Using Digital Innovation to Grow your Business

In the Age of the Internet, Digital Innovation gains importance by the minute. This article will explain what it is, and how you can make the most of its potential to enhance your business.

Digital Innovation is, quite simply, at the heart of practically every successful business today. From a small local supermarket looking to expand and serve their customer base better, to a million-user disruptive ride-hailing app that is changing the way people travel – digital innovation sits at the core of the vast majority of contemporary, successful business strategies.

So what exactly is it?

Well, it’s many things. It might be a new website, a new online shop or a way of streamlining and digitizing your business’ payroll and managing your expenses and tax audits.

But for the purposes of clarity and simplicity, in this article we’ll be discussing Digital Innovation in some of its most common senses: websites, mobile applications, and the digitization of internal operations.

Websites

Whether you run a multi-billion-dollar financial services company, or are a self-employed interior decorator – chances are you use a website as the primary point of contact between yourself and your clients. Just as the old adage says “the first impression is the most important” in social encounters, the same can be said for how your potential customers will react when they first encounter your website. So, it’s pretty important.

Websites have come a long way since the early days of the dial-up 1990s. People have become a lot less patient when it comes to a website’s design and responsiveness. In fact, in a 2016 study by Google found that 53% of users will abandon a mobile site that takes 3 seconds or longer to load. The number is probably even higher now.

That means that the old website you had set up in 2004 is probably not going to cut in the current age of fast, sleek web designs. Unless you innovate.

Mobile Apps

Depending on your business, it might make sense to take advantage of the vast opportunities for connecting with your customers – whether they are individuals (B2C) or other companies (B2B) – through a mobile app. Mobile apps are useful for if you want to create a streamlined, multi-functional platform for engaging with customers.

For example, if you own a laundrette, creating a mobile app for your service could include functions such as a simple form for your customers to arrange a pick up/delivery of their clothes. An added functionality could be made to allow payments through the app, and to arrange deliveries through a third party app of local drivers. A professional app builder will design your app so that it is flexible, easy to maintain and allows the integration of updates. 

Digitization of Operations

Whether it’s for centralizing and organizing shift schedules, logging work hours or streamlining communications – shifting the inner workings of your business into a digital medium is, if done correctly, only going to make things easier for your company’s operations.

There are various apps that can be used for internal communications: Slack, Trello and Asana, or a few of the most well-known.

Achieving Innovation

So how do you innovate? Many large companies have set up entire in-house divisions or teams composed of IT specialists, business developers and marketing experts to constantly seek new ways to make the most of digital in their organizations. However, for smaller businesses or start-ups, this approach is simply unfeasible.

A great alternative for a business seeking to stay at the forefront of the digital revolution while also remaining cost-effective is to outsource their IT development to a team of offshore professionals who specialize in conceptualizing and developing digital innovations for a vast range of different businesses and needs.

This relatively new phenomenon of outsourcing is allowing countless traditional brick and mortar businesses to adapt to the new digital environment in a cost-effective and flexible way. There are many IT outsourcing services available online, but the one that’s right for you and your business will seek to full understand your needs, be flexible, and be prepared to extensively discuss the full range of possibilities with you.

Want to find out more? Get in contact with us for a chat about how we can help you remain at the forefront of digital technology and allow your business to thrive.