Digital Transformation: Best Practices for Small Business

Importance of Digital Transformation

The right mix of technology can streamline operations, making your employees more efficient. Your digital marketing team can analyze high volumes of data to produce more accurate customer profiles. Digital automation lets you stay in touch with your customers without setting multiple reminders. Current technology platforms also give you deeper insights into your performance metrics.

Implementing digital transformations across your company: 

• Enhances customer experience
• Creates operational efficiencies
• Allows you greater agility
• Offers you a competitive advantage
• Helps you manage your resources more effectively

Your competitors are likely assessing their technology for updates and improvements. Relying on multiple outdated software systems and physical paper wastes your team’s time. Updated technology frees your employees to tackle customer service initiatives, personalized marketing campaigns, competitive analysis, and other critical tasks. 

However, digital transformation can be tricky to implement, with an estimated 70% of projects failing. Best practices for digital transformation improve your chances of a successful effort. 

Key Objectives of Digital Transformation

Digital transformation doesn’t necessarily mean overhauling all your software and other technology. Small business owners like you might be interested in improving their ability to respond to market conditions and pivot when needed. 



To achieve your goals, you need to begin your digital transformation process with some forethought.

Defining Clear Objectives

Setting specific and realistic goals is the key to making lasting change. Nobody wins an Olympic medal simply by showing up. You need a detailed strategy, small daily goals, training, and repetition to reach an objective of that magnitude. Digital transformation projects are similar. You're unlikely to succeed with a broad goal. 

Instead, start by developing specific digital transformation goals and objectives. Analyze the following aspects of your business to develop your goals: 

• The steps in your business processes 
• Feedback and data analytics on customer experience, engagement, satisfaction, and loyalty
• Ease of employee collaboration and the tools they use to collaborate
• Existing technological resources

Once you understand how technology could enhance your business, it's time to review your business plan. Examine your goals and objectives and see how they align with potential technological improvements. 

For example, if one of your marketing goals is to improve customer retention, you could focus your digital transformation efforts on customer experience and engagement. You might start by assessing your website for user experience, making sure it’s responsive across devices. You could also investigate technology that personalizes content based on how users interact with your website.

As part of this goal, you could find a customer relationship management (CRM) system that integrates with your website to manage leads and track user interactions with your site. It may also automate social media campaigns that broaden your reach with potential customers.



Understanding Customer Needs

Just as your business goals shape your digital transformation projects, so do your customers. A deep understanding of your customers drives a successful strategy. As you create your digital transformation strategy, assess customer feedback to learn about their needs and wants.

Conduct preliminary research by reviewing customer surveys, feedback forms, social media mentions, and online reviews. Map the customer journey, noting all touchpoints at each stage. 

Finally, use market data and competitor research to learn how others in your industry leverage technology to meet customer needs. 

Once you understand your customers, consider their needs and preferences when developing your digital transformation objectives. Learn how technology can personalize customer experiences or enhance the cohesiveness of your omnichannel experiences.

For example, if you own a retail store, customer comments may show that your website doesn’t list correct information for products that are also available in the store. This inconsistency can frustrate customers who drive to your store because they don’t want to wait for an item to ship. 

As part of your digital transformation strategy, you may look for inventory software that integrates with your website and automatically updates availability online when someone makes an in-store purchase.

Role of Technology in Digital Transformation

Many digital transformation projects fail because of the sheer volume of technology available. Upgrading every piece of technology in your organization can be expensive and difficult.

You could also be wowed by a sales presentation and rush to implement a technological platform without understanding how it would impact your specific business model. This is why it’s so important to take a customer-centric approach to digital transformation, aligning your projects with your goals and company culture. 

Knowing how well your employees embrace and adapt to technological changes is essential. If your primary users aren’t comfortable with new technology, they could become frustrated and hesitate to adopt it.

Another common reason for failure is that your new technology doesn’t integrate with your legacy systems. While the right technology can speed up everyday processes, it won’t work if your employees still have to navigate multiple systems or duplicate data entry because their systems can’t communicate. 



A digital transformation best practice is to develop your strategy around your goals instead of around a shiny new tool.

Measuring Success in Digital Transformation

Installing and implementing new technology and business processes takes time. You still need a way to measure your progress to know if your investments are paying off. Once you’ve solidified your digital transformation goals, make a list of key performance indicators (KPIs). 

For example, if you want to improve customer retention, you can measure new loyalty members. Send out surveys and see if your customer satisfaction scores are improving. Use data analytics tools to measure new website visits and determine if people are staying longer. 



Track usage metrics to see how your team is using new programs. Interview team members from various departments to get their opinions on the transition process and how new technology improved their jobs.

Foster Organizational Culture

Your employees play the biggest role in a successful digital transformation. Implementing new technologies drives decision-making and can transform how your team collaborates and connects. 

Tying your digital transformation initiatives to broader organizational goals helps solidify your culture. Since your core values drive your business goals, you know your digital transformation projects will also align with them. 

Throughout the digital transformation process, you can strengthen your culture by encouraging participation from team members at all levels of your company. Ask your employees for feedback and suggestions. 



Regularly share your vision and goals with your team to make sure they are invested and excited to help innovate.

Real-World Examples of Digital Transformation

Get inspired by these examples of companies that successfully transformed their businesses.



Audi Takes Car Shopping Indoors

The German automotive manufacturing company Audi recently revolutionized car sales. Because space is a limited commodity in big cities, the company shifted its showrooms to offer a virtual shopping experience. Instead of looking at hundreds of cars on a lot, customers can walk into a showroom and interact with an app that lets them customize any car in the Audi catalog. 

This model allowed Audi to open urban showrooms, such as Audi City in London, and boosted car sales at these locations by 60%.



UPS Uses AI To Stop Porch Pirates

Logistics giant UPS uses AI to improve the customer experience. After thoroughly investigating reports of package theft, the company developed a solution called Delivery Defense. This program analyzes historical data to determine the probability of package theft at various locations. 

The receiver gets an alert when the program identifies locations with a significant risk of porch pirates. They can then decide whether to risk the delivery or reroute the package to a more secure location, such as a UPS store.

Coursera Uses AI To Personalize Education

Coursera is an online education platform that offers courses and certifications. The company has always been tech-forward, and it uses Amazon Web Services, a cloud computing platform, to make education more accessible. 

Recently, Coursera started exploring how AI can improve the learning experience. The platform’s “Coursera Coach” is an AI-powered tool that gives personalized support to each customer to improve their progress. Coursera is also exploring how to help people create tailored learning experiences based on their interests and goals.

Common Pitfalls

The most common roadblocks to successful digital transformation include overly broad goals and choosing the wrong technology for your organization. We have touched on how to manage these pitfalls at the beginning of your journey. 



Your employees may be another barrier to successful implementation. Some of them may resist change, slowing your progress.

Addressing Resistance to Change

Another best practice for digital transformation is actively involving your employees. When decisions are made from the top with little or no communication, employees may struggle through the digital transformation journey. They may be concerned about being displaced by AI or hesitant to learn another new tech program.

Open communication is the best way to manage resistance. Involve your team at the beginning of the process. Interview them to learn how they manage daily processes and which parts of their job could be improved by technology. Show them how the new technology makes business processes easier and how it helps teach them new skills. 

Gather your team and communicate how the new technology will benefit them. Communicate your goals and explain how digital transformation will help you meet them. If you’re already including your employees in business planning and goal-setting efforts, this should feel natural to them. They may already be invested in your goals if they helped shape them. 

Once you’ve committed to your new technology, slowly roll out implementation. Don’t expect all your employees to get it at first. Instead, start with your most tech-savvy employees. Switch them over to the new platforms and then roll it out in phases. This way, your enthusiastic employees can help train those who aren’t as keen on new procedures. 

Make sure everyone knows they have access to tech support and training. When choosing new tech platforms, find companies that connect users with support and training resources. 



Finally, regularly engage your employees throughout the implementation process. They can help you understand what is and isn’t working and help you develop strategies to make the transition easier.

Implementing Transformation Best Practices

If you’ve been researching digital transformation, you know how challenging it can be. Research on high failure rates of digital initiatives can make you wonder whether it’s better to stick with the status quo. 

However, your competitors are probably already enacting some digital transformation initiatives. The longer you wait, the more you risk falling behind. 



Starting the process with actionable goals and objectives helps you narrow your focus and set manageable goals. Thankfully, you don’t have to go it alone.

How Optimize Can Help

Optimize offers CRM platforms like Optimize HQ to manage and track your digital marketing efforts. It delivers valuable data analytics to give you a deeper understanding of your customers. Our Service CRM system helps you consolidate customer data to assess customer preferences and behavior. 

The best practices of digital transformation advise a customer-centric approach. We serve as the first step in your journey by delivering the data you need to set goals and make broader tech changes. If you’re going to revamp all your technology, it makes sense to start with our user-friendly solutions to manage your online reputation in one place. 

We provide top-tier communication and customer support, making your transition to our platform seamless. Schedule a demo today to learn how we can kick off your digital transformation.