Digitalization – the next step into the future

We speak of digitalization as the digital transformation of society, economy, companies and institutions. We as a collective, every firm, company and enterprise are in transition from the industrial age to the information age, where analog technologies are being replaced by digital technologies and processes. The driving force of digitalization is the development of digital innovations. Companies need a Digital Transformation Strategy to successfully enter the digital world and must therefore focus on the most important success factors. While digital transformation defines the gradual transition into the digital age, digital disruption describes the radical changes triggered by digital business models.

Digitalization – Caution, danger of confusion!
Digitization is often described with the familiar process of converting photos or recordings from analog to digital format. Of course, this has nothing to do with digitalization in the sense of the digital transformation of companies, even if the terms are sometimes used synonymously.

Every company today is affected by digitalization. They often have to balance the digitalization of internal processes and procedures with the development of new services and digital business models. This is particularly true for companies with a digital product portfolio and often start-ups. The challenge here is to identify new customer needs.

Furthermore, a new target group has emerged from the digital transformation. However, the “digital natives” can only be reached with new marketing and sales strategies that clearly stand out from the previous ones.

Digitalization also means that companies must focus specifically on measures and the development of digital innovations. This is the only way digital change can be successful. This includes:

• Establishing a culture of innovation: Every day, digital processes and procedures must be promoted and digital business models implemented.
• Development of a digitalization strategy: Creation of an action plan for the company, with concrete steps for implementing digitalization.
• Effective employee training: Preparing staff for the challenges and actively involving them in order to help shape digital change.
• Focus on digitalization: Marketing and sales activities must address the questions of how to reach target groups today and tomorrow, how to integrate digital trends, including content marketing and sales automation, and what customers really need today.
• Introduction of digital methods and processes: digitalization of internal business processes and analysis of the existing structure.
• Data handling: How can new service and business models be developed from data?

One thing is certain: digitalization presents many companies with the challenge of reacting appropriately to constant change and securing new competitive advantages.

Thanks to digitalization, customers are better informed than ever before. And there is no end in sight for digitalization. On the contrary: it is predicted that new technologies such as artificial intelligence and the block chain will radically change most companies by 2040. This means that now is the time for top management to drive digitalization forward.

With the integration of digital technologies, the digital transformation affects all areas of a company and will fundamentally change the way we work. This applies above all to those that bring added value both internally and externally. At the same time, digitalization means a cultural change in which the status quo is questioned, not just once, but continuously. The four main areas of digital transformation are: Business process, business model, domain and culture or organization. It must always be remembered that the transformations are complex, time-consuming and that achieving the goals will not always be successful. A good alternative to drive digitalization significantly faster and more efficiently is to work with low code solutions. This makes it possible for companies to simplify the complexity and at the same time accelerate the digital transformation.

Digital transformation is not about technology, systems or applications. It is solely about solving customer problems with faster processes and that starts at the core.

Technology is only the means to the end, let’s say the vehicle.However, this must be put at risk by employees. Business processes are the engine. It is only the combination that ultimately makes the digital transformation successful and drives change forward.

And it will not always be easy to rework processes without meaningful options. While IT departments are usually hopelessly lost in tasks related to app development, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find new specialist staff and reasonably priced third-party providers. In addition, the apps are often difficult to manage and further develop afterwards.

The solution? Low code platforms as modern workflow automation platforms make it possible for even laymen to easily develop applications and thus contribute to the digital transformation themselves. This not only relieves the burden on IT, but also creates new possibilities for support.

In concrete terms, this means that even employees who have no programming skills can be involved from the very beginning. With low code platforms, it is no problem today to even let several such employees, the so-called Citizen Developers, work on an app development simultaneously.

Conclusion

It is shown that various elements are important for successfully implementing the digital transformation into reality. The combination of using low-code platforms, clouds and the willingness of employees to use these technologies can help move the company into the future.

Digital transformation can be seen as an exciting and multifaceted journey, for which there is not just one solution or approach that automatically makes digitalization a success. An effective digital transformation strategy requires a wide range of new ideas and technologies.

The Appollo Low Code Platform was developed to drive the digital transformation and to play a central role in the mix of methods. By providing 20 model types for a complete enterprise analysis and a seamless transition to low code development, it enables employees, regardless of their technical background, to engage in application development. This saves time and money for development processes that are otherwise traditionally performed.