Change is the only constant thing and hearing that through the ages have not diminished the effectiveness of the essence of the phrase. What we are currently undergoing is the fourth industrial revolution and why should it not be rightly called so, we have been through the first industrial revolution (water and steam powered), the second (mass production, assembly line, electricity) and the third (computer and automation).
While many companies are still understanding and adopting automation, we have already crossed the threshold and entered the fourth industrial revolution – the Fourth (cyber-physical systems)
Customers are purchasing smart, employees are demanding a challenging work environment and the veil of transparency between a customer and a company is getting thinner. In such case, just having a smart system is not the only solution.
What the company needs is to break their age-old concepts, embrace new ones, motivate young people and ideas, in the end, study the customer’s need well, and design products that fit them well.
What is needed today is digital transformation. Not only of the software but the process and the business as a whole.
Digital Transformation is the continuous adoption of digital technologies in business that cause vital changes in the operations and the way that they value their customers.
You may have heard of IoT, Big Data, hyper-connectivity, cloud computing, etc. While these do sound mindful, these have been existing for a long time now and it is only now that we are technologically equipped to use them.
Digital Transformation and consumers
Understanding Customer Need:
Customers are the ultimate destination to a product or a service. They are the ones who make or break a business. Moreover, today, with the advent of Social Media, there is more power to the customer, his likes and dislikes.
By integrating a Social CRM to your ERP system, know what the consumers are talking about your brand and the general opinion about your brand in your audience.
With a powerfully integrated marketing function, target customers on a personal level and capture responses of surveys, feedback in the system itself to get the inclination of the targeted audience.
Data Analytics, Investment and Divestment:
Sometimes market goes at its worst leaving corporate leaders to face financial catastrophes. The big responsibility at such times lies on the shoulders of business leaders. They are the authority to decide where to divest and where to invest. This is where cost cutting through digitalization comes into focus.
Digitalization can be effective for both big and small companies. However, some misinterpret digitalization as marketing but it is not all about digitization. Real cost cutting through digitization is applicable for internal communications, operations, finance, and overall customer engagement.
Data today is an asset to any company and especially for an e-commerce company, where there are millions of transactions happening every day, the finer the study of their data is done, the better they can monetize from each of their customers.
Here, investing in developing big data and researchers will help the management to categorize and focus on profitable products and services and doing away with other non-profit generating segments.
Hyperconnectivity, Improved TAT and reduction in inventory wastage:
We are moving towards a hyper-connected business environment where a small change in process one can lead to a major change in another.
Hyper-connectivity simply means the communication of network between person-to-person, person to machine and machine to machine. Our cell phones are the best example of a hyper-connected world.
Now imagine a scenario in a business environment, where the sales person is able to present his product in front of the client in a live situation on a handheld device (tablet), and confirm the stock availability on basis of information available from the inventory department and block them for the customer simultaneously by payment against invoice created then and there.
Where this process should have taken weeks, it just takes some minutes. While we can applaud the Cloud technology and the real-time availability of data, we need to understand that hyper-connectivity is at play here. Connected devices and machines are bringing all the processes and departments on one platform. This gives a clarity of data, visibility of finances and transparency of data leakages if any.
Reduction in inventory wastage is a dream come true for all product companies and why should it not be so? Overproduction and inventory wastes form huge number. ERP is one such ERP that can help you bring all your processes on one platform and give you complete control over all your operations.
Related Read: Tech Trends That Will Take Over In 2017
(Disclaimer: This is a guest post submitted on Techstory by the mentioned authors. All the contents and images in the article have been provided to Techstory by the authors of the article. Techstory is not responsible or liable for any content in this article.)
About The Author
Mugdhita Chaphekar is a Web Content Writer with more than 2 years of experience in writing several kinds of content. She has the passion for web and loves offering assistance and inspiration wherever possible. She works for Sage Software Solutions Pvt Ltd. She has an in-depth knowledge of technology combined with content writing experience and is willing to explore new technologies.
