Brands leading Digital Transformation

Embracing digitalization and adopting the latest of the technology advancements is exactly what Digital Transformation is about. Also known as DX or DT, it is the process of incorporating the latest IT trends into all areas of business resulting in creating new business processes, culture, customer experiences, new venues of profit making, and making cost -effective strategies.

Digital transformation isn’t a new imperative for business leaders, but COVID-19 has made it more urgent, with companies looking to enhance their agility, speed, and data-driven decision making.

Boston Consulting Group

In simple words, DT is,

A strategy focused on transforming your overall business operations and management.
Aids in building a customer communication channel that is open, flexible and indulges the customers at various levels.
Digitalizing the work environment and processes, making them all central and connected.

Brands leading the change

If you are a brand seeking to adopt digital transformation, there are companies/ consultancies that are leading the change also known as digital transformation companies ( DTC). Here are some global brands leading the global DT change:

Accenture

With its headquarters is Dublin, Ireland, Accenture is a global brand name leading in IT services and consultancy. Digital transformation consulting is one of Accenture’s leading services offered to its clients, some of those include NASA, Lenovo, Oracle and many more.

Accenture has substantial experience in DevOps, automation and cloud services, all of which are essential components of digital transformation in a company. Known for their high quality of work, timely assistance and fees based on KPI’s, Accenture is also part of the Fortune 500 companies.

With 30+ years of experience globally, digital transformation is part of Accenture’s Technology Strategy. They offer assistance with cloud accelerations, enterprises that are data driven, resilient modern architecture, tech ROT, network connected services and transformation offices. In addition they also offer technology innovation, data and analytics, security, digital commerce and other related areas.

Boston Consulting Group ( BCG)

BCG was founded 1963 and is a market leader in consulting services including corporate finance and strategy, marketing, people strategy, international business, revenue management and more. Starbucks, Shell, H&M are some of the clients of BCG.

BCG’s niche in digital transformation is defined by them as ‘’bionic’’ where they amalgamate people and technology strategies to maximize a company’s potential. They are focused on building bionic companies that aim to blend in the digital and human capabilities. They focus on 6 factors to make a successful lead with DT:

-Crafting a crystal clear integrated strategy

-CEO to middle management leadership commitment

-Talent development: High caliber development of the talent in the organization

-Agile governance mindset that aids, drives and offers and indulgent adoption

-Clear defined outcomes and effective monitoring of progress towards the outcomes

-Creating a business-led tech and business data platform.

Cisco

Founded in 1984, Cisco is a world known leader in offering DT services. Cisco brings together processes, software and systems in an infrastructure that is digital-ready. They take pride in promoting their digital ready infrastructure as simple, intelligent, automated and highly secure. This includes cloud managed products to SaaS, built in analytics and telemetry, ability to gather, process, prepare and aggregate data, private and hybrid cloud development, end to end security and IoT lifecycle automation, threat intelligence and more. Dell technologies, Broadcom, Fireeye are some of Cisco’s clients.

Cisco prides in offering:

-Curated effortless customer experiences

-Empowered workforce: Human centric workspace approach to increase productivity

-Building smarter buildings: By combining disparate building networks to deliver new user experiences.

Deloitte

One of the oldest setups in professional accounting and financial consulting with HQ in London, setup in 1845, Deloitte also offers an array of consultancies including technology services relating to cloud computing and analytics.

Monitor Deloitte strategy consultants is the strategy and analytics arm of Deloitte that empowers organizations in their digital transformation processes. They offer industry insights and combine them with corporate, technology and transformation strategy to create ‘’exponential enterprises’’ further defined as the companies that have the ‘’ábility to win and capacity for change’’. Offering to aid its client base in fueling their growth, catalyze tech, harness insights and keep the process of transformation on going.

The brand aids in integrating technology, setting up multi-cloud environments, DevOps and automation. Some of the clients for the brand are Microsoft, P&G, GM, Metlife and many others.

EY

Headquartered in London since 1989, Ernst & Young ( EY), is a global consulting giant in accounting and professional services. EY offers services ranging from tax, assurance, consulting and strategy. Its client base includes the likes of Discovery, HP, Lockheed Martin and many others.

They believe a transformation comes in realizing the capabilities and power of people, innovation and technology. Over the years, EY has built its own framework for digital transformation that includes six function areas:

The planning function called ‘The Bridge’
The engine room that supports the acceleration like a market leader
Innovation: Think, ideate and disrupt like a start up
Design & Iteration: Build and design while testing like a scale up
Deployment Hub: Plan and invest like a VC
Digital Factory: Accelerate and industrialize transformation

The brand highlights its capabilities in RPA – Robotic Process Automation, digitally integrated customer experiences, blockchain, smart factory, energy systems, commercial transformation and more.

HCL

Headquartered in Noida, India, Hindustan Computer Limited ( HCL) offers a wide range of technology and services that includes the likes of cybersecurity, hybrid cloud, infrastructure management and product engineering, IoT, analytics, software and more.

They have a HCL digital consulting group which further offers DT services and describes itself as a ‘visionary, empathic, pragmatic and enabling’. Their key capabilities are;

Agile delivery transformation
Business process optimization
Organizational ability and change management
Digital strategy and planning
CX strategy and experience design, and,
Product and program management

KPMG, McKinsey and Company, Genpact, Cognizant, and more are few examples of global companies offering extensive digital transformation strategies globally. These brands are also employing a thousands of graduates and MBAs with lucrative packages making them the top recruiters across universities.

While these brands are aiding other companies make the progressive innovative change, adopting a digital transformation strategy is about making incredible high risk changes to your entire business setup, experimentation and taking radical steps that may sometimes even result in failure. The process may seem overwhelming and time consuming, however, the results globally of various brands in different sectors who adopted digital transformation strategies have been beyond encouraging. From declaring bankruptcy, to losing their oldest factories to shutting down operations completely, here are some global brands that transformed digitally leading to their immense success, increase in profits to increase in customer loyalty and retention and much more.

When adopting a DT change, one should also factor in all pros and cons including the;

Economic situation,
Political factor and government regulations
IT and cyber laws,
Resources pool / Skilled workforce within the country availability
Industry related factor and changes

Leading brands that have adopted digital transformation

Pfizer

On a 10 year digital transformation journey Pfizer adopted a unified enterprise system to connect with its 40+ manufacturing sites. This helped the brand connect with all its sites and data sharing critical to their manufacturing processes. Pfizer deployed automation technologies to transform its manufacturing operations into a seamless data driven engine. This aided the brands with deep insights into their supply chain improving their operations and reliability. Further with the help of a visual management system collaborated with AR technology, they are able to track capabilities across their sites.

It is noteworthy that all this enabled Pfizer to manufacture over 3 million additional doses to its COVID-19 vaccine than they had initially planned.

Pfizer is still working on its transformation to enhance its cybersecurity infrastructure

Lego

From declaring bankruptcy in 2004 to becoming a successful business, Lego’s digital transformation has been an on-going process for decades , started in 2005, that has improved their supply chain processes, centralized human resources applications with enterprise-wide system, digitized shop floor based system leading to higher productivity to introducing enterprise level product lifecycle management solutions.

The management went further to make the brand a digital-first organization. They looked deeper into IT to deliver a digitized product to complement their traditional lego blocks. They created a customer portal where customers could suggest product ideas, Minecraft is one of the customer -suggested ideas that has been a huge success. All these efforts over a decade lead to the brand reaching the list of the 500 most valuable brands according to the Brand Finance Global.

Ikea

Ikea offers one the most interesting examples for the world on how a traditional brand can pave its path into digital transformation. Ikea has been rolling out and pushing for a robust plan to offer its customer base a omnichannel shopping experience, making them one of the leaders in the e-commerce marketplace. Ikea offers AR-enabled experiences to its customers to choose furniture before making an actual purchase. It makes it easier for their customers to choose furniture and virtually first furnish their homes before making a purchase online or in store.

Ikea also acquired TaskRabbit, a platform for hiring, aiding IKEA to find relevant people to assemble furniture as its service offering. They have also acquired a firm that aids the brand for its advanced 3D and visual AI tech, building a new feature on their app for enhancing customer experience. Their venture into technological changes over the decade has strengthened them as market leaders and customers first choice.

Nike

A leader in the sportswear industry, Nike has started focusing on mobile devices using advanced tech based on ML ( Machine learning) and recommendation algorithms. The brand offers a leg scan via its mobile app that suggests the customer to choose the best type of shoe. Working on close to 13 data points, the app scans the feet the application attains vital information for creating better footwear projects in the future.

NIKE+ program is an important project for the brand which rewards its most active and loyal members. The brand implemented this in Japan, leading to significant increase in sales.

NIKE SNKRS app, another offering of the brand, has also been a successful venture where the brand’s distinguished shoes recorded a 100% increase in sales.

Nike also worked on transforming its internal working structure to build efficiencies and work faster. Directly impacting the speed of response to market needs and making them a world leader.

Porsche

The German automotive manufacturer, known for its high-performance cars, has been transforming its business for a long period of time. Software development projects aimed to gather customer feedback, R&D centers, and digitizing internal processes are initiatives the brand has undertaken.

Driving its innovation, Porsche also set up a separate entity, Porsche Consulting innovation labs. Their team of scientists work on big data, machine learning, blockchain, and IoT – using these technologies to build practical solutions and achieve operational agility. Making them the leaders in automotive tech space with world class customer experience offerings.

Without digital transformation, Lego would have declared bankrupt, Nike’s profit and market size would have shrunk and the brand would not be able to build a community of loyal brand followers and customers, Pfizer would not be able to ramp up the production of its vaccines and meet the worldwide demand, Ikea would not been able to open another sales channel and Porsche would not have the unique edge in the automotive market segment.

While the example showcases only a few companies that adopted the change, there is a long list of brands globally that have and are implementing the change making it evident that digital transformation is the way to lead. Increasing number of brands are making the strategic and planned decision to adopt digital transformation and make organizational change towards technology.