Digital Change/Transformation

 

Digital change, or transformation is defined as “the process of using digital technologies to create new — or modify existing — business processes, culture, and customer experiences to meet changing business and market requirements.” (salesforce) 

You may not even realise it, but digital change is all around us every day. A prime example of this is when COVID lockdowns struck. Businesses CEO’s, managers, and employees were forced to work completely remotely. While applications like Microsoft Teams and Zoom were already being used, how many businesses genuinely relied on them before COVID? Or better yet, how many businesses had to learn how to use them during COVID?

                    Image Source: https://mgnsw.org.au/sector/resources/online-resources/digital/culture-digital/       

      

Why must we align Digital Ability & Culture? 

After reading that you may ask yourself, why must we align digital ability & culture? It is simple, in order to have a smooth and effective implementation of the digital age, we must consider cultural behaviours and ideas to allow for a stress free and efficient workspace.  

“The reality is, that change has created huge business opportunity, but in at least equal measure it has created some huge business challenges” (D. Rowles and T. Brown, P. 5)

Specifically, with digital change it is evolving incredibly quick. So much so that according to Statista, the average lifespan of a business in 1980 was 36.4 years, in 2023 that average has plummeted to 19.1 years. This is because as new technologies emerge and physical tasks or objects are transformed into digital variations, businesses must overcome the different challenges associated with this transformation which can be extremely costly and time consuming. An example of this, could be a traditional consultancy business having to transfer their files onto a computer, or hire more staff with the appropriate technological qualifications. 

References: 

1) What is Digital Transformation? why is it important (no date) Salesforce. Available at: https://www.salesforce.com/products/platform/what-is-digital-transformation/#:~:text=Digital%20transformation%20is%20the%20process,digital%20age%20is%20digital%20transformation. (Accessed: 22 June 2023).   

2) Rowles, D. and Brown, T. (2017) ‘Page 5’, in Building Digital Culture: A practical guide to successful digital transformation. London: Kogan Page Limited.    

3) D. Clark, D. (2021) Average company lifespan 2020, Average company lifespan on Standard and Poor’s 500 Index from 1965 to 2030. Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1259275/average-company-lifespan/ (Accessed: 22 June 2023).