Digital Transformation Series｜Digital Revolution! What made Uber, Whatspp, and SnapChat worth billion dollars in just four years?

Digital transformation is an important driving force for the continuous growth of today's enterprises. Many native digital companies also use this as their market competitiveness, quickly surpassing those old companies that once stood firm in the industry, prompting old companies to start. They attach great importance to the "digital transformation" aspect of their business operations. But what exactly is digital transformation? What does it take to do digital transformation well?

HoliBear - Digital Transformation

Digital transformation is an important driving force in today's enterprises. Many companies that are originally digital also use this as their market competitiveness, quickly surpassing those old companies that once stood firm in the industry, prompting old companies to start. They attach great importance to the "digital transformation" aspect of their business operations.

Digital transformation will play a pivotal role in the coming decades, deeply affecting all businesses. But what exactly is digital transformation ? In a business, who needs to pay attention to this link? What technologies do companies need to have or do to do digital transformation?

The Digital Revolution: How a company with an 8,000% stock yield was beaten?

Hey, at this point, I want to ask if you have heard of Circuit City?

Circuit City was the best performing stock in the U.S. stock market in the 1980s. The company mainly sold electronic retail products. In the 1980s when Baby Boomers became the mainstay of the U.S. economy, Circuit City sold VCRs, CDs The demand for Players and microwave ovens has greatly increased! The percentage of households with a VCR rose from 1% in the early 1980s to 70% within a decade. The company successfully went public in 1984, and the stock's yield was as high as 8,000%. The company even launched a tech company, a bank, and CarMax in the 1990s.

This company, once touted by everyone, was liquidated and closed down a few years later. Why in the end?

While Circuit City was busy expanding into new companies in the 1990s, their biggest competitor, Best Buy, entered the market, offering better customer service than Circuit City, including home installations of electronic equipment and a more diverse and sophisticated offering. product line. In early 2000, Amazon also entered the electronic retail market, using a new digital model for more accurate marketing, not only giving customers "the products they want", but also recommending many customers "may be interested in products". It is far ahead in the market, on the other hand, Circuit City has not taken the digital electronic train at all.

Of course, Circuit City's setback is just the tip of the iceberg of the frequent market reshuffles in the digital age. Many old companies are facing bankruptcy or mergers and acquisitions because of the rapid changes in digital transformation. The average age of companies in the S&P 500 ranges from 61 years to less than 16 years today, and it usually takes 20 years for companies on the Fortune 500 list to reach a $1 billion valuation, while emerging digital companies such as Uber , Whatsapp, SnapChat, and Oculus Rift have all reached the same heights in less than 4 years! All of these cases demonstrate the importance of businesses embracing digital transformation. People born before the digital age also need to push themselves to think like the "digital native" generation, in order to better face the changes in this market.

Four elements of digital transformation

There are four things a business must do to successfully complete its digital transformation.

1. Digitization of corporate culture

It is not enough to just change the hardware, it is also necessary to implant the "digitalization" factor in the enterprise, including hiring employees with high learning ability, teaching existing employees how to adapt to changes in the market and having a willingness to learn new knowledge. .

The advancement of technology is very fast today, and the technology products or services that people are very accustomed to today may be obsolete in the near future. For example, the handy large computers that everyone used in the past are gradually being replaced by the cloud and small mobile phones. Are your employees ready to continuously learn new technology products and skills?

2. Use today's technology to solve problems

The operation of the company must keep up with the trends of the times and changes in technology. As I just said, when everyone abandons mainframe computers, they should understand and adapt to the most popular cloud systems and mobile devices as soon as possible, in order to continue to maintain the market. Competitiveness.

3. Continuously develop competitive and innovative products or features

To gain a firm foothold in this market, companies must constantly develop competitive products, or re-examine existing products to see if there are any application opportunities that can use digital technology. The author must give the work team enough freedom to think and try.

4. Actively explore opportunities that can transform the core of business operations

For example, new digital technologies can be used to enhance the customer's product experience. After all, with the increasing complexity of technological products, customers expect a more intuitive and simple product experience.

Digitization and digital transformation is an important issue for all businesses of this generation. It will be a challenge, but it will also be an excellent opportunity. As long as you catch the essentials, I believe your business can also thrive! Want to see how other companies are doing digital transformation? See Grupo's successful digital transformation story .