This paper discusses the real challenges faced by enterprises in the process of digital transformation, analyzes the successful experience of some traditional enterprises in digital transformation through examples, and emphasizes that digital transformation should be based on business needs and pragmatic.
Many enterprises set a high tone when they began to promote digitalization, and external consulting and internal propaganda went hand in hand, which lasted vigorously for several years, but in the end they could not be implemented.
Other traditional enterprises are silent and never mention enterprise digitalization. However, after in-depth research and in-depth research, it was found that digitalization has not only become an important part of the company's stable investment, but also intertwined and integrated with the business, constituting the core competency of the enterprise.
For traditional companies, it obviously takes courage to adopt digitalization early and invest heavily over the years. How do these companies view digitalization? And how do you stick to your digital goals?
Today, based on personal experience in digital transformation within traditional enterprises, let's talk about their digital transformation journey.
First, come from the last resort
In the past few years, the word Zhongtai has been particularly popular, and with the star halo of a major Internet company, everyone has begun to recognize this concept. Whether it is an Internet company or not, whether it has a digital foundation or not, everyone fully accepts it, and even turns around to build its own middle platform.
But doing enterprise digitalization and starting from the middle office can be said to be a big mistake.
The middle office is an abstract capability platform. Just like the order middle platform, it is only an abstraction of the concept of order, but it is not put into the specific business scenario, and it does not describe where the order comes from, where it is going, and how all aspects of the order flow, which cannot be applied internally.
And without a suitable landing business, no matter how strong the middle platform is, it will not be able to play a role.
It's like you gathered the strengths of all the people, learned the first-class martial arts on the rivers and lakes, and became a first-class master, but you went home to farm and farm, how sad.
Looking at the traditional industries with advanced digital progress, at the beginning of building digital capabilities, there is not so much external information, there is no so-called hot trend, based on very real development needs, forced by the form of business death and life, with the meaning of "last resort".
For example, in the express delivery industry, in 2001, several big brands were established successively.
With the rapid development of e-commerce, the whole industry soon reached the business volume of hundreds of millions of pieces, and in the next few years, it will exceed one billion and ten billion yuan one by one. The business volume has increased by a hundredfold, and the old model of relying on manpower cannot be undertaken at all. In addition to the basic routing system, it is necessary to have a more detailed description of data such as vehicles, people, routes, and outlets, as well as a more effective matching between resources, in order to really do the fast-growing business, otherwise everyone can only look at the skyrocketing number of orders and sigh.
And in the highly competitive business environment at the time, there was a need not only for the efficient operation of data internally, but also for customers. Customers want to see their logistics information in time, need faster transportation arrivals, and need timely warnings. Whoever can better satisfy customers will also have a place in the competition.
After all, manpower has a time when it is poor. And the field where a lot of data exists is inherently the comfort zone of information technology. The thrust brought by the amount of data has become an unstoppable "trend", and digital transformation has become inevitable.
Today, each express company is not competing for the on-site operation mode, but based on the system's scheduling improvement, improve efficiency, and the digital system also serves the business, to the follow-up to undertake data, analyze the business and even guide the business in turn, develop new capabilities led by intelligent scheduling, and grow a new business here - intra-city distribution. At the same time, intelligent scheduling has also become the infrastructure of new services, which can no longer be separated from business, and digitalization has been integrated into the backbone of business.
Let's talk about the financial industry.
Throughout its development history, it can be said that it has been accompanied by the development of information technology, and the financial industry has always been the first to try whenever there is significant progress in science and technology.
At the end of 1970, when personal computers were just beginning to enter the public eye, the financial industry was already the first to adopt electronic information technology, producing bank cards and ATMs.
In 2000, the spread of computers and the Internet accelerated further, becoming common devices in homes and offices. At this time, traders can already subscribe and redeem funds online through the platform provided by the fund company.
In 2010, with the development of fintech, online banking and online transactions have become a common choice, and in the following years, mobile transactions have also been further developed.
It can be seen that the final result of the financial industry's embrace of technology has brought customers a better and more convenient experience. In this highly competitive traditional industry, aiming at customer experience, it has become their standard action to think about how to innovate and think about end-to-end processes in combination with existing businesses when every new technology arrives.
The two traditional industries of express delivery and finance have their own last resort to embrace digitalization, but it is precisely because they have no choice but to come from business and are trapped by the development of business that digital transformation is really a high priority.
Analyzing the digitalization process of these two industries, you can see the commonalities. From the very beginning, their digitalization has a clear goal and a clear result assessment. For the express delivery industry, it is necessary to be able to carry more orders, and for the financial industry, it is necessary to have more customers who can transact online.
There is no real empathy in the world, and only companies that are trapped in business development and eager to break the situation can give each other an understanding look at this point. You need to really feel the potential energy of change, and there are things that need to be solved urgently, so that digitalization can become a good helper for enterprises.
Second, to solve the last resort
There are many forms of unavoidable form, or trapped in business development, or subject to industry competition, but the ultimate goal is to solve the current dilemma through the integration of technical means.
Difficulties arise from the business, so we have to go back to the business and find a way to break the situation.
Suppose you are now the owner of a winery, not to mention the administrative management and personnel management scenarios, just the product line of wine, which can be split into production, processing, warehousing, transportation, sales and other links, so that they can all be digitalized at the same time, which is a bit difficult, so which one to choose first?
The main contradiction can be considered first.
For wineries, the winemaking process is very complex, and the digitalization of production and processing links is risky. This is often the unique craft of a sake brewing company, and it is also a part that is difficult to digitize. So, that's not the main contradiction. For the winery, whether it is the bottled wine that has been produced or the raw materials used to produce the wine, it is very important to have a very complete and reliable storage. This is the main contradiction that this winery should grasp when it is now digital. For example, it can be controlled by a digital warehouse to achieve constant temperature, humidity, and so on.
If you subdivide it further, there are many business scenarios to consider in warehousing, what are the main aspects of the contradiction?
Winemaking depends on the base wine, and this base wine is like the blank of the wine, and the production of the wine depends on it. Therefore, the core scenario of storage is to ensure the safety of the base wine. If something goes wrong with the base wine, such as being contaminated or catching fire, the consequences are devastating and can endanger the lifeline of the entire distillery.
Based on the customer's business goal of digital transformation, Huawei has provided a digital security system for the winery, which can not only sense the temperature and humidity of the warehouse, but also monitor the power and fire protection in real time, so as to ensure the safety of the base wine storage more efficiently.
In addition, Huawei also recommends three key words to find contradictions.
- High frequency: A business scenario that occurs frequently and repeatedly, and the steps, logic, and results are the same or similar each time.
- High energy consumption: In key scenarios that affect costs, i.e., the links that invest a lot of resources but are inefficient in a large number of repetitive business operations, resources tend to grow linearly with business volume.
- High Risk: Scenarios where manual work has a high probability of error, or where the consequences are severe.
Digitalization is one of the ways to break the game through internal business processes, but it can also broaden the perspective and digitize with external customers as the core.
For example, the transaction process will be moved offline to bring more convenience to customer transactions with digital technology. One step further, by expanding the full perspective of customer touchpoints forward and backward, we will build a full-life cycle experience scenario to meet the needs of customers at different levels. It includes the behavior habits of customers before the transaction, and the backward extension to the customer's perception of use after the transaction.
In recent years, the senior sister has purchased Nippon's refresh service, and the whole process has been completed through the small program to select colors, booking, and turning the wall painting into a standardized operation similar to e-commerce, and at the same time, after completing the booking, different people have been immediately developed to be responsible for the infrastructure, construction, and after-sales three links, plus the project manager, a total of four people serve me in this small project of several thousand yuan.
The process of each link is clearly reflected in the small program, whether it is for the price or for the details of the construction process, it can be traced at any time, and further evaluation and invoicing can be made afterwards, so that the information of customers is fully transparent and the business details are fully transparent.
It also makes me feel that if traditional enterprises make their business flow refined and meticulous and standardized, they can bring users an experience beyond imagination, and I believe that such an experience will also create higher stickiness and good income.
In the Analects, it is said, "To know is to know, not to know is not to know, and to know is to know."
The urgency of digitalization is not expressed through the grandeur of the project and repeated preaching, but based on the business, and really knowing what business and what problems this thing is going to solve, which is the real "knowledge", and all the actions taken after "knowing" will be "knowing".
Deep-rooted roots produce beautiful fruits. Through actions, one after another stuck points in the business are solved, and the effect will also be reflected in the business indicators. Whether it's an increase in transaction volume, or an increase in productivity, or an increase in customer satisfaction, whatever it is, it will give the team confidence in the transformation.
May you not be in a hurry, find the point that you have the most unavoidable, dig deeper, solve it, and create your own small victory.
This article is written by Everyone is a Product Manager Author [SaaS Senior Sister], WeChat public account: [SaaS Senior Sister], original / authorized Published in Everyone is a product manager, without permission, it is forbidden to reprint.
Image from Unsplash, based on the CC0 license.