Today we would like to talk to you about 7 key concepts about business digitalisation. The digital era involves a transformation in business models, which is what we know as business digitisation. This new technological era has led to the emergence of new agents and models thanks to Big Data, Cloud Computing and Social Business, making companies need a digital transformation that allows them to adapt to the new market ecosystem through various ICT tools.
The newspaper Expansión has spoken to top executives of some of the largest technology companies, who highlight the 7 key concepts of business digitalisation:
Mobile devices
“Seventy per cent of user traffic on the Internet comes via mobile,” says Sarah Harmon, manager of the social network LinkedIn Spain and Portugal. This percentage shows that “consumer habits are changing”, Harmon points out. For her part, Olga San Jacinto, in charge of mobile strategy at Google America, points out that this evolution in the use of the Internet is also “transforming the way companies offer their products and services”. “Companies must analyse their customers’ buying process to understand their tastes and offer them what they are looking for, without them having to waste time browsing,” San Jacinto explains.
“At LinkedIn, we had to redesign the site, create new applications and tools,” says Harmon. “This means listening, analysing customer trends and being able to change,” he adds. For a company to transform itself digitally, first, it has to know what its goals are, second, to know where its customers are – what pages they consume and what social networks they are on – and third, to evaluate the right online tools to become more competitive, explains the person in charge of expanding LinkedIn’s presence around the world.
Coca-Cola Iberia’s consumer digital manager, Enrique Burgos, announces that “mobile is the device of the future for doing business” and gives the example of his company’s consumption. “Two billion people have a Coca-Cola a day in one hand and a mobile phone in the other. How to combine them,” Burgos asks. “Any business transformation that tends towards mobile digitisation is on the right track,” he adds.
Digital knowledge
Small and medium-sized companies are the ones that are finding it hardest to jump on the bandwagon of the new online era. “We have to train ourselves digitally,” says San Jacinto. “But the knowledge is not in the classroom,” she says. The director of Google America declares that “there are thousands of tools on the web, what happens is that you have to know them”. For his part, Burgos says that “it is very important for companies to share time with entrepreneurs and start-ups”, which are the ones that create innovative ideas in the market and help companies. Burgos argues that the key to digital transformation lies in “SMEs getting closer to technology firms”. San Jacinto estimates that in ten years’ time “there will be more than a million digital jobs to fill in Europe”.
Reputation
In the global economy, there are fewer and fewer business barriers, but more and more projects. “Companies are project-driven,” says Harmon. There are even “people who no longer have a permanent job, but work on a plan basis”, explains the LinkedIn expert. Thus, the collaborative economy is emerging, which gives companies greater flexibility. In this context, both the client and the employer acquire added value, which is why it is necessary to take care of the two-way communication strategy. “It is important to work on professional reputation as well as personal reputation, because the two merge,” warns Harmon.
Brand
The online community conversation around a company’s brand is growing. Therefore, “the detection of fans who speak well of a company is transcendental to take advantage of their levels of influence on other potential clients”, says Burgos. Feedback between consumers is increasing online, so “you have to keep an eye on the messages that the company sends and those that are given between users, to find out what they think of a business,” he adds. San Jacinto explains that two-way communication also fosters new business models.
Big Data
Companies are scrambling for data so as not to be left out of the digital boom. But “there is a need for young specialists in the digitisation of information”, Harmon reveals. Data is like the oil of information, she says. The big data sector has already been democratised in Spain: “Spanish companies have a good ecosystem, with democratised tools, that is, tools that are open to the public,” says Harmon. The problem is that “you have to know about them”, he qualifies.
The data translates into economic opportunities, according to experts in digital strategies. Harmon reveals that LinkedIn wants to create added value in the online economy in ten years’ time: “With data, we want to know where the demand and supply is. Systems that manipulate big data conglomerates are gaining in importance. So much so that “in 2014, there were 70,000 digital jobs to fill in Spain”, Harmon points out.
The experts agree that in order to prevent intrusion into users’ data “it is necessary to offer a product with added value and put maximum control of the information in their hands”.
Innovation
The Coca-Cola Iberia executive points out that “innovation must come from all the company’s departments”. To generate new ideas in the market, Burgos recommends using the knowledge of young entrepreneurs. For his part, San Jacinto says that innovation sometimes comes from a culture of trial and error. “In the United States, failure is valued more than business success, because every failure serves to improve,” he adds.
Content format
The trend in the supply of goods and services on the Internet is in video format. San Jacinto assures that “people no longer want to read, but to be given small capsules of information. And if it is in audiovisual format, all the better”. Moreover, “the power of a well-recorded video can change a company’s business”, says San Jacinto. The expert in mobile strategies recommends companies to do digital networking, create viral content and share it on social networks. San Jacinto detects that the problem in the business world is that many companies create static strategies, so they stop moving forward.
We hope you have found these 7 key concepts on business digitalisation interesting. If you are thinking about improving the digital transformation of your company, do not hesitate to contact us.
