In this extensive category, there are many opportunities to significantly reduce costs without impacting central processes or the cost of goods sold. Digital adoption solutions are becoming the go-to method for optimizing processes and increasing efficiency in companies. 

These solutions allow internal employees to efficiently streamline their workflows and improve organizational collaboration with minimal effort. 

As we will see, some operational expenses can be reduced without significantly impacting the company’s work. Indeed, a strategy like hybrid working is likely to be welcomed by many staff members. 

But like all drives for efficiency, reducing operational costs must involve some form of organizational change. It’s simply not possible for a company to keep behaving in precisely the same way and expect to achieve growth. Becoming more efficient, reducing costs, and increasing revenues all mitigate the barriers to organizational change. 

Companies that cut costs may accidentally impact their long-term business goals. Fortunately, many strategies to reduce operating costs are easy to implement. With that in mind, this article will discuss some simple steps a business can take to reduce costs. 

What Are Operational Costs?

A business’s operational costs include all the expenses incurred from its day-to-day running. 

That might include: 

• Sales Costs 
• Salaries, Wages, & Other Labor Costs 
• Insurance 
• Property Tax
• Advertising/Marketing 
• Office Maintenance 
• Office Supplies
• Utility Bills (electricity, water, gas) 
• Travel Costs

We calculate operating expenses by subtracting gross profit from operating income.

 OPEX = Operating Income – Gross Profit. 

Operational costs are not the only type of costs that a business incurs. Other forms of cost include: 

• Cost of goods sold. The cost of producing a business’s services is not part of operating costs. 
• Capital expenditure (or CAPEX). One-off machinery, IT hardware, or premises investments are not part of operating expenses. In some jurisdictions, capital expenses are not taxed – while operating expenses are) 
• Depreciation of property. A business’s material property will incur wear and tear over the years. This does not count as an operational cost. 

Understanding operational costs are important because it can give a clear idea of the efficiency of a company’s business activities. 

The Types of Operating Expenses 

Operating costs can include fixed COSTS and variable costs. The category also includes overheads (which, in many cases, are similar to fixed operating expenses). 

Fixed Costs

These costs do not change with the amount of work the business does. Office rent will stay the same in busy months and slow months. Likewise, insurance, utility bills, and compliance fees don’t change. 

Fixed costs are usually included in the sum of operational costs and the cost of goods sold. 

Variable and Semi-Variable Costs

Variable costs will go up and down depending on the rate of production in a business. 

Fees from credit card providers or an eCommerce platform are a clear example. For businesses requiring manual labor, electricity, fuel, and other workshop supplies will vary. 

Overhead Costs

Overhead costs (or just “overheads”) are fixed costs. Overhead costs do not include anything that will go directly into producing a product or service. The rent on an office or the mortgage on a factor are examples of overhead costs. 

The Importance of A Good Operating Margin

An operating margin, sometimes called the “operating profit margin,” is a percentage calculated by dividing the operating income by net revenue. It’s similar to the operating expense ratio used in real estate forecasting. 

A higher percentage means the business will produce larger profits. There is no abstract measurement of a “good” operating margin. A business’s operating margin should be compared to other companies in the same industry. 

However, there are good reasons for every business to improve its operating margin as much as possible. It helps a business to improve cash flow, maintain a healthy operating income, and ensure that relationships with external vendors and partners are successful. 

A good operating margin can lead to cost savings. For example, a good operating margin means a business is far less likely to pay late fees for missed invoices. 

Are Operating Costs The Same as Selling, General, and Administrative Expenses (SG&A)?

In many cases, Operating Expenses and SG&A are identical. When companies minimize their expenses by focusing primarily on revenue-generating activities, it’s unlikely that they will incur any operating costs unrelated to SG&A. 

Operating costs not included in SG&A may consist of interest on the debt. More substantially, Research and Development costs will not be part of SG&A. 

These costs may be vital to the long-term viability of a more significant business. Still, they don’t have a direct relation to immediate revenue-generating activities that companies are built around. 

The Challenges of Maintaining Healthy Operational Costs

Running an inefficient company is far easier than running an efficient company. And When it comes to OPEX, some spending reductions will feel challenging to cut back on. 

After all, no one wants to make life more difficult for their staff. They’ve got enough to deal with. So cutting back on business trips, cutting back on office parties, or extensive hot desk facilities runs the risk of reducing employee satisfaction. 

Like any change, changes in cost allowances need to be managed well. 

Furthermore, when essential operating expenses increase, it can be difficult to budget. So good monitoring, evaluation, and forecasting are all essential. 

15 Actionable Methods To Reduce Operational Cost

Saving money in a small business is important, and it is not always difficult. 

Here are 15 steps most businesses can take to ensure that their expenses are helping them achieve their business goals: 

1. Establish A Cost Reduction Strategy 

Although companies can reduce operating costs quickly, starting the exercise with a clear strategy is wise.

The strategy may begin simply by looking closely at business expenses and becoming more aware of the costs coming out of the company’s bank account every month. Small businesses often do not have a straightforward tracking method for each operating cost.

But taking a bank statement and looking closely at everything that’s coming and going out automatically demonstrates whether or not more extensive improvements need to be made. 

2. Audit and Terminate Redundant Services and Applications

Reducing redundancy makes for an effortless way to save money without negatively impacting business functions.

When a business starts looking closely at its expenses, it might realize there are overlaps in the services they buy. If they’re paying monthly for both Google Drive and Dropbox – there’s a quick and easy saving to be made. Or, a small business might only use a few features from a major software subscription. They’d likely get better value out of the free version.

With a careful audit of software subscriptions, either as a one-off event or an ongoing process, businesses can quickly save money without negatively impacting their business.

3. Streamline Business Processes With Automation Software 

It’s no good having applications a business doesn’t need, but automation software is a great way to reduce expenditure in the long term. Even though automation requires a business to spend money, those costs are quickly recouped. 

Automation will look different in different industries. Typically, it takes the hassle out of the most tedious jobs in monitoring, data collection, and reporting. Automation is never a replacement for the expertise of well-trained staff. Most businesses can benefit by applying software solutions to accounting, communications, payroll, and even marketing.

With the right KPIs, metrics, and goals, you can achieve (and measure) the ROI of effective change management by implementing digital solutions. 

4. Minimize Surplus Expenses

Very few businesses can operate with 100% efficient spending. There will always be times when the cost of events, travel, and production doesn’t lead to improved revenue.
However, excessive spending may happen all over a business without the managers knowing a thing about it.

That’s why the best people to identify inefficiencies in operating costs are the rank-and-file staff. Is the company sending out too many people on business travel? Does the air con consistently stay turned “on” at the weekends? Is everyone printing out emails?
The best way to know is by asking. 

5. Reduce The Electricity Bill (Turn Off The Lights)

When everyone in a company works hard to increase profits, it can be easy to forget about energy consumption. If there’s a bit of wasteful spending on electricity or gas, isn’t that compensated for by additional revenue?

Everyone can agree that an office space needs to be comfortable and light for all users. But on an office-wide scale, electricity can be a major source of wasteful spending. Turning off lights, judiciously using heating (and cooling), and restricting energy-hungry devices can significantly reduce operating costs.

Businesses of every size can benefit from this process. Remember that the use of energy is not always predictable. For example, the UK Office for National Statistics study found that small businesses had a far higher energy intensity than large businesses. Every company should look closely at its use of energy. 

6. Reduce Carbon Emissions and Environmental Impact (Go Paperless)

Many consumers now assume that every business is responsible for reducing its carbon footprint. So when it comes to operating expenses, a company that commits to minimizing its environmental impact stands to improve its reputation and save money.

Some positive changes can be achieved through culture shifts. Printing agendas off for every meeting is unnecessary if your staff works on laptops or other portable devices. Deeper investments can include better insulation, energy-efficient equipment, and energy-saving lightbulbs. 

7. Adopt an SEO Strategy

Full-service marketing costs can be extremely high for businesses trying to cover all possible strategies.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategies are an excellent long-term solution to inbound lead generation. Even though the costs add up, good SEO will lead to far more productive work in the long run.

But a business’s content, backlinks, and UX investment can realistically lead to long-term leads and sales.

8. Hire Interns or Virtual Assistants 

Interns can represent great value for money.
A good company will pay an intern in line with the local cost of living. Once they have spent a few months working, it’s clear whether their skills are a good match. They can slip into a permanent role without the costs of recruitment or turnover.

Virtual assistants can be very flexible, adapting to the particular administrative needs of a week or month. 

9. Outsourcing and Subcontracting

Outsourcing work to freelancers and contractors can be a very cost-effective way of getting work done.

For example, a small business may not need a full-time hire to work on marketing. But an ongoing arrangement with a freelancer could help them to fulfill all their needs.

Freelancers and contractors often have a high ticket prices. But, short-term projects can produce great results without the extensive costs of hiring and maintaining a full-time or part-time staff member. 

10. Streamline Financial Operating Processes

Finance and accounting are at the heart of a cost-saving initiative.
A company’s current staff may be on top of paying invoices, administering payroll, and processing expenses. But they won’t always have the time to make those processes completely efficient and transparent.

Implementing accounting software like Quickbooks or Xero can be a great way to monitor all the costs a company incurs. The software supports existing staff and makes the ongoing process of reducing costs far easier to handle. 

11. Consider Competing Vendor Bids

Procurement is a serious matter for big businesses. They know that pricing systems can be both competitive – and not at all transparent.

A consistent tender process can help a company get the best deal on any service they buy. This may involve some outlay initially but will reduce operating costs significantly in the long term.

Research from Gartner in July 2022 reported that “two in five IT leaders regret technology purchases due to unfavorable terms or overpriced fees.” Evaluating competition makes it easier to see who might be taking advantage of a naive company. 

12. Transition Staff To Hybrid or Remote Work

The global pandemic introduced many companies to remote and hybrid working possibilities. Since then, research from McKinsey has shown that “More than four out of five survey respondents who worked in hybrid models over the past two years prefer retaining them going forward.”

Although relatively few companies are fully remote, the opportunity to work from home offers excellent benefits for employee satisfaction. From a company’s point of view, the staff is likely to be more productive while helping to reduce operational costs at the office itself. 

13. Reduce Physical Office Space

Companies that embrace the remote or hybrid working model can save their office space significantly.

A smaller physical office does introduce some new tasks. For example, an office manager must keep careful track of desk availability.

When long-term physical downscaling isn’t an option, redundant desks or offices can often be leased to freelancers at a fee. 

14. Pay Your Invoices and Bills Ahead of Time
    Paying in cash is preferable to credit for many vendors. Getting expenses out of the way makes it easier to see the company’s current account balance. And best of all, it means no late payment fees.  

15. Consolidate Organizational Events and Activities

Bringing together different events can be a sensitive issue. But a clear direction can seriously help to reduce operating costs.
If there are several birthdays in one week – can they all be marked simultaneously? Is one department holding too many away days? Stacking these events can lead to significant savings per participant. 

How Far Can A Business Save Money With Improved Operational Expenses? 

There’s no question that the operating costs businesses incur can often be reduced. By taking immediate action and ensuring that cost reduction is an ongoing process, businesses of any size can become leaner, more efficient, and more profitable. 

As a business, one of your main priorities is to reduce overheads while still providing high-quality services and products to customers. While many companies look towards traditional methods such as automation or outsourcing to achieve this goal, digital transformation presents the most cost-effective solution in the long term.

With digital transformation, a company can streamline its operations, improve business processes, and increase productivity using technology. For example, implementing a cloud-based document management system can eliminate the need for paper files and allow your team to access documents from anywhere and at any time.

However, operating costs can only be cut so far before they start impacting how small business functions. Cost savings may be a false economy if efforts to reduce operational costs lead to a hostile work environment. 

As described above, small businesses can start by rigorously evaluating their outgoings, and surplus spending can only be eliminated when managers see it.

The post 15 Actionable Methods To Reduce Operational Costs appeared first on Digital Adoption.

One particular sector experiencing this change is the financial and banking sectors—which have successfully digitized the delivery of services thanks to accelerated digital banking adoption efforts. Digital adoption plays a pivotal role in the transition from brick-and-mortar banking to digital banking and has become a vital component of the transformation strategies of financial entities. 

Previously, the only way for customers to complete critical financial errands was to physically visit their bank branch—which can involve long queues and unnecessary paperwork. 

Now with online banking apps, e-wallets, and digital banking channels giving customers the ability to make e-payments, manage their funds remotely, and make instant financial decisions in real-time, the everyday use of digitized banking services has become widely exploited.

However, to address changing customer needs while navigating the chaos caused by COVID-19, financial service providers are embracing digital disruption to reinvigorate traditional business models. 

In this article, we’ll cover everything you need to know about digital banking adoption in today’s zealous digital landscape—covering the latest trends, challenges, research, and solutions currently permeating the sector.

What Is Digital Banking?

Digital banking describes the complete digitization of end-to-end banking processes and is an umbrella term that encompasses both online and mobile banking. 

This typically involves deploying web-based products and services alongside AI-empowered process automation to facilitate online and mobile banking app financial management. This allows customers to complete transactions and access banking services online via any device, browser, or app. 

Statista reports that digital banking users in the U.S will grow from 197 million users in 2021 to almost 217 million users by 2025.

The digital banking model is often known as the “omnichannel” approach because customers can access their bank accounts 24/7, regardless of where they are. The need for digital banking solutions stems from increasing customer demand for digital solutions for accessing and managing their financial data. 

Forbes says, “Together, online and mobile banking creates the digital banking umbrella, giving people access to banking wherever they may be—or, in some cases, wherever they’re graced with secure Wi-Fi and strong cell signal.“

What Is Digital Banking Adoption?

Digital banking adoption refers to the rate at which consumers, businesses, and organizations adopt new digital banking services. This can include the use of online and mobile banking platforms and apps, e-payments, money transfers, loan services, and other contemporary financial architecture offered through digital mediums (e.g., cryptocurrency).

Factors influencing digital banking adoption include consumer preferences, competition in the industry, technology advancements, regulatory requirements, and marketing strategies. Several digital adoption strategies can be used to accelerate digital banking transformation rates, including marketing and communications campaigns, developing partnerships with third-party providers, and improving overall customer experience.

With the recent global pandemic, there has been a sudden shift to digital banking for many people. This was likely accelerated by other existing trends—such as the growing use of digital channels for various transactions, including banking, and the wider use of teleconferencing/video calls instead of face-to-face meetings. 

Digital Banking Adoption Is Increasing Globally 

Digital banking adoption models have graduated from simplistic add-ons and online features that support physical visits to bank branches, into a predominantly digital-first ecosystem where financial management is mostly done online.

In developing economies, digital banking has become widespread ever since the rise of the internet in the late 90’s made it possible for consumers to access online financial services remotely. Statista reports that Transaction value in the Neobanking segment is projected to exceed 1 trillion U.S dollars in 2022.

Fast forward, digital banking adoption is now being embraced globally. McKinsey’s 2021 Personal Financial Services survey reveals that digital banking adoption rates in emerging Asia-Pacific markets have caught up with that of developed economies.

The survey reports that consumers in emerging Asia-Pacific markets actively using digital banking rose from 54% to 33% between 2017 and 2021—an increase of 21% over five years. The survey further details that emerging Asia-Pacific markets lead the use of fintech and e-wallets, which has resulted in enhanced digital banking solutions becoming adopted faster than developed markets.

Digital Banking Vs. Traditional Banking

Financial models are changing as consumer trends continue to shift towards an everything-online culture. Banking institutions now face the challenge of offering products across geographies and cultures connected by technology.

Borders and geography no longer limit the financial services industry, so adapting to a changing global demand has become more important than ever.

Today, modern digital banking solutions are adopted by both long-held financial institutions and financial technology (fintech) start-ups—either developing digital banking services to support physical branches or digital-only platforms (neobanks) for those offering online-only services.

Financial technology (fintech) simply refers to any organization that utilizes technology to deliver financial services—companies falling under the fintech umbrella include veteran platforms such as Venmo and emerging ones like Revolut.

Some of the most reputable financial institutions providing industry-leading digital banking services include Citi, Wells Fargo, and JP Morgan Chase—who hold the largest share of active mobile banking customers in the U.S.

These proprietary banking apps host a range of e-resources that enable customers to monitor and manage their financial assets, make financial health assessments, utilize predictive analytics, and receive tailored insights. 

However, incumbent financial bodies are finding it increasingly necessary to re-assess the limitations of legacy architecture and source solutions that deliver faster innovation and operational efficiency. 

The Emergence Of New Banking Models

To transition from traditional banking models into emerging digital models, financial institutions have begun collaborating with fintech companies to supplement legacy systems with agile architecture able to innovate as fast as competing providers. 

Alternatively, traditional banks are leveraging their infrastructure and opening up their application programming interfaces (APIs) to host fintech stacks that deploy Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) solutions.

Along with BaaS, companies dedicated to developing financial technologies have enabled the rise of neobanks—sometimes referred to as challenger banks.

Neobanks—also known as digital-only banks—are fast becoming the go-to financial service providers best able to meet the demands of tech-conscious consumers. Insider Intelligence says there will be 40 million neobank account holders by 2025. 

Neobanks provide digital-only web-based mobile services that generally require no/low fees or traditional physical branch networks. These online banks offer slimmed-down services compared to conventional banks and are often required to partner with an established bank to acquire a license permitting them to operate. 

Neobanks that are fully licensed and offer wide-ranging financial services qualify as a new bank—their online-only operations differentiating them from traditional brick-and-mortar providers. Examples of these new banks include Monzo, Nubank, and Starling Bank.

The advent of new banks, decentralized finance (DeFi), peer-to-peer lending (P2P), software-as-a-service (SaaS), and other fintech models signify shifting societal and consumer demands towards more efficient and autonomous financial tools—and the prospective success of at least one of these emergent technologies appears likely. 

In the UK, the number of challenger banks is cropping up after the country introduced new open banking regulations alongside robust regulations provisioned by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). These challenger banks allow customers to collaborate with fintech and third-party providers (TPP), ultimately giving them the final say on how their financial data is shared.

Traditional financial institutions must embrace and find a way to navigate digital disruptors to catch up with the rapid innovations fintech is delivering. This means embracing new technologies and being open to competition from a wide range of service providers with different business models.

Digital Banking Opportunities

Digital banking opportunities are emerging in a wide range of areas, including digital payments, personal finance management (PFM), lending and financing services, international commerce, wealth management, e-wallets, identity verification, AI-driven virtual assistants, and more. 

As more consumers and businesses adopt digital banking services, the market for these offerings is expected to continue growing in the coming years. This presents a tremendous opportunity for organizations to develop innovative digital banking solutions and capture a share of the emerging market.

Digital banking opportunities are prospects for business growth and innovation in the financial services sector. These opportunities include:

1. More Output/Higher Margins

Customers no longer have to wait to deposit or withdraw money from their accounts or make online purchases during bank hours. Banks can now offer 24/7 services with digital banking, leading to increased profits.

2. Improved Mobile Banking Adoption

Mobile banking apps allow customers to access their bank accounts and perform various transactions, such as check deposits or online payments, at any time. This convenience can help drive higher digital banking adoption rates, especially among younger users who are more likely to use mobile devices for financial transactions.

3. Increased Borrowing & Lending Opportunities

Digital banking platforms can facilitate lending and financing services, allowing customers to apply for loans or other types of credit online. This gives businesses greater access to capital, which can drive growth and innovation in various industries.

4. Mass Adoption of Digitized Services

The mass adoption of digitized services is accelerating across the banking industry at a rapid rate.  Banks that can implement digital banking solutions at scale will be better positioned to capitalize on the growing market for these offerings. Digitized services represent a significant opportunity for organizations to expand their customer base, increase revenues, and improve operational efficiency.

5. Better Market Predictions

Data is critical for any organization because it can be used to predict the market and offer better services to customers. Digital banking is backed up with an accurate data collection mechanism. Today, the data available in banks have not been utilized as they are supposed to be mainly because the format in which they exist makes them harder to access.

Though digital banking benefits both customers and banks, it’s safe to say that the future banker will be entirely digital. As we speak, AI for banking is already being implemented by other banks, with remarkable results in some cases. Eventually, bank queues will cease, which is a fair warning for any bank or financial institution wanting to maintain a strong market presence.

The Biggest Challenges of Digital Banking Adoption

When money is involved, security is naturally a top concern. It’s no surprise that statistics from DA’s ‘digital adoption in the banking industry’ report that most digital banking providers (38%) feel that ensuring data security and cybersecurity across the network and infrastructure is a top priority. 

With digital banking and the wider digital economy growing each year, so does the threat of cyberattacks. As financial institutions continue to launch predominantly mobile and web-based services, achieving this without compromising their customers’ safety and security is challenging.

The six biggest challenges in digital banking for providers in 2021, according to our data, also include:

• Increasing competition from digital-first providers
• Building end-to-end customer journeys that integrate across partners
• Ensuring easy data interoperability and flow with external partners 
• Relevant skills and talent capabilities 

The digitization of traditional banking models allows long-held financial institutions to evolve alongside the very same technology enabling its transformation—but the adoption of new technologies and digitized services means particular attention must be placed on cybersecurity.

Phishing attacks, malware and ransomware attacks, identity theft, and fraudulent activity pose huge security risks for customers and providers alike. So banking institutions going digital emphasize enhanced cybersecurity solutions that fortify customer transactions with protective parameters.

This includes deploying antivirus and runtime application self-protection (RASP) solutions to protect core systems or two-factor authentication and biometric scanning for end-users. Digital banks are also using artificial intelligence to perform data analytics and create models that can recognize threats and anomalies. While machine learning can be taught to detect fraud by analyzing customer behavior and identifying changes using intelligent insights across large data sources.

What Is FinTech?

There is a growing number of financial technology companies revolutionizing how we bank and manage our finances. These innovative companies offer various products and services, including digital banking platforms, mobile payment systems, peer-to-peer lending networks, crowdfunding platforms, automated investment management tools, and more.

Fintech started to gain traction around the mid 90’s. At that time, it was used mainly by large financial institutions for things like back-end systems. But since then, there has been a shift toward more consumer-oriented services. 

Now fintech encompasses different sectors and industries such as education, retail banking, fundraising and nonprofit organizations, and investment management.

The fintech startups that receive the most funding are designed to overtake traditional financial institutions by being more agile, appealing to underserved markets, or providing superior service.

For example, Affirm tries to remove credit card companies from the online shopping process by giving consumers a way to immediately take out short-term loans for purchases. 

Although rates can be expensive, Affirm states that they offer an opportunity for people with no or poor credit to get loans and improve their credit scores.

The Role Of FinTech In Digital Banking Adoption

Although fintech can pose particular challenges to digital banking adoption, it also plays a crucial role in helping businesses stay competitive and relevant in the rapidly changing financial landscape.

Some critical ways that fintech influences digital banking include:

1. Increased access to capital for businesses and consumers.

Many fintech companies offer new streamlined ways for people and businesses to access capital through online platforms, mobile apps, and more. Increased capital access helps reduce barriers to entry, allowing more people to take advantage of financial services and products.

2. Streamlined user experience across multiple channels (physical, online, etc.)

To remain competitive in the digital age, banks must provide a seamless consumer experience across all channels, including physical branches, websites, and mobile apps. 

Fintech companies are helping to drive this transformation by introducing new technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning that make it easier to interact with customers in real-time.

3. Increased competition in the banking industry

The rise of fintech has led to increased competition among banks, credit unions, and other financial institutions. This has led to faster innovation cycles and greater pressure on traditional players to keep up with the latest technologies and trends to remain competitive.

4. Greater access to data for businesses and consumers

Many fintech startups are generating huge amounts of data through their platforms and applications, which can improve customer experiences, reduce costs, and make data-driven business decisions. 

Big data analytics tools have increased recently, particularly within the financial services industry.

Is Digital Banking The Future?

The rapidly-evolving fintech industry primarily arose as a recovery response to the economic fallout caused by the 2008 financial crash, which offered an alternative financial paradigm for those who wanted to branch away from traditional banking models. 

Since then, the number of emerging fintech start-ups has risen yearly, and with advancements in financial technology continuing to rewrite industry norms—we expect this trend to continue.

The rapidly-evolving fintech industry mainly arose as a recovery response to the economic fallout caused by the 2008 financial crash, which offered an alternative financial paradigm for those who wanted to branch away from traditional banking models. 

The components driving the development of financial technology can be characterized mainly by the rapid adoption of 4 key technologies often referred to as the “ABCDs of fintech” Artificial Intelligence (AI), Blockchain Technology, Cloud Computing, and Big Data empower fintech innovation across sectors. 

Let’s explore these technologies further:

Artificial Intelligence (AI) 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is improving digital banking adoption in various ways. Thanks to advancements in machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP), fintech and traditional financial service providers alike understand AI’s potential applications are plenty.

AI can leverage customer data to provide companies with distinct insights and predictions on customer and marketplace trends. AI’s analysis of consumer behavior using vast amounts of data from multiple sources means it’s able to make intelligent recommendations for improving the customer journey and evaluating risk scores. 

The benefits of blockchain technology have been realized for some time, underpinning the nascent cryptocurrency market and the emergence of uniquely identifiable digital assets. Based on the principles of consensus, cryptography, and decentralization, this new technology penetrates global business and established financial sectors to enhance processes, increase efficiency, and deliver transparency across the organization.

Blockchain 

Blockchain can transform the core of digital banking architecture by using its efficient and immutable processes. For example, traditional financial providers are eager to leverage digital currencies for more secure and faster transaction processes. 

One of the primary benefits of blockchain technology is its ability to create tamper-proof records. This makes it an attractive solution for banks, who are constantly looking for ways to improve the security and efficiency of their transaction processes.

For example, many banks are now exploring digital currencies as a more secure alternative to traditional payment methods like credit cards. Digital currencies can offer faster transaction times, lower processing fees, and increased transparency compared to conventional payment methods.

Moreover, blockchain technology is inherently built with security embedded, which financial service providers can rely on to fortify security capabilities, keep secure records of ownership and utilize smart contracts to execute water-tight transactions on blockchain’s unchanging ledgers.

Cloud Computing 

Cloud computing is transforming companies’ business through its on-demand infrastructure, application hosting, and software solutions. Digital banking adopters can leverage the cloud to accelerate their innovation cycles, improve customer engagement, optimize costs and ultimately enhance the customer experience.

The unique selling point of cloud computing is the flexibility and scalability it offers businesses. Software-as-a-service (SaaS), neobanks, Banking-as-a-service (BaaS), and other fintech providers empowered by the potential of cloud transformation, which helps avoid vendor lock-ins that require spending on costly software licenses. Rolling subscription models also means fintech providers face lower upfront costs when developing software hosted on the cloud, allowing them to experiment and scale business models.

Data 

Data is considered “the new oil” and, much like the natural resource, is a highly sought-after ingredient fuelling the transformation of entire industries. Traditional banking institutions depend on large data sets to maintain essential operations. This data, however, has long been deposited in physical form, which can make for unwieldy organizational processes, forecasting capabilities, and decision-making.

Data has now been digitized and is readily accessible through cloud storage and processing tools. Providers can leverage big data and analytics to gain insights on customers’ online activities- like logging in to virtual banking, transactions, web browsing, eCommerce, and social media use.

Digital banks can collect massive amounts of customer data and use sophisticated AI algorithms to decode these trends into insights that can help identify customer needs, forecast marketplace changes and optimize operational efficiency. 

Overall, the ABCDs of fintech – AI, blockchain technology, cloud computing, and data analytics – are transforming the digital banking landscape by enhancing efficiency, security, and customer experience. Digital banks that embrace this paradigm shift while focusing on their customers will be positioned to stay competitive and capture a share of the evolving market.

What Role Will Branches Play In The Digital Banking Adoption Revolution?

There is no clear answer to this question, as the role of branches in digital banking adoption is still evolving. On the one hand, some experts believe that traditional bank branches may become redundant as more consumers adopt digital banking solutions.

However, others argue that physical branches still play an important role in engaging customers and providing high service and support. In particular, many people still prefer to visit their local branch for complex tasks or in-person assistance.

As the digital banking revolution continues to unfold, it will be interesting to see how banks balance the need for both online and offline services to meet their customers’ changing needs.

How Should Banks Rethink How They Engage With Customers?

One key way banks can rethink how they engage with customers is by focusing on customer experience. Financial institutions can create personalized interactions that improve satisfaction and loyalty over time by using data analytics and other technologies to understand their customers’ needs and preferences.

Additionally, banks should consider investing in new digital tools and services that help enhance the customer journey. This might include offering more online banking products, such as personal finance apps or automated investment platforms, allowing users to easily manage their accounts from any device.

To succeed in this rapidly changing landscape, banks must also be willing to embrace innovation and experimentation to stay ahead of the competition. By continuously evaluating emerging trends and technologies, they can better understand the evolving needs of their customers and adapt accordingly.

How Should Banks Position Themselves In The Future?

To position themselves for success in the future, banks must be willing to embrace innovation and adapt to changing trends and technologies. This may involve investing in new digital tools and services that better meet the needs of their customers, as well as experimenting with new approaches to engaging with clients and improving customer experience.

At the same time, banks must also maintain a strong focus on delivering high-quality products and services to build customer trust and loyalty. By leveraging data analytics, machine learning, and other cutting-edge technologies, they can better understand their customers’ needs and create tailored experiences that drive satisfaction and engagement.

Digital Banking Transformation: The Future Of Transactions 

The digital banking revolution is changing how financial institutions engage with customers, offering new tools and services that improve convenience and satisfaction. As such, banks must be willing to embrace innovation and experimentation to position themselves for success in the future. 

Ultimately, meeting the needs of today’s digital consumers will be vital to ensuring long-term success in this rapidly evolving landscape.

The post Digital Banking Adoption: Everything You Need To Know appeared first on Digital Adoption.

Digital transformation is one of the most important aspects of technology rationalization. This involves leveraging new technologies to improve existing processes, drive innovation in business models, and enhance customer engagement. 

But how do we define and measure technology rationalization? What needs does it fulfill? What are the obstacles to achieving technology rationalization, and what is the six-step process to achieving it? We will answer all these questions, beginning with a definition.

What Is Technology Rationalization?

Technology rationalization, shortened to tech-rat, can also be referred to as Application Portfolio Rationalization or IT Portfolio Rationalization and is part of digital transformation strategies. It is the process of minimizing an enterprise’s technology application stack to minimize costs, increase efficiency, optimize business processes, and keep the total cost of ownership (TCO) low as part of a technology-driven organization.

This definition explains technology rationalization projects. But why are they crucial to business processes?

Understanding The Need For Technology Rationalization

Technology rationalization is analyzing and evaluating your company’s various applications and services to identify the ones that provide the biggest value to your business. This involves assessing each application’s impact on your company’s performance, functionality, and other factors such as ease of use, integration with other systems, cost efficiency, security requirements, and customer satisfaction.

Most companies today use too many applications that reach beyond their needs and do not utilize the savings they could achieve via an application portfolio strategy. Gartner reports that More than 50% of organizations don’t have clear measures of success assigned to their cost management initiatives.

Companies must understand the need for technology rationalization as the first step to building a plan for ensuring they use technology efficiently. The first aspects of this process are shadowed IT and siloed purchases.

Shadow IT And Siloed Purchasing

Shadow IT is any unauthorized use of IT technologies, solutions, services, projects, and infrastructure. When companies take a siloed approach, they ensure that they only give access to staff who need to use specific software for their business operations. This action provides accurate usage figures, informing the best decisions for technology rationalization projects. These steps ensure that the amount of software staff use is always within the necessary levels as the right staff uses the right software.

Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) Overlap

Organizations can save money by ensuring that technology with the same purpose resulting from M&A from different vendors doesn’t promote overlapping functionality. The way to avoid this is to ensure that when M&As occur, the technology rationalization effort includes a plan to review technology to identify applications with overlapping functionality and remove them to improve efficiency.

Consolidating new tool stacks acquired from M&S to an existing application portfolio can take up to five years or more. It’s essential to plan and be practical when engaging in M&A about application portfolio management as part of a rationalization project.

Unbridled Complexity

Unbridled complexity occurs when too many software solutions have similar or overlapping functions due to poor application portfolio management. This complexity reduces visibility, making it harder to see redundant applications and function overlap. Introducing a more simple perspective increases visibility, improving application portfolio management efficiency.

Fear of Past Failures

Technology rationalization projects are all about learning and evolving based on past mistakes. A culture of accepted mistakes helps to push boundaries and take a more innovative approach to new error practices, being an acknowledged part of a technology rationalization project.

Inaccurate Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Calculations

Every successful application rationalization initiative depends on calculations to determine TCO, which goes beyond the purchase cost, containing a complex matrix of factors. The most straightforward formula to determine TCO includes three elements:-

• Initial cost (I)
• Maintenance cost (M)
• Remaining costs (R)

TCO = I + M – R

The initial cost considers the initial price you pay for an asset.

The maintenance cost involves the costs to run the technology as a continuous process in the long term.

The remaining cost is what the asset will be worth, for example, five years into the future, helping us make a long-term calculation and better plan for potential devaluation.

When you calculate TCO accurately, you improve efficiency as part of your technology rationalization project.

Redundant And Dormant Apps

Identification and removal of redundant, dormant, or zombie apps are at the core of successful technology rationalization strategies. Companies must perform this task regularly and review it at intervals.

These aspects of a technology rationalization project highlight the need to increase efficiency and optimize the budget. But what obstacles do companies need to be aware of as they begin strategically identifying business applications?

Technology Application Rationalization Obstacles

WalkMe indicates in its report, The State of Digital Adoption 2022-2023, that in 2021 companies incurred costs of $100 million due to technological waste. Looking at each obstacle thoroughly provides the best technology application rationalization strategy solutions. The first of these obstacles is oversaturated portfolios.

Oversaturated Portfolios 

When an application portfolio is bloated with unnecessary apps, it causes hidden redundancy and locks innovation spending to legacy apps. Therefore, reducing the number of applications is essential to success, as usage and investment outliers are easier to spot in a reduced-size app portfolio. With fewer applications overall, there is also more scrutiny on assessing the business value of new ones.

Redundant Platform Changes

Although it’s a sound IT strategy to increase your SaaS footprint and remove perpetual licenses, transferring all applications from one platform to another without assessing their business value is wasteful. Moving fewer apps involves less technical work overall, allowing time to focus on delivering a portfolio that provides real value to the enterprise.

Under-Utilized Applications

Despite it being easier to buy something new, this approach goes against the purpose of application rationalization initiatives. Organizations that see success with app rate strategies get more out of existing apps before they add anything else to the portfolio.

Low Engagement 

If your partners meet initiatives with disinterest, it may be due to a need for more dialogue surrounding the total cost of ownership (TCO) of applications. While this number is difficult to agree upon, it’s vital to have a conversation based on factual information. You will lose accuracy in translation if your assumptions appear too simple or overly complicated. Successful engagement occurs when you find the perfect balance between these two extremes.

It is good to begin where business stakeholders and Infrastructure and Operations (I&O) managers are already aware of issues with certain key areas in their portfolio. An app TCO initiative does not need to be all-encompassing to drive engagement, but you must address areas that staff has already flagged as an issue.

IT managers and CIOs must know these obstacles to ensure they are tackled early for the most successful technology rationalization plans. But what stepped processes exist to guide technology rationalization in a structured way?

The 6-Step Process Application Rationalization Framework

The six-step application rationalization framework combines six steps to allow any IT department to ensure its vision has a solid strategic direction using all the best principles. The first step involves organizational needs and preparedness.

IT Asset Management (ITAM) is a crucial part of the technology rationalization process because it allows users to track their equipment’s usage and performance for decision-making purposes.

Before exploring the process application rationalization framework, it’s worth familiarizing yourself with IT asset management best practices, a set of rules that help to improve the efficiency and performance of an IT Asset Management tool. By following these best practices, teams can meet their goals more effectively and complete tasks faster.

Step 1: Assess Organizational Needs And Preparedness 

The first step in the application rationalization framework is a portfolio assessment to identify all the applications needing review, along with their names and application managers. Sometimes an initiative like this will focus on removing retired apps from the portfolio within two quarters. Still, it’s also essential to baseline assess the entire portfolio so you can find any misidentified apps.

To ensure the success of an app rating, business stakeholders must engage early on by helping with portfolio analysis. Doing so gives the context and validation needed to make accurate recommendations. Only two pieces of data are presented to IT finance – an application list and an app-to-server mapping file.

If the source data is incorrect, it renders all rationalization initiatives useless. Therefore, I&O owns and must validate the application list data with operational data for a successful outcome. A portfolio assessment pinpoints which applications running on older systems need unique infrastructure, as maintaining these legacy systems drains development funds that you could use to fuel innovation and growth.

1:1 Launch Preparedness Assessment

Setting business value to applications often leads to organizational pushback. To isolate investments in running the business (RTB) versus growing the business (GTB), analyze application costs according to company functions. Unfortunately, such an analysis can establish a contentious environment where GTB is considered the only actual spend.

Part of IT’s responsibilities is to deliver KTLO (Keep The Lights On) capabilities, but there can be resistance to change if organizations see this as a hindrance to innovation. To avoid this, companies should ensure that their IT budget aligns with their business objectives and get buy-in from various stakeholders during the tech-rat process.

A common side effect of an application rationalization effort is a spike in spending. When companies retrain staff to use a new, rationalized application, there are costs associated with technology adoption and implementation. Companies need to consider sources for retraining in addition to the business value. For example, is it worth using our training resources to cover this? You’ll need to answer these questions to make sure the best deal.

1:2 Determine Scope and Requirements

A portion of the application portfolio has the potential to bring tangible business value. The next logical question then becomes: how well is it performing in bringing this desired business value? Successful tech-rat initiatives work to answer this question.

The effectiveness of an application’s business value is determined by how it can streamline or redefine existing processes. While many applications support already existing methods, the critical question when selecting one for your organization is: how well does this app automate a particular business process? Automation should be the primary functional quality you consider when assessing an application.

With an application rationalization initiative, employees can voice their experience with an application. If an application hampers productivity and harms the user’s attitude, it reflects poorly on the business itself. Department managers must discuss quality limitations to weigh them against IT goals.

IT stakeholders may desire to expand different aspects of cloud footprints, such as IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) or SaaS. Still, if existing solutions are only available locally or on-premises, that might not be feasible due to a lack of support from outdated infrastructure.

If a SaaS offering is unavailable, only the status quo remains, as you haven’t moved forwards or backward. The more difficult choice occurs when options are in the cloud, and you must weigh every possibility. For example, can you assume that an app will be secure if it’s just in the cloud? If the answer is no, since you’re so invested in modernizing your IT strategy and operating on Cloud, would you heavily invest in making sure it sticks to those parameters?

A change in application portfolios requires a shift in hardware. Offering cloud services allows users to utilize pre-existing on-premises servers and storage for other purposes. However, moving infrastructure to the cloud without taking advantage of the leftover capacity on-premises is wasteful.

1:3 Compose a Questionnaire using metrics

Utilize metrics to show the success of your application rationalization initiative. Eventually, you’ll eliminate applications of low business value and become skilled at not including new low-value apps.

IT teams report the success of initiatives by:

• The number of apps that will be retired because of analysis.
• The number of licenses saved from those retired apps.
• Recovered or avoided server and storage assets from those app retirements (these numbers show our decision’s value).
• The percentage of apps that you reduce over time.
• The percentage of apps with overlapping functionality that you reduce.
• The difference in per-instance costs for prod vs. non-prod instances as a percentage.
• The reduction in TCO (total cost of ownership) over time, expressed as a percentage price Leaner infrastructure, results in a lower TCO.

Application rationalization initiatives examine how we’re already spending on applications and provide ways to use that money more efficiently. Technology should serve the business–not the other way around–so it’s essential to review our application portfolios from a business perspective.

Projects may duplicate functionality or have low quality but are high value, for example. Tech-rat initiatives need monthly financial and operational data to be effective. App TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) analytics should be available for anyone who needs them, not just IT people. And most importantly: these decisions should always come back to what will generate the most value for the business overall.

After assessing overall needs and preparedness, you must consolidate each software solution within your application portfolio.

Step 2: Consolidate Application Inventory

The next step of the six-step plan is to take inventory to ensure effective app portfolio management. This action involves recording every app in the portfolio to provide all necessary apps remaining, and you remove all unused apps. The first process for this step is to launch a questionnaire to collect data.

2:1 Launch Questionnaire 

The first step is to launch a questionnaire in a way your company will feel is appealing and will be able to engage. Doing so will allow you to collect the best quality feedback that you can use in later stages. Pulse surveys, detailed surveys at less frequent intervals, and points of contact to receive feedback for each department at effective means of collecting feedback.

2:2 Validate Feedback

When you have collected feedback, record the data and update staff to assure them that you will act on their feedback. Tech validation is a continuous process, and staff should feel included in receiving information relevant to their department and role and decision-making where possible.

2:3 Streamline Application portfolio Procurement

Streamlining your supplier portfolio saves you time and money by requiring fewer orders.

The process begins with analyzing which suppliers you can replace and making a list of the products they supply. By identifying a replacement for just one product, you can easily list all other products offered by that specific distributor.

You can then publish this information into an e-procurement solution, where anyone in your company can order the products with little to no hassle. Taking these extra minutes out of your day is significant cost savings and a simplified ordering process.

Step 3: Assess Business Value And Technical Compatibility 

Assessing the business value, technical quality, and compatibility is critical in completing your tech rationalization project. The first process within this is to compile technical value and compatibility research.

3:1 Compile Technical Value and Compatibility Research 

When analyzing successful apps, it is essential to distinguish between the app’s name and its business value. For example, Trello is a SaaS-based project management software. When defining an app rat initiative, it must be easy to assess the application’s business value.

This action makes it easier to identify capabilities in similar applications that are no longer needed (“We have Trello, but we also have surpluses licenses for Wrike and Nutcache. Let’s agree on one standard and retire the others.”).

3:2 Determine Application Dependencies 

Suppose an organization’s app servers are all in one rationalized location, which negatively affects productivity because it limits I&O availability to only one region’s core business hours. In that case, there may be a business need for redundant capabilities.

Step 4: Determine The Total Cost Of Ownership

It’s crucial to determine the cost of ownership (TCO) as part of the six-step process. Begin by assessing the current state of your TCO process.

4:1 Assess the Current State of the TCO Process

The total cost of ownership (TCO) for an application must consider everything that goes into supporting and delivering it, including the accounting entries for both license costs and indirect infrastructure and operational expenses. To acquire this figure, you need to review the cost outliers. The big question with TCO analysis is always accuracy: How accurate are these numbers?

4:2 Review Cost Outliers

To ensure the success of your app rat initiative, you’ll need to analyze TCO regularly. With cost transparency apps, you can upload monthly operational and financial data for IT finance to study and draw self-serve analytics.

When conducting an application TCO analysis, it’s vital that you keep costs in mind, as well as what drives those costs—this way, you can be allocated project spending accordingly for each application.

Step 5: Score Applications

Pinpoint a fraction of the application portfolio as enhanced business value. The next question then becomes: how efficiently are we delivering this business value? Practical tech-rat projects attend to this question.

5:1 Build a Reliable Scoring Framework

To assess an application’s business value, look at how well it supports existing processes and functionality. An organization might select an application that props up an existing process or uses the app to redefine the process (e.g., sales stages with Salesforce SalesCloud). But what matters is how much automation the application offers.

5:2 Review Scores

Any IT goals that stakeholders want to achieve must scrutinize limitations. There might be a desire to branch out to the cloud more for IaaS and SaaS solutions. Still, if existing solutions can only happen on-prem with older infrastructure support, that’s all possible.

If you can’t find a SaaS offering, you’re left where you started. But if there are options in the cloud, it’s even tougher to decide what to do next. How can you be sure that an app will be secure in the cloud? And if you’re wedded to your IT strategy on the cloud, how much should you invest in modernization?

5:3 Engage Application Owners For Feedback

Employees are more likely to be engaged with the business if they have a say in the company’s applications. By allowing employees to weigh in on their experience with an application, companies can get insights into whether an application is user-friendly and efficient.

Step 6: Restructure Application Placements

The assessment of an app portfolio typically starts with names and owners. However, a more holistic approach that assesses the entire portfolio may uncover issues (like incorrect labeling of retired vs. active apps) that are important to the current initiative. This action also establishes the necessary groundwork for follow-on broader tech-rat initiatives.

Business stakeholders should get involved in app rat initiatives as soon as possible by helping with the portfolio analysis. The only resources an IT Finance department has is an application list and an app-to-server mapping file. This data needs to be put into context and validated.

Recommendations from an application rationalization initiative will be meaningful only if the source data is correct. A successful application rationalization initiative depends on accurate, validated data. Finance doesn’t own this information—I&O does, and we must validate application list data using operational data.”

An application portfolio assessment shows which older systems need unique infrastructure, so you can prioritize development spending to areas that create new value.

6:1 Allocate Applications Based on Application Feedback Metrics

This section of the process’s final step depends on the quality of the collected feedback. Ensure that IT works with each department to set up the staff with training and support to use each application.

6:2 Assess Prospective TCO and Vendor Hosting Options

Assessing the prospective TCO and vendor hosting options allows budgets to be accurate. It is essential to establish vendor issues such as frequency of payment and whether it involves monthly hosting fees only or annual license fees. 

If needed, you must also factor in security, training, and support fees to establish the accurate TCO for an application portfolio.

6:3 Build A Migration and Change Management Strategy

Moving to a new application portfolio management strategy is stressful for staff. A migration and change management strategy ensures that staff feel supported and can give feedback to managers if they struggle to adjust to a new portfolio rationalization process.

10 Crucial Technology Rationalization App Features

Getting the essential features for your technology rationalization application is crucial. 

Here are the best features you need to seek out:

• Billing automation
• Content management
• HR management tools
• Business intelligence (BI)
• Enterprise searching capability
• Customer and call center support
• Email communication for Customer relationship management (CRM)
• Enterprise resource planning (ERP) features
• Project management tools
• Compensation processing

It is essential to ensure your tech rationalization project includes the best software features to get the most out of all your software solutions. But what are the best technology rationalization project apps for 2022?

Top 5 Enterprise Technology Rationalization Apps for 2022

The best enterprise architecture helps you to choose the best technology solutions. Our top five tech rationalization applications show you the best tools to select the best technology. All of these solutions are rated 4.5/5 or higher by Gartner Peer Insights.

1. Snow Software

The Snow Software tech rationalization tool offers a broad view of all on-premises, mobile, data center, and cloud assets under your purview. Use Snow Adoption Tracker to see everything in one place for a quick snapshot of what hardware and software are installed, making it easy to manage cost implications and software compliance risks.

2. Matrix42

Matrix42 has various modules depending on your needs, and much customization is available. Use it to integrate and consolidate data from SCCM and SQL and import data from custom-made asset managers. You can also create new connectors with different solutions.

3. Micro Focus

Micro Focus provides stable and reliable license management software that is also very user-friendly. Micro Focus’s SAM Spider software allows organizations to use only one tool for all license management tasks instead of switching between multiple solutions. The tool sends reminders about the expiration and cancellations of contracts via email, which can be beneficial to help firms reduce their IT spending. Thanks to its ability to store asset, license, and contract data all in one place, it has been an excellent solution for many companies as part of their IT rationalization project.

4. Raynet

RayVentory is a tech rationalization tool many companies use for geographically remote and local devices. With its agentless technology, IT can scan hardware and software devices remotely or through agents at a low cost while maintaining comprehensive reports. Additionally, this allows for detecting unmanaged or disconnected devices as the process removes the need for complex IT infrastructures or data centers.

5. Certrero

Certero Enterprise Premium Edition is the solution to all of your old challenges. With this simple and easy-to-use SaaS solution, any size enterprise can gain clarity and control over IT hardware, software, and business intelligence in no time at all.

Certero’s inventory enables you to make sound decisions with the confidence that comes from knowing all your assets and having access to information about them. Certero provides a modern Single Platform Solution that is convenient and intuitive while delivering measurable business benefits. Features include:-

• IT hardware and software asset management,
• software distribution,
• device and user access control, and
• Automated software recognition.

These examples give some idea of what is available on the market. Always ask vendors if there is a trial version that your team can use for a month to ensure it fits your needs.

What Is Tool Fragmentation?

While you can fix some IT problems, you can only manage others. Tool fragmentation is one of those latter challenges enterprises typically have to learn to deal with — it’s not a problem with a clear solution.

Companies use tech rationalization to combat tool fragmentation. This process is crucial, but even after implementing tech rationalization, most businesses end up fragmented.

For example, many large companies try to streamline their cross-functional team working processes using Microsoft products like email, chat, office applications, and file storage. Nearly every enterprise uses multiple software programs for collaboration, even if they have chosen Microsoft as their primary vendor. This scenario indicates that simply making a directional choice to standardize with one vendor doesn’t guarantee it will happen.

In the IT Ops world, organizations have traditionally aligned themselves with one vendor, such as HP or IBM. However, it is increasingly rare to find a company that uses just one of these vendors for its entire IT operations stack.

Fragmentation vs. Rationalization

With this description of the need to consider fragmentation, the question is, how is fragmentation different from tech rationalization? Fragmentation is the process by which a company’s use of software becomes separated, messy, and no longer joined up and organized. The tech rationalization process aims to bring together and simplify the use of technology by removing redundant applications through well-recorded and regularly reviewed application portfolio management. In this way, fragmentation and rationalization link together.

Streamline Business Processes With Tech Rationalization

Implementing tech rationalization can be daunting, but the potential cost savings are too significant to ignore. Industry leaders have acknowledged the importance of successful application rationalization initiatives in achieving better business outcomes. And taking steps towards rationalizing your company’s technology usage can improve outcomes for IT stakeholders. 

If you’re ready to begin saving money for your business, now is the time to start your tech rationalization plan as part of your digital transformation.

The post The Ultimate Technology Rationalization Plan appeared first on Digital Adoption.

We used Google search data to analyze which digital work tools required the most support to understand and use.

Taking a list of 35 phrases associated with support and pairing each one with the names of 275 of the most popular office apps (almost 10,000 search terms), the below data reveals the top 10 office apps that internet users Google for help with.

1. QuickBooks 

With 68,320 estimated monthly searches, QuickBooks accounting software is the most confusing office tool with approximately 67,710 related monthly searches. The most commonly searched term is ‘QuickBooks customer service, ‘ which is Googled 19,000 times per month in the U.S., making up nine of ten of 21,000 global monthly searches. 

The second most searched team is ‘QuickBooks support,’ which is searched 12,000 times each month in America. Over two-thirds (68%) of all global monthly support-related searches for QuickBooks are made by Americans.

2. Microsoft Excel 

Microsoft Excel is the second most confusing office app in the United States, with approximately 49,490 estimated monthly searches. The most common search is ‘how to use excel,’ which is searched 9,600 times per month in the United States out of 29,000 monthly global searches, meaning the United States makes up a third of all monthly searches for this term.

Americans searching for ‘Excel help’ makes up nearly half (47%) of all global monthly searches for this term, with 3,100 out of 6,500 global monthly searches happening in the U.S. With a total of 221,140 estimated global queries, Microsoft Excel receives the most queries for support out of any other office app, except for the U.S.

3. Shopify

eCommerce platform Shopify is third on the list of most confusing office apps for Americans with 44,720 estimated monthly searches. ‘What is Shopify,’ ‘Shopify customer service, and ‘Shopify support’ are the top most commonly searched terms, with 15,000, 8,400, and 7,800 monthly searches from the U.S, respectively. 

‘Shopify help’ is also a top search, which is Googled 4,700 times in America each month.

4. Salesforce 

Salesforce CRM is Americans’ fourth most confusing office tool, with an estimated 39,420 support-related monthly searches. ‘What is Salesforce’ is Googled around 17,000 times per month in the United States, making up just over a third (36%) of 46,000 global monthly searches for this term. 

5. Square 

Mobile payment company Square is the fifth most confusing for Americans. ‘Square customer service’ is Googled 19,000 times per month in America. ‘What is Square’ and ‘Square support’ are popular search terms, receiving 7,000 and 3,000 searches per month, respectively. 

Almost two-thirds (61%) of all support-related search terms are made from the United States.

6. Microsoft OneDrive 

Microsoft OneDrive is sixth on the list after receiving approximately 26,140 monthly searches. Most searches are due to the term ‘What is OneDrive,’ which receives 14,000 monthly U.S. searches. ‘How to use OneDrive’ is also searched 2,200 times per month. 

‘What is OneDrive used for’ receives 1,100 monthly searches by Americans. Almost half of all searches (49%) come from the U.S.

7. Microsoft Teams 

Communication app Microsoft Teams is the seventh most confusing office app for Americans. There are approximately 23,880 monthly related searches in the U.S. In America, ‘what is Microsoft Teams’ is Googled 6,400 times per month, followed by ‘how to use Microsoft Teams’ with 4,600 monthly searches. 

8. Zoom

Video platform Zoom is Americans’ eighth most confusing office tool, with approximately 36,000 monthly support-related searches. ‘What is Zoom’ and ‘How to Use Zoom’ is the most commonly searched term, with 8,700 and 8,200 monthly searches in the U.S, respectively. ‘Zoom support’ is also searched 4,900 times per month by Americans.  

9. WordPress 

WordPress places ninth on the list of most confusing office apps in America. There are an estimated 24,300 related searches made each month in the U.S. Despite being released almost 20 years ago, ‘What is WordPress’ is the top online search with 8,700 monthly searches in the U.S. 

‘WordPress tutorial’ is the second most commonly searched term, which Americans Google 3,000 times per month. WordPress receives the lowest proportion of U.S-based searches at 21% compared to global volume.    

10. DropBox 

Cloud storage app DropBox rounds off the list at number ten with an estimated 21,730 related searches. ‘What is DropBox’ is searched 10,000 times per month in America, followed by ‘How to use DropBox’, which receives 3,400 searches. 

‘DropBox customer service’ is Googled 2,400 times per month in America. ‘What is DropBox used for’ and ‘DropBox support’ are also top search terms, with both terms being searched 1,500 times every month in the U.S. 

By measuring the volume of support-related queries, we can reveal which apps cause the most confusion for its users. According to this study, QuickBooks is the most confusing app for its users, with almost 70,000 support-related searches per month in the United States alone. 

QuickBooks searches also have the largest volume and share of U.S. traffic out of any app in the top ten, which means that even though it is arguably the most well-established in the country, it receives the highest amount of queries from people that need help and support to understand it. 

These results show that as companies implement Digital Adoption Strategies, their employees must be well supported to ensure that the approach is implemented effectively and brings clear benefits rather than confusion.

The Future of Workplace Productivity: Digital Adoption 

As our workplaces become more digitized, with hybrid or remote working taking off and ‘digital nomadism’ becoming a reality for more and more people, new data reveals the common office apps which cause workers the most confusion and sap the most productivity. 

Digital adoption solutions are becoming core to the future of business and something that businesses absolutely must invest in. These results show that as companies implement digital adoption strategies, their employees must be well supported to ensure that the approach is implemented effectively and brings clear benefits rather than confusion. This opens up a more comprehensive discussion about Digital Adoption in Business and how companies can implement effective and easy-to-use strategies.

Some of the most commonly used office apps are causing a lot of confusion and frustration among workers. Programs like Microsoft Office, Dropbox, Google Drive, and Slack are widely used in offices of all sizes, but many employees struggle to understand how to use them effectively. These apps can be crucial for productivity, collaboration, and communication in the workplace, but they often require a lot of training and support to be used effectively.

Digital Adoption is by far the best answer to this dilemma. With digital adoption solutions, companies can support employees at every step, reducing confusion and frustration and increasing workplace productivity and efficiency.

Digital Adaptation is another important consideration for businesses adopting digital tools and technologies. With the right strategies in place, companies can move towards a more digitized workplace, meeting the demands of the modern workforce and staying competitive in an increasingly digital world. Digital adaptation solutions can help companies implement a successful digital strategy and reach their goals.

Digital adoption is an essential part of any successful business. Companies that want to stay competitive and keep up with the demands of modern workers must invest in effective digital adoption solutions, implementing strategies that will help their employees use their office apps more effectively and efficiently. With the right approach in place, companies can experience clear benefits and see real results from their digital adoption strategies. 

The post The 10 most puzzling office apps, according to Google appeared first on Digital Adoption.

But what is Gartner BuySmart? How can BuySmart help your team identify critical technologies? And What are technology life cycle streamlined vendor evaluations? We will explore all these questions, beginning with a definition.

What Is Gartner BuySmart?

Gartner BuySmart is an approach trademarked by the leading consultation company Gartner. It seeks to support businesses of any size to evaluate vendors to identify what type of technology they need using the latest insights resources. Within this, the system includes suggestions for vendors and features, which supports a structured, collaborative decision to invest in the best technology from the right vendor to suit a company’s needs.

How Can BuySmart Help Your Team Identify Key Technologies?

Gartner predicts that companies will spend $4.6 trillion on technology by 2023. Companies need to ensure that their massive investments bring the best returns. Gartner BuySmart uses expert insights to help companies seek alignment between better technology purchasing decisions and their needs, leading to better business outcomes. The approach uses a structured process using five steps, the first of which is to start with a template.

Start with a template

Is your company seeking to integrate new technology? BuySmart may be the ideal option as you begin your journey within the Gartner BuySmart template hub. You will find information specific to each software type and many Gartner insights and data within each template. Templates also include detailed requirements lists and vendors considered reputable and relevant to your needs. The templates also incorporate customization tools, comprehensive evaluation checklists, and expert and peer insights.

Manage the evaluation process

BuySmart promotes collaborative workflow, which allows the team’s evaluation process to be diverse and well-structured when choosing new technology. The tool helps teams to define their objectives, key dates, and budget. Another feature of BuySmart is that it supports staff to assign owners while formulating a checklist of tasks. Above all, the approach allows your company to track evaluations, requirements, and vendors in one unified package with the support of industry-leading Gartner experts.

Analyze requirements

Before you begin your evaluation process, you must analyze requirements and acquire all necessary signoff authorizations from relevant team members. Companies can utilize requirements suggested by the template, add their own and alter the priority level for individual factors. Gartner provides scorecards that allow companies to seek alignment across stakeholder needs.

Evaluate vendors

BuySmart supports businesses choose the best vendor through vendor evaluations, presenting the best vendors for specific needs. Gartner is a world leader in objective Gartner insights via research. This research is used within BuySmart to provide organizations with all the information they need to make the final decision. 

The research includes ratings and proprietary insights and allows teams to develop vendor shortlists to score against specific requirements. Gartner also contains features that enable teams to track key takeaways and screen out inappropriate vendors.

Reduce risk

When your team has selected a vendor, they can export the report to communicate this to stakeholders. This communication includes your decision based on selection criteria and the considered vendors. There is also the option to consult with a Gartner representative to meet for a Gartner expert proposal review, within which you can receive support to reduce risk and optimize your investment.

This process is how BuySmart supports teams in finding the best vendor and technology for their organization. But how can teams utilize the technology life cycle today within BuySmart vendor evaluations?

What Is The Technology Life Cycle Streamline Process?

The technology lifecycle is the time it takes for a company to research and develop a product and provide ROI within the time it utilizes, referred to as its lifecycle. Gartner designed BuySmart to streamline the technology lifecycle by reducing the research and development phase time, increasing efficiency, and optimizing this process.

By informing the best decisions for the best technology in a structured way, organizations get new products to market more quickly, driving business value for customers and companies.

What Services Does Gartner BuySmart Offer?

Within BuySmart, Gartner offers four primary services:-

• Accessible and objective Gartner insights: Context-appropriate insights are relevant to your chosen technology evaluations.
• Structured, team-led workflow: All the tools your team requires to access information and act on better purchasing decisions.
• Optimized vendor evaluations: Comprehensive scorecards utilizing detailed requirements support your team in selecting the best vendor.
• Confidence that you are choosing the best vendor: BuySmart optimizes investment and aims to reduce risk, assisted by a proposal review by a Gartner expert.

Now that the services of BuySmart are transparent, we can look at the benefits these services bring to your organization.

What Are The Benefits Of Using Gartner BuySmart?

There are many benefits to using Gartner BuySmart, starting with the optimized spending that BuySmart facilitates.

Optimized spend

The main advantage of BuySmart is that it allows companies to ensure they are getting the most for their investment. The features of BuySmart allow teams to enter their needs and business outcomes to tailor technical requirements to the BuySmart approach to confidently manage the most cost-effective final decision.

Reduced risk of waste

The Mark Gartner BuySmart approach influences the team’s path to evaluating vendors. Reviewing what vendors offer is streamlined so companies can be sure a vendor provides what they need, avoiding common pitfalls and making the best final decision. Resources are not wasted using trial periods or subscribing to a digital tool for a month before realizing it does not fit company needs.

Efficiency and productivity

Because BuySmart streamlines the technology lifecycle process using the team’s requirements to select the right vendor for the company’s needs, employee efficiency and productivity increase. Employee retention can also increase when the company gives them the right tools for their role, reducing frustration and improving employee experience.

Shareholder Value

When BuySmart streamlines the process of choosing digital tools and vendors, it creates more robust and efficiently completed value. This action leads to a faster time to market new products, meaning higher value for customers in a short period. A higher value for customers translates into higher company value to shareholders, increasing confidence for investment in better products, increasing value, and boosting revenue and growth further as companies build digital resilience.

Who Are The Ideal Candidates For Gartner BuySmart?

Any company can benefit from Gartner BuySmart if they want to make the most cost-efficient decisions on technology evaluation and investment. BuySmart utilizes exclusive Gartner research, making it a market-leading approach to vendor evaluation. Whether a candidate company is SME or a large enterprise, if they wish to choose the technology in a structured, collaborative way, they will benefit from Gartner BuySmart.

The Value Of Proprietary Insight For Organizations

Proprietary data is data unique to a company. This data is essential for companies when they need new technology, as they must know their needs to meet them in the most resource-friendly and appropriate way.

Companies should ask questions on how they can maximize the value of insights taken from their proprietary data, such as:-

• What types of data will be valuable to us?
• How can we turn our proprietary data into revenue?
• How can we make public data into valuable proprietary data?

Deciding how to use data and transform it into proprietary insights allows companies to differentiate themselves in the market. It also helps equip companies with the information needed to prepare for deciding what vendor and technology are best.

What Is Magic Quadrant?

Magic Quadrant is a research methodology that provides visual snapshots and in-depth analyses of a market environment within a limited period. The Magic Quadrant shows the status of tech vendors about their competitors to allow businesses to choose the right vendor. There are four quadrants that the system uses to evaluate and monitor vendors continually. The first of these is Leaders.

Leaders

• The most prominent vendors fall into the Leaders category based on their high scores for completeness of vision and ability to execute functions successfully. Vendors in this group usually have control of a specific market segment and strong financial stability and credibility.

Challengers

• Challengers are the next highest grade of vendors, fighting for a position as one of the Leaders. Challenger vendors are capable of disrupting market trends and challenging Leaders. Challengers lack the vision completeness of Leaders but can dominate more significant market segments in time.

Visionaries

• Visionaries anticipate future trends and have a broader view of the market. They are innovative and often create initiatives involving new ways of perceiving customer needs, changing the world with bold market decisions.

Niche players

• Niche players look more narrowly at a more specific market segment as they don’t have the same vision as more prominent vendors. New SMEs are often in this category.

The Magic Quadrant helps companies decide what vendor is best for them. But how can it be used alongside BuySmart?

BuySmart Vs. Magic Quadrant 

The main difference between the Magic Quadrant and BuySmart is that Quadrant formulates the data, and BuySmart forms this data into actionable insights to inform companies’ decisions on technology vendors.

1. Magic Quadrant (top left of chart)

The Quadrant shows the position of vendors in quickly changing markets.

1. BuySmart (top right of the chart)

Gartner designed its proprietary insights consulting service to support companies investing in the best technologies.

2. Magic Quadrant (bottom left of chart)

The quadrant scores vendors based on their vision completeness and capability to execute functions.

2. BuySmart (bottom right of the chart)

BuySmart aligns financial and technical business needs with technology vendors and solutions.

It is helpful to use the Magic Quadrant alongside BuySmart to get the most out of the vendor evaluation process. Doing so can lead to better choices when selecting a vendor.

Vendor Evaluation Is Essential in 2022

BuySmart and the Magic Quadrant are helpful today as companies struggle to confidently manage investments in the best technology solutions to ensure business adaptability. These approaches are essential as they give current data in a constantly changing and disruptive technology market. With these approaches, companies utilize technology optimally, ensuring market sustainability, growth, and boosted revenue.

The post What Is Gartner BuySmart & Why It’s Essential For Growing Businesses? appeared first on Digital Adoption.

The Internet of Things (IoT) serves as a core component for accelerating business digital transformation initiatives and driving innovation across various global industries, including manufacturing, finance, healthcare, aviation, and government sectors. Through the deployment of an interconnected smart network of operational technologies, businesses have fast-tracked better routes to improve productivity and operational efficiency. 

Businesses aiming to disrupt critical business processes with the implementation of digital transformation technologies should be aware of the full potential that a network of IoT can provide. Statista reports that the number of IoT devices globally is forecast to almost triple from 9.7 billion in 2020 to more than 29 billion devices in 2030. 

Benefits Of Implementing IoT As Part Of A Wider Business Digital Transformation Initiative

According to a Microsoft report, “90 percent of decision makers now believe IoT is critical to their company’s success.” It should then come at no surprise that there are various benefits of implementing IoT as part of a wider organizational digital transformation strategy, advantages of which include:

• Improved decision-making: Businesses can gain valuable insights into their operations by collecting and analyzing data from various devices and sensors. This data can be used to make better decisions about optimizing customer discovery processes and improving customer experiences.

• Enhanced customer experiences: IoT can collect data about customer behavior and preferences. This data can then be used to customize products and services to meet the specific needs of individual customers.

• Increased efficiency and productivity: IoT can help businesses automate tasks and processes. This can free employees to focus on more strategic tasks, resulting in increased efficiency and productivity.

• Reduced costs: Implementing IoT can help businesses save money by reducing waste, increasing efficiency, and improving asset utilization.

Digital transformation is essential for businesses that want to stay competitive in today’s market. IoT can play a significant role in helping companies adjust to this transformation.

How Does The IoT Enhance Digital Transformation?

There are numerous ways in which the IoT can help to accelerate enterprise digital transformation. IoT devices generate large volumes of data that can be collected and analyzed to provide valuable insights into business operations. These data-driven insights can improve decision-making, optimize processes and enhance customer service. 

IoT-enabled businesses can save costs by reducing waste, increasing asset utilization, and improving energy efficiency. The consensus around digital transformation research suggests that implementing a smart network of connected devices is pivotal for future business proficiency and will help to further drive the adoption of digital operational processes—which enriches the entire business model. 

The IoT is playing an increasingly important role in digital transformation as businesses look to adopt new technologies to stay competitive. In order to fully realize the benefits of IoT, businesses need to partner with an experienced provider that can help them smoothly navigate the digital adoption of computer-physical smart machines.

Connecting devices can even help with supply chain management and enable IoT solutions to communicate properly to ensure visibility and effectiveness across the entire supply chain. This is the end goal for many organizations that want to optimize their operations and take advantage of analytics software and customer data. 

Why Organizations Are Using IoT For Digital Transformation

In order to maintain marketplace perpetuity, organizations must deploy innovative methods for detecting new business opportunities and upgrading operational models. IoT enables digital transformation through the provision of digital environments that give businesses an optimal operational vantage point.

IoT and other phygital devices work using an array of software, sensors, and interoperable networks that culminate in a responsive digital apparatus. This digital apparatus (or user interface) compiles data to give businesses invaluable analytical insight into critical systems and processes.

IoT networks provide operational clarity on a granular scale, allowing employees to identify redundant processes and remedy them accordingly. This allows employees to optimize their workload and better prioritize pertinent tasks. Moreover, businesses with IoT-enabled infrastructure save money by reducing waste, increasing asset utilization, and improving energy efficiency.

How the IoT Is Transforming The Digital Landscape

The IoT profoundly impacts the digital landscape as businesses increasingly adopt IoT technologies to stay competitive. IoT can help businesses collect and analyze data more effectively, optimize operations, and improve customer experiences.

IoT devices generate large volumes of data that can be collected and analyzed to provide valuable insights into business operations. This data can be used to make better decisions about optimizing processes and improving customer engagement.

In addition, connecting devices can help with supply chain management and enable IoT solutions to communicate properly to ensure visibility and effectiveness across the entire supply chain. This is the end goal for many organizations that want to optimize their operations and take advantage of data analytics.

Challenges With IoT Transformations & How To Overcome Them

Digital transformation is a process of change that enables organizations to use new technologies to improve their performance. IoT can be a powerful tool for digital transformation, but it also presents some challenges.

One of the biggest challenges is integrating IoT into existing systems and business processes. This can be difficult and time-consuming, particularly for larger organizations. Another challenge is data security. As businesses collect and store more data, they become more vulnerable to cyberattacks.

To overcome these challenges, businesses need to partner with an experienced provider that can help them smoothly navigate the digital transformation process. They also need to ensure they have strong data security measures to protect their data from attacks.

The IoT is transforming the digital landscape, and organizations need to adopt IoT technologies to stay competitive. However, there are some challenges with IoT transformations that businesses need to be aware of. By partnering with an experienced provider and taking measures to protect their data, businesses can overcome these challenges and reap the benefits of IoT.

3 Ways IoT Is Transforming Business

The IoT is transforming businesses across industries as they adopt IoT technologies to improve decision-making, enhance customer experiences, increase efficiency and productivity, and save costs.

1. IoT devices generate large volumes of data that can be collected and analyzed to provide valuable insights into business operations. This data can be used to make better decisions about optimizing processes and improving customer experiences.
2. IoT can also be used to automate tasks and processes. This can free employees to focus on more strategic tasks, resulting in increased efficiency and productivity.
3. IoT-enabled businesses can save money by reducing waste, increasing asset utilization, and improving energy efficiency.

3 Benefits of Adopting IoT Technology

The IoT is transforming businesses across industries as they adopt IoT technologies to improve decision-making, enhance customer experiences, increase efficiency and productivity, and save costs.

1. IoT devices generate large volumes of data that can be collected and analyzed to provide valuable insights into business operations. This data can be used to make better decisions about optimizing processes and improving customer experiences.
2. IoT can also be used to automate tasks and processes. This can free employees to focus on more strategic tasks, resulting in increased efficiency and productivity. Finally, IoT-enabled businesses can save money by reducing waste, increasing asset utilization, and improving energy efficiency.
3. Digital transformation is essential for businesses that want to stay competitive in today’s market. IoT can play a major role in this transformation by helping companies to collect and analyze data, optimize their operations, and improve customer experiences. 

The Future Of IoT

The IoT profoundly impacts the digital landscape; this is only the beginning. IoT will evolve and become more sophisticated as businesses increasingly adopt IoT technologies to stay competitive.

IoT devices will generate even more data as they become more ubiquitous and sophisticated. This data will provide even more insights into business operations, allowing businesses to optimize their processes and improve customer experiences.

IoT will also continue to be used to automate tasks and processes. This will result in even more efficiency gains for businesses as employees are freed up to focus on higher-level tasks. Additionally, IoT-enabled companies will continue to save money through reduced waste, increased asset utilization, and improved energy efficiency. 

The post Accelerating Enterprise Digital Transformation With IoT appeared first on Digital Adoption.

Value Drivers are characteristics of a business that either reduce the risk associated with owning the business or enhance the prospect that the business will grow significantly in the future. Your job as a business owner is to create value within your business before a sale by implementing key value drivers.

There are many factors to consider when driving business value. This article will focus on two of the most important ones: digital transformation and change management.

Digital Transformation & Change Management Business Value Drivers 

Digital transformation is the process of using technology to create new or improved business processes, products, and services. This can be anything from automating manual tasks to adopting new technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Change management is the process of planning, implementing, and monitoring changes to a business. This could be anything from a change in management to a change in business strategy.

Both digital transformation and change management are essential factors to consider when driving company value. By adopting new technologies and processes, you can improve efficiency and productivity, which will ultimately lead to increased financial performance.

And by effectively managing changes within your business, you can avoid disruptions and maintain a competitive advantage that helps your business cater to emerging customer needs.

What Are Business Value Drivers?

There are four main business value drivers: revenue, growth, profitability, and efficiency.

Revenue Drivers

Revenue drivers are the activities that generate revenue for a business, including selling products and services, advertising, and marketing. Revenue drivers are essential when driving business value because they directly impact the top line. Reviewing your financial statements periodically will give you a better idea of your specific revenue drivers.

Growth Drivers

A recent report by the Business Enterprise Institute found that growth drivers, including new product development and research, will be the primary drivers that help businesses to expand into new markets. Growth drivers reflect the potential for a business to grow in the future. The emergence of a connected Industry, 4.0, is one of the most critical areas of focus in the digital age and beyond.

Profitability Drivers

Profitability drivers are the activities that increase business profits. This could be anything from cost reduction to price increases. Profitability drivers are one of the most important factors to consider when driving business value because they enable a business to generate more income to reinvest in growth.

Efficiency Drivers

Efficiency drivers are the activities that improve business efficiency, including process improvement to workforce management. Efficiency drivers are essential because they enable businesses to operate more smoothly and effectively.

How Does Digital Transformation Drive Business Value?

Business executives maintain that today’s most significant barrier to digital transformation is integrating new technology with existing corporate systems. Most business systems were developed before the digital era, in some cases decades before cellphones and tablets became widespread. These systems are critical for a company’s day-to-day operations, making them difficult and time-consuming to replace.

People’s interactions with knowledge and technology in everyday life represent considerable shifts in expectations in the business world. Today, consumer mobile apps have transformed routine activities into easy, personalized, intuitive, and intelligent experiences that can be completed in a minute. Unfortunately, company technology isn’t as easy, which impacts how customers interact with companies and how employees operate inside their businesses.

The key to achieving corporate transformation goals is figuring out how to facilitate business transformation to achieve future growth. Many business processes are still manual, requiring employees to fill out paperwork, search through files, and follow up with customers or suppliers by phone or email. This takes time away from more productive activities.

Digital transformation can help business leaders achieve their goals by automating processes and workflows. Automation can reduce the time it takes to complete tasks, freeing employees to focus on higher-level work. In addition, automation can improve accuracy and consistency, providing a better experience for customers and employees alike.

Digital transformation can also help business leaders drive value by creating new customer experiences. Customer expectations have changed dramatically in recent years, thanks to the ubiquity of mobile devices and the rise of digital natives. A new-age, technology-driven customer base is on the rise, and we expect companies to provide the same level of convenience, personalization, and accessibility that they’ve come to expect from their favorite consumer apps.

How Does Change Management Drive Business Value?

Change management is a process through which organizations can transition from their current state to a desired future state. The goal of change management is to minimize the risk and disruption associated with change while maximizing the opportunity for success.

Driving business value through change management requires a clear understanding of the business’s current state, its desired future state, and the gap between the two. Once this understanding is in place, change management teams can develop a plan to close the gap and achieve the desired future state. This plan will involve identifying which changes need to be made, designing processes and procedures to support those changes, and implementing and monitoring them to ensure they are successful.

Change management is a critical process for businesses undergoing digital transformation. The complexity and scale of digital transformation can make it difficult for business leaders to manage all the moving parts effectively. Change management provides a framework for business leaders to plan, execute, and track their progress as they transition to a new digital business model.

By understanding the current state of the business, setting a clear vision for the future, streamlining financial controls, and designing and implementing a plan to get there, change management teams can help business leaders steer their organizations through digital transformation.

An Agile Approach To Driving Business Value

In our current day and age, a company that can respond quickly to customer queries usually comes out on top. If a company makes it easy for customers to complete transactions, that customer will likely stay with them. Furthermore, if a company eliminates hindrances in its operations, it will be able to attract and keep a productive workforce. You cannot have speed without simplicity.

Mobile apps, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML) are the best way to speed up your enterprise with simplified workflows and anytime access with the ability to teach a more diversified customer base. With intelligent processing and push notifications, you can provide a custom quote faster than your competitors, have real-time inventory visibility, or decouple billing processes from paper-based work orders to enable more accurate and faster billing. The pace at which information and transactions can be made determines today’s winning companies.

Many people today use their mobile phones for shopping, banking, booking a ride, and even deciding what to make for dinner. These tasks are all quick and easy- exactly why businesses must bring this type of convenience into the enterprise. If you don’t already have mobile technologies as part of your digital transformation efforts, 64% of other organizations cite that they’re doing so. Mobile should be an essential part of business operations, if it isn’t already, something that is ingrained in the company culture.

Enterprise Mobility: Delivering Wins For Agile Businesses

Mckinsey’s Annual IT Strategy Survey revealed that technology investments are proving their worth, especially at companies making more tech-based changes and bridging more of the technology-business divide.

When executed optimally, mobility takes the data, automation, and security found in existing business applications and expands the info and transactions to peripheral areas of the company. Mobility provides a means to change outdated systems of record – ERP, eProcurement, HCM, CRM, etc. – by lengthening the reach of these systems with a much easier user experience for task completion based on role.

You can utilize mobility to connect your present business applications by leveraging the systems you have spent decades and millions of dollars developing while allowing your employees to be more efficient and effective. According to Gartner, 70% of software interaction will be mobile in the next five years. By far, the most effective and quickest way to begin any type of corporate mobility program is to concentrate on integrating corporate permissions.

Every month, your company’s most crucial employees – managers and executives – dedicate countless hours to managing corporate approvals. These include POs, invoices, time-off requests, timesheets, etc. Not only is this process excessively time-consuming, but it also lacks cohesion among the various applications. From late fees and lost revenue to delayed projects and compliance costs – these approval processes is a costly hindrance to your organization’s success.

Equity capital represents funds paid into a business by investors in exchange for common or preferred stock. This describes the core funding of a business, to which debt funding may be added. Key employees should examine financial reports detailing the company’s market share, cash flow, economic trends, and strategic vision in order to address emerging customer needs and attract prospective buyers.

You can improve business agility and provide immediate business value by simplifying the approvals process while also taking advantage of your existing business applications.

The Ten Most Important Business Value Drivers For Digital Success

Digital business transformation is a journey, not a destination. As such, it requires careful planning and execution to succeed. Here are the ten most important business value drivers that you should keep in mind as you embark on your digital transformation journey:

1. Customer Centricity – Customers are more informed and empowered in the digital age than ever. They have higher expectations and are more demanding. As such, your business must be customer-centric to win its business.
2. Agility – Agile businesses can adapt quickly to change and take advantage of new opportunities. They are nimble and can pivot when necessary.
3. Innovation – To succeed in the digital age, businesses must be innovative. They must constantly look for new ways to improve their products and services and stay ahead of the competition.
4. Efficiency – With the help of technology, businesses can now operate more efficiently than ever. Companies can save time and money by automating processes and using data analytics.
5. Collaboration – In the digital age, business is no longer siloed. With the help of technology, companies can now collaborate with employees, customers, and partners worldwide.
6. Flexibility – Flexible businesses can adapt their products and services to meet the changing needs of their customers. They are also able to scale up or down as needed quickly.
7. Resilience – In the digital age, business disruptions are more common. Businesses need to be resilient to withstand these disruptions and continue operating.
8. Security – With the increase in cyberattacks, businesses must now prioritize safety. They need to ensure that their data and systems are secure from threats.
9. Privacy – In the digital age, customers are concerned about their privacy. Businesses must be transparent about collecting, using, and protecting customer data.
10. Sustainability

In the digital age, businesses must be sustainable to succeed. They need to impact the environment and society while also being profitable positively.

By keeping these business value drivers in mind, you can ensure that your digital transformation journey is successful. 

Making Digital Transformation A Competitive Advantage

Say goodbye to complex business processes and systems. With mobility, people can finish any task quickly, from anywhere, on any device. In other words: people are empowered, mobilized, agile, and able to self-serve.

These powerful minutes of productivity give your organization a competitive advantage. This is how innovative companies are disrupting industries and transforming themselves. They’re making digital transformation a business priority, and they’re winning.

What is your company doing to make digital transformation a priority? How are you making it a competitive advantage? Let us know in the comments below.

Still not sure how to get started with digital transformation? Check out our free eBook: A Complete Guide To Digital Transformation.

The post Driving Business Value In The Digital Age appeared first on Digital Adoption.

More importantly, the statement that “digitization will help insurance firms” is no longer a matter of conjecture but a verifiable fact. Profit statements from around the world show that firms that took to digitization have cornered the lion’s share of the sector’s profits, while those who are just now getting on board are struggling.

All this aside, there are glitches in digital implementation. For example, many customers still feel they need help processing insurance claims digitally—complaining that interfaces are slow and difficult to navigate.

How the Pandemic Impacted Digitization of Insurance Operations?

A survey of Insurance CEOs conducted by KPMG International found that 46% felt the pace at which their organizations were digitizing operations had increased dramatically after the pandemic—putting them years ahead. Moreover, 75% of the CEOs surveyed said that creating new digital business models and revenue streams have accelerated by a matter of months. About 46% said they had seen an exponential increase in the rate at which companies were creating a seamless digital customer experience.

See chart 1 for the results of KPMG’s CEO outlook survey conducted in 2020, a special edition during the pandemic. Interestingly, only on very few occasions had they said that progress towards achieving any digitization goal might have lapsed. 

Chart 1 

What Are the Obstacles in an Insurance Company’s Digitisation Journey?

Although the CEOs surveyed by KPMG were optimistic about their companies’ digital transformations, they listed several challenges that stood in the way of these efforts.

The chief obstacle behind the digitization of processes seems to be a lack of vision about future operational scenarios. An operation scenario is “an imagined sequence of events that includes the interaction between, for example, a company’s product or service and its users.”

CEOs of insurance companies have admitted that their biggest fear when embracing digital transformation is uncertainty over how customers will react. This growing technology poses a big question for insurance companies: how can they implement it while ensuring that customers continue to trust them?

Chart 2

Will Digitisation Help Reduce an Insurance Company’s Expenses?

Not only does digitization lead to better customer service, but it also reduces costs for insurance companies. A recent survey conducted by management consulting firm Kearney shows that insurance claim managers at leading companies say they were able to reduce the amount of money spent on processing claims due to digitization. About 83% of participants said that a slow and inefficient insurance claim process leads to high associated costs.

Are the Tech-Based Insurance Companies Getting Funds?

In 2015, venture capitalists invested nearly $2.6 billion in insuretechs— see chart 3A for the year-wise funding details. Also, interestingly, these new firms are concentrating more on property and casualty insurance than on life and health products.

Chart 3B shows the share of all innovations recorded in the insuretech database. It is evident from this study that these companies are concentrating on the distribution part of their product and spending little time on marketing or claims divisions.

Chart 3A

Chart 3B

Kearney, a leading global management consulting firm, reports that investments into insuretech (the convergence of information technology and insurance) have increased dramatically. Notably, such deals are on the rise not only in the Americas but also in Europe—to an extent even in Middle East & Africa. The Chart 3C shows the number of insuretech deals in select regions.

Chart 3C

Does Innovation and Digitalization Work for Insurance Firms?

Insurance companies should get into the game as quickly as possible in an increasingly digital world. There is enough evidence to show that getting digitized sooner helps to create an edge over competitors. For instance, in direct auto insurance in Spain, Germany, and the United States, a single player has cornered a very high share of the profits.  

Charts 4A, 4B, and 4C demonstrate how three players — Huk24 in Germany, Direct Line in Spain, and Progressive in the United States — took home a large share of the profits. And these three players were the first movers to digitalize their insurance products. 

As seen from the charts, the industry rewards those who innovate, particularly those who do so early. Getting stuck in a business routine and refusing to experiment digitally will lead to heavy losses. 

Chart 4A

Chart 4B

Chart 4C

Is Digital Insurance Claiming Process Glitch-Free?

Yes and No. Most customers have had a smooth transition to digital insurance, but some—especially those trying to file claims—have reported glitches in the system. 

In a survey sponsored by Bain & Company and conducted by Dynata across 17 countries covering 135,000 consumers, 28% of customers who tried to claim their insurance said that their initial transactions started digitally and failed in the first attempt. About 18% of respondents also said their initial attempts failed when researching insurance products.  

Chart 5A

About 20% of customers said they needed personal help while accessing digital insurance products, and a similar share complained that the systems were slower than manual transactions.

Chart 5B gives a detailed split of the various issues faced by insurance customers during digital claim interactions. 

Chart 5B

Conclusion

The results are precise: Insurance firms must warm up to the digital challenge. The sooner they do so, the better for them—and their customers. Data shows that those companies which reacted quicker and digitized their products earlier reaped the rewards—while others who did not failed due to lacking innovations. However, while companies transform their products, they should keep an eye on customer satisfaction and lend an ear to subscriber needs. Increasingly insurance subscribers are complaining a lot about the claims interface of firms— especially about the complexity of their websites.

The post Digital Adoption in Insurance Firms: A Success Story appeared first on Digital Adoption.

The Covid-19 pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on the way we work. Many businesses were forced to change to a new digital strategy and adapt to an unfamiliar business model. Companies invested in video conferencing software and digital technology to ensure their workforce remained productive.

Remote work was a major digital disruption for employees too. The effects of the pandemic are still felt today, with many workers preferring to work from home permanently. Gartner’s recent insight into the future of work for organizations and people reported that ‘55% of employees say their ability to work flexibly will impact whether or not they stay with their employer.’

The pandemic accelerated the transition to digital tools for many organizations. This trend will continue exponentially as digital disruptions shape the business world. Futureproofing essential business processes is more important than ever in the digital age.

That’s why so many organizations are undergoing a digital transformation journey. Digital technologies increase workforce productivity, enhance business operations, and encourage digital resilience. Successful business leaders understand that they must overhaul legacy systems and embrace new technologies to meet the demands of key stakeholders.

Meeting Customer Expectations with Digital Technology

As people become familiar with digital technology, customer expectations evolve. Customers expect a seamless customer experience. Digital transformation streamlines existing processes, eventually impacting customer-facing services.

Technologies such as automation, artificial intelligence, and cloud technology enable companies to provide exceptional customer experiences by introducing a digital automation platform. Customers can access all their information in one place and receive help faster through online chatbots. A comprehensive digital transformation strategy is the only way organizations achieve true customer engagement in the digital world.

The benefits of digital transformation are endless. But many organizations fail in their digital transformation efforts because they don’t align their strategy with future trends. Business leaders don’t need to be fortune tellers, but they do need to implement future-proof digital transformations.

Six Considerations For A Future-proof Digital Transformation Strategy

Future-proofing digital transformation means getting ahead of digital disruptions. New and emerging technology provides opportunities for organizations to embrace business models, shift to new domains, increase their capabilities, and find new solutions to everyday business challenges.

Digital transformation leads to digital maturity. Digital technology increases efficiency across all business areas, meaning the organization can respond faster to potential problems. By embracing digital tools, business leaders can better handle future disruptions.

Here are six critical elements for creating a digital transformation strategy that will secure your company’s place in a highly competitive future.

Build A Clear Vision 

Communicating a vision is essential for a successful digital transformation. Employees and executives must understand the direction of progress. A clear vision will engage employees in new ways of working, encouraging them to see the benefits of digitalization. Building a vision will also increase senior management employees’ trust across the organizational hierarchy.

Digital transformation strategies work best when employees and executives have a strong sense of direction. Crafting a compelling vision involves asking the following questions:

• How will digital transformation meet business goals?
• How will everyone contribute to the company vision?
• How will digitalization add value to daily work?

By creating a clear vision for success, business leaders address the main reason for digital transformation failure, employee resistance. Employees resist change for several reasons, but mostly because they don’t understand the value of transformation. Communicating your strategy to the workforce makes them feel included and encourages them to drive the process forward.

Identify The Governance Structure 

Identifying your organization’s governance structure is vital to any successful digital transformation strategy. Understanding how the business functions from the top down makes it easier to see the impact of digital transformation. Assess the impact of technology from the c-suite, senior management, low-level employees, and eventually the customer experience.

Governance is an essential part of change management. Understanding governance structure helps establish accountability and guide decision-making throughout the transformation process. It means companies can take a more democratic approach to change, ensuring leaders are identifiable and have authority over some aspects of the process. Without a clear governance structure, employees become uncertain, and digital transformation begins to stall. 

Set Aside Resources For A Dedicated Digital Transformation Team

It’s essential to create a dedicated team to drive digital transformation success. A successful digital transformation team comprises critical thinkers and balanced expertise, using their strengths to achieve a common goal. Enterprises must support leaders and cross-functional teams across the entire organization.

Finding the right leaders to spearhead the implementation phase will increase enthusiasm and boost employee engagement. A dedicated digital transformation team will help the organization adapt to new processes and accelerate change across the business.

A successful digital transformation team consists of the following people:

A visionary

The visionary is responsible for influencing change. They focus on creating a digital-first culture by changing attitudes to digital technology. Their role as visionary is to craft a compelling vision for the company’s future. They must also communicate the vision effectively to employees and stakeholders, ensuring all business areas work in tandem.

An analyst

The analyst is naturally observant and able to assess how processes interconnect across the business. Their role is to understand how the business functions and suggest ways to improve processes across the board. The analyst is responsible for achieving higher levels of efficiency, ensuring positive ROI, securing executive buy-in, and mapping out process flows.

A planner

A planner must be agile to guide the project from the early stages of conception to implementation. The planner requires full support from the senior management to implement a cohesive plan. They help to create a strategy for organizational change, including employee support, training, and stakeholder alignment.

Your team’s specific layout will depend on your digital strategy’s requirements. Your business may allocate more resources towards software investments and need more IT expertise. It depends on business goals and existing talent.

Supervise Vendors 

There are many tools business leaders use to implement new technology into the workplace. Finding the best integration platform can be difficult, but it will make all the difference. 

Digital solutions aren’t a one size fits all application. IT investments can be expensive and time-consuming, so it’s crucial to consider the market of available options. Senior leaders must review potential vendors and digital solutions to ensure a positive return on investment.

Vendors may offer a popular solution that simply doesn’t align with your company culture or organizational structure. Prioritize the most vulnerable business areas in need of development. IT transformation requires a targeted approach and involves finding the best platform to develop weak areas of your business.

The most critical aspect of supervising vendors is ensuring their solution works as part of an enterprise-wide digital adoption strategy. An integration platform must align with the company’s efforts to improve processes, operations, and services. Even though digital adoption focuses on employee engagement, the impact of new applications and systems eventually reaches customers.

Formulate An Implementation Methodology 

Finding the best implementation methodology can be challenging, but it’s essential to guiding change. Implementation methodologies act as frameworks for introducing digital technology in the workplace. They rely on proven and effective tactics for implementation and allow business leaders to scale and repeat the process, if necessary, quickly. 

To find the best implementation methodology, you must assess the following areas: 

• Organizational structure, including leadership capabilities and resources
• Company culture and attitudes to change
• The current state of the customer journey
• The level of change management 

It’s essential to remain agile throughout the implementation phase. You must be willing to change the plan depending on employee satisfaction. Create a system for collecting feedback. Gauge employees’ reactions to change and adjust the strategy to ensure engagement remains high. 

Establish A New Perspective To Drive Meaningful Change 

Future-proofing digital transformation requires the support of everyone in the business. . Employees determine if an organization achieves its business outcomes. Gartner’s recent research into organizational change suggests that employees are the driving force behind the large-scale transformation. ‘In our survey of more than 6,500 employees and over 100 CHROs around the globe, we found that the best organizations rely on their workforce.’

Establish a new perspective on change to ensure everyone can see the direction of the transformation. Communication is key. Business leaders must consistently communicate their digital strategy to minimize resistance. This will ensure the company stays competitive in a highly evolving market. 

Thoughts For The Future 

Business leaders in the digital age understand that every business decision determines the future. More than ever, companies must accelerate change, embrace digitalization, or face being left behind. 

Future-proofing your business involves identifying a clear governance structure, building a dedicated transformation team, and utilizing a robust implementation methodology. Digital transformation requires a holistic approach and cohesion across the enterprise. Don’t rely on one business area to propel the business forward. 

Business leaders must be transparent with employees about the direction of the company. Forward-thinking business leaders must assess the risks of their change initiative and work on predicting future trends. Above all else, future-proofing is about preparation and being ready for anything that the future may hold. 

The post Digital Transformation Considerations For Future-proofing Your Organization appeared first on Digital Adoption.

But what are ‘managed services’? What types of managed services exist today? And what are the incentives for and benefits of implementing managed services for SMEs and large enterprises in the context of digital transformation? It’s best to begin to explore these questions by defining what we mean by managed services.

What Are Managed Services? 

Expectations from customers are one of the most significant components of the rate of technology disruption in 2022. These tougher expectations make it difficult for organizations to manage digital agility amongst core tasks using current operating models. Each managed service provider offers a cost-effective route to digital transformation, promoting agility and enabling IT staff to design and improve new IT systems specific to a company’s needs.

Examples of managed services include technology solutions such as:-

• The cloud
• Managed hosting
• Desktop as a Service (DaaS)
• Software as a Service (SaaS)
• 24/7 access to third-party IT services providers

Managed services have many benefits, causing them to explode in popularity in the past decade.

Why Are Managed Services Models Growing In Popularity? 

Before the global pandemic of 2020, digital disruption and the need for constant technological innovation were already a continuous demand on organizations. The pandemic and the pressing need to transform the customer experience in a changing retail market increased this need via video-conferencing and other technologies to enable remote working, forcing companies to accelerate digital transformation strategies. According to Statista, the cloud computing market is expected to reach $495 billion by the end of 2022. 

However, the main reason that managed services are popular is the gap between reality and the need for the most up-to-date technology solutions. Managed services help address deficiencies caused by this gap by providing low-cost, innovative services that allow organizations to remain resilient against competitors in a way only a managed service provider can offer.

Employees often cite a lack of appropriate and up-to-date technologies as a reason for leaving their organization, so managed services can also improve employee retention. Adobe conducted an employee survey which found that 49% of employees will leave if they are dissatisfied with their workplace technology.

The Impact Of Managed Services On IT 

The impact of utilizing managed services in IT is far-reaching for employee satisfaction, output, and the expenditure budget. Companies using third-party services significantly reduce their operating expenses compared to on-premise alternatives by moving maintenance and employee support to an external provider. Other benefits save time, such as the automatic updates of SaaS, whereas, before this, internal IT staff would have to update each system manually.

The other impact of managed services is that they eliminate overlooked expenses. When an organization pays the monthly fee, they see exactly what they are getting and how much it costs. This payment procedure is perfect for smaller companies with fixed budgets and larger enterprises with constant growth plans.

Why Are Managed Services Critical In The Digital Age? 

Managed services are critical in the digital age as they fulfill roles in three key areas:-

1. IT top talent retention
2. Privacy and cybersecurity concerns
3. Aligning IT processes with business goals

Managed services address many of the challenges of digital transformations to hybrid working. IT talent is more difficult to recruit now than ever due to a lack of technical skillsets, and retaining the staff is difficult due to this shortage and staff moving to competitors. When organizations choose a 24/7 IT support service, providers eliminate these problems.

Another problem with hybrid working is security when staff is working from home. A robust cybersecurity SaaS package protects against threats at low monthly fees that are scalable as staffing numbers change. And finally, managed services can help align IT processes with an organization’s goals more efficiently.

Types Of Managed Services 

Many types of managed services exist to fit all business needs. The first involves networks and infrastructure to manage outcome success more effectively.

Networks & Infrastructure 

Managed services providers can offer many services to manage networks and infrastructure. Deploying the network and infrastructure managed service reduces the time spent setting up and maintaining these systems for internal IT staff. 

Cutting out expenses for Wide Area Networks (WAN), Local Area Networks (LAN), managed gateways, and automated network support also reduces gross capital expenditure while giving a service delivered by external staff with deep industry expertise.

Security 

A managed service provider offers security options to reduce malware and ransomware attacks and theft of sensitive information using three tools and methods:-

Application compatibility

Application compatibility ensures that all software and hardware are compatible with each other. This action saves time and reduces investment wastage.

Anti-malware software

Anti-malware software is essential to prevent unauthorized hacks and theft of sensitive information about customers or staff.

Maintenance and patch updates

Service providers update security software to the current version daily to ensure maximum protection to reduce theft or unauthorized access.

When managed service providers maintain these services, organizations save financial and time resources avoiding data loss and acting within legal frameworks to protect data. However, when choosing a managed security service, organizations should be aware of the security dangers of a third party being responsible for the data. Providers store it on the cloud compared to on-premise, where the company stores the information on internal office servers in locked rooms.

Support Services 

Organizations reduce administrative waste when they utilize IT support services. The innate complexity of the emerging technology stack used by many organizations facilitates increasing support requirements, and the 24/7 services providers enable access to specialized advice anytime.

Support services cover many support ranges, remotely managing hardware to software and from protocols and programs to prompts. Reducing employee downtime can increase employee experience and reduce financial waste.

SaaS

Software as a Service (Saas) providers offers businesses the option to use the software on a flexible, monthly, or annual payment scheme. Service providers can modify and configure the software to the organization’s needs.

The most significant advantage of SaaS is that it is updated, upgraded, and patched remotely by the services provider, making the software perform optimally and saving the IT team time.

Wireless & Mobile Computing

Wireless and mobile computing services offer similar features to hosting and storage, but the wireless attribute provides many advantages over investing in large amounts of wired hardware.

Integrated wireless connectivity solutions via a managed service allow greater flexibility as staff move between devices. This benefit is the most significant when staff talks through a new product with a customer. With wireless devices, salespeople can showcase the product to the customer on a wireless project using input from a mobile device, then allow them to interact with a gamified version of the product on a tablet.

Cloud Infrastructure 

A managed cloud infrastructure service involves the provider managing operating systems, storage, networks, and computing needs. The service provider can also include platforms, databases, and tools that can help streamline the business processes involved in the cloud infrastructure.

Organizations save time when they adopt a cloud infrastructure service, as the staff does not need to learn how to install and implement it. Staff can use such services within hours of paying the monthly fees. Using this service allows companies to prioritize core business tasks.

How Do Managed Service Providers Impact Digital Transformation? 

Digital transformation is a term businesses have used for decades, but the global pandemic led to increasing pressure to utilize the digital transformation business model. Managed service providers fulfill digital transformation needs by providing new opportunities via the cloud and other managed services.

But digital transformation is more than technology adoption and improving business processes. A true digital transformation strategy is the act of an organization reconceptualizing an entire approach to business. This process involves a company using bold moves to reassess how they reach their business solutions to improve performance and increase agility.

The digital transformation managed services model is essential for any plan to improve agility, and the process begins with embracing an open-minded approach which became prominent in the pandemic. Companies need to maintain this open-minded attitude toward new investments and strategies such as the managed services model to allow digital transformation managed services to become integrated within core business functions.

Companies must review their approach to capital expenditure to free up the capital to invest in new technologies. Moving resource-heavy functions such as risk compliance, finance, and tax to the managed services model means that the fees for services are scalable, and companies pay fees each month as services are required. This flexible, rolling payment structure eliminates upfront costs, allowing investment in other areas for growth and innovation to boost resilience.

Innovation leads to agility by generating confidence in an organization. The most effective way to promote innovation is using managed digital transformation services to give expert knowledge and the best analytics to drive the most effective strategic changes. This process leads to digital transformation success and optimized business outcomes.

The big difference between digital innovation and digital transformation is that transformation is on a larger scale, in scope and approach. Transformation encompasses much thought into why companies invest in specific technologies and what purpose they will fulfill for a company.

The managed services model fits perfectly into this approach because of its modular nature. Organizations can add or remove software modules when their needs change to increase agility continuously. This structure allows several business benefits, enabling companies to choose the required service features when they have established their specific needs.

The Future Of Managed Services

The future of managed services will likely involve many emerging technologies such as automation, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and machine learning to optimize business processes. The future will likely increase the modular aspect of services and make software easier to design for specific business needs.

Managed Services Make Agile Organizations

Managed services are more popular now than ever and will continue to grow as demand increases in the industry. Business leaders and companies begin to focus on managed services more as the need for innovation and agility increases with the staggering rate of technological progress as part of digital transformation strategies.

All transformation strategies across the marketplace will integrate managed services into efforts to transform businesses into rapidly changing, agile enterprises. Customer expectations will continue to drive the new trends of managed service providers in the future of transformation. Current business models will become obsolete, and managed services will dominate as the leading solutions to enable technology services.

The post How Managed Services Accelerate Digital Transformation appeared first on Digital Adoption.