The past decade has seen a boom in the need for digital services, while the past year has taken it all to new heights. The pandemic has resulted in a rapid scramble to fulfill the push for digitalization, mostly because of the large-scale practice of remote working and a greater need for online self-service on the customer end.
All this translates to a push for digital transformation in businesses of all kinds, and this can be seen in current industry trends. Companies have no choice but to sink or swim, and those that cannot keep up with these digital demands struggle to survive or go under. They need a skilled workforce and technology/resources to mitigate the demands of digitalization, but that’s not all.
How Businesses Can Manage Rising Digital Demands
Here are how successful businesses take advantage of the increase in digital demands and help their workplace adapt to these needs:
Your Employees Make or Break Customer Experiences
At the end of the day, a business is as good as the customer experience it delivers. And the first step to providing a good customer experience is making sure your employees have the tools that make their roles easy and convenient to perform.
A not-so-fun fact: Nearly 80% of workers in Europe are aware that industry disruption will increase competition and require improved and expansive digital skills. The implication is obvious: businesses need to provide tools and training that allow workers to meet the demands and expectations coming from their customers.
This can be done through platforms like MuleSoft and Salesforce, as they make data more accessible and enable the quicker completion of digital projects. By leveraging data through integration, businesses can empower their staff and create connected and seamless customer experiences, helping you find out what the customer wants and how to give it to them.
There’s No Such Thing as Too Much Preparation
The Boy Scout idea always comes in handy and businesses need to plan on managing inventory, analyzing capacity, and providing deliveries to keep up with customers’ expectations. Businesses need to plan on how they will navigate their way through future disruptions and unforeseen events.
At the same time, the supply chain response needs to evolve to keep up with the latest digital demands. Applying tools that come with Machine Learning to meet the requirements of both the demand and supply side of things like inventory levels, route selection, and delivery sequencing all keep the business up to date and prepared for anything that may come up unexpectedly.
All-Around Integration is Vital for Digital Demands
The easiest way to meet the higher rate of digital demands is to bridge the gap between business/management and the IT department of a business organization. This empowers the overall business to unlock data themselves through integration and drive large-scale innovation.
Converting digital capabilities into accessible and available APIs for business users enables organizations to empower a wide range of non-technical users. This, in turn, drives customer value and quickly opens up new revenue opportunities.
Best of all, users everywhere are open to this self-serving and more convenient approach. A good example of this is MuleSoft and other companies that let businesses build digital capabilities using APIs to automate processes and unlock data.
Use the Data You Already Have
At this point, everyone can agree that busting data out of silos and using data is something all businesses need to do. So, while businesses know that fast and easy access to data is necessary, they aren’t exactly sure how to connect the data to their users. Organizations need to efficiently connect and use data to increase business value.
A lack of quick and easy access to data can affect an organizations’ ability to create connected customer experiences. They also need to identify the data that is useful to the business, finding meaning in chaos. At the moment, machine learning capabilities let businesses benefit from massive advances in computer power, new training data sets, and refinement of algorithms. ML makes it possible to meet growing data-based demands and offer increasingly personalized offerings.
Identifying meaningful patterns and behavioral correlations in data businesses gives a much clearer image of what customers want. Machine learning can do so more efficiently than people can.
Bottomline
The rise in digital demands needs businesses to work smart, think fast, and act with an instinct to keep up with the competition. Whether it is this pandemic or some unexpected event in the future, businesses must keep their options open and know how to handle the influx of digital services that may arise from these situations. Using data, integration, and connectivity, and machine learning are just some ways companies can meet customer needs and handle digital demands going into the future.
