IT Brief, Australia: Senior Director of Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work Says Becoming Part of the ‘Republic of Digital’ will Increase Profitability of Businesses

“The impact of digital transformation on the global retail, banking, insurance, manufacturing, and life sciences industries is estimated to amount to $20 trillion between 2015 and 2018,” writes Manish Bahl. “If this existed as a separate country, the ‘Republic of Digital’ would be the third largest economy in the world, valued at $6.6 trillion.” Excerpts:

“There is no doubt the “Republic of Digital” is impacting every facet of business today. Falling behind competitors comes with a high economic price. Companies behind the curve are effectively subject to a large annual “Laggard Penalty” — paying more and making less, just due to inadequate and late adoption of technology.

Once accepted that the “Republic of Digital” is worth joining, it is then a matter of ensuring your business has a practical and forward-looking approach to turning digital revolution in your favor.

Consider starting your digital transformation with your call center or logistics department. A combination of technologies such as bots, artificial intelligence and blockchain could help automate manual processes for answering customer enquiries, managing the completion and submission of forms, or inputting data and process documents between disparate IT systems.

Once you have successfully tackled digitizing your middle and back office, it’s time to look outwards. Customers’ expectations are higher than they’ve ever been, thanks to the incredible digital services they’ve become used to through the likes of Netflix, Uber and Slack. So any company offering a sub-standard website, mobile app or other digital experience will stand out like a sore thumb.

Last but not least, an important element of creating new digital capabilities is putting a stop to outdated processes. While often overlooked, adding without subtracting will result in chaos and stress, not to mention increased workloads.

By prioritizing digital-first strategies and investments, businesses can start to foster organization-wide cultures of putting digital at the core of their strategy.

Moving into digitalized ways of working is not a one-off exercise. Given the incredible pace of change, executives need to maintain a steady stream of action, focused on implementing new technologies and ways of working as they become available, while always remaining open-minded to the potential of the Republic of Digital.”

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