Digital transformation is imperative for all businesses, from the small to the enterprise. That message comes through loud and clear from seemingly every keynote, panel discussion, article, or study-related to how businesses can remain competitive and relevant as the world becomes increasingly digital.
According to a 2018 study by the International Data Corporation Asia, digital transformation will add around US$8 billion to the Philippines’ GDP by 2021. It will also increase the annual growth rate by 0.4 per cent. As of 2017, digital products and services s uch as mobility and cloud amounted to 3 per cent of the GDP. Clearly, the Philippines is well on its way to becoming a more digital oriented economy, with many innovators and leaders changing the way we live with their constantly evolving technology.
On October 2018, FINTQnologies Corp. (FINTQ), along with the Bangko Central ng Pilipinas (BSP), Chamber of Thrift Banks (CTB), Rural Bankers Association of the Philippines (RBAP), and the Microfinance Council of the Philippines (MCPI) launched the Road to 20 by 2020 Campaign. It is a multi-stakeholder campaign that aims to prepare financial institutions for digitalization. Under the Digital Transformation Accelerator Program (DTAP), it aims to achieve many things by the end of 2020. Their goals include assimilating 20 per cent of financial institutions to PesoNett and InstaPay, leapfrog digital financial transactions to 20percent from 1 per cent, reduce unbanked LGUs to 20 per cent from 35 per cent; and bringing 20 million unbanked and underserved Filipinos to formal financial system. Despite the fact that there is still 40 per cent of the population who do not have access to these platforms due to geographical reasons, the FINTQ reported that more and more Filipinos are now using online lending and banking platforms.
Meanwhile, PhilCare developed HeyPhil, an app that will make health plan coverage and benefit package information more accessible. It also tracks availment records, views upcoming Annual Physical Examination schedule, and allows users to gain quick access to the list of affiliated clinics or hospitals. HeyPhil functions as a virtual agent that cuts the time spent waiting for the doctor, along with making the process of acquiring Letter of Authorization (LOA) forms much faster. By transforming the medical market with technology, PhilCare was recognized as one of the “13 Outstanding Digital Leading Organizations” at the Regional IDC Digital Transformation Awards 2018. For developing this HMO app, PhilCare was labelled as the Asia/Pacific Omni-experience Innovator of the Year.
Lastly, one of the most recent leaders in digital transformation, Entrego, is born from the logistics team of Zalora after noticing the need of a fast-growing e-commerce platform, it offers technology-driven logistic solutions to empower business performance for clients. On July 2019, they announced the launch of myEntrego, a platform for small to medium enterprises to have a nationwide reach. As of 2019, Entrego has expanded to 64 hubs that service 32,744 barangays across Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao.
Here are the top six reasons all businesses need to embrace digital transformation in order to remain relevant in an era where the rise of technology has shifted the goalposts in terms of customer expectations as well as the expectations of your staff and the entire business ecosystem. This is according to Dynamo6, the latest New Zealand based IT services company to reach the prestigious level of Google Cloud Premier Partner
Digital innovation is your competitive advantage
While the message that your business faces irrelevance if it doesn’t transform may be a frightening one, it comes with a positive flip-side: digital transformation is your opportunity to etch out a competitive advantage.
Technology and the Internet have removed geographic barriers to business and opened up massive new markets for any enterprise prepared to embrace the opportunity.
Embracing the digital opportunities also allows businesses to adopt a new nimble-thinking mindset. Increasing the speed of implementing ideas enables a “fail fast, to succeed faster” ethos that will keep them relevant in the market.
Employees are demanding change
It’s a cliché but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true: a business’s staff are its greatest assets. While the Internet Age has transformed the demands and expectations of customers, it has done the same for employees.
To retain the best people, you need to offer them a “user experience” within the organization that enables them to thrive.
This includes everything from providing fit-for-purpose technology to embracing and enabling remote working. Employees increasingly value workplace flexibility above remuneration. By delivering on staff expectations through a digitally transformed business, you will be rewarded with the bottom-line benefits of a productive and effective workforce.
A flow-on from this, of course, is benefits in recruitment. The best staff will be attracted to your organization and your high-achievers won’t want to leave.
The internal communication benefits of an effective digital transformation also include breaking down the silo mentality that businesses have traditionally grappled with, leading to improved processes and organisational unity – again with positive bottom-line impacts.
For customers, it’s all about the user experience
Whether it’s through a company’s app on their phone, a website visit or an automated phone call, digital is now firmly at the heart of the consumer’s experience with your brand. That experience needs to be seamless, responsive and efficient – if it isn’t, your customers will abandon you in a heartbeat for the competition.
But, again, don’t let this new reality frighten you. Instead, embrace the benefits it provides. For a digitally transformed business, each customer interaction is a gold-mining opportunity to glean information and insights about what is working and what is not.
Data and analytics reign supreme
Those vital digital interactions with your customers generate and rely on an increasing volume of all-important data. In turn that data feeds the analytic functions that give digitally transformed businesses the insights they need to fuel the perpetual cycle of fulfilling customers’ needs and expectations.
A successful digital transformation includes readying a business for the demands of “big data” – the ability to analyze all aspects of customers’ behavior and use those insights to understand the impact on a brand. Through their interactions with you, what are customers telling you you’re doing right and what are you doing wrong?
Without making the transformation that puts data and analytics at the heart of a business’s operations, that business will be left in the dust by competitors who have made the shift and, as a result, are enjoying the wealth of insights that transformation delivers.
AI will be a game-changer
Beyond the analytic power derived from big data is an even greater step-change: artificial intelligence.
Already an increasing number of mundane business tasks are being automated, freeing up staff time to tackle more intimate customer issues. But this automation will be the tip of the iceberg of the problem-solving capability that emerges through AI over the next few years. Advanced learning machines capable of working collaboratively with human business professionals to solve complex commercial problems are just around the corner.
As with big data, companies capable of taking the lead on AI developments will gain a huge competitive advantage.
It all comes back to the cloud
At the heart of the digital transformation story – be it a focus on user experience, data, analytics or AI – is an inevitable migration to cloud services.
The cloud is an essential element of digital transformation because it offers the agility businesses need to scale up their data requirements.
With a cloud platform combined with a focus on data-led innovation, a business doesn’t have to worry about the constraints of its digital infrastructure but can instead focus on growth through customer insights.