Initiate the Digital Transformation of your Organization

Edwin Bergamin, from Emixa, assists organizations with challenges at the intersection of Business and IT. These organizations aim to prepare themselves for the digital journey into the future, also known as digital transformation.

Edwin would like to explain what digital transformation exactly entails and how to ensure that your company is ready for the digital future.

What is digital transformation?

Digital transformation is a commonly heard term, a catch-all phrase. But what is digital transformation when it comes to your company's software? Let's start with a definition:

"Digital transformation is the strategy an organization employs to quickly and agilely anticipate the constantly changing political, economic, social, and technological world in which we live."

In essence, it's a way to ensure that your organization can adapt quickly and effectively to the changing world around it. This allows your customers to find you in the future, and for you to retain their loyalty.

When is digital transformation applied?

Digital transformation is used to make your organization future-proof. Making an organization 'future-proof' involves changes to the people, processes, methods, and resources within your organization. These changes are often substantial. You don't implement them as part of a 'nice to have' ambition. Why then? There are three pillars underlying digital transformation:

Revenue (increase)

Revenue is vital for your organization. Without revenue, your costs are not covered, and there is no continuity. However, revenue is not solely dependent on your efforts. Environmental factors also influence revenue and can present either a danger or an opportunity. Consider, for example:

• changes in laws and regulations;
• economic developments;
• changes in public opinion;
• or emerging technologies.

It is important to be alert to these changes so that you can anticipate them in time.

Risks (mitigate)

If you do nothing, your strengths and opportunities, as well as your weaknesses and threats, can pose a significant risk. Therefore, you need to think about your current, traditional business model and consider which new digital products and services you can devise for future business models. These don't necessarily have to be entirely new products; even structural improvements to the customer journey can help increase customer retention. Anticipating is key, right?

Costs (reduce)

Take a critical look at your processes. By thinking about why you do things the way you do and considering what you can optimize in those processes, you can save costs significantly. What alternatives can you come up with? Can you eliminate certain steps in your processes altogether? Try thinking outside the 'box.' How would your processes look then?

Digital transformation helps with these three aspects. You increase revenue by adopting a different market approach. You reduce costs by reorganizing your processes in a different way. You mitigate risks by innovating and developing new products.

Starting with digital transformation

If you want to start with digital transformation, it is essential to begin by determining the vision for the next 3 to 5 years based on strategic business objectives. What does the current situation look like? Which political, economic, sociological, and technological environmental factors affect your business? What do customers expect? What is the competition doing? Which outdated systems are holding you back? Which processes need to be more efficient and effective? What does your desired situation look like? What is the business model? Who is the customer, and what do they expect? What happens if you do nothing? What does the new situation bring to the organization? Ask yourself why you're not there yet.

Once you have a (general) image of this future, translate it into your IT landscape. Which applications are you currently using, and are they ready for the future? Once you have mapped your current and desired applications, evaluate them based on two axes:

1. The degree of change

Is it an application that requires no adjustments during use, or is there flexibility, agility, and user functionality development?

Requirements, i.e., wishes and demands Are the application's functionalities clear and constant? Or do functionalities take shape based on feedback during the development process? Should the functionality continue to align with future technology that we are not yet aware of?

2. And what if you've done that?

Depending on the positioning of current and desired applications on these two axes, you can place these applications in the following system layers.

Start the digital transformation of your organization

Systems of record

If the processes in your current or standard systems can be easily integrated into the future, as is the case with ERP systems, you are talking about a 'system of record' (SOR). Not many changes are needed to meet the requirements for your future vision. These systems are often readily available for purchase and contain transactional data. If you want to add functionalities that can no longer be achieved with systems of record, according to the Gartner "BiModal IT" model, additional customization is needed to prepare your applications for the future.

Systems of differentiation

If you truly intend to reorganize your processes differently and expect to need customizations that are specific to your organization, processes, and product, you are talking about 'systems of differentiation.'

Systems of innovation

Are you working on truly new business models? Or maybe even with IoT or AI? Then you are talking about 'systems of innovation,' and you mainly use customized solutions for your software.

If any of the above situations apply, where standard solutions fall short, it is advisable to consider a Low-Code Application Platform such as Mendix. Traditional software development is a thing of the past. The digital era of your company involves working quickly, controlled, and, above all, collaboratively towards the vision on the digital horizon.

Want to know more?

There are plenty of opportunities to drive forward digital transformation in the tech industry. Would you like to improve the digital state of your organisation? And are you looking for a partner who can help you achieve this goal? In that case, Emixa is the right fit for you. We translate complex issues into simple, user-friendly IT solutions that accelerate your digital transformation and take your business to a higher level. Don’t hesitate to contact us. We would be delighted to meet you!