The benefits of going digital are varied and compelling. If you had to pick just one reason to begin the journey right now, it would have to be control and visibility over all your content. A single source of truth that provides context.
Imagine how that would feel – to have total confidence that all your data, all your content, is safe, accessible, and making life simpler for employees and clients. Especially in an age when there is far more data than ever before – and in which increasing regulation and global health issues are providing extra challenges.
Read our top six tips for going digital now:
Step 1 – Effectiveness and Efficiency
Being effective and efficient should be the utopia for every business; it means you are putting in exactly the right amount of time and effort to deliver premium results for the company.
By digitising systems, processes, and workflows, it is possible to have everything in one location, access it from anywhere and work in a much more coherent way – confident in the knowledge that you have one single version of the truth.
Step 2 – Compliance
Compliance is one of the biggest drivers for companies to embrace digital technology, especially in an era in which GDPR offers up huge fines for business that mishandle personal information or suffer a data breach.
So, how does going digital help? First and foremost, it ensures that only the relevant people have access to the data they need to do their job. You’d be surprised how often a data breach is down to human error – reports suggest it may be the reason for up to 90% of breaches. So, limiting how much data employees handle is an excellent first step to bringing that figure down
Step 3 – Working from home
Remote working was a big enough trend before the pandemic, but now that millions of employees have experienced working from home there’s a general feeling that it’s here to stay.
In fact, when Crown Records Management surveyed businesses about their plans for remote working in future, they expected employees to work from home on average 2.8 days a week. That kind of hybrid working model had already been in place before the pandemic, but it’s clear the trend has accelerated.
The important thing is for businesses to analyse why they need to transform themselves – and then to invest in content management systems and digital solutions which make working from home simpler and safer.
Step 4 – Customer and supplier engagement
Digital processes can help make it simpler for businesses to improve communication with customers and suppliers, leading to improved service and delivery.
Businesses will be able to collaborate and share information digitally through portals and reach people more quickly.
Through analytics you can quickly see how suppliers are performing against your KPI’s, meaning you are able to engage to make improvements which benefit customer service and business performance.
Step 5 – Staff retention and attraction
One of the most important aspects of going digital is the way it can help make life simpler for employers and employees, helping a business to run more efficiently.
If you can make life simpler for your employees, it can only be good for retention figures. Going digital has the potential to reduce stress in the workplace by making processes easier and quicker. It can also help employees move away from mundane tasks, such as data inputting, and focus on more challenging and rewarding tasks that benefit the business. It gives then more time to focus on customers, for instance, and encourages a better work/life balance.
Step 6 – Cost saving
There are many drivers for going digital and many business problems which can be solves by starting the journey; but tell a business owner that he or she can also save money by making the switch and you’ve got a powerful proposition.
Of course, installing digital technology and digitising business workflows requires investment and should only be undertaken after consultation with an expert, but there is compelling evidence that it can also save money in the long term.
