Adopting new technologies in a business is critical to drive digital transformation. However, 48% of Australian business owners are still reluctant to adopt new digital technologies due to a lack of understanding of how it works and the potential benefits. If businesses want to maximise their potential, a coherent, strong and concise digital strategy should be implemented.
Social media, mobile technology, cloud computing and analytics possess the ability to significantly transform a company, but only if business owners and executives understand and utilise them properly. Unfortunately, many business leaders are still unaware on how to integrate technology into the workflow due to an ineffective or non-existent strategy. And this is where the benefits and potential of these technologies will be greatly missed.
To make the most out of new technologies and applications, here are some essential points to help your business thrive in the digital age:
The Importance of Digital Strategy and Vision
Today in Australia, it is rare to find a business that doesn’t have at least a component of its business operated, transacted, or at least featured online. If business owners have the right strategy in place, they have the opportunity to fully use new technologies and applications to enhance their website, engage with employees, improve products and increase the number of customers. But when companies forget to place strategy as a priority before adopting new technologies, significant problems like a slowdown in the process can occur, resulting in lack of agility in the marketplace. “Digitally mature” companies choose new technologies that benefit their company and play a role in their strategic plans first, rather than trying every new innovation that is introduced to the market.
There are a range of quick and easy tips that Australian business owners and executives can use to create their digital strategy:
- Define your business objectives to understand what you would like to achieve.
- Determine the digital platform that you want to use for your company.
- Create a calendar representing the platforms, the times the platforms will be engaged, the budget for each activity and the estimated ROI.
- Measure, evaluate and ensure flexibility, as the marketing world is constantly changing and it is important that your business is always ready to adapt.
- Always monitor your business performance to track what is working and what isn’t.
Technology Gives You Analytics – Strategy Shows You How to Use Them
Today’s businesses need a convergence of historical analytics with immediate operational capabilities to address customers, process claims and interface to devices in real time at an individual level. Analytics analysis is a powerful tool to gain relevant analytical and operational insights, which can convert into valuable strategies.
Being leaders in adopting analytical technologies has been a priority for many Australian companies despite some complicated internal issues as revealed in a Microsoft report. Going through the challenges has allowed some top Australian companies like Telstra and local companies like Domino’s to integrate an effective digital strategy. Analytics have improved their marketing strategies and customer service by analysing massive amounts of consumer data in real time.
By implementing an effective detailed strategy, businesses can use new technologies and analytics to improve themselves, become more productive, more structured, and therefore, more successful.
About the author
Derek Judge is the Senior Director, Business Development, for MapR Technologies. In this role, Derek works with the extensive MapR partner community to deliver enterprise solutions based on the MapR Converged Data Platform which provides distributed processing, real-time analytics, and enterprise-grade requirements across cloud and on-premise environments–while leveraging big data technologies including Spark and Hadoop.
