Why would you want to Transform your Business

“If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.”

Digital transformation, digital revolution, the current market is all about digitalization. With the incorporation of Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, Data Engineering, by the big guns of Silicon Valley and several others in the mid-range segment too, it is time for the entrepreneurs to start a tectonic shift in their businesses as well. In the current age, isn’t business solely about connections? Well, it is. Period. But today connections heavily rely on the presence of the company in the digital platforms. Let us look at a very common example today:

Rajesh has been running a café serving local delicacies in Lake Gardens area for the last 10 years. Earlier he used to get around 200 customers daily from the surrounding residences and offices apart from the taxi-drivers and the pedestrians. He even used to get catering orders and that kept his cash box stuffed for quite some time. But for the last few years he saw a downward trend on the number of customers visiting his shop. Initially, he thought he wasn’t preserving quality. So he replaced some of his cooks and started sourcing high quality raw materials. But the trend did not reverse. That forced him to change his menu and incorporate some of the items that the young generation loves. This led to a slight increase in his sales but nothing significant. At about the same time he noticed an increase in the number of delivery boys and a closer introspection led him to the food delivery chains that had hit Kolkata. He immediately registered with them and eventually was flooded with orders and thus was able to achieve his expected turnovers in a few months just following the trends. What’s more, the footfalls in his café also increased owing to the rave reviews he got from his satisfied customers.

Let us look at another completely different scenario:

Vinay, Priya and Uday used to work for a top-notch MNC for several years after their graduation. They were even sent around the world on client sites to host major projects and to lead medium to large sized teams. These activities boosted them so much that they decided to start a consultancy on their own. Though they had managed to get a kickstart into the market with their reserved funds and from their investors, the balance sheets began to saturate after a few years. They began hiring developers, strategists, multimedia creators to help conceive ideas and see to the end to end implementation. All these strenuous activities did little to boost the end line of their bank statements. Until they began to reskill themselves in the lines of Machine Learning, Data Science and Analytics. They began to enroll themselves in several MOOCs to get themselves acquainted with the concepts of Deep Learning, Data Science, Big Data – terms they had only distantly heard of while employed. These technologies helped them better design and understand the clients’ needs and also in addition they were able to help clients who had stagnant balance sheets and were unable to reverse them.

These two scenarios are completely different in characteristics but the businesses didn’t drown because both of the owners thought of upgrading themselves leaving behind their beliefs and principles. No matter how much intimidating these may sound but a digital world is the future. If you have been in the business for quite some time, chances are that you have accumulated a substantial amount of data by now. And going by the current trends, data is business asset. People, technology and processes benefit by leveraging this data in hand. There is no secret behind how a startup suddenly grows into a full sized company. They utilize the data at hand, carefully analyze the market trends using modern tools and use their own intuition. As a famous quote goes,

“Don’t worry about failure; you have to be right only once.”

As business leaders you should already be taking risks and wondering about your ROI once in a while. Now’s the time to spare a thought about digital transformation as well. It is time you think about the technology innovations and their beneficial effects. It is also time to think how to leverage the present resources at hand to get the most out of them. To help you do this, there are plenty of Data Analytic courses available today. For technology innovation is much more than the disruptions they bring about. For this we need to thoroughly investigate the driving forces of a business which are “customer behavior and demand” and other external environmental factors. Whereas, in a business transformation context, business processes, assets, models, activities are all interconnected. Deciding on a transformation affects all levels of the organization. So you should be convinced enough to motivate your employees to take the giant leap of faith. What are you waiting for? Remember this famous quote by Albert Einstein,

“A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.”