5 ways to support your customers’ digital transformation

Digital transformation helps businesses leverage multiple technologies to accelerate their impact and become more agile.

68% of businesses have a digital transformation strategy in place, or are in the process of implementing one, research by Vanson Bourne revealed. However, many businesses are still reluctant to change and are at risk of falling behind.

Whether it’s due to a lack of understanding, or feeling overwhelmed at the challenge, I’ve put together 5 ways that you can help your customers overcome some of the common challenges of digital transformation:

Update from legacy systems

Security is paramount for any business, but even the most security-savvy businesses are at risk of cyber-attacks if they are still using legacy systems. In addition, legacy systems are much slower and are prone to failures and errors, all of which has a detrimental effect on a businesses’ productivity and efficiency.

Action: Awareness is key. Advise your customers to conduct an audit of all the systems they use to get an idea of what needs to be updated or migrated onto new systems. Once they’ve obtained the scale of the work, they can begin the migration process by mapping out old legacy systems to the new versions. This ensures that no information is lost in the process and the migration can be done in stages rather than becoming one overwhelming task. It’s important to note that legacy is not exclusive to the age of the system or piece of software, it is in comparison to what else is on the market.

Move to the cloud 

Believe it or not, some businesses are yet to join the cloud. Using cloud services promote easy collaboration, resourcing and scalability, as well offering as an unlimited amount of space for data and file storage and increasing security.

84% of UK businesses plan to increase their use of cloud services in 2019 in pursuit of digital transformation, stated in research by Vanson Bourne, with the majority of UK-based IT and business decision-makers viewing cloud services as vital components of their strategy.

The research also revealed that organisations are spending more money on cloud infrastructure than they are on on-site premises. It predicted that by 2022 only 12% of IT budgets will be spent on legacy technology as more people have adopted the cloud.

Action: Do you customers truly know the benefits of cloud technology? Once you’ve educated them on the highlights of cloud technology, you can help them develop a cloud strategy focusing on what can be moved over now and what will take longer to switch.

Help them find alternatives to ISDN

The 2025 switch off is coming! I repeat, the 2025 switch off is coming! You might sound like a broken record but reminding your customers that all WLR (Wholesale Line Rental) communications are being switched off by 2025 is crucial including Analogue, ISDN and SMPF services.

Action: Provide your customers with an alternative to WLR such as SIP Trunks or Hosted Voice. These IP voice solutions are more flexible, efficient and cost-effective and will reduce loss of downtime. Remind your customers that if they have a resilient, high-quality Internet connection (which they do) then their IP voice service will perform much better than traditional services. Plus, you can think about including additional services that run alongside SIP trunking like video, data and instant messaging, so you can offer a comprehensive suite of products and stand out from the competition.

Integrate AI

Can your customers integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into their business operations? Many businesses use AI when working with big data and machine learning to make operations quicker and more accurate. If your customers process large amounts of data, then adopting AI programs could be the right solution to speed things up. AI programmes can perform tasks much quicker than a human ever could and there is less chance of errors in the calculations.

Action: AI can be beneficial for some businesses, but it shouldn’t be used for the sake of using AI. Speak to your customers about how they’d use AI and discuss the ROI before spending on new technology.

Educate and inspire

Are your customers the real barriers to their own digital transformation? Some businesses are set in their old ways and afraid to make the change to going fully digital. There might be some people in the business who are open to change, while others view it negatively and act as blockers.

Action: As you’re their strategic partner, you can empower your customers to start their digital transformation. Remind them that the aim of digital transformation is not to get rid of jobs, or to make more work for them. Digital transformation will reduce costs, improve security and help them become a more efficient business.

Want to learn more? Please contact your Account Manager to discuss how we can help facilitate your digital transformation.