Digital transformation is not the wave of the future or the next big thing; it’s the here and now. From manufacturing entities leveraging the “Internet of Things” (IoT) or “Artificial Intelligence” (AI) in their production lines to banking institutions setting up digital platforms to send and receive money electronically, digital adoption in many industries is already in place or well underway.

Digital transformation has become an existential necessity for the contemporary economic ecosystem. Large, midsize, and small businesses aren’t transforming digitally only to keep up with their competitors, either. They’re doing it because it enables them to work smarter and more effectively and take advantage of opportunities that would have been impossible a few decades ago. Digital transformation:

• Improves efficiencies in assembly lines through process automation
• Empowers small businesses and cottage industries to access the global market through modern e-commerce platforms performing customer sentiment analysis using social media data mining
• Hones in on investment strategies via machine learning
• Optimizes supply chain management via scientific analysis of available data
• Helps businesses achieve their goals and obtain results in highly challenging, highly dynamic environments

Few periods in recent years were so universally challenging as 2020 when the effects of COVID-19 threw a wrench into just about every conceivable norm. As a recent poll commissioned in part by the Institute for Supply Management found, approximately three-quarters of business owner respondents said that their supply chains were adversely impacted by the pandemic, due primarily to labor shortages and state-mandated lockdowns. Additionally, 45% said they experienced higher costs that year and more than half (51%) had a hard time shifting to partial and fully remote work environments.

Yet the survey showed that organizations that had digital solutions in place before the pandemic endured the coronavirus crisis better than those that did not. This was particularly true of digital technologies designed to support processes and outcomes like team collaboration, procurement, and remote work. In other words, companies that invested in digital solutions for inventory management, procurement, and other functions were more resilient.

“Companies that invested in a digital transformation program have found it easier to cope, to flex, and to change what they’re doing to meet new demands,” said Paul Blake, a product marketing specialist who led the research.

Here are a few of today’s top digital transformation trends, which could transform your business and its processes.

Business process automation

Of all the digital technologies and capabilities, business process automation may be the most ubiquitous. Business process automation is largely defined as the leveraging of software, hardware, and/or other equipment so routine tasks are performed more quickly and accurately. From data entry to employee onboarding to customer invoicing, business process automation reduces the hassles associated with tedious work so key employees can focus on core work. When deployed smartly, business process automation can help to improve the customer experience since more people are devoted to that goal. In short, business process automation enables organizations to use their resources more wisely.

Examples of this kind of digital technology are innumerable. From claims processing to batch processing, event log monitoring to automated order entry, business process automation reduces the legwork that’s associated with these kinds of repeatable tasks since they’re all handled by computer-based systems. Organizations leverage business process automation regularly. As a recent survey from Gartner showed, more than 75% of businesses today routinely use a combination of artificial intelligence, integration, and automation application in their day-to-day work processes. In addition to minimizing errors through predefined processes, business process automation also saves staff members’ time — a fact that is not lost on employees. Indeed, as Forbes reported, more than 50% of workers say they suspect they’d be able to cut their workload down by an average of two hours per day if some of their tasks were done by automation.

Critics of automation claim that the increased use of this type of digital technology will lead to job losses. But as a report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has found, automation has not produced the kind of job losses that some projected. In fact, in virtually all professions between 2012 and 2019, employment has increased globally, even in industries considered to be highly vulnerable to job loss stemming from automation. The OECD report noted that even when other contributing factors were taken into account across countries and economies (e.g. wealth, taxes, product market regulations, etc.), the implementation of automation did not lead to reduced employment growth.

Cloud-based solutions

In many ways, the cloud has revolutionized not just the internet, but how and where businesses operate. Traditionally, when companies have needed to compile or create data, they’ve stored it all in large servers and similar on-premises infrastructure. But aside from the room that these stations take up, they’re highly complex to create, maintain, and update to keep them operating efficiently.

The cloud has changed all that. All the information that used to be stored or accessed on site is available through centrally located servers that are accessible via an internet connection. By 2025, an estimated 85% of enterprises in the United States will have a cloud-first strategy in place, Business Insider reported. But other studies suggest cloud adoption among enterprises has already surpassed this figure.

Enterprises and small businesses are increasingly using the cloud as a result of the benefits it offers, including greater security, heightened visibility, scalability, unlimited storage capacity for data, cost efficiency, and workplace flexibility. Not only are more organizations using the cloud, but they’re also often using more than one. Indeed, on average, businesses use at least two public cloud (2.6) and two private cloud environments, according to a report by InfoWorld. Finally, as noted in the 2022 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Oracle Cloud Application Services, Worldwide, “by year-end 2024, 75% of Oracle application services revenue will be cloud-related as enterprises accelerate their move to the cloud in response to the massive disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Data democratization

Another digital transformation trend that is taking the business world by storm — largely thanks to the cloud — is data democratization. Data democratization refers to the various processes that allow information to be accessible to pretty much anyone, regardless of their status within a company. Gone are the days when data was only relevant to IT professionals or business analysts assisting executives with major decisions. Data democratization enables non-specialists to not just dissect data, but to gather it as well, without requiring the assistance of someone whose background is in data analysis or data analytics.

Before these advancements, data democratization was difficult to achieve because of how data was often stored. Housed in its silos, data was typically unable to reach the appropriate people across the breadth of an organization.  Data inaccuracy was another dilemma adversely influencing the decisions made by companies. Data literacy has also held back data democratization. Data can only productively influence the decisions a company makes if it is interpreted accurately and if others examining the same data can draw the same conclusions.

Today, thanks to data federation software, virtualization, and cloud storage, data democratization is easier and more seamless than ever. For example, with data federation software, businesses can comprehensively go out and gather data so that it can be obtained from several different sources and environments, which was difficult and tedious to do previously. It can then be stored in a virtual database for later use or analysis. Data virtualization, meanwhile, uses software so anyone can retrieve and interpret data quickly regardless of how it was sourced or formatted. Cloud storage also offers protection from cyberattacks, thanks to encryption technology.

Whether you’re leveraging all of these digital technologies or seeking to begin your digital transformation journey, Inspirage can help you with the process. We deliver end-to-end digital transformation projects for product-based companies. For more information about our expertise and solutions, contact us today.