There is no denying that society is moving towards a digitalised future. Increasing productivity and competitiveness requirements make digitalisation inevitable. Digitalisation streamlines user experience and it speeds up interaction between businesses and clients. It also results in better products and superior cost-efficiency.
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This fundamental trend presents businesses with significant opportunities. The path to digitalisation is ridden with challenges, however. In this article, we will introduce you to what digitalisation is, and what it can mean for your business.
You will learn:
We will also cover:
Digitalisation is the incorporation of digital technologies into business/social processes, with the goal of improving them.
Digitalisation is transformative. It changes how companies interact with their customers and often their revenue streams.
To clearly define digitalisation, we need to take a look at digitisation first. Some conflate the two concepts, giving them a similar meaning. The two are quite different, however.
Digitisation is the process of turning physical data into digital data. Scanning a report would be an excellent example in this sense.
The difference between the two concepts is obvious. Digitalisation carries a positive connotation. Digitisation, on the other hand, is neutral. Nonetheless, it is a prerequisite of digitalisation.
Digitisation is the rather mechanical process of “translating” physical data into a digital format. Digital information consists of 1s and 0s. By its nature, it resists distortion. It can also be transmitted without loss. Digital information is what communication networks around the world use, store, and handle.
Digitalisation, on the other hand, makes use of digitized information to improve processes.
Typing an essay into a digital document is digitisation. Making that document available for use through a cloud, is digitalisation. The concept of digitalisation vs digitisation is fallacious. The two are complementary.
Digital transformation is the ultimate consequence of digitalisation. Just as digitalisation stems from digitisation, so does digital transformation stem from digitalisation.
The complete transformation of an industry through digitalisation is the perfect example of digital transformation. Read more about digital transformation here.
The wave of digitalisation ushered in by the internet has disrupted many industries. The advertising industry is a good example. In the old days, a scattershot approach was the advertiser’s best bet. Nowadays, precise statistics are available on how users engage with content and how ads convert.
The same goes for email. Those who send emails can see who opens their messages and how people read the content.
Through the internet, the entire world has changed. People interact in a radically different manner. Decentralized cooperation has opened up previously undreamed-of possibilities.
The concept covers many different areas of adoption/impact.
On the level of businesses and organizations, the approach to digital transformation remains a reactive one. Most organizations play catch-up. They adopt new technologies to remain competitive and relevant. They are mostly not looking to innovate.
According to Couchbase, 86 percent of organizations have found digital transformation all but smooth. Problems reported in the linked study have included reduced expectations, delays, and downright failure.
Despite the dire rate of success, digitalisation projects are gaining traction. More and more executives see the potential in digital transformation.
From a bird’s eye perspective, the potential benefits of digitalisation are obvious. Better workflow, more efficiency, better products, and entirely new services are part and parcel of the process. From these advantages stem others, such as better competitiveness.
Besides the mentioned benefits, properly digitalised businesses also enjoy:
At a closer look, the reasons cited by business executives for digitalisation are entirely different. They are mostly rooted in fears of missing out.
The pros of digitalisation far outweigh its cons. Some of these pros are:
At the other end of the spectrum, the cons are much less significant. The poor implementation of digitalisation still hides some pitfalls. This can translate to:
Businesses can tackle such problems by choosing a reliable partner, such as Scrive.com.
The advance of technology along with new legislation defining digital commerce have made eIDs and remote electronic signatures possible and increasingly widespread.
– Scrive.com relies on this technology to provide several solutions for its corporate customers.
One such solution is the POS e-signing solution the company provided to Telenor Norway. Through the eSign-enabled POS terminals, Telenor customers can sign contracts electronically.
All thusly digitalised contracts are kept in a virtual repository. Telenor Norway uses a franchise system for its stores. Now, managers and customer service agents can access the contracts of all stores at the click of a button. This has led to faster customer service, better fraud detection, and a much better-organized contract repository.
– Scrive’s eSign has turned out to be a superb solution for online bank Avanza. Before eSign, onboarding an online customer would take the bank up to a month. The paperwork went back and forth between the two parties, its speed conditioned by that of snail mail.
With eSign, customers can now sign contracts online, instantly. And to comply with the bank’s security requirements, they can use Swedish BankID, a form of eID integrated into the Scrive service, to authenticate their identity. Avanza’s digitalisation push has resulted in a 120 percent increase in signed document conversion rate, as far as remotely signed documents are concerned.
Total deposits increased by 20 percent. Onboarding time dropped by 72 percent. Over the same time-frame, account volumes have quadrupled.
Avanza’s use of eSign is a great example of digitalisation in banking.
– The possibility to sign contracts remotely with Scrive’s eSign Online has been a boon for CEO Magazine’s advertising sales. Before the digitalisation of the procedure, the magazine would send out advertising contracts in a scattershot effort.
Giving clients the possibility to sign contracts electronically and instantly is the winning approach. Physical contracts are often misplaced. Thus even those who want to sign them fail to do so.
The introduction of eSign has increased the number of signed/returned contracts by 25 percent. Signing turn-around has dropped from days/weeks to around 5 minutes.
Administration time on a contract has dropped to 15 minutes.
In these examples, the advantages ushered in by digitalisation are clear. They are not a matter of perception. They are quantifiable.
According to Techrepublic, the challenges associated with digital transformation are clear for most organizations.
Other issues may be:
Certain signs tell you that the time to digitalize your business is now.
Digitalisation is inevitable. Since you will have to embrace it anyway, you might as well do it for the right reasons. Digitalise your business the right way and make it count. Following a level-headed digitalisation strategy will allow you to cover real needs and to achieve real results.
The following three-step approach is a straightforward path to adopting digital technologies for businesses.
When it comes to digitalisation in financial services and digitalisation in business, the only wrong move you can make is to not do anything. That said, how you get started on your journey of digitalisation, matters.
Scrive eSign is a great example in this sense. It lets companies ease into digitalisation, offering immediate and significant benefits. These benefits translate to the UX as well as the internal operation of companies.
In the real world, most companies happen upon a solution (such as Scrive’s eSign) which solves one of their long-standing problems.
The easier it is to implement these solutions, the more likely companies are to embark on digitalisation.
Once implemented, with the first results in, digitalisation becomes irreversible. A good initial experience makes businesses more open to the idea of further digitalisation.
Digitalisation is measured through key performance indicators (KPIs). Businesses are free to create custom KPIs that offer them the best possible measure of success/failure. Some popular KPIs are:
– Adoption. How many of your employees use the solutions introduced through digitalisation? If adoption is in the neighborhood of 90 percent, your digitalisation is most likely successful.
– Detailed adoption picture. How do users use your digital tools? Which features of these tools are underutilized? What are the tangible benefits of use?
– The number of processes performed on your digital tools. This will give you an idea about adoption as well as relevance and usefulness.
– Productivity changes sparked by your digital tools.
– Revenue increase attributed to the use of digital tools.
A digitalisation consultant helps a company identify useful digitalisation patterns. Such consultants work with senior executives and are thus instrumental in setting the direction of digital transformation.
The digitisation of records refers to the transfer of analog records to digital data. This type of digitisation only makes sense on a large scale. The benefit only exists if entire industries digitize their records.
For example: if a hospital digitizes its records but no other healthcare actors do, it carries no benefits.
The management of digital change focuses on shaping mentality and thinking on the organization level. Unlike digitalisation, it deals with the people involved, rather than the technology.
