No one in the business world would discount the importance of technology and the benefits it brings to the whole spectrum of a company’s operations – from supply chain, through to finance and human resources.
In recent times we have seen the power that exciting new emerging technologies bring to increasing this impact – concepts such as machine learning, Blockchain and IoT are enabling businesses to embed capabilities such as prediction, security, sensing and automation within their processes.
The current focus of many digital transformation programs is on increasing the efficiency of company operations by embedding these technologies into “business as usual” processes, including:
– The use of machine learning to increase the accuracy and speed of many finance functions.
– IoT lowering the labour required to inspect and manage assets.
– Analytics unveiling insights that lead to better informed company growth plans, enabling the development of new strategies and in turn driving revenue.
In other words, current digital transformation programs are enabling companies to move from performing business processes to predicting how best to operate their business. With the cost of hardware such as cameras rapidly dropping, further use cases involving machine vision are also emerging, providing ever-increasing amounts of data from which businesses can fuel the efficiency and effectiveness of their operations.
For businesses to become truly Intelligent Enterprises however, a comprehensive external view of company operations and place in the market needs to be considered.
In some cases, companies are taking a much more refined view of their regional and industry position and that of their customers, using analytics to discover opportunities to optimise their respective offerings.
The more powerful approach being taken by companies operating at the leading edge of digital is taking a real time view of the experience being delivered to customers and encountered by employees. Whether these companies are operating in the B2B or B2C space, new approaches need to be taken to provide points of market differentiation and improved employee value propositions – the operational technology discussed earlier is now largely commoditised, being critical to the success of a company but not offering any major competitive advantage.
Solutions such as Qualtrics are being used by these digital pioneers to “close the loop” in terms of merging the successful operation of their business processes with the stellar delivery of meaningful experiences.
By being able to fuse the eXperience and Operational data being captured and deriving insights through predictive technology, these companies can become true Intelligent Enterprises by proactively managing the experiences enjoyed by customers and employees alike.
Coupled with the ability to gather in-depth feedback on products, services and brands, this fusion of operations, intelligence and experience fuels the much more effective digital transformation of businesses into Intelligent Enterprises with a focus on commercial and customer outcomes, rather than capabilities and processes.
You can learn more on how businesses are becoming Intelligent Enterprises by listening to this recent webcast series.