Shaping the Future Through Digital Business
The famous Greek philosopher Heraclitus once said, “There is nothing permanent except change.”
Since Covid-19 has globally transformed the way businesses operate, digital transformation is no longer a choice. The pandemic has shown us how change is inevitable, and adapting to it is the best option for business survival. But digital transformation can be a positive thing for business, seeing how their current approach could be limited to an offline or brick and mortar aspect.
Businesses today recognize technology’s strategic importance as a crucial component of survival, not just a source of competitiveness. Digital transformation is paving a new path to a holistic approach, opening opportunities to connect with a bigger and larger audience.
If there were any doubts about the significance of digital transformation to business growth and longevity, covid-19 has silenced them. The pandemic has been a reality check for all businesses, with one thing becoming crystal clear,
“Go Digital or Go Home”
How business leaders manage digital transformation in their organizations?
The pandemic has split the economic landscape into two distinctive mindsets called digital leaders & digital laggards.
Digital leaders are those that are actively changing the way they do business through embracing the technological advantage and digitally restructuring their organizations and products. These leaders are not just implementing digital tools but also redefining their business overall.
Digital laggards are the late bloomers who still haven’t completely jumped onto the digital wagon. They take a narrower approach to applying new technology to improve what they are already doing. While they do see a benefit associated with technology, they are doing very little to prepare themselves for the growing digital tide taking over the world.
Three Key Differences Between Digital Leaders & Laggards
- How they approach the organization structure
- How they approach the market development
- How they approach the product or service innovation
The New Digital Age
Beckoning the new digital age has brought up a storm of changes in our work. .
Corporates and their employees have comfortably adapted to the “work from home” way of life. With digital adoption taking a quantum leap at an industry level, rapid changes are seen in our global workforce.
At Tekhné Agency, we look at the digital economy is divided into five significant themes:
❖ Digital Labour Platforms: These platforms include web-based platforms (crowd work) where work is outsourced through an open cell to a geographically disseminated workforce and location-based applications which allocate work in a particular geographical location. Location-based apps target a workforce that is more service-oriented.
The pandemic has accelerated the need for further automation and reduced the sole dependency on human personnel. Digital labor platforms are increasingly becoming a part of our everyday life. These platforms create new opportunities for businesses to access labor 24/7 globally and perform tasks at a reduced cost.
❖ Digital Workspace: COVID-19 has marked a turning point in how people work with accelerated technology; the workplace doesn’t have to be a physical location necessarily. The pandemic transforms people’s approach towards work, mobility, and flexible working models.
❖ Digital Skills: Digital technologies driven by innovation have pushed the workforce to be more competitive and build on a triad of functional, digital, and professional skills. Digitization and the availability of online educational courses have opened a plethora of opportunities for the workforce to upskill and improve their overall efficiencies. Google has newly introduced a “Grow with Google” career certification program focused on different aspects like Data Analytics; IT Support, Project Management, UX Design, showing how valued these skills are in the market.
❖ Digital Foundation: Building on your technology foundation is the need of the hour with an accelerated paradigm shift of the audience moving towards digital channels, creating a robust digital presence through a Website, Social Media Channels (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, and Pinterest), Business Listing (Google My Business, Yelp, and Bing), Online Forums (Quora, Answer The Public and Yahoo Answers).
❖ Software as a service: Saas is a delivery model in which centrally hosted software is licensed to customers via a subscription plan. This cloud-based system helps centralize operations and seamlessly connect businesses with their counterparts (vendors/suppliers). With the economic uncertainty, companies have benefited from the subscription-based model like Immidi.
Apps take a forefront.
While the world grappled with lockdown measures and social distancing guidelines, consumers took to everyday applications to reconnect through a virtual perspective. In comparison, they discovered new apps that can stand in for their previous in-person behaviors.
Video Conferencing Apps: One of the major pandemic thriving apps was video conferencing application, Zoom. It quickly became a “Go-To App” as referred by many users who saw the convenience of jumping onto a video chat. With the onset of covid 19, Zoom saw a sharp spike in its user base between 200 – 300 million users in the month of March & April 2020.
Online Streaming Apps: Many consumers have turned to stream media services and television apps to occupy their free time, as mobile apps have taken on a new prominence. The three prominent winners in the on-demand streaming category were Netflix, Disney & YouTube.
Online Delivery Apps: Since the pandemic, online delivery apps have reported a more than double increase in their online sales. Most consumers have resorted to ordering for their essential requirements online with the lockdown restrictions. Apps like DoorDash, Uber eats, Postmates, Zomato, Yandex. Eda, I-Food, and Grubhub have seen a rapid increase in online users and engagement.
Delivery apps have now become important to both restaurant owners and consumers due to the ease and convenience of ordering everything online from groceries, alcohol, and food delivery. Almost everything can be delivered directly to your doorstep.
These four companies (DoorDash, Uber eats, Postmates, and Grubhub) raked in roughly $5.5 billion in combined income from April 2020 through September 2020, more than double as much as their combined $2.5 billion in revenue the pandemic.
Social Networking and Sharing: Some of the clear winners in the social networking industry were Facebook, YouTube & Whatsapp. With the lockdown putting strict restrictions on people’s mobility, these apps became a haven as people looked at the virtual front for connectivity and comfort.
WhatsApp has seen a 40% surge in usage that grew from an initial 27% increase in the earlier days of the pandemic to 41% in the mid-pandemic phase. Overall, Facebook leads the social pack as the top social media platform champion used for coronavirus news by (35.8%), followed by Twitter (17%), YouTube (16.3%), and Reddit (12.4%).
TikTok and Snapchat were big winners in March, with a spike in users touching 32% and 49% new app installs, while Instagram had a 48% uptick in the early pandemic stage during February 2020.
So how do you stay calm and ready for a digital transformation in an industry that continues to change at an accelerated rate? The most prepared you and any organization can be for the future by adopting a digitized view towards change. Choose to be a digital leader in this industry and not a digital laggard.
So, the question remains: Is your business ready to go to the next level? Connect with Tekhné Agency to transform your business today.
Written By Anisha Chaudhari
