling projects. When all employees use the same software system, it’s easier for them to work together and it makes all processes and procedures more efficient and simpler to implement.
Using a managed services provider (MSP) may also help you keep your employees productive and easily communicating from anywhere. With an MSP, you can outsource your technical management and infrastructure maintenance so you can solely focus on productivity and growth.
When moving to the cloud and utilizing an MSP, it’s important to be aware of the latest cybersecurity trends and what attackers are currently targeting. Protecting your big data and other systems requires diligent efforts on you and your employees’ part. However, the benefits of a digital transformation involving big data are well worth the effort to keep your business and customers protected.
A digital transformation that includes big data and data analytics is bound to improve your business’s processes and procedures. Your employees can focus on measurable goals and improving the customer experience while gaining access to the data that proves what they’re doing is working.
