Ahead of our January issue where we feature a primer article on Digital Transformation Bracknell based Content Guru has sent us some views of their own on the subject.
It is said by IDC and others that 50% and upwards of ICT spending from now to 2020 will be on Digital Transformations (DX).
According to Content Guru Digital transformations can take many forms, but are typically unified by the basic principle of applying new and emerging technological advances to overhaul more traditional processes or business areas.
"These can range from seemingly mundane improvements – such as centralised healthcare systems which enable GPs to create and update patient records through a computer and database rather than using huge amounts of paperwork – through to revolutionary improvements which transform the way global organisations operate.
For example, many of the UK’s electricity distributors now use powerful cloud-based communications technology to automatically connect huge numbers of concurrent customer interactions to personalised, real-time information about power supplies – on any channel they choose. This not only prevents the distributors’ contact centres from becoming overwhelmed during outages – with customers unable to find out vital information – but also frees up their agents to deal with more complex customer enquiries.
By solving a major business problem in this way, these organisations are then able to consider how digital transformations might next be applied to further improve services; in one instance, a utilities provider use cloud-based communications integration to phase out five distinct Management Information (MI) platforms and employ a single centralised solution to vastly increase efficiency.
Another area experiencing dramatic digital change is healthcare. The enormous complexities of the UK’s healthcare system have inevitably led to a huge number of distinct siloes of information and data, much of which is confidential, particularly regarding patient information. As a result of this, access to the information can often take long periods of time, which can be problematic, especially in life-threatening scenarios.
Healthcare organisations such as the NHS have begun to introduce digital transformations to overhaul the way this works. By using cloud-based communications technology, coupled with secure integration, vital NHS contact centre services are able to automatically identify patients by matching callers to existing records, and are even able to prioritise repeat callers or those with known conditions, ensuring that services are as efficient as possible.
Going forward, emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) are beginning to introduce a new kind of digital transformation. Organisations are already adopting AI capabilities which are able to automatically make intelligent decisions on customer queries, enabling consumers to more quickly get to important information that they require, while reducing the need of the business to expend valuable manual resource.
These kind of transformations will have significant impacts on how organisations approach resource distribution, with the human workforce freed up to take on new types of roles. This is particularly true in the contact centre arena, where cloud-based communication technologies are integrating with AI services to automate increasingly complex interactions, such as healthcare triaging and the prioritisation of proactive outbound communications."