Digital Disruption: Pains and Gains

© 2019 March Oyinki

Digital transformation and innovation has now become the new technological reality of modern times. The disruptive impacts of digital innovation in society and business is quite overwhelming because of the rapidity of its occurrence.

The digitization of existing processes is not only frequent, but has started to change traditional methodologies, as well as creating new standards and value systems, which is now affecting society at a rate that is faster than it can cope with. This whole process of digital transformation and the improvement of traditional methods is what we refer to as digital disruption. The business community and society in general is grappling with issues of acculturation and learning caused by these innovations. In any newly introduced technology, there is always a learning period, which comes with some pains as well as gains.

Pains

Many leading technology companies never envisaged the enormity of the impact of digital disruptions on their operations. For example, Kodak, IBM and Macy were all leading companies in their various industry segments at a point, in areas such as photography, office equipment, and retail chain stores respectively. They never imagined the consequences of digital innovations and the disruptions that would follow.

In December 1975 when Steven Sasson, an engineer working with Kodak invented what become the first digital camera,¹² even Kodak did not have an inkling that such an invention would revolutionize photography. This innovation has further led to the introduction of miniature digital cameras, which are now on spy wears and mobile devices including wearables. Today the company is a shadow of its past and has now become a backbencher in the Fortune 500 business ranking that it had previously retained a leading position.

As technological disruptions continue to occur, the business community and public policy makers must promptly, also start to identify the opportunities available and immediately begin to harness them to improve workflow processes. Digital innovation is efficient, reliable, and cost-effective, because it is data-driven; it also provides real-time analytics and creates room for strategic planning.

So many companies, both small and large corporations that attempted to introduce digital innovation have often gotten badly hurt because they attempted to rush to implement it without first carefully studying and understanding the new processes. While some others, who were skeptical, waited rather too long to embrace digital transformation and had to face the consequences of alienation and degeneration.  

Gains

Just as the digital transformation phenomenon is sweeping across every sector of society, from the government to small businesses, so too do we have those that are still skeptical or are just bluntly adamant about the technological changes taking place around them. For this group of people, they are either ignorant or outright naïve and do not understand how much they could benefit from digitalization and innovation if they should implement or embrace it in their businesses or private lives.

The transformation of traditional processes by quite a number of companies to innovative digital options, have brought about tremendous improvement in their organizations’ workflow processes, and that has led to improvements in manpower management, reduction of man-hour, processing time and wastages, which has ultimately helped to lower the cost of doing business.

Digitalization has not only brought about massive growth in many of these corporations workflow process improvement, it has also improved revenue generation. It is therefore not surprising that the top 10 most valuable companies in the Fortune 500 list are technology companies or companies that embraced digitalization and innovation quite early.

Digitalization allows companies to streamline workflow processes by replacing complex traditional methods with more efficient digital alternatives, thereby allowing business to focus more on more strategic issues.

There are numerous ways that digitalization can help to transform a business, and we have many success stories across all industry segments of companies that have grown in leap and bound by introducing innovative ways of doing business. The benefits of digitalization are abound. In recent years, Amazon has become a trailblazer in the online marketing industry, by being innovative.

The company has closed down many of its brick and mortar chain stores and have created a heavy online presence, which paid-off.

Conclusion

In this modern era, it is quite disappointing to see many medium size companies, for example, having a fifty-room hotel that does not have basic POS device for digital funds transfer or even a company with over a hundred employees that does not have a website nor a domain email alias.

Whereas, you can find a nineteen-one-year-old graduate intern who makes throw pillows from home has a POS device and a website, conduct SEO and social media promotion of her business, all of which are through a mobile device.

Surprisingly, there exist an extremely high level of ignorance, especially among the small and medium enterprise operators. That is not to say some large corporations are not guilty as well. I know of a small food processing plant owner who invested well over $1 million in infrastructure and raw materials, but finds it difficult to provide a simple corporate domain email account for the business, not to mention having a website.

The reality is that the stakes are actually a lot higher for company that fail to embrace digital innovation. Many previously leading companies have now become relegated or bankrupt for failure to embrace digital transformation.

The need for increased acculturation, awareness and creating training opportunities have become urgent for both government, corporate organizations as well as private individuals. The era when people just jump into business without some level of expertise or exposure to digital technology has passed.

Digital innovation has become parts and parcel of modern-day businesses, therefore, a refusal to acknowledge this fact will only result in a waste of valuable resources, and consequently, a failed business. 

Acquiring the necessary skill or understanding the vital roles of digital marketing, ecommerce, and digitalized workflow processes play an important role in increasing the chances of success in a business, and it has become even more crucial now, because it is a determinant of success for early adopters than for those who refuse to embrace it.