How Can SMEs Kickstart their Digital Transformation Journey?
Last week, our CEO Wong Hong Ting was invited to speak with members of the SME community in a webinar organised by SCCCI Career Women’s Group. The panel comprising Ms Huang Shao Ning, Partner of Angel Central, and Hong Ting was moderated by Ms Violet Lim, CEO of Lunch Actually Group.
During the webinar, Hong Ting shared about 5 digital transformation strategies that SMEs can and should consider implementing, to emerge stronger from the battle against COVID-19.
Before delving into the strategies, it is important for SMEs to first develop a Digital Winner Mindset. From 孙子兵法 (The Art of War by Sun Tzu), these are the essentials of winning a war:
- Knowing when to fight and when not to fight
- Knowing your competitors and their strengths or weaknesses
- Creating the same desire to win throughout your organisation — from management to the rest of the team
With these essentials as a basis, the 5 strategies for digital transformation are:
1. Connect like a Digital Native
Today, there are many digital solutions for different types of workflows — invest the time and effort to understand how they can best meet your workflow needs! Take GSuite for instance — most people are already comfortable with Gmail. But GSuite has so many other tools for team collaboration such as Google Docs and Slides, Google Chat, Google Meet, and so on. Learning to become power users of these tools can help your organisation maximise the benefits and synergies of the overall suite of solutions.
2. Digital Distribution
Digital distribution is not just about starting up an ecommerce site or Facebook page — it is about developing a coherent distribution strategy. In doing so, some questions to consider are:
- If you are selling directly to consumers — is it easier to shift someone to your website or ecommerce platform, or to sell through a marketplace?
- Where do your customers exist and what are their behaviours? Is it better to reach out to them via Instagram or WhatsApp for Business?
- What is your brand and which platforms are aligned with that? (For example, if you are selling luxury items — some platforms may work better than others!)
3. Digital Delivery of Products
As a result of COVID-19, many businesses have moved entire products and services, or at least parts of it, online. One of the eye clinics Hong Ting spoke to recently has been unable to run certain types of consultations in person due to the circuit breaker. They have therefore turned to virtual consults over Zoom. Going digital is also an opportunity to rethink the way businesses sell. Aggregation platforms like Lazada and Amazon make it so much easier for everyone to now partner with one another to bundle and sell items, so everyone can succeed together.
4. Data Driven Decisions
Traditionally, we track metrics such as revenue, cost and in-store inventory. Going digital enables us to try out new things and also track new metrics — for instance, we can run webinars to market ourselves, and data on the attendees can be incorporated into our sales funnel and conversations, using tools like Hubspot. Technology also enables us to react in real time rather than waiting for month-end reports. Hong Ting mentioned that one of our clients, a marine engineering company, uses data from across three systems (for accounting, CRM and project management) to understand project profitability at a glance and to quickly double down on poor-performing projects.
5. Become an Industry Platform
This last strategy could become a long conversation — but here it goes: for industries that have not digitalised as much, is there a way for your company to BECOME a platform and disrupt the way the industry works? This will require collaborating with competitors to change the ecosystem and can be a long drawn process. Hong Ting linked this back to his very first point about having the mindset of a Digital Winner. Businesses must be open to having these conversations, and the benefits can be tremendous for everyone.
Concluding Thoughts
Through this short one hour, the panellists drove home the point that digital transformation is really about understanding customers and the external environment, as well as our own people and internal processes. During the Q&A session, a member of the audience raised issues of resistance — whether at the management level or from staff. For us at 2359 Media, we believe that digital transformation is a journey, and it is not about scaling Mount Everest overnight. We believe in the value of learning and experimenting together. Along the way, we iterate, and learn from each experience. We also evaluate our successes (which can help win over more reluctant members of your team along this journey!), or try again if we fail.
As a community, there is plenty we can learn from one another. If you would like to kickstart your digital transformation journey, reach out to us at enquiries@2359media.com and we would love to get in touch.
