Digitization vs Digital Transformation

What is the difference between digitisation and digital transformation? What is the role of a trusted partner when it comes to digitisation and digital transformation?

The accelerated wave of digital initiatives can be confused with the fundamental organisational transformation needed for success in the digital era. As a result, digitisation can be easily confused with digital transformation.

Today's rapidly changing environment marred with security threats demands companies and CIOs to stay ahead of ever-changing digital trends to meet customers' demands and solve business problems. This objective becomes more challenging with limited resources and tight timeframes.

Digitisation:

In short, digitisation is making information and existing processes in an organisation accessible digitally. In today's technologically advanced world, customers and employees already expect organisations to provide digital services. These services can include websites, online shops, social media channels, online payment services and much more. Simply providing these services is digitising an existing organisation. It allows an organisation to continue serving its customer base as the world shifts towards digital.

Digital Transformation:

Digital transformation is all about harmonising an organisation's existing processes and digital processes to create synergies that help best serve its customers. It is an organisation's cultural shift and a step beyond digitisation. Digital transformation is essentially a change to an organisation's overall strategy. It not only considers new technologies but also looks at new ways of working and serving customers.

How Does An Organisation Begin Digital Transformation?

Let's take a look at the landscape of organisations in Australia. Many are already investing in digitising but are still not seeing differentiation between their competitors. We have defined digitisation as moving existing organisational practices to digital. As the world changes, customers expect organisations to provide digital services, but simply providing them does not result in transformation. How can organisations differentiate themselves digitally then?

This is where digital transformation and strategy step in. Decision-makers need to reevaluate how their organisation fits in this new digital world and what they do to create value for their customers. According to Paul Leinwand and Mahadeva Matt Mani from the Harvard Business Review, questions that Leaders should be asking include:

• How can my organisation transform for success by leveraging the new and ever- changing technologies in the digital world?
  Instead of focusing on digitising what you already do, find ways to remodel your business and beliefs and create differentiation with the help of the latest technological advances. In other words, don't just use new technology and stick with old ways of doing things. It won't bring the change you are looking for within your business and the new ways of serving your customers to deliver value.
• How can my organisation create value through digital ecosystems?
  Find ways towork together with an appropriate technological ecosystem that will allow you to deliver value for your customers. Doing it alone is no longer a viable option, and forming strategic relationships with partners who share your vision and purpose will allow you to innovate and scale up your capabilities as needed.
• How can I transform my organisation to enable new models of value creation?
  Leaders will have to break away from old hierarchical structures and embrace new ideas and capabilities that provide agility to respond quickly to changing market conditions. Consideration needs to be given to how much change can be introduced and at what speed to bring transformation with minimal disruption. The aim should be to develop a new value creation model rather than adding tech to an old organisational model.

What Does Digital Transformation Look Like In Practice?

A fantastic instance where digital transformation has positively impacted an organisation as a whole is Microsoft. Over the past five years, Microsoft has spent time reinventing itself by shifting from a focus on selling products to a mass market to client solution-oriented teams that provide skills to service-specific customer needs. The organisation clarified its purpose and position in the world and acted accordingly by transforming its organisational values and services.

The services that BluBiz provides are the building blocks for your digital ecosystem. While we know that we have a critical role in digital transformation, we also know that transformation ownership rests with the organisation and its management. We continuously make efforts to build relationships where we have tangible investments in our clients' strategies to achieve digital transformation.

Our focus remains on providing multi-domain expertise in enterprise networking, cybersecurity, cloud and infrastructure, collaboration, and mobility, which are essential for digitisation and digital transformation. Whether it is consulting or design and delivery or managed services, our goal is to support our clients on each step to deliver an experience that we promise. Let us know in the comments if you would like to hear more about digitisation and digital transformation journeys or if you have any questions or queries. We are here to help!