One of the key traits that set humans apart from other animals is our remarkable ability to transfer knowledge from one generation to the next. This capability has been a driving force behind our achievements throughout history.
In contrast, most animals, like leopards, rely almost entirely on instinct and the limited learning they gain during their lifetime. A leopard can’t pass on the specifics of a hunting technique it discovered to the next generation; each leopard must learn on its own from scratch. This inability to transfer knowledge acts as a significant restriction, preventing them from building upon past experiences and evolving their skills collectively over time.
Humans, however, have developed various methods to pass down knowledge. It began with cave paintings, evolved into written manuscripts, and today, we rely on digital technology to store and share information.
This shift to storing and communicating knowledge in a digital format is what we refer to as digital transformation. It’s more than just a change in medium; it represents a revolutionary leap in how we capture, analyze, and transmit our collective understanding, ensuring that the knowledge of today is preserved and enhanced for future generations.
What is Digital Transformation
According to sam-solutions, Digital transformation in manufacturing is the adoption of digital solutions to replace legacy or non-digital manufacturing and near-manufacturing processes and operations in order to enhance business performance.
Though this definition of digital transformation specifically refers to the manufacturing industry, digital transformation in general simply refers to an on-going change from older (non-digital) business processes to newer, faster, & more efficient digital ones.
Why the Digital Transformation
To understand why most industries throughout the world are going through a digital transformation, it’s important to some of the benefits of digitalization.
Benefits of Digital Transformation
Digital transformation offers numerous benefits, some of which include:
- Increased Efficiency: Digital transformation automates business processes, which eliminates time-consuming tasks, increases efficiency, and reduces errors.
- Improved Customer Experience: Digital transformation enables businesses to provide personalized and convenient customer experiences through digital channels, improving customer satisfaction and loyalty.
- Enhanced Data Analysis: Digital transformation provides businesses with the ability to collect and analyze large amounts of data in real-time, leading to better insights and informed decision-making.
- Increased Agility: Digital transformation enables businesses to quickly respond to changing market conditions, customer needs, and emerging technologies.
- Cost Savings: Digital transformation reduces the need for manual labor and paper-based processes, resulting in cost savings through increased productivity and reduced overhead.
- Competitive Advantage: Digital transformation allows businesses to stay ahead of the competition by adopting new technologies and creating innovative solutions.
- Improved Collaboration: Digital transformation enables teams to work together more effectively by sharing data and collaborating in real-time, regardless of their location.
Overall, digital transformation can help businesses streamline operations, enhance customer experience, and gain a competitive edge in today’s digital economy.
More on the benefits of digital transformation
Simply looking at the technical benefits of digital transformation can be underwhelming. Let me try to give you a more concrete example of how digital transformation can help a business.
Imagine running a business with 100 employees.
60 of these employees have to come in to work everyday and have to clock in and clock out using paper timestamps.
Now imagine one day there is an issue with a few employee timestamps from months ago. Now you have to figure out where things went wrong. So, you have to go into your archive, and manually search for thousands and thousands of paper timestamps to see where it might have done wrong.
Imagine the number of hours & personel that would have to be spent in that endeavor.
Now imagine you could do that in a lot fewer hours, using alot less resources (time and personel) with just a few clicks on a computer. That, is the promise of digital transformation:
- Improved efficiency with more streamlined processes
- Cost savings
Why this article
I wanted to write this article for a few reasons:
Put our future customers minds at ease
As a newbie in the food and manufacturing industry, I have become acquainted with many of the industry’s buzzwords.
One such buzzwords that has caught my attention early on was the buzzword ‘Digital Transformation‘.
If you’ve been in the industry long enough, you have have certainly come accross this buzzword. In case you have not, here is a bit about what the word means.
With concepts like ‘digital transformations’, it can become hard to pinpoint exactly when it became a buzzword. But according to ‘Google Trend’, the popularity of the word grew significantly starting in 2015.
Digital Transformation beyond manufacturing
One of the main reasons I wanted to write this article is because my background is in another industry that is going though its own digital transformation: Marketing.
For the past 5+ years, I have been working small business owners to try and help them get more visibility online.
Up until recently, marketing and advertising were reserved for only a select few. The growth of the internet, Google and social media companies have given rise to a brand new type of marketing: Digital Marketing.
Many businesses out there (including the many small business owners I have worked with) are struggling to find their footing in this new digital world.
Challenges to Digital Transformation
There are many challenges to digital transformation including but not limited to:
- The consent of upper management
- The realignment of the IT department
All these challenges however are simply a symptom of the unwillingness to change for most of us. Changes are hard and they require great planning, & great execution.
I believe all of these challenges are rooted in our unwillingness to change because when it comes to digital transformation, there are alot more potential benefits than potential drawback.
Benefits of Digital Transformation
Digital transformation offers numerous benefits, some of which include:
- Increased Efficiency: Digital transformation automates business processes, which eliminates time-consuming tasks, increases efficiency, and reduces errors.
- Improved Customer Experience: Digital transformation enables businesses to provide personalized and convenient customer experiences through digital channels, improving customer satisfaction and loyalty.
- Enhanced Data Analysis: Digital transformation provides businesses with the ability to collect and analyze large amounts of data in real-time, leading to better insights and informed decision-making.
- Increased Agility: Digital transformation enables businesses to quickly respond to changing market conditions, customer needs, and emerging technologies.
- Cost Savings: Digital transformation reduces the need for manual labor and paper-based processes, resulting in cost savings through increased productivity and reduced overhead.
- Competitive Advantage: Digital transformation allows businesses to stay ahead of the competition by adopting new technologies and creating innovative solutions.
- Improved Collaboration: Digital transformation enables teams to work together more effectively by sharing data and collaborating in real-time, regardless of their location.
Overall, digital transformation can help businesses streamline operations, enhance customer experience, and gain a competitive edge in today’s digital economy.
