Digitalization and Agility Trends: How to Prepare Your Organization for a Digital Future

With the growing impact of automation, artificial intelligence, and Industry 4.0, digital transformation is imperative for most organizations. It penetrates almost every dimension of modern business, from its digital environment to company culture. To stay competitive in a hypercompetitive market, companies need to focus on building a workforce of the future.

Here is how to prepare your organization for its digital future.

Photo by Marvin Meyer on Unsplash

The Essential Digitalization Trends to Watch out for

Over the past few years, we have read a lot about digitalization trends, such as the adoption of cloud infrastructures, the IoT, augmented reality, and so forth. Since these foundational technologies have already become an everyday aspect of your lives, they have opened doors for a fresh new class of tech trends, such as 5G, advanced data analytics, enhanced workplace security, and AI. Here are some of the core digitalization trends that will impact the future of enterprises.

The implementation of 5G will grow.

Telecommunications leaders have already started releasing 5G phones, ensuring that the global deployment of this technology stays on the right track. It is going to change the traditional workplace in multiple ways, from faster broadband speeds to more secure mobile networks. Above all, 5G is not limited to telecommunications solely. It is going to change many aspects of businesses by encouraging the growth of advanced manufacturing, smart vehicles, and IoT-driven technologies.

Data security remains a top priority.

Cloud technologies have become the most significant aspect of digital transformation. Just look at a wide range of enterprise software applications that have revolutionized the way we do business. While the migration to the cloud increases employee productivity and communication, reduces costs, and makes the company structure scalable and flexible, companies should not neglect the importance of security of those systems.

Data loss may severely hurt business continuity, employee performance, and customer satisfaction. Above all, it may compromise the company’s image and prevent it from acquiring new customers. Recent statistics say that, only in 2019, 42% of companies that lost their data also experienced a downtime. To strengthen data security, companies need to choose vendors that provide cloud computing and network security solutions.

AI-driven data analytics processes.

In the hypercompetitive digital marketing landscape, advanced analytics is what sets you apart from your competitors. Relying on your gut is not a viable option anymore. Your competitors have already invested in advanced analytics tools and, to stay in business in 2021, you need to be one of them.

IT companies are starting to see that their competitive advantage is in the real-time processing of company data. Artificial intelligence and machine learning are soon going to become the nerve center of data analytics.

AI and ML provide multiple business benefits. For example, you will be able to automate the analysis of the mounds of data sets instead of assigning this tedious task to your employees. AI ensures massive chunks of data are analyzed almost instantly. By automating the data analytics process, companies will help their employees focus on more creative aspects of their lives. Above all, AI and ML are impressively accurate and fast, minimizing the risk of human error.

Therefore, irrespective of the size of your business or its industry, relying on data analytics solutions is your chance to make data-driven decisions and enhance the overall workplace productivity.

Robotic process automation is gaining momentum.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is not a new concept. However, with the rise of AI and automation technologies, RPA is going to become a winning formula for any business, especially in the field of logistics, retail, and transportation.

More RPA systems will be deployed in industries where repetitive processes are still performed by humans. RPA will automate the majority of manual tasks, helping you augment employee performance. Big ecommerce companies, such as Amazon or Alibaba, have already built smart warehouses, where robots perform the majority of repetitive tasks and work with humans.

The Greatest Challenges of Digital Transformation

While digitalization enhances the workplace structure in multiple ways, it also brings a wide range of challenges for companies.

Organizational resistance to change

By their very nature, human beings love routines. They make us feel safe and comfortable. The implementation of AI and digitalization may make them feel threatened. These technologies may mean a significant change to their identity or, worse yet, the loss of their jobs.

While employers cannot change their employees’ minds, they can empower them to accept the trends of digitalization. Educate employees and empower them to adapt to these technologies. The goal is to help them understand that they are not endangered by innovation. Instead, their roles will be augmented, as machines will do the monotonous and repetitive aspects of their jobs.

The lack of expertise to lead the digitalization initiative

According to Deloitte, the major challenge companies face is the skills shortage. The implementation of advanced tech solutions requires you to have the IT experts to manage the digitalization strategy. For starters, companies need to focus on building strong IT teams and retaining them.

A recent study found that only 15% of companies agreed that the development of internal talent is crucial for their digital strategy. Unfortunately, educating your employees and building an agile environment is critical for your company’s readiness for digitalization.

Agile workplaces can easier adapt to uncertain tech developments and create more fluid organizational structures and teams. There are no strict silos in the company’s structure, either. Employees empower each other and work towards shared goals. It is your goal as an employer to motivate employees to grow their careers and adapt to new trends.

Relying on the initial business model

Enterprises implementing digitalization need to shift from their initial organizational structure. Let’s take the example of Netflix that switched from DVDs to streaming, while Uber managed to become the global car service leader without having to purchase vehicles or hire drivers.

Therefore, keep your organization structure fluid so it can adapt to future trends and technologies. That way, you will eliminate the silos between your departments and keep them more productive and agile.

How to Make your Teams Agile in the Era of Digitalization?

To prepare your business for digitalization, companies first need to assess their current business operations. Most importantly, they need to plan and implement their digitalization roadmap. Without identifying future roles, estimating costs, and identifying the effects of digitalization, you will not reap the results of the digital transformation process.

For starters, reclassifying jobs into new job categories is a necessity. With the rise of AI and automation, employees’ roles will change significantly. Apart from the creation of new job opportunities, existing roles will be broken down into more specific job families.

There should not be any gaps between your teams anymore. They should work together to achieve the organization’s goals. They should have a better understanding of their coworkers’ roles. Most importantly, they should understand the company’s culture and customers’ requirements and align their jobs with them.

Conclusions

The future of digitalization is in strategic planning and the implementation of new technologies. Those are just some of the numerous techniques you may apply to make your organization agile and prepare it for its digital future.

What tactics will you apply? Will you focus on hiring new talent or educating your internal employees? What technologies will you invest in the most? How important is the role of the HR department in preparing employees for their future jobs? Let us know!

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Digitalization and Agility Trends: How to Prepare Your Organization for a Digital Future

The Essential Digitalization Trends to Watch out for

The Greatest Challenges of Digital Transformation

How to Make your Teams Agile in the Era of Digitalization?

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