Today’s businesses operate in an always on world where consumers expect what they want, when they want it. If your business is yet to embrace digital solutions, chances are you will be left behind. How can your business adopt digital transformation to stay in the game?
While the principles of good business haven’t changed dramatically over the years, the way we do business certainly has.
As consumers, we expect the companies we choose to do business with to make it easy. If we want to order something at 4am, we expect to be able to do so.
We expect the businesses we decide to spend money with to remember every interaction and be there when we need them.
And, the reality is that – rightly or wrongly – your customers have similar expectations when dealing with your small business as you do when ordering from a global behemoth.
If your business isn’t embracing digital solutions today, then the chances are you’ll be left behind. There aren’t many businesses who are going to be able to continue trading, never mind flourish, by doing things ‘the old way’.
The problem for SMEs, however, is ‘digital transformation’ is a huge and potentially overwhelming proposition.
So, how can you use digital technology to enhance your operation today to ensure you stay in the game beyond tomorrow?
The power of data for small business
Traditionally, any data a business collected was a largely manual process, but technology today can collect huge amounts of data, and input, process and analyse at the click of a button – saving money, time and eliminating human error.
For any small business having a single source of truth about every customer is important – ensuring that, no matter who from your business is engaging with the customer, the same information is available. As a consumer yourself, you’ll know the frustration that comes from relaying the same information on multiple occasions to different people from the same company. Why would you want to put your customers through that?
Customer insights matter
Digital technology can provide you with tremendous insights into your customers – how they’re interacting with your brand and your products.
By collecting data during the customer journey, you can make informed strategic decisions and target people with specific offers and incentives.
That data can also enable you to refine your demand forecasting, and in turn inform and streamline decisions around your sourcing and supply chain; ultimately leading to product refinement and cost efficiency, among other things.
It can also help you to get real-time insights into your customer sentiment – by analysing social media channels, technology can create an overview of the important things people are saying about you, cutting out the noise of the unimportant, and enabling you to focus on what matters.
Over time, your whole operation can be connected. Stock levels can be automatically analysed, deliveries can be monitored and routes planned.
Beginning the digital transformation journey
Ultimately, if your business deals with customers and sells goods or services to them, then you’re ready for digital transformation.
By engaging with a tried-and-tested provider, like SAP Business One you’ll get out-of-the-box technology that’s efficient to implement, and has the latest cyber security layers as standard – ensuring that your data, and your customers’ data, is as secure as it can be.
Best of all, the right digital technology can save you money by streamlining operations, while providing a steady flow of data-driven insights from which to strategically plan your next move.
If you’ve not started your digital transformation journey, now’s the time to do so. Otherwise, you risk becoming obsolete.
Find out more about how your business can take advantage of SAP Business One.
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