The Digital Transformation Journey

It’s the phrase of the moment, but what is digital transformation?

According to MITSloan Management Review, digital transformation is “the use of technology to radically improve performance or reach of enterprises.”

‘Digital’ is what connects people with information through technology. Successful digital transformation of a business will be driven by the right technology. But it will also depend on business culture and willingness of business leaders to identify current shortcomings and fix them. Digital transformation must make the information sufficiently meaningful and accessible to drive new types of innovation, not just crunch data faster.

Under Pressure to Transform

Business are under pressure to digitally transform from internal and external influences. Digital Natives, the latest workplace generation, take smart technology for granted. They want smart results, immediate access to meaningful information, mobile working and anytime, anywhere collaboration. They are demanding a new way of working.

Customers are seizing control and have been helping themselves to digital transformation with glee. The Web has enabled them to become self-educating. Mobile devices mean the concept of ‘opening hours’ my soon be obsolete and social media empowers widespread discussion and gossip about businesses. Consumers now expect the same kind of digital harmonisation from their suppliers as they get from their network. As a business; adapt or die. The need to stay agile and ahead of the competition has never been greater.

The Road to Enterprise Digital Transformation

Organisations must learn to better leverage IT for working digitally. For a lot of enterprises, the first step in simply moving to the cloud. Office 365 is part of the digital transformation journey. As yet more businesses move over to Office 365, so increasingly more data will be stored in the cloud and it is the ease of access to this data provided by Office 365, that will prove most powerful as users begin to fully appreciate the freedom of the cloud.

Tools born on the cloud, that are fully integrated with Office 365 will see themselves become a vital part of the future landscape of business and how we work. Creating and sharing content and working together has never been easier and this new way of working will help improve topic based discussion around enterprise, transforming internal and external communication and behaviour.

Changing Behaviour

Digital transformation isn’t just within the company. Most businesses care about how they are transforming the way they behave and interact with customers. It’s about changing behaviour, how systems and people work and transforming the way in which an organisation operates, in order to maximise the possibilities new technologies offer. This is about changing the way you do business, not the way you do technology.

For those businesses willing to change their behaviour and transform, digital technology provides a wealth of opportunity.

Digital Transformation Tools

Collaboration tools are now the norm within businesses. Employees regularly collaborate with one another, whenever and from wherever. Online collaboration tools provide a centralised work space that allow all participants in a company’s ecosystem to work and innovate collectively, making it very versatile in a business environment. People are always connected, content is always available and relevant, data is real, live and current.

By being better informed, digital transformation is actually changing the process of strategic decision making and if done successfully, can help achieve profitable growth and operating efficiencies.

SharpCloud was created to help businesses transform the communication of their complex projects, data and initiatives. By gathering information from different data sources in one place, SharpCloud users can quickly create and explore powerful ‘stories’ that can be used as presentations, strategic roadmaps or project portfolios. Thanks to embedded images, video, documents and discussion, presentations become visually impressive and truly interactive.

“We’ve seen a jump in the number of enterprise companies talking about digital transformation and their overall digital agenda. In many cases this is simply about socially connecting the right people to a relevant lens on business content including; data, video and collateral, leading to better collaboration and decision making” said Sarim Khan, CEO of SharpCloud Software. “Our early customers are reporting huge productivity gains and they like the cool factor when using SharpCloud as a digital and visual way to tell their business stories.”

About SharpCloud Software

SharpCloud is visual storytelling and social collaboration software for business. SharpCloud is different to traditional data visualisation tools, each SharpCloud story combines structured data — spreadsheet or automated feeds — and unstructured collateral — docs, videos, ppt, SharePoint docs — with the ability to visualise time and relationships across your business process.

SharpCloud will disrupt linear discussions on strategic topics based on slide-decks, spreadsheets and email.

Strategic topic-based collaboration use-cases include: Project & Investment Portfolios, Risk Management, Digital Workshops, Public Collaboration (Innovation), Roadmapping (Strategy, IT, R&D, NPD)

Example SharpCloud stories here: https://my.sharpcloud.com/public

SharpCloud Overview video: https://youtu.be/_R2fRtU57kA

Sign up for a FREE trial: https://my.sharpcloud.com/signup

Visit www.sharpcloud.com, contact us at hello@sharpcloud.com, or call: London: +44 (0)203 764 8512