Gotransverse
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May 12, 2020Digital transformation is nothing new. For years, increased competition in every industry has led businesses to build agility into their operations so they could evolve quickly to meet customers’ shifting and growing demands. Businesses have been migrating their operations from cumbersome, hardware-based systems to native digital platforms that provide more agility, flexibility, and room for growth.
But the onset of COVID-19 kicked the move to digital transformation into overdrive as business as usual slowed to a crawl in the best-case scenario — and halted altogether in many industries. Businesses that had been laser focused on optimizing current processes discovered that current processes were no longer viable, while businesses that had been diligently building agility into their operations found themselves better equipped to change directions and keep serving customers — and bringing in revenue.
While nobody can predict with certainty what the future holds, we at Gotransverse are confident that our post-COVID business world will be hyperfocused on digital solutions that help companies propel themselves into the “new normal” — and position them to embrace every “new normal” that comes our way.
More than Ever Before, Agility Is Everything
While optimization was once a primary goal for businesses — finessing and fine tuning front- and back-office processes for maximum efficiency — optimization is no longer enough. Instead, in this era of profound disruption, savvy businesses need to be able to disrupt their own models at the drop of a hat, continually pivoting and evolving as they gain more insight into their customers’ needs and finding new, creative ways to unlock value.
This kind of agility requires looking past the current roadmap, which was inevitably, painstakingly created for a different time. During the pandemic, we’ve seen businesses speeding up initiatives that were planned for months or even years away. For example, Austin-based jewelry designer Kendra Scott has turned its 108 retail locations into fulfillment centers. While they had planned to offer shipping from stores, those plans were almost a year out — until COVID-19 hit. We’ve also seen businesses drastically reinventing the way they work with customers, from restaurants offering delivery and even turning into miniature grocery stores, to bookstores moving all of their business online in a matter of weeks, or even days. Meanwhile, many businesses that have been unable to adapt have had to close their doors — some just for now, and others for good.
(Learn more about building the foundations to pivot your business in our recent webinar.)
Agility Requires Quick Time-to-Market
Thriving in uncertain times like these is about doing what’s required in the moment, developing new products and services and bringing them to market to meet today’s needs. And a huge part of that is the ability to get those new products and services to market quickly. Unfortunately, that’s often easier said than done. MGI Research found recently that only 29 percent of companies can introduce new pricing plans in less than four weeks, and 32 percent report experiencing “time-to-market challenges” when implementing new pricing paradigms.
When your business’ continued viability relies on pivoting quickly, four weeks is far too slow. While traditional billing platforms require significant integration time (often more than a year) and generally require heavy lifting to make changes to workflows, products or pricing, native digital systems are built to be agile. Cloud-based, intelligent billing prepares businesses for change by enabling users to make business model changes, add or remove products, create offer bundles, update product catalogs, handle new, unanticipated usage- or subscription- based pricing models, and more, quickly and without a billing specialist on staff.
Transformation Fatigue Is a Risk — Just Like Zoom Fatigue
Change is constant. That’s been the case as long as any of us can remember. But today — and in the months to come — the rate of change is ratcheting up significantly, and it’s easy to get caught up in the whirlwind of new theories, new projections and shiny new products and services. But all that change can take a toll, leaving employees and users with virtual whiplash, much like the whiplash many of us are starting to feel after full days bouncing from one Zoom meeting to the next.
Instead of chasing change reactively, savvy companies are being proactive, seeking ways to focus their digital transformation, avoiding the fatigue that could jeopardize their efforts.
The goal is to make strategic investments that empower employees to reap the full benefits of digital transformation. This starts with understanding the problems to be solved and goals to be achieved, then searching for the solutions that answer those needs. This methodical approach to solving problems rather than simply chasing trends is what makes that transformation sustainable in the long term.
(For more on future-proofing your business against uncertainty, download our free tip sheet.)
For focused, goal-oriented strategic changes, Gotransverse is here to help. Our cloud-based agile billing platform is designed to empower change, flexibility, and growth, no matter how chaotic the market. To learn how we’re helping companies prepare for the post-COVID digital transformation, we invite you to schedule your complimentary, personalized demo to find out whether Gotransverse is the right choice for your business.