How to Digitize a Company Step by Step

We live in a time when digital is increasingly imposing itself on the traditional. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated to forced marches, a transition that had been looming in the distance and that was coming little by little. If you have a company right now and seeing how the panorama is getting, surely you want to take the step of digitizing your business.

Well, the truth is that it is not a crazy step at all. A few years ago there was the belief that digitization was a thing for large companies, it was something that seemed a bit distant, just like teleworking that is beginning to consolidate as an effective method of work.

However, the reality is quite different, since regardless of size, more and more SME or small business entrepreneurs want to digitize their company.

However, there are many sectors and companies themselves that are highly prepared to make this qualitative leap. But, there are others that do not have the necessary weapons to take that step. For this reason, we have prepared this article to explain, step by step, how you can digitize your company.

Ready to embark on this new journey?

What do we understand by digitization?

We understand by digitization of a company the migration of operations that have traditionally been carried out in an offline format, such as the physical format, to a format totally unknown to them, online.

Well, at first digitizing your business may seem like an arduous and very daunting task, within the reach of a few large companies in certain sectors. But do not get discouraged so quickly, contrary to this belief, digitization is somewhat easier than it seems.

First of all, you must take into account a very important detail: 100% of a company's tasks will not be able to be migrated to digital, however, half or a little more than half of its processes can. achieve it.

Likewise, adding technological and digital tools to a company involves, in many cases, the general rethinking of aspects such as:

• Design of the business model.
• Online focused sales strategy.
• Purchase of supplies such as computer programs.
• Communication channels focused on end consumers.
• Internal communication channels such as Slack or Zoom.
• Payment gateways for customers and suppliers.
• Comprehensive accounting management.

Why should we digitize our company?

In recent years you will have heard that it is already here, the real "digital revolution" or the "4th industrial revolution" is coming, sounding you from afar, but the truth is that, as we have already mentioned before, the covid-19 it has accelerated and has made everything that has been talked about a reality.

Likewise, in order to digitize your business, drastic changes have been taking place, almost overnight, most of them necessary for the survival of some sectors.

At this point, we could tell you a few reasons why to start digitizing a company, but we are going to give you a key, which we believe is the key to everything and which can be summed up in one word: survival.

How to digitize your company in 10 steps

We know well that there are many companies that are in conventional sectors or industries, all their lives and that the idea of ​​going to digitization gives them a bit of stage fright, which can be a very difficult task or it costs a lot of money.

Today we have come to break down those barriers to offer you a solution tailored to your needs and objectives in your business. We are going to teach you how to digitize your company in 10 simple steps that are essential to migrate to the cloud.

1. Study the context and situation of your company

The first thing to do to take the first steps towards digitization is to carry out an assessment of the context and situation of the company.

The fundamental starting point to digitize your business is to know and detect possible opportunities, analyze the competition in depth, as well as see what competitive advantage you have and which one you want to achieve.

2. Identify and involve your customers

It is useless to launch a new communication channel if your customers do not know it or do not use it. Any business, whether small or large, knows its consumers and knows how to communicate with them.

The best idea is to interact with them through social networks such as Facebook or Instagram, to know first-hand their impressions of the brand and products, propose ideas, etc.

3. Immediate solutions to bigger problems

What do we mean by this? Well, in moments like the present, entering a digitization of a company, it will be necessary to put out more than one fire because not everything is rosy.

In order to guarantee the survival of your company, begin to analyze possible internal problems and detect which may be the most serious.

Ask yourself questions like: Are there problems with sales? With shipments? The quality of the products or the staff?

If, of all those questions, you find the problem in the answer, it means that you have to attack and solve it as soon as possible.

4. Creativity at the service of the company

If you want to digitize your business, you will have to let your imagination or that of your team fly. 

It is very important within digital tools to have the concept of creativity very alive, since you will be in contact with all kinds of very flexible possibilities and of practically unlimited use.

With all this in mind, start creating creative product launch campaigns, come up with a new way of communicating with your customers, that is groundbreaking and fresh.

5. Digital marketing

If you want to achieve a good migration to digital, you have to have a comprehensive digital marketing strategy yes or yes. 

This plan will contain all the steps you need to undertake this transformation. Inside, aspects such as the creation and dissemination of web content and social networks, blog management or email marketing campaigns will be marked.

The more and better defined you have this strategy, the results will be optimal.

6. Add a CRM

The next step after carrying out a digital marketing strategy is the implementation of a CRM. A CRM will allow you, as an SME, to obtain and store all the information on the same platform.

In this way, by digitizing your business you will have centralized all customer information in a database, being able to perform customer segmentation and offering greater customization of actions.

In the same way, you will be able to access statistics and results of the launch campaigns you carry out.

7. Mobile devices

At this time, everything we see and do online we do through our mobile devices. We spend a lot of time with them in hand, browsing for hours and hours, so the user experience must be designed around the mobile phone to later adapt it to computers.

In this novel way, it is possible to avoid that the user who arrives at a website through his mobile, cannot visualize it correctly, it is likely that he will leave the page, increasing the bounce rate. 

8. Automate tasks

The tools in charge of automating processes have become a faithful ally of companies. They are capable of developing a professional performance and a work performance that makes a difference and considerably reduces execution times.

Thanks to them, you can focus on important issues, perform tasks that are vitally important in the company, always with the support of artificial intelligence. In this sense, a clear example is customer service through chatbots.

9. Incorporation of professional profiles

The new digital times require new professional profiles to digitize your business. With this new scenario on the digital board, the need has arisen to incorporate professions and areas in charge of promoting different important aspects in a digitization.

For example, the appearance of a data analyst, cybersecurity experts, digital marketing professionals or developers, all of them key pieces to undertake this process.

However, all this will depend on the sector in which your company is framed and the needs it may have.

10. Employee training

We conclude this guide with something that we believe is essential to carry out the digitization of a company. The training of employees in the new technologies and tools to be used is essential.

It is vital that they are trained and updated in order to ensure that they remain competent and useful for the company. Thanks to this training, called digital skills, they will be able to generate professional development, optimize task management and, most importantly, improve their productivity.

Advantages of digitizing a business

Regardless of the current context and the survival instinct that has been installed in different sectors, promoting the digitization of a business brings some benefits that can only be obtained after putting the cruise speed in digitization.

Some of the advantages that you will obtain after digitizing your business are:

• A collaborative and cooperative environment will be generated thanks to cloud applications that are capable of allowing access to all the people involved in the process, being able to carry out their tasks together.
• Total availability 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Unlike traditional software systems, the cloud allows with its mobile applications to be able to access work functions from anywhere and at any time.
• A more secure environment will be created, with facial recognition, fingerprint and two-step verification tools, all from smartphones, reducing third-party attack or loss of information.
• Considerable cost reduction, since these programs are paid, they have quite competent and very effective free options, providing very useful solutions for the company.
• With the centralization of information, in a secure and accessible way, communication is greatly improved and a collaborative environment is fostered in the workplace.

This is where our guide on how to digitize a company ends. As you can see, digitization is already here, it is a fact that we cannot ignore and we have to look and face with optimism and enthusiasm.

It has come to stay, to create a new paradigm in the way of acting and working in a company, with elements that are already established and consolidated such as teleworking and that has come to stay.

In short, the digitization of your business is not going to be an arduous and complicated task, it is enough to carry out the steps that we have been marking to achieve that long-awaited digitization of your own company.