Digital Transformation & Smart Technology

Involving smart technology in your digital transformation

In the current expanding technological landscape, digital transformation is becoming an essential component of business success. To attract and retain customers, organizations often need to streamline operations and differentiate themselves in a competitive environment. As a part of their digital transformation process, many companies are seeking smart technology solutions.

Why consider digital transformation

Embracing digital transformation is becoming more of a necessity for business. Companies that leverage enhanced technology to improve their business models, create new areas of market growth, and address critical societal needs that are likely to be the ones thriving in today’s fast-moving business landscape. If you’re not undergoing digital transformation, your competitors almost certainly are. Therefore, it’s essential to consider a digital transformation to achieve strategic and operational goals.

How you can incorporate smart technology into your digital transformation

Digital transformation is a process that cannot be tackled overnight. It requires a pre-defined, phased approach to avoid any disastrous mistakes or disruptions to business. While it may seem daunting at first, breaking it down into smaller steps makes transformation more palatable. It is also important to acknowledge that every digital transformation project means different things to different organizations – there is no ‘one size fits all.’

Below, we outline what organizations should consider as they embark on their digital transformation.

Review and understand your current digital maturity

Before embarking on any digital transformation journey, it’s essential to review your current digital and operational maturity. While an in-depth review may reveal some disagreeable findings around archaic or poor processes, it’s essential to leave no stone unturned during this phase, enabling the business to be in the best shape possible to move forward strategically, operationally, and competitively.

A review might include a SWOT analysis of the current (and potential future) strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to the organization. While it may be tempting to only consider internal needs during digital transformation, it’s imperative to understand who your customers are, what they want, and how you will serve their needs in future. After all, customers are the lifeblood of any business.

When it comes to which smart technologies you might want to deploy, conduct a competitor analysis to understand the essential components of a digital transformation. What are your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses? What can you provide that they cannot? And how can you differentiate yourself or your services through smart technologies? A no-holds-barred review is a vital first step as it will guide the rest of your digital transformation journey.

Set clear goals for your digital transformation

What do you want to achieve? Cost savings? Greater efficiency? Increased average sales value? Improved customer retention or experience? More productive staff? Objectives, including KPIs, must be clearly aligned with strategic goals.

Objectives and goals outlined during this phase will inform and educate the smart technologies deployed, so it’s essential to get it right and to consider exactly what you are trying to achieve.

For example, if the objective is to provide a better customer experience, this might include understanding queueing patterns and wait times through visual analytics. This involves identifying customer wait times and using the gathered data and insights to inform staffing decisions or optimize store layout. By using these insights to inform decisions, businesses can create a more streamlined and efficient service, which can ultimately contribute to the overarching goal of improved customer satisfaction.

If the objective is cost savings, then a transformation plan might include the introduction of Smart Buildings technology to monitor and provide insights on optimizing energy usage. Moreover, organizations can enhance their benefits by utilizing smart technologies for additional purposes, such as providing data-driven insights and enabling incremental revenue through digital signage. This involves strategically incorporating digital displays to convey relevant information, advertisements, or promotions, further enriching the overall value derived from smart technology integration.

Clearly outlining your objectives has a direct impact on the technologies deployed and the digital processes implemented, so take time to get this right.

Select the smart solution that best meets your needs

Once your objectives have been clearly defined, you can then set about choosing the right smart technologies to drive those goals, which in turn will direct the digital processes implemented.

For example, a mixed-use development might want to introduce Smart Mobility solutions, such as a digital car parking management solution to help manage traffic flows, optimize space, and improve driver experience. In this case, the smart technologies deployed could include an automated parking management system with software-automated gates, number plate recognition, real-time free space directions, and dynamic pricing according to time of day and demand.

Likewise, building or property managers might want to reduce the consumption of energy and water by installing Smart Buildings technologies, with the objective of cutting costs through more efficient monitoring of energy and water conservation. Additionally, these smart technologies can play an important role in predictive maintenance, empowering managers to take remedial action, possibly even before a problem impacts tenants.

One final consideration is that of legacy equipment. It’s important to consider whether legacy solutions and data can be integrated into new digital solutions and processes, or whether legacy systems need to be retired and how data will be translated and migrated to the new solutions and processes.

Check in with your workforce and foster a culture ready for change

Obtaining employee buy-in, and gleaning insights from them is essential. After all, they are on the front line, and discussing any transformation with them could not only reveal issues or opportunities that were previously unknown to management but also gain their support and advocacy. The failure to consult your team could result in employee resistance, potentially leading to problems emerging further down the line.

As a company leader, it is vital to explain why the company is undergoing a digital transformation, what it entails, and the benefits it will bring – not just to the organization, but also to the daily tasks of individual roles. Allow employees to ask questions – for example, many may not know what smart technologies and digital transformation are, so provide clear and in-depth responses. Educating staff can go a long way.

It’s also recommended to offer training on how to use and get the most out of smart technology solutions once they have been deployed. This should be a continuous process as your digital transformation process evolves and requires the same level of communication at each stage.

Find the right technology partner

A digital transformation project usually requires a whole team of people, from a C-level sponsor and driver to departmental and team heads. Of course, this brings experience and knowledge about the company, and the goals of the digital transformation to the table. However, it is the vendors that are the smart technology specialists. They can bring new insights and expertise to your transformation project, so it’s vital you work closely with them.

Before choosing a vendor to partner up with for your project, you should perform an in-depth market review of the vendors that supply the smart solutions you require, and research as far as possible the strengths and weaknesses of each vendor. Talking to vendors is particularly encouraged, as it will reveal their expertise and experience, and they are also likely to offer more specialized insight and cast new light on the possibilities of limitations of the project. Another option is to engage an advisory service like Comcast Smart Solutions, that has vetted and curated an ecosystem of trusted smart technology providers, and can tailor the technology for your unique needs and make sure you have the right connectivity to power it.

As part of our process at Comcast Smart Solutions, we take special care to understand your business and objectives. It’s only when we have a firm understanding that we will start to design your smart technology solution.

Implement in phases and test regularly

A digital transformation project is not a sprint, rather it should be phased to avoid business disruption and costly errors. Remember that each phase of implementation is not just about deploying the smart technology and training employees to use it, but it also comes with cultural change – take time between each phase to ensure that any changes do not overwhelm the business or its employees.

Once an organization has decided on its objectives and the smart technologies that will enable them, it’s important to introduce technology in a phased approach – consider that new solutions will need to be deployed and integrated with existing systems and processes while ensuring data security.

By starting with smaller pilot projects, organizations can learn from each experience, with each phase steadily integrated into operational processes and business culture. Gradually scaling pilots enables an organization to learn from any mistakes, incorporate those lessons learned into the next phase, and gradually transform the business step-by-step.

Businesses may find that they need to pause on the journey, for example, because of budgetary constraints or employee resistance. This reinforces why a phased approach is ideal, enabling the business to embrace new processes and cultural approaches at its own speed.

Finally, digital transformation is an ongoing journey, so it’s essential to test each phase comprehensively and regularly. Today, customers expect best-in-class service, and organizations need to remain competitive by offering differentiated services. For larger organizations, this demands a DevOps approach, incorporating continuous integration (CI) and continuous development (CD) – test early and test regularly.

The current focus of digital transformations

What is digital transformation doing for businesses right now? As competition for customers intensifies, all organizations need to maintain optimum customer quality of experience. This goal is currently driving many digital transformation projects. In today’s world with so much choice, a 2022 survey by Emplifi of 2,000 consumers revealed that 86% of customers would stop connecting with a brand they like after as little as two to three poor costumer service experiences.

Digital transformation can reveal hidden insights within customer data, such as buying trends, seasonal trends, region-specific sales, customer satisfaction levels, and so on. And the right smart technologies can enable improvement to attract and retain customers.

Smart technology integration can also help your customer experience meet expectations. Customers now expect a fast, efficient, and personalized service. Digital data platforms can bring company-wide data, from legacy and new systems, into a single, centralized place, enabling analysis, and actionable insights to improve customer experience.

Organizations perceive digital transformation to integrate fragmented processes and data onto a unified platform. This integration aims to foster improved collaboration, enhance strategic insights, and boost overall efficiency and productivity.

In retail, for example, a major focus for retailers when it comes to digital transformation is stronger competitiveness – the battle for customers both online and in-store is key to survival. Many retailers are adopting AI-based smart technologies that can personalize the shopping experience by analyzing customers’ previous purchases and interests and suggesting recommendations or new purchases and targeted offers.