3 ways businesses can embrace digital transformation during COVID-19

Digital transformation does not just refer to starting a website or app for any business out there, it is more about people, both employees and customers, than the product itself. In the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, the sudden shift in all aspects of life will have impactful long-term effects.

There are numerous things companies must consider when transitioning into a digitally present and capable competitor in the online landscape.

1. Focus on the customer

The first and most important point is that customers count the most. A business is nothing without the people it serves, obviously, and people do tend to gravitate towards the most convenient and user-friendly services.

It has been the case for a long time that the product itself is sometimes secondary to the delivery. The way a business captures and holds a customer’s attention, can often shape a company’s fate more so than the quality of their product.

2. Upgrade your content

Customers these days won’t settle for poorly edited videos, grainy footage, bad graphics or sound design. Mediocre is not good enough in the age of digital transformation.

Luckily, the tools for creating high quality content is becoming more widely available by the day.

For example, Canva allows non-graphic designers to do pretty much anything they need with its intuitive drag and drop mechanics. Web hosting services such as WordPress allows basically anyone to have a website if they are willing to put in hours of their time – for a good website at least.

Beyond that, there are thousands of hours of free tutorials online for almost any program out there and many have step by step guides to completing specific projects.

It’s not about the tools anymore, it’s about the talent that utilizes them.

3. Embrace the brave new world

Remote work, automation, the gig economy. These are all examples of digital transformation in our world that may drastically shape the future we are building.

While far from being the ideal solution to all work-related-grief, working from home has some undeniable benefits for both businesses and employees. But in the end, some jobs can be done remotely while others can’t.

For alternative employment such as freelance gigs and one-time projects, remote work can be a good and cost-effective way to get certain things done when your own full timers can’t. Such examples may include, animating an introduction to a video, or creating a bot to help automate some of your more tedious processes like repetitive data entry or automatic replies to commonly asked questions online.

Digital transformation is no longer just an extra front for additional income, or an optional tool in sales. COVID-19, through its sudden and drastic stirring of the status quo, has made sure that those who have not transitioned to digital, need to.