Everywhere we look we are seeing articles and events aimed at explaining and bringing to life Digital Transformation. It is tempting to ignore it as something that is overhyped and not relevant, or too difficult to adopt. In the late 1990s and early 2000s we talked about being Net Ready – going online with our businesses but avoiding layering technology over broken business processes or the old lipstick on a pig trap. Digital Transformation is the modern-day equivalent of this and is happening daily in each of our organisations.
There are many definitions of Digital Transformation, often nuanced slightly depending on the organisation that is presenting its case. In a business sense, we consider it to be the way in which a company can transform its core business processes using digital technology to gain competitive advantage and focuses on achieving greater workforce productivity, improved business processes and creating great customer experiences. It depends on strong leadership, alignment between IT and the business and the ability to measure the business outcomes.
At INNOVATE, as in any organisation, we have a keen focus on how Digital Transformation can help us achieve benefits in these three areas. How are we doing this? Firstly, we have a culture that encourages all employees to question current thinking and process and to suggest improvements – from our Finance to our Service teams, we have subject matter experts who take the time to understand how technology can help drive improvements. In Finance, we have moved our billing application to Microsoft Azure, not only has this drastically improved the performance of the system, but it means we can add capacity at crucial times like month and quarter end, without increasing costs. This flexibility allows us ramp up our resource allocation when needed and deliver results faster. We are also using Microsoft Power BI to give us real insights into our business that allow for speedier and more impactful decision making. DocuSign signature allows us to close contracts faster than ever before and the feedback from our customers is that they love how it streamlines doing business with us.
Across our business, we use Microsoft productivity tools to collaborate within and across teams and out to our customers. This allows for faster decision making and removes the barrier of distance. Whether we are in the office or on the move using our mobile devices, we can instantly connect using Skype for Business. We have integrated it into our VoiceGrid communications platform to get the benefits of telephony services along with the full collaboration suite.
As we move more and more to the use of technology in these ways, security becomes increasingly important to protect our customer’s and our customer’s information. We use a range of security products to provide a layered approach, most recently we have adopted Cisco’s Umbrella solution. This is a cloud based solution that uses the internet’s infrastructure to block malicious destinations before a connection is ever established. Cisco Umbrella discovers where attacks are staged and enforces policy in the cloud before your users ever connect. It not only protects our company but it gives our staff peace of mind that they are not compromising ourselves and our customers through unintentional acts.
Digital Transformation is here and can be a real differentiator for all businesses. It is an ongoing process driven not just by available technology but also by leadership and culture. It is a combination of all these that will drive the more tangible outcomes.
Happy Transforming!!
Annette Soraine, INNOVATE Chief Commercial Officer
Read how the Irish Greyhound Board (IGB) has announced a five-year technology partnership with INNOVATE for a digital transformation which will see the sport enhance both its target audience and its customer experience.
