Tag Archives: Digital Technology

Adapting to new trends often comes in waves. We’d prefer if we could pace ourselves and anticipate new technology, but it’s never that simple in a digital landscape.

As technology improves, companies must adapt. Adapting to new technology can save hundreds of thousands of dollars in operational and administrative costs. Moreover, the mere appearance of adoption can make the difference in clients perceiving you as a reputable thought leader or an obsolete brand past its prime.

Your intention, of course, is to keep your brand relative and alive. That is why prepping your company’s culture, assets, and methodology to abide by digital trends is paramount.

Optimization Through Digitization

The time of pen and paper is a bygone era. As more companies move their documentation management to online cloud storage platforms, it opens the door to time, space, and improved organization.

Consequently, it allows progressive brands to accomplish more with their time than brands that haven’t adjusted their document management. Not only this, but file sharing is becoming more expected by consumers as opposed to traditional means of communication like snail mail.

Digitizing company documents can also improve the quality of life for most HR workers as it can reduce the footprint of files they need to keep track of physically.

But it’s not only for convenience. If data is being shared via e-mail, it faces the possibility of malicious online threats. That’s why data encryption and security measures are in place to protect sensitive documentation belonging to companies.

Although transforming all physical documents to a digital format may be an involved and large task at first, the benefits of time savings and organization can vastly outweigh the initial time investment. However, it needs to be done in a way that can be repeatable on a daily basis. The new system of conducting work processes digitally needs to be scalable. Physical methods should be put away. Digital forms, communication, and organization should take their place.

It can often feel daunting to convert thousands of documents into digital formats. That’s why many brands hire consultants to aid them in arranging their systems in a way that can be easily categorized, implemented, and repeated.

Entering the Metaverse

The metaverse, one of the most recent and ongoing technological trends, is going to change all aspects of life, including average business daily life. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept, it is a virtual rendering and representation of the world we live in. You can imagine it like a video game at first, trying to imitate real life by making it appear as real as possible.

The metaverse does this, but the intent is that it will have practical application. For example, where today, to buy groceries, one must get up, go outside, drive to the store, walk around the store, purchase the merchandise, and return home.

These digital realities will strive to allow you to enter a virtual rendering of the same grocery store and simulate walking around and purchasing groceries. The difference is that you won’t have to leave your home. Your groceries will simply be dropped off via a drone, and that’s that.

We already see a glimpse of this in actuality through the popular app, Instacart, which enables distant customers to shop for groceries from their mobile phones.

The ability to access virtually and experience tangible things from a distance could imply major benefits for a lot of different applications.

It could allow clientele to browse inventory and specifications of a product that’s located on the other side of the world. It could allow physically disabled individuals the ability to shop on their own. The benefits are worth considering.

And that is what your brand must consider. What does its place in the metaverse look like? There’s certainly a host of ways that businesses can leverage the metaverse to their advantage, including the sale of NFTs to behave almost like a ticketing system to obtain real-life tangible items. Some other examples might include exhibiting product demonstrations for industrial machining companies or product testing a new design before its put on the market.

If you start now, your brand could be among the first early adopters of the metaverse when it eventually takes off and becomes one of the main alternatives to physical experience.

Be wary. The internet didn’t take off right away. And there will be plenty of naysayers that try to diminish the validity of the metaverse, but your company should be prepared to adapt if it becomes the next big thing.

Maintain Awareness of What’s Next

If there’s anything you take away from this, it should be to stay vigilant and aware of what’s creeping up on the horizon.

The metaverse might get big for a decade and then fizzle out. It might be replaced by another thing shortly after. The important thing to do is to remain conscientious of what’s coming and make decisions on whether or not and how you will adapt to meet the new evolution of technology.

Advancement is exponentially increasing, which means we have smaller and smaller windows of time to settle in the previous development before we have to move on to the next one. Don’t let anything slip by!

*This article is written by Ainsley Lawrence. View more of Ainsley’s articles here.

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Digital technologies have revolutionized the world in countless ways. From the items people wear to the devices they keep in their pockets, there’s no question that the digital transformation is in full effect. In fact, it’s estimated that 85% of Americans today use products with digital and/or artificial intelligence elements on a daily basis, according to recent Gallup polling.

It’s the frequency with which advanced digital technologies are used that has forced many companies to recast themselves as digital businesses. They’ve done this both to keep up with the times and to improve the overall customer experience. However, implementing a transformation strategy is much easier said than done, especially for industries that have grown accustomed to legacy systems.

A digital transformation consultant, however, can make the transition a great deal easier. What should you look for in one? What do they actually do? In what industries are digital transformation consulting services most relevant? This article will help you better understand how your company can become an authentic digital business.

What does a digital transformation consultant do?

A digital transformation consultant is akin to any other consultant, in that they aim to make work processes go more smoothly from start to finish. But specifically, digital transformation consultants enhance the technological components of running a business. This may be evidenced by concentrating on where technology is already deployed, or where it ought to be in order to enhance the customer experience and provide a better product or service.

How has digital affected certain industries?

Although just about every business has been impacted by digital in some way, certain industries have experienced it more acutely than others. Chief among them is financial services, particularly retail banking. Gone are the days when people had to see a bank teller to get checks cashed or withdraw cash from their savings accounts. ATMs make this possible. Of course ATMs have been around for decades — more than 50 years, in fact — but many of them are now optimized with various features that make the customer experience even more convenient, by dispensing dollars in multiple denominations and offering cash recycling services, among many others. Digital transformation consultants have enabled banks and branches to better determine where and how state-of-the-art technologies may be best deployed to improve operability and enhance functionality.

An industry where digital technologies are on the rise is in food and beverage manufacturing. According to a recent report by ING, digitalization is one of the top promising applications in food technology. An example of digitalization within food manufacturing is IoT, specifically the interconnectivity of shop floor machines to PCs. The connection allows for both better traceability of product but also better control — processes can be inspected and reviewed remotely and often in real time. With strict quality requirements for food products, the move toward digitalization has helped organizations in the food manufacturing industry maintain those standards while keeping processes efficient.

Is digital always the solution?

While digital technologies are designed to make work processes run more smoothly so customers get a better product or service, it’s not necessarily a fail-safe. People — both customers and personnel — tend to be creatures of habit and may not find favor with major changes in processes. Computer-aided design and manufacturing is helping more factories improve production through advanced automation for repeatable, by-the-book work processes. However, employers still need personnel there to actually work this technology to ensure it performs seamlessly. With the sector experiencing a shortage in high-skilled labor, businesses must train workers on how to work digital technologies to avoid production declines that may result from unfilled positions.

With technologies constantly improving, digital transformation consulting is something that an increasing number of business owners will seek out in order to become better and obtain a competitive advantage over rival companies. Here are a few things you should look for in order to make sure a digital transformation consultant has your best interests in mind:

What a good digital transformation consultant does

• Does their homework – No matter how long you’ve been in business, a digital transformation consultant should take the time to know what you do and why you do it. It’s never been easier for them to do that thanks to online resources, but even if this wasn’t the case, their taking the time to learn your business is pivotal because no two digital transformation solutions are the same. What may work for one company may not work for you. A consultant will likely want to discuss how your company got off the ground in order to design the best digital strategy.
• Values your people – A digital transformation strategy can’t work without having the right people in place. Some fear that technology, specifically AI, will cost them their jobs, when it’s actually designed to make better use of personnel so they can be redeployed in a manner that makes the best use of their strengths. A good digital transformation consultant should consider people every bit as important as the process.
• Offer solutions for change management – Change is never easy, even when it’s for the better. A truly competent digital transformation consultant will be able to offer insight on how to implement a change management protocol so the transition is seamless and as turbulent free as possible.

No matter what industry you’re operating in, the digital transformation consulting experts at USC Consulting Group can provide your business with the tools, technology, and tactics you need not just to survive, but thrive. Contact us to learn more.

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