Why Now is the Best Time to Look at Your Digital Roadmap

When you think about your business and its overall progression, it’s now more important than ever to consider real business transformation. You need to keep in mind where your business is today and where you’d like it to be in the next week, month, and a year. True innovators even factor in where they’d like their business to be in a decade to ensure they are always moving forward.

In order to accomplish this, real digital innovation and transformation need to be at the core of your roadmap. Now is the time to take advantage of technology advancements that can radically improve performance and help your business reach new enterprises. This includes everything from analytics, mobility, social media, and smart devices as your business embraces a true shake-up to the structure of every department.

Your Competitors Are Waiting for You to Drop the Ball

Don’t let a competitor have a more advanced digital roadmap than you. No matter the industry, there is always a competitor around the corner that is ready and waiting for your business to fail. Keep in mind that companies who have not embraced digital transformation have 20 percent lower profits than their average industry competitors, according to findings from Forrester. Because of this, if you haven’t implemented a digital transformation roadmap, your business is essentially handing customers and revenue to your competitors.

If you aren’t sure where to start your roadmap, a good place to begin is taking a look at your customer. You cannot begin to innovate without considering the market need and you cannot deny that you’ll lose customers to your competitors if your business is delivering a poor customer experience. One way to consider your customers is to consider your software, as companies with a software component to their business, according to Forrester, reap a 12 percent higher market valuation. New competitors that come out of the woodwork that are software-native are bound to undercut your price and steal your share of the market.

A company combining both software and customer needs is Wendy’s. The fast-food giant has embraced digital transformation by focusing on three areas: their mobile app, their website, and in-store digital kiosks. These kiosks not only save on employee costs but also open an opportunity to create more data, as they offer a 20 percent discount to customers who sign up for their loyalty club. In this instance, kiosk and mobile ordering saves on customer wait times and helps them find deals based on purchased history.

Act Now

If you procrastinate your digital transformation roadmap, you’re opening the doors for your competitors to pass you by. “At least 40 percent of all businesses will die in the next 10 years… if they don’t figure out how to change their entire company to accommodate new technologies,” said John Chambers, the Executive Chairman of Cisco System. On a similar note, according to the American Enterprise Institute, 88 percent of the Fortune 500 firms that existed in 1955 are no longer in business. The ones that didn’t make it are the companies that failed to take the time to consider a clear roadmap that laid out plans and goals for their business.

Examples of businesses that failed to innovate in terms of digital transformation are Blockbuster, Toys R Us, Borders, and Kodak. For example, while many believe Blockbuster simply chose to ignore the threat of Netflix, that isn’t the whole story. Blockbuster had a strategy in place where it allowed customers to rent videos online and return them in stores, which they called Total Access. While it gained traction and, at one point, had more subscribers than Netflix, investors eventually cut funding for the program and their strategy was reversed to focus on retail operations. The company went bankrupt in 2010, three years after this decision was put into place. On a similar note, Borders chose to expand internationally instead of focusing on the rise of digital books and music in the mid-1990’s. Because of this, Borders stopped seeing a profit in 2006 and filed for bankruptcy in 2011.

Regardless of the industry, executives predict that nearly half of their revenue will be driven by digital avenues by the year 2020, according to a study conducted by Forrester. Due to this fact, it’s imperative that your roadmap doesn’t stop at surface level updates. To lead the most growth, your company needs to focus on its business model, operational process, and customer experience to lead the most growth.

Let Egen Take a Look at Your Digital Roadmap

Digital transformation goes deeper than adopting a new technology. You also need to accelerate business activities, improve time-to-market, and bring positive changes to your employees and business models. As the key to innovation, the effects of a well-thought-out roadmap will be felt both internally and externally within your business.

With so many moving parts that go into your roadmap, now is the time to take a look at ways your business can become innovative. According to Fujitsu America Inc., one in four organizations has experienced a failed digital project in the last two years, with an average cost of $655,000 per project. If your business could use some help with its digital transformation, or your teams lacks the digital skills needed, contact Egen. As innovation experts, we will take a look at what makes your company unique and find the best ways to set goals and ensure your business model and digital roadmap brings you into the future, so you aren’t left behind.