Digital Business Transformation

Digital business transformation

In the long term, the digital business transformation changes the foundation of every company in its strategy, structure, culture and processes through the possibilities and potential of digital media and the Internet. It affects the organization through change management. With Digital Business Transformation, companies meet the changes of the digital age. As a further development of the term, Digital Business Transformation is derived from the English term "business transformation", the development of new business opportunities and the implementation of new business models by a company.

The advancing digital age leads to a change in the existing understanding of customers, business relationships and value chains. An international study conducted by the MIT Center for Digital Business and Capgemini Consulting shows that at the end of 2011, only around a third of companies are successfully transforming their business model into digital business. Challenges lie mainly in the right digital strategy, effective conceptual integration, professional knowledge management, a flexible corporate culture and rapid integration into the IT structure. According to MIT, the success factors are:

• - a clear vision for the future business with regard to the use of IT
• - Investments in modern as well as classic IT in order to exploit its potential
• - Changes must be supported by top management.

To carry out a structured transformation, companies can apply digital transformation strategies and a systematic digital transformation process.

Digital Business Transformation deals with the planning, management, optimization and implementation of a company's value chain in the digital era. The focus is on identifying the effects of digitalization on existing business models, the turnover, revenue streams and differentiation characteristics of a company in the market. Entire value chains are changing. Not only individual functions and corporate divisions are affected.

The sustainable change and reorientation of communication, marketing, sales and service are essential. Digital Business Transformation uses the advantages and potentials of the integration and implementation of new technologies as an opportunity for changing existing business models and generating new business potential from technical and functional benefit-oriented innovations.

The digital transformation process

The changes induced in companies by digitisation are far-reaching. Processes are being renewed, work is changing and the demands on employees are changing in equal measure. The socially acceptable design of this change process will continue to pose major challenges for companies, especially in the SME sector, in the coming years. In this context of digital transformation in companies, the image of digitalization is often presented in two speeds: On the one hand, technological development is advancing rapidly, while on the other hand, the necessary design of organizations requires significantly more time and willingness to change.

This picture can also be applied to the difference between large and small companies. While a high degree of technological maturity and many examples of flanking measures to redefine (cooperation) work can already be found in large corporations, there are many smaller companies that are only gradually getting underway. The fundamental challenges usually lie in the systematic identification of digitisation potential, the formulation of an individual digitisation strategy and the structured implementation of the digital transformation involving all relevant actors in the company.

In order to be able to cope with the manifold changes, a structured approach is advisable to address the emerging and existing challenges. After all, the implementation of digitisation projects not only holds many opportunities and possibilities, but also risks and challenges. They are far-reaching changes in which complex interrelationships between technical, organisational and employee-related aspects must be taken into account in order to enable effective use and exploitation of the full potential.

For small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in particular, digital transformation is associated with financial risks. In order to avoid misinvestments and not to endanger the competitiveness of the company, digital transformation processes must be planned even more carefully here. Digitalisierung im Mittelstand