A 2017 Gartner survey reveals 42% of CEOs have already initiated digital business transformation, and 56% of them are already profiting from the initiative. What sets out these market leaders from the rest is their ability to intelligently and strategically use digital to drive real-world transformation in their business.
How are they doing it?
The Importance of Objective Research
Consider the research from ThinkJar, which places the cost of acquiring a new customer as six times more than keeping an existing one. Another research from Wunderman reveals 79% of US consumers prefer brands to demonstrate care for them before they consider a purchase.
Successful transformation efforts inevitably require strong, objective research to ascertain the genuine insights from the customer. To apply such research at the organizational level, the C-suite has to focus on digital transformation initiatives aimed at improving CX. For instance: deploy a strong AI based analytical engine to understand the mind of the customer, wants, preferences, behaviour, and everything they speak or think about the company, updated in real-time, with the context added for a better perspective.
The Criticality of Intelligent Software
The rapid growth of data flows, digitization of key systems and practically unlimited computing power has given rise to intelligent software. Artificial Intelligence suites offer a significant upgrade over conventional data analytical tools by dint of its ability to work on huge swathes of data from multiple disparate sources.
A powerful AI-based engine can offer deep personalization capabilities by understanding the nuances of each individual customer to deliver tailored promotions delivered at the right time, using the right device. Such a truly customised DT initiative would herald the transformation of the enterprise from a “process organization” to a “caring organization.”
However, the golden rule is to keep customer perspectives in mind when driving transformation initiatives, Capgemini estimates 55% of consumers preferring interactions enabled by a mix of AI and humans, meaning a fully automated and impersonal CX may actually be counter-productive. Even for AI-based solutions, the overriding preference is for human-like attributes, such as human-like voice and intellect, ability to hold a sensible conversation, respond to follow up questions, and more.
The Importance of Design Thinking
Businesses increasingly accept design thinking as an effective problem-solving and innovation tool, and as the most effective way to understand a customer’s requirements. The core of design thinking, aimed at understanding the customer, is asking questions such as ‘what they do’, ‘why they do,’ ‘how they do’ and so on, and in the process identifying solutions.
Implementing design thinking within the boundaries of an agile framework requires a methodological approach of understanding the audience, defining the requirements, and creating new ideas to formulate innovative solutions for the requirements. The best approach creates prototypes of tentative solutions, and tests these out before committing to it wholeheartedly. The prototype based approach helps to create a high-quality model of the final product seamlessly, without having to run through the complete development life cycle.
The combination of Design thinking and Agile works wonders in integrating a team with people of different skill sets, backgrounds, perspectives and creative ideas. The approach offers the freedom to create digital “how” of the transformation, having understood the innate story behind the scene. Objective research into what the customer really wants, and applying intelligent software to drive change through design thinking helps in leveraging DT as a powerful tool for real-world transformation.
