Digital transformation is huge right now. Latest Economist Intelligence Unit research claims that for 77% of businesses it is the primary strategic priority. Both digital native and non-digital companies are continually reinventing their products, business models and all joint processes for staying competitive and profitable in an increasingly dynamic environment.

Digital transformation requires every activity in the company from advertising and lead gen, to sales and accounting workflows, digitized, aligned and perfectly automated. Also, companies can no longer afford to take months to respond to evolving customer preferences or implement new ideas.

Therefore, digital transformation is a complex process that impacts all strategic aspects of businesses. The way many companies envision digital transformation is adding better lead-scoring or segmentation software. But it’s not really the case, although it’s a good start.

Increased agility is what organizations should aim at and here are a few key areas to focus on:

Internal operations

Everything starts here. From how all routine processes are being rearranged within the company. There are a true variety of tools on the market to help automate company’s internal processes. And the majority of them can be categorized into two types of solutions.

Point solutions for dealing with the priority tasks which are specific to the industry like content management systems, social profile management, accounting/billing (ie: Buffer, Invoicely, Drupal). Benefits of this sort of system include quick integration and easy adoption as they deal with focused activities and handle fewer processes. The downside, on the other hand, lies in being not integrated with other company’s processes and potentially causing operational gaps and delays.

Orchestration of a number of point solutions is an alternative way to automate internal operations. A single platform for managing all sorts of internal operations leads to organizational alignment and optimization of processes and workflows. What’s more, it will automate most routine tasks that are performed, on the average, by the 91 point solutions per company.

Customer-facing processes

Customers are the first to feel the challenges of the company setting new business goals, implementing new technologies and adapting to any changes in the market. For instance, as social media becomes a common communication channel for every person, it’s important for businesses not to fail to incorporate it to every stage of the customer journey for the sake of providing the most convenient and personalized customer experience. In the ever-evolving business environment, your core technology platform should offer the agility to continually test, adjust and upgrade processes.

Business model

The third of the core components on the way to digital transformation success is reconsidering existing and implementing absolutely new business models, rethinking the role of technology in your market strategy, sales transactions or even target markets. That must be the most large-scale and challenging part of embracing agility, but will remain inevitable and repeated part of the strategy for those who want a long-term success.

The bottom line

Companies willing to undergo digital transformation should realize that it’s not a one-time initiative. But rather a life-long commitment to regularly transform reflecting every change brought by the future.