Digitisation is relevant to your business. The trick is how to handle it.
"If we look beyond the physical devices and the theory around digitisation, we will see that every single business is touched by this in some way," said Alistair Petersen, director of growth implementation solutions at Frost & Sullivan.
Petersen was one of four panellists who took part in a discussion at a Telkom Digitisation Debate at the One & Only Hotel in Cape Town yesterday. Despite this, a poll at the event revealed two-thirds of the audience - comprising mainly CIOs from SA enterprises - did not have a digital strategy in place.
According to Richard Hurst, senior enterprise analyst at Ovum, no enterprise will be shielded from digitisation and all businesses today will be faced with, and have to embrace, some element of this tech evolution.
"It is a matter of survive and thrive. If not, you will fail to remain relevant in the market." To illustrate this, Petersen mentioned how BlackBerry was once an industry heavyweight but has fallen from grace because it didn't keep up with its competitors and adapt its offerings.
"If you fail to innovate, someone will get there before you and often this threat is from an entirely new player who isn't even your direct competition."
Some enterprises adopt a "wait-and-see" approach for fear of following a trend too early. "But the problem is that you could miss the boat entirely. At the moment, truly disruptive technologies may only be affecting roughly 1% of the market but this figure is growing exponentially," he said, adding that big changes are inevitable and are always on the horizon.
"Consumer needs have generally remained the same but how we satisfy and service those needs is evolving all the time."
Being relevant in a digital world is about thinking differently and always keeping your sights on what could be coming next, noted Lee Naik, MD of digital and technology strategy at Accenture SA.
"The trick is to pick up these triggers ahead of the game and react. If you don't want to jump on the bandwagon right now, know what you would do the second a market disruptor is launched." What happened to Nokia when Apple launched the iPhone could happen to your business if you do not have the foresight and the right strategy in place to respond, Naik added.
Naik cited Apple's new smartwatch as an example of a brand staying relevant with its customers and adapting offerings depending on what their customers want. "The Apple experience makes the customer feel special. With the right knowledge about what your customers want, you can mould your landscape to stay relevant and give them the type of products and experience that keeps them coming back."
That said, engaging with your customers is not new, according to African Analysis analyst, Andr'e Wills. "But digitisation better enables interaction with customers. Digital channels have brought about far more efficient processes."
Xhead: Risks and benefits
"Digitisation fosters an economy underpinned by an ever-pervasive and ubiquitous connectivity," stated Naik, detailing that some of the concerns around this include cost and security. Getting this right means finding the right partners and acknowledging that certain things may not be your forte, he continued. Even US government intelligence agency the CIA has outsourced its cloud to Amazon Web services, acknowledging that a reliable partner can keep their data safe.
"We should stop trying to do things ourselves; extending beyond the physical boundaries of our own ecosystems."
Wills noted that responding to digitisation is about making strategic choices now to sustain the business into the future. "If you want to be at the leading-edge of this trend today you have to make the right investments for tomorrow."
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