1INTRODUCTION

In this fast pace changing world, industries must carry out expeditious adoption of technology to withstand its place in a competitive market of the Business

Digitalization.

With digital business, marketing becomes cost –effective with the opportunity to reach larger audience. This platform has erased the geographical boundaries and has opened global opportunities. In a click away, the market of products and services will reach thousands of people miles away.

1.2 WHAT IS DIGITAL BUSINESS?

Digital as a vocabulary co-existed with the unfolding of the internet or the World Wide Web also known as (www.). In the business aspect, digital transformation is the adoption of digital technology b an organization to digitize non digital products, services or operation to achieve the goal of increasing the value through innovation, invention, customer experience or efficiency to its highest rate.

To be precise, digital business is the process of applying digital technology in reinventing business models, innovating products, creating new value and connecting to people in a wider range through the use of the internet.

2. What knowledge must obtain for the transformation to take place?

Business minded people will always create strategies to accelerate the profit of its business. If an opportunity requires transformation, then so be it, let the transformation happen. With the world changing to a fast paced system, holding onto a traditional or non-digital business means no growth and less opportunity. Therefore, transformation must take place. Invest to people by allowing the staffs to go to training where they can acquire knowledge to deal with digital processes such as, market and transactions. A strong collaboration between business and technology can create an impact to the current business standing.

2.1 Invest in People and Technology.

Picture 1. owner by Businessworld Publishing, 2022

Digitalization is known to be the saving grace for many businesses across all industries around the world when a shakeout has occurred in 2019 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The statements below were quoted by business analytics and bloggers to strengthen the objective of investing to people to acquire the knowledge and be equipped to sustain the birth of digital business.

Nowadays, as the world endeavours to move onward and leave the pandemic behind, the value of digitalization remains. In fact, according to professional services firm KPMG’s 2021 CEO Outlook survey, digital investment has become a boardroom priority, with nearly three-quarters of UK CEOs say they have an aggressive digital investment strategy designed to secure first-mover or fast-follower status.

“Over the past 18 months, digital transformation has accelerated hugely. Organizations have needed to fix foundational things like moving to the cloud, implementing base security requirements and integrating collaboration tools,” Lisa Heneghan, partner at KPMG, wrote on the KPMG UK Blog.

“But to do this properly, and really enable the workforce to be effective, more of these tools and technologies are needed than many businesses initially realized. New software, new hardware and more sophisticated collaboration platforms may all be needed. So, the job is not done yet and significant investment is still required.”

Accompanying this upgrade is a need to upskill existing workers to maximize the value of these digital tools. At least half of CEOs from the survey say that investing in digital training and skills will be a key success factor in a hybrid world.

“Digital narrowly ‘wins out’ over people in terms of driving growth, but of course it’s only a qualified victory. It’s people who use the technology and unleash the benefits for the organization. That makes training and up skilling essential. New approaches are needed here – moving away from formal training sessions to an approach of continuous learning and development,” Ms. Heneghan said.

Even workers who are not employed in information technology also require sufficient training, particularly with how central data collection and management is handled across every organization. According to professional services firm Deloitte, almost every organization today is experiencing an acceleration of data flows as a result of increased digitalization.

All of this activity, Deloitte says, requires new skills and a broader understanding of how to unlock the value of increased access to data, as well as the creative space necessary to uncover new insights buried in the flows.

“Embracing the new data-rich environment will involve both discrete skills and larger cultural shifts. Large parts of the workforce, including those not traditionally tied to IT, will need more data literacy and proficiency in the tools that handle it. But entire organizations will also need to develop data-first cultures that are comfortable with data aggregation, mining, and analysis — most of it automated — as the foundations of decision-making,” Deloitte wrote in its 2022 Tech Trends report.

3. What process of transformation must take place to achieve the benefits of digital business?

Blogger, Raj Vattikuti stated that, “there is an unlimited opportunity to grow revenue, profit, cash and market share in the business word…” The only barrier that most companies are facing is the transformation. Traditional businesses are impeded by difficulty in pivoting from the current complex business toward the competitive world of digital business.

Transition will not happen overnight. Invest to the people who operates the business, initiate commitment, planning, action and hire people who have fresh knowledge in digital marketing for they are more impulsive to digital work around, collaborate to an end-to-end approach within the internal resources, focus on small steps where in business and technology are committed and aligned, and start with simple BDP or a Business Digital Platform. Social Media Network is a good start. Create pages for your business with a customer friendly access. Simplify and create accessible engagement to your products and services. Understand what your customer’s needs when they get to the business page and see what is offered.

3.1 The principle of simplicity in creating business digital platform.

Picture 2. – owner factory.dev

Digitalization is about convenience and efficiency which should be applied both to the business dynamics and clients. If a business designs a complicated and confusing digital platforms all will apply to different facets which will result to inconvenience and inefficiency.

By fully embracing digital technology, customers are now using the web and mobile apps to find whatever information they might want, whenever they want it.

And now, customers aren’t only comparing your goods and services to your direct competitors, but they are comparing them with different industry’s offerings that may provide even better products and services as well as convenience, efficiency and accessibility.

A business with a conservative Digital Business Platform does not promise reliability but inaccessibility making it difficult to reach for transactions and customer service relation.

Keep it simple and straightforward or also known to many as KISS is a designed principle which must apply to the adoption of Digital Business. When a business targets the public to its maximum number without exception to the technical ability of its consumers the business page must appear simple and user friendly. A click pointing to the direct choice of services and purchases must be clear and simple. Design a market website with clear instruction and user friendly since up to this point customers are continuously pressuring companies to level up their customer experience to a certain extent, and customer experience is what always matters.

4. What are the benefits of the transformation when a digital business takes place?

Picture 3 – owner educba

Expect a 99.9% of data accuracy in every activity and process in business with digitalization.

As what Gartner stated, “Digitalization refers to using digital technologies to change a business model and provide new revenue-producing opportunities.”

Amazon is a good example,

Amazon.com, Incorporation is an American multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce cloud computing online advertising, digital streaming and artificial intelligence.

It was initially an online marketplace for books; with the high demand of competition in the digitalized industry it has expanded its market into a multitude of Product Categories. This innovative strategy of acquisition brought the company into its peak in 2017 with the earning of US$13.4 billion. It has substantially increased its footprint as a physical retailer even during the pandemic shakeout in 2021 and as of 2023; it is the world’s largest online retailer and market place not only to Americans but globally. It is now one of the Big Five American IT companies, alongside Google, Apple, Meta and Facebook.

The development and growth of Digital Business has created an expeditious process of purchase and expanded market.

This proves that Digitalization in business has brought many companies to success.

5.SUMMARY

Taking everything into account, the world is changing and everything is in a fast pace mode. Consumers want an expeditious transparent transaction. If businesses refuse to the risk and opportunity of digitalization it will be left out and will hold onto a stagnant footing. No innovation, no growth, no market and a demised profit will only take place.

However, digital business changes the business mode and even a small business can create a big market on the internet with the help of equipped workforce and the right business digital platform. Everything about the business will be just at the tip of your finger or just a one click away to every successful transaction. Digital business increases the efficiency of all operations while reducing the operational costs. Customers can use the web or an APP to find whatever information they need to know about a business and what it offers. Its integrity, brand, products and the services and so on. It’s a big pool of competition but it offers all the opportunities which offers global growth and great profit.