Digital transformation is not the same as innovation

The presence of digital technology, data and changing user behavior is enabling new business models to dominate nearly every sector of our economy.

Digital business transformation can only be successful with a well-founded strategy and leadership.

Digital transformation is no longer seen as a purely technology initiative. Consequently, companies are starting to rely more on their own business process specialists to ensure that digital integration is of the greatest benefit to everyone. Organizations must use these digital technologies and their capabilities to transform processes and create new business models, thereby creating their place in the digital world. The goal of an organization’s digital strategy is to improve user experience, increase efficiency, drive innovation, improve decision making, and possibly transform.

What is digital transformation?

Basically, digital transformation describes the process by which a company shapes its technology adoption strategy to improve its business and meet the ever-changing needs of its customers. Digital transformation is also the introduction of new employee roles, software, hardware, service delivery options (including cloud computing), automation and agile processes combined that will revolutionize the operating model of a business. As it is beautifully described in the?The Anatomy of Intel’s Digital Transformation — IT Peer Network,?digital transformation as at the intersection of people, tools and processes. In other words, it is the process of restructuring your company in a 21st century digital economy that favors technology-driven business models over industrial business models. By using (for transformation) or creating (for innovation) new digital products and processes to simplify your organization, you move further on a digital journey that will surprise, delight and satisfy customers or partners and lead to greater profitability and market penetration.

80% of organizations today are committed to transformation or innovation, so it is important to clearly define transformation goals.

If you really know how to innovate, chances are you will need to transform your digital operations to achieve that. If your executive team does not have the desire or interest in implementing a new digital business model, your efforts, no matter how well-intentioned, are likely to be unsuccessful. However, introducing new technologies into existing business processes (or in other words, introducing digital innovation projects) is often tedious, time-consuming, and costly. This is why the company is reluctant to take this path: digital innovation projects seem to be a never-ending process.

While digital transformation will vary widely based on the specific challenges and requirements of organizations, there are some constants and common themes among existing case studies and published charts that all business and technology leaders should consider when embarking on digital transformation. The focus is on business, which by definition means a holistic vision of digital transformation in which aspects such as customer experience, technological evolution and innovation, with a clear goal. In a broad sense,?we define digital transformation as the integration of digital technologies across all areas of the business, which leads to fundamental changes in how companies operate and how they deliver value to customers. The drive for transformation is an ongoing effort to increase the agility of an organization and should be measured differently than the success of innovation. So transformation or innovation is likely to make your list as one of the best initiatives this year if they haven’t already. If you are discussing digital transformation and innovation, we would say that digital transformation involves the introduction of technology to support your business goals (after realizing the value of digitization). If companies want to keep up with the fast pace of digital change today, they need to work to improve efficiency through technology where possible. Improving business processes and profitability is not the only reason digital innovation is vital. In a challenging business climate, companies must harness all of their competitive advantages, and these advantages are increasingly digitalized.

We’re talking about using intelligence to achieve transformative business outcomes, both artificial intelligence and augmenting human employees with more information, ideas, intelligence and processes to enhance their human intelligence (just as electrical tools increase our physical intelligence).

The presence of digital technology, data and changing user behavior is enabling new business models to dominate nearly every sector of our economy. Nearly all of the largest tech companies are living examples of disruptive business models created by startups rather than existing big firms. Therefore, most digital transformation may be related to innovation, because it can gradually improve products or processes, or make more radical changes (for example, a fundamental change in the company’s business model). The result is that innovation can change every part of the business process, from improving team efficiency and productivity to reducing operating costs. Evolution is continuous and incremental improvement, but for the reasons mentioned above, we are at a stage where new technologies, tools, and technologies enable companies to make transformative changes to their business (or manufacturing) processes. Some people prefer to use the term “digital business transformation”, which is more in line with the business dimension. Therefore, I would say that the phrase “intellectual transformation” is much more appropriate.

When innovation leads to transformation

In other cases, innovation can lead to transformation, but this causality is often overlooked because they are considered the same thing. Although it is actually related, it is important for today’s business leaders to understand the difference between the two. Likewise, digital business transformation is not just a technical or IT issue. Digital customer experience, innovation, competition, differentiation, automation, cost reduction, optimization, speed and stakeholder engagement as the driving forces of business, these technologies and the way they are used are driving this famous next wave or additional level of innovation and digital transformation. We are at a stage where new and emerging technologies are converging with emerging technologies that provide access to a new wave of innovation by being able to use existing digitized data with automated processes in new and transformative ways. Intelligent digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT) networks, advanced analytics and robotics can change the way we work and do business, and the way we do business. Companies interact with their customers and the world. In practice, continuous customer experience optimization, operational agility and innovation are key drivers and goals of digital transformation, along with the development of new revenue streams and information value ecosystems that drive business model transformation and new forms of digital processes.

Transformation means moving from one state to another and is a process that takes time. On the other hand, innovation usually refers to a sudden burst of creativity, as well as the early steps toward incorporating that burst into a company’s strategy.?Most large organizations are currently pursuing two parallel initiatives: digital transformation efforts to harness and realize its benefits for their business, and innovation to stay at the forefront of innovation. Both initiatives are considered synonymous and are used interchangeably to describe everything from optimizing a business process to installing a new IT system to creating a completely new department. This often means implementing someone else’s process or service innovation to revolutionize the way technology services are delivered or the way your technology supports your business goals.

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