Note. Image is from DATA UNIT AG. (https://www.dataunit.ch/digitale-transformation-vorteile-und-herausforderungen/)

Recent years have shown that digital is not a fad, but a way of connecting people, increasing company profitability and getting ahead of the competition.

This new article says what a digital transformation process in SMEs consists of and what exactly are its advantages and disadvantages.

What is digital transformation?

Digital transformation can be defined as “the transformation of the company’s processes, relationships and channels to create value for customers.”

The ultimate goal is to have a positive impact on operations.

While digital tools are important in this “transformation,” their basis is the reorganization of processes.

Advantages of digital transformation

Digital transformation has many benefits, both for the customer and for the team.

In particular, the benefits of digital processes include:

Greater customer satisfaction.

As a result of digitalization, customers experience improvements in service, such as shorter waiting times to receive their orders.

There are more channels of interaction, which means that customers interact with the company with greater ease.

Fewer manual processes

Automating processes can open up a world of possibilities for you as part of your digital transformation. Here are some tasks that can be automated:

• Customer data collection
• Order tracking
• Registration of incoming and outgoing goods
• Invoicing
• Payroll
• E-mail notifications
• Creation of helpdesk tickets

If you have a small or medium-sized business, remember that not only is it possible to automate and digitize these tasks, but the real value comes when entire processes are digitized and workflows are created that perform tasks faster and with fewer errors.

Better decision making

SMBs where digital transformation is applied to business processes gain a vast amount of data. With the help of this data, patterns and opportunities for improvement can be identified.

As a result, decision making is easier, more accurate, and always data-driven.

Scalability

Although technology has evolved greatly in many companies since the 1980s, not all have digital processes in place. In fact, many legacy systems present bottlenecks when it comes to integrating new digital alternatives.

More digitization means being able to scale processes, workflows and tasks.

Challenges of digital transformation

The above benefits come with some challenges, including the following:

Organizational and cultural change

Digital transformation leads to a big organizational and cultural change. It is necessary to communicate this idea to the team and involve them.

You can have a brilliant digital transformation strategy, but if you don’t understand that it goes beyond technology, it won’t work.

Technical barriers and digital divide

New technologies can pose a threat to some SMBs’ long-time employees.

This is a particularly big challenge when it comes to digital transformation in SMBs, as some employees may resist big changes that require an adjustment effort.

Large workload

Another big challenge of digital transformation is that it consumes a lot of resources, especially time and money.

Often the process is slow and deliberate, requiring flexibility and an iterative approach.

Necessary weighting

The large workload makes it necessary to weight the tasks; digital transformation cannot be tackled all at once. It is necessary, depending on the type of company and industry, to set priorities and define a roadmap in line with business objectives.