There are so many ways a business can go digital, from creating an online presence to the way in which a business is operated. If you haven’t already developed a web presence and are still running your business in the traditional way, you are losing out on infinite possibilities for growth. Obviously, if you are an e-commerce business, most of what you do will be digital since you will be conducting business online. But, what about manufacturing, shipping, and brick-and-mortar retail businesses? How can they benefit from working in the digital realm?
Here are five very good reasons to transition to the digital arena.
1. Efficiency
One of the main reasons to go digital is in terms of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). This can be accomplished with Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), or with one of the most innovative resource management platforms, Kanban Lean, which falls roughly in between a SaaS or a PaaS. Everything you do in both the front and back end of your business goes through the Kanban board online though, which literally every department can access to pick up their assignments in the form of a Kanban card. These digital cards have two sides. The front-facing side shows the employee’s name and lists their primary job. This can be expanded into subsets, but on the back are the specific steps/duties, which must be carried out. It’s an amazing way for anyone with access to see just where everyone is with their assigned tasks.
2. Reach
Going digital also helps to expand your reach. If you don’t have a website now, isn’t it time you had one developed for you? Whether you are catering to a local market or trying to reach a global market, the Internet is the surest way to be found. There are a huge number of digital marketing strategies to broaden your reach, but unless you are online, there really are few ways prospective and current customers can find and communicate with you.
3. Brand Identity
If you aren’t looking to hit the market as a one-shot-wonder, brand is of vital importance. You will want your customers to identify with you, which is vital for return business. It is a fact that Millennials want to deal with businesses that are more than just product pushers; they want to do business with brands that make a difference. Unless you build a brand based on sustainability and perhaps philanthropy, you will miss out on a huge part of the population with buying power. Bear in mind that the majority of new customers are found online, so that’s where you should develop your brand.
4. Waste Reduction
At the heart of Lean is waste reduction. With an online Kanban board, you can hope to eliminate the majority of waste at your place of business. From doing more in the digital realm to working from a Kanban board, a great deal of time, energy, and resources are conserved. You’ll be using far less paper, you can keep employees on task through their Kanban cards, and reduce waste in time and effort when communicating with staff members. The digital realm helps you do away with those tiresome meetings altogether. Set up regular video conferences online or communicate via the Kanban dashboard messaging system. If you are looking to maximize profits by reducing waste, it doesn’t get any better than this in the digital arena.
5. Transparency
There are two ways of looking at transparency. While the term is most often used with reference to financial matters, transparency also relates to steps and stages in a process or work task. Working in the digital realm with Lean systems like Kanban can make all the necessary information readily accessible to anyone involved. If any member of your team is about to complete a project, they can quickly access upcoming work so that they are ready to start work on their new tasks the minute they complete their current tasks. It also helps to know if there is a holdup ahead of you so that you can plan better use of your time in the event your part is not ready for several hours or days. This is transparency from the back end.
Your Key Takeaway
Finally, the one thing you can typically count on when working in the digital realm is that you can easily access your tasks from home if you are thinking about ways to improve your productivity levels. While you may not be able to actually work from home or at an Internet café, you can better plan ahead by knowing what’s coming up. Going digital helps you on the clock and off, but in the end, the two main benefits are efficiency and waste reduction.
