Digitisation and Digital Transformation. What's the Difference?

Digital Transformation.

It’s the phrase on everybody’s lips. Organisations of every size and scale are obsessed with it.

But, when you get down to it, what is Digital Transformation? There is certainly no shortage of information about it out there but much of it is often contradictory and all too frequently stuffed full of jargon and SEO-friendly buzzwords and soundbites.

The aim of this series of very short articles is to give the non-technically-inclined reader a clearer picture of what Digital Transformation is… and isn’t. And hopefully offer a user-friendly guide that will enable you to figure out the best way to start out on your corporate – or personal – digital transformation journey.

Digitisation article

Let’s start with the basics: Digitisation and Digital Transformation.

Digitisation and Digital Transformation are two entirely separate things. And it is important to understand their difference and which process should come first.

Digitisation involves standardising and digitising business processes and is typically associated with lowering costs and improving operational processes.

In other words, with Digitisation, you closely examine every part of the way your business processes work and figure out where it might make more sense to substitute a digital alternative.

For example, is it really necessary to have three people performing a basic administration task when software could do it much faster and with less errors?

Digital Transformation on the other hand is all about rethinking the company’s entire value proposition, not just its operations.

The key word here is Transformation. This means looking at every part of what a company is and, if necessary, changing everything, reinventing every part of it, to best take advantage of the possibilities that digital technologies offer. 

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