Evgeny Grigul is the cofounder of Virto Commerce, a B2B-first e-commerce innovation platform for enterprises.
Twenty years ago, technologies were rigid, and the main goal of digital transformation engineers was to simplify it all so all the features fit into the new digital reality.
Today, there are no technological limitations on what to digitalize. But does it mean we should transfer it all online “as is”? Let’s compare the two approaches: simplification of every process versus no reengineering at all.
A Look Into The Past
Back then, the need for simplification was explained by complex and rigid technologies and poor automation capabilities. Vendors simplified existing business practices and habits before transferring them to the new code because it was either expensive or technically impossible.
Along with the rigid technologies, it all led to the complicacy of corrections. If the project team missed anything at the beginning of the automation, implementing the missing feature was either impossible or extremely expensive, as the whole project needed to be revised. The only rational strategy was to standardize and simplify all processes and make them transparent.
The Simplification Strategy Failure
While the simplification approach made implementations easy and affordable, the aggressive elimination of complex processes led to crucial consequences. Though the companies claimed that innovations were worth any employee inconvenience, these changes also affected customers.
With the new digital capabilities, innovation quickly reached customers, who were not ready to “wait and suffer” so the company could make its processes cheaper. If employee inconveniences looked acceptable, making customers happy turned out to be more important. When the customer needs to do some simple action but the system doesn’t allow it, the loyalty level drops: 66% of B2B buyers would leave the site, and around 30% would prefer another supplier.
It gets worse when the customer encounters the slow, inconvenient system face to face, with no operators behind it. With many self-service capabilities, ensuring the system can provide the highest CX became necessary. If interaction with the system becomes inconvenient, the customer will likely leave.
Swinging To Another Side
As technologies kept developing, the limitations and restrictions faded away. Businesses could realize any scenario, however complex. With the new flexible technologies, there is no need to simplify anymore. And this suggests another dangerous approach: digitalizing it all “as is” without any changes.
Business process reengineering is a challenging task, so this is clear why many businesses prefer to avoid it. But this is the point to realize again that besides internal convenience, the main goal of any business is to win the market. And as the customers crave positive changes, constantly improving CX is the key.
According to McKinsey, “The goal of a digital transformation … should be to build a competitive advantage by continuously deploying tech at scale to improve customer experience and lower costs.” In the modern, ever-growing market, no urge to innovate means disruption and losing market share. All this means that the “upload it as is” approach fails to complete digital transformation as well.
The first goal companies should stick to is focusing on developing innovation that creates brand-new customer value. Understanding customers and delivering value through offering them superior quality services in an omnichannel way is the key.
The Path To Digital Reengineering
Today, we can easily reengineer any process and implement everything. The question is: where to start, and what are the goals? In reality, both “not changing anything” or “changing (simplifying) it all” approaches contradict the idea of customer centricity. But there is a better option: selective reengineering based on customers’ needs.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach. B2B e-commerce can never be commoditized, and any general recommendation will cover hardly half of the method that 100% fits a particular business. But there are some tips on what to place your attention on.
1. First of all, the fact that e-commerce is a customer-centric discipline never gets outdated. Whatever you plan and do, every little action should be done with the clients’ needs in mind. The modern system must satisfy all customers’ needs. They should never feel that the system limits them.
2. Another good point is that the rules are created to cover certain needs. However, as time passes, some of them become irrelevant. Many businesses keep using the same rules just because they seem to be necessary, while they might be seriously outdated. This is why always challenging every scenario from the business outcome perspective is essential. Do you really need to digitalize all these rules?
3. Finally, it is essential to remember that digital transformation is the fundamental rewiring of how an organization operates. And this is a great chance to create brand-new value for your customers instead of just “going online.”
Final Thoughts
Designing a digital customer experience is fundamentally different from enhancing internal operations. In the modern world, customer-centric organization is what matters, and this must be the first thing to realize before businesses start their digital transformation journey.
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