When you’re considering embarking on digital transformation at your organization, your primary thought is likely: is it worth the effort? More often than not, the answer is a decisive: yes. Today’s consumers are digital consumers. If your business is not optimized for web, mobile and ecommerce, or if your backend systems harken back to the Stone Age, the return on investment will likely pay dividends. Here are a few motivating factors to get you moving.
User Experience Delivers
Time is money, and in the case of a poor user experience: lost money. Data strongly supports the negative impact a poor web user experience can have on customer engagement. A full 39% of users will stop engaging with a website if the pages take too long to load—or are unattractive. In fact, Millennials prefer beautifully designed content (73%) over content that is simple (27%) by a wide margin. This puts pressure on you to up your game in the user experience department if you’re to successfully compete.
Mobile Apps Convert
A great mobile experience can boost your bottom line. An article in Marketing Land noted that app-based mobile users are more likely to convert, with mobile app users having a 120% higher conversion rate than mobile web and 20% better than desktop shoppers. But do your job well, as most app users abandon after four visits. You’ll need to earn your loyalty with superior functionality and features they crave.
Staff Efficiency Soars
As someone who has used many bad content management systems (CMSs), I assure you that a good one can make all the difference. Elegant dashboards help you navigate, drag and drop functionality makes quick work of page adjustments and permissions/workflows keep the troublemakers at bay while accelerating content creation. Because I lack coding skills (hey, don’t judge!), I fully appreciate a system that empowers me to advance my business objectives on the fly and without a team of developers. This is a HUGE plus, and if you’ve not yet experienced this delight, it should be one if your first transformation considerations.
Yet, these benefits don’t even touch on the upside for employees, partners and backend operations, as upgraded system of record interfaces take your transformation to another level entirely. It will not only pay off, but will make more than a few of your competitors green with envy. While envy is not a bankable benefit, it’s nice nonetheless.
So as you weigh the benefits of embarking on transformation, remember that the effort is, indeed, worth it. As rarely happens, the hype pushing digital transformation has a sound business basis. Time for you to dive in.
Paulette Stout
Progress Director of Brand Strategy, Paulette Stout, is an enthusiastic champion of the written word and all things Progress Brand. She has a strong background in content marketing, writing and strategy, and was also an award-winning media buyer-planner for top brands. She's also a published author of four novels.