What is Digital Transformation?
Digital transformation is when an organization fundamentally changes its operational, cognitive, social, and/or economic models in response to technological trends. Digital transformation can be positive or negative. For example, globalization has been mostly a positive phenomenon for international trade and vice versa. On the other hand, globalization has had a huge impact on traditional society in the United States with very serious consequences for certain populations.
One of the most significant impacts of digital technologies on organizations is how it has changed how they manage their data. Organizations have historically used records management software to store all types of information including customer data, transactions, financial records, and more.
Below, we will discuss 5 things about digital transformation:
1. Transformation begins with the “organization”
Any organization can be digitized. An organization is defined as something that is: a combination of people, structures, and processes that interact to do work. In other words, an organization is not just a building or even an enterprise (a company, company group, etc.). It is the group of people who are working together to serve customers and ultimately generate profits. The creation of digital transformation means that the work done by these people must be transformed in order for everything to remain relevant.
2. Digital Transformation vs Data Management
Data management is a discipline that deals with data warehouses and data lakes. They are computer databases that act as a repository of structured data. A data lake is a big body of unstructured information that can be connected to create a coherent set of information. Data lakes can also be managed with tooling and APIs.
Technologies like Hadoop, SmartDataStore, and Analytics Platform for Hadoop (AP4H) are the building blocks for extracting, cleansing, transforming, enriching, and storing the data in Big Data systems.
3. How does digital transformation create value?
Digital transformation can help an organization become more relevant by allowing it to collaborate with customers in new ways and access much broader content than ever before. The process allows organizations to develop new products and services that are more personalized for the customers.
Digital transformation also helps the organization become more efficient by improving its processes, which results in a higher quality of products or services.
Finally, digital transformation saves money by minimizing errors, support costs, and fraudulent transactions. This is especially true when adopting technologies such as Cloud Computing, Collaboration Platforms, Application Integration, etc. which reduces IT operating costs.
4. What are the benefits of digital transformation?
There are many benefits of digital transformation including:
- Increased efficiency and productivity
- Better customer engagement
- A larger selection of products & services
- Greater competition in the marketplace (and potential for lower costs)
5. Digital Transformation vs the Data Lake
The data lake is a relatively new concept that has gained significant popularity in recent years. The data lake is a storage system designed to store data in its native format, which might not be in a relational database management system (RDBMS). Once the data has been extracted and/or processed it can be stored in a traditional data warehouse or big data system.
The main purpose of the data lake is to make sure you don’t accidentally discard any useful information. This may seem like an obvious goal but it’s important to remember that all organizations have limited time and resources, especially when dealing with ever-increasing amounts of information.
Takeaway
The benefits of digital transformation are many. However the cost to implement it is high. According to the Gartner group, “at least 20 percent of digital transformation programs will fall short of expectations.”
