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Many tools for digital transformation or digitalization are available on the market today.
In our view, the best digital transformation tools are:
- Business process automation tools
- Workplace management tools
- Digital adoption platforms
- Project management tools
- Dashboard tools.
This article aims to illustrate their valuable role in enhancing your business.
Assuming you already have a well-defined strategy, framework, and policies in place, it becomes crucial to leverage exceptional software tools to facilitate a seamless digital transformation across all aspects of your organization.
The article will examine the following points:
- Explain the purpose of digital transformation tools
- Examine the top digital transformation tools that are available today
- Suggest some further background reading on digital transformation.
The tools we discuss here should help you bring your company into the digital era – to automate tasks, support customer retention, and ensure your project succeeds.
Depending on your business, there may be other essential tools for digital transformation.
After all, every sector has its own innovative digital tools!
Examples of Digital Transformation Tools
Software tools play a crucial role in digital transformation projects.
With their highly focused and function-specific capabilities, digital transformation tools enable your whole organization to use data effectively.
The category of “digital transformation tools” might be defined differently. This section will discuss ALL the digitalization tools you might use.
In this broad definition, some examples of digitalization tools include:
- CRM Software
- ERP Systems
- Business Process Management Software
- Data Analytics & BI Tools
- Cloud Computing Platforms
- IoT Platforms
- RPA Software
- AI & ML Frameworks
- Digital Marketing Tools
- Communication tools
- Cybersecurity Tools
- Digital Project Management Tool
- Mobile App Development Platforms
- Digital accounting tools
- Chatbots & Conversational AI
- Data Visualization Tools
- Remote Work & Collaboration Software
- Knowledge Management Tools
- Digital software product manager tools
For many businesses, these packages create the infrastructure and capabilities to digitize workflows, automate tasks, and harness data-driven insights.
Organizations can modernize their operations and stay ahead in a digitally-driven world, ultimately driving growth, cost savings, and improved decision-making through using these digital tools and technology applications.
Let’s take a deeper look at some of the most important sets of tools.
Tool 1. Business Process Automation Tools
Business process automation tools streamline and optimize workflows, reducing manual tasks and human errors. Organizations can allocate resources more efficiently and accelerate decision-making by automating repetitive and time-consuming processes.
They boost productivity and enhance the overall customer experience through faster response times and improved accuracy. Furthermore, automation tools provide valuable data insights, enabling data-driven decision-making and continuous process improvement, making them a cornerstone of successful digital transformation efforts.
Business process transformation with digital methods is a core practice of digital transformation.
Tool 2. Workplace management tools
Any digital changes you introduce will affect the workplace and workflow. Access to frontline workplace data is essential to understanding the impact of new technology implementation.
Relying only on your workers to notify you if something goes wrong means it will probably be too late by then.
Well-adjusted tools for workplace management will save you money and anxiety when you can see what’s happening on the ground before it happens instead of after.
Tool 3: Digital Adoption Platforms
Digital Adoption Platforms are one of the most effective digital transformation tools of the past decade.
New technology is only useful when it is implemented fully and used as it is meant to be used. That is why the Digital Adoption Platform (DAP) was invented and pioneered by WalkMe.
Based on sophisticated AI and machine learning, the DAP provides technology users with helpful guidance on using that technology.
Analyzing user experience data, digital adoption solutions create customized patterns for a person to interact with a digital accelerator. Simply put, the DAP teaches you how to get the best out of that technology.
A DAP eliminates issues with technology onboarding, is platform agnostic, and synchronizes with major enterprise apps.
Then, long after onboarding is completed, the DAP continues to aid your digital transformation in the following ways:
- Providing in-depth user behavior insights so you can analyze and fix problems
- Easy change awareness and training in response to technology updates
- Automation of tasks to improve the user experience, free up employees’ time, and boost creativity
A DAP can aid digital transformation internally and also externally, improving the user experience for customers interacting with your digital website or products.
Tool 4. Project management tools
In addition to technology, digital transformation is about implementing a successful change projection. That’s why one of our top digital transformation tools will always be for project management.
Project management tools give you a structured framework for planning, executing, and monitoring the various components of a digital transformation project. As a result, they help teams to stay organized and focused on their objectives.
These tools facilitate real-time collaboration, task allocation, and timeline management, which are essential in digital transformation’s dynamic and complex landscape. Project management tools enhance communication, ensure transparency, and enable efficient resource allocation by serving as a central hub for project-related information and tasks.
It’s fair to say that project management tools are critical to digital transformation. They streamline the entire process, from strategy development to successful implementation.
Tool 5. Dashboard tools
A good, reliable digital dashboard is essential to successful digital transformation.
Your plan should encompass not just your digital strategy, complete with goals and milestones, but also serve as a versatile tool at your fingertips, capable of effectively storing and processing diverse data sets.
Your dashboard can also be the space where your team can quickly describe new ideas, react to changes, and see transformation progress.
Every enterprise during its digital transformation has different goals and needs. So, your digital transformation tools will not be limited to the ones we have mentioned.
However, these ones are crucial for almost every case of technology adoption. The main thing you need to remember during this process is to monitor progress and not to jump on seemingly quick-fix solutions. True digital transformation takes time and patience.
Other ingredients of digital transformation success
These tools enable digital transformation to happen efficiently. However, they’re just one part of digital transformation success. They are just one part of a system of planning, communication, and strategy.
In this section, we’ll quickly examine these three key areas you need to invest in.
IT planning and analysis
Before innovation comes planning, therefore, when it comes to bringing tech changes into your company, your CIO must be the first one you discuss it with.
They must be responsible for conducting a SWOT analysis of digital changes. Once this analysis is done, you can move on to determining metrics and planning everything else, including the expenses.
Your IT department will need to be involved throughout. As experts in their field, they should be able to recommend new digital transformation tools on the market and able to advise regarding potential implementation issues.
Communication
“Communication is key,” as they say. This is also true when it comes to technology adoption.
You may not think communication belongs in a list of digital transformation tools, but you must understand that every digital change should have communication at the heart of it.
And since you are bringing in changes of a digital nature, you should also consider digital improvements to your communication.
Communication as a tool of digital transformation is two-fold. First, some tools facilitate communication between you and your employees. Secondly, you must establish a reliable tool for collecting customer feedback and providing support.
Change management practices
Change management practices are an invaluable body of knowledge for the digital transformation journey.
Digital transformation often involves significant organizational and cultural shifts and changes in processes and technology. Change management provides a structured approach to help people adapt to these changes smoothly.
It includes strategies for communication, training, stakeholder engagement, and resistance management, which are crucial in ensuring that employees and stakeholders understand the reasons behind the transformation, embrace new technologies and processes, and are motivated to participate actively.
By applying change management principles, organizations can minimize disruptions, mitigate resistance, and increase the likelihood of successful digital transformation, ultimately maximizing the return on investment in new technologies and driving sustainable change.
How can you learn more about digital transformation?
To really understand digital transformation tools, you’ve got to understand digital transformation itself.
If that’s what you need, our articles on Digital Transformation and Digital Adoption can cover many of your problems.
- What is digital transformation?
- The top ten benefits of digital transformation
- The four main areas of digital transformation
- The ten phases of a digital transformation roadmap
- The most important digital transformation skills
- The top 4 digital adoption examples
- 13 digital transformation examples
Check those out, and then come back here!
Digital transformation tools: Digitalization the easy way
Digital transformation is a huge task.
But you don’t have to deal with it all at once.
Digital transformation tools of 2023 help with the details: automating your processes, supporting your planning, and evaluating your progress.
As the July 2023 McKinsey tech trends report shows, investments in digital transformation remain high, even though the specific priorities change from year to year.
Achieving a seamless digital transformation becomes significantly smoother when equipped with the appropriate digital tools by your side.
