Digital strategy in 3 steps?

There’s no doubt about it – going digital means almost unlimited development potential. What business wouldn't want a piece of that pie? But before you go running to the “digital buffet,” ask yourself this: What do we actually want to digitize, and what actions will produce the advantages we’re looking for? This initial question is the introduction to digital consulting – and our dialog with you.

When you bring up digitalization, many people immediately also think of standardization. Yet the process itself is highly individualized – every business has its own particular requirements.

In digital consulting, we take a three-step approach in order to figure out these requirements, define practical measures and develop a plan for implementing them:

How are you doing on the digital front? Our Digi-Check compares your level of digitalization to the competition. And it tells you how advanced your business is in this area. Are you way at the beginning? Digital technologies can help you boost your company’s efficiency. Or have you already taken a few steps? Maybe you’re no longer interested in merely optimizing your workflows but thinking about using digital tools to expand your business model? The Digi-Check is the jumping-off point to our approach.

Where should the journey take you? Building on the results of the Digi-Check, we’ll work with you to develop an objective for your digital transformation process.  This doesn’t necessarily mean going straight for the final stage. Gradual, step-by-step digitalization could also be a solution.
In other words, you don’t have jump right into hypermodern technologies like machine learning or artificial intelligence. You might need to start by implementing Outlook, for instance, if your company is using outdated software.

In order to put your digital strategy into practice, you’ll need a solid plan, of course! We call this plan a “roadmap,” because it helps you reach your objective without getting lost on the way. Everyone knows that digitalization doesn’t just fall from the sky. It’s a long and often complicated process. In addition to IT systems, organization and processes, digital transformation also means examining your corporate culture and re-aligning it to meet new requirements.
Your success depends on how willing your staff is to accept the changes. That’s why, rather than giving you a ready-to-use roadmap, we get your employees involved in the roadmap development process right from the start. To do this, we hold workshops, lectures and training courses at your location.

Many traditional family businesses still persist in mailing out paper documents for approval. Only after all the necessary signatures are in place are the documents finally produced. In cases like this, a digital document management system (DMS) could already constitute the first minor revolution. The documents are scanned right in and then sent on their (electronic) journey through the company via workflows. Rules are defined, and the documents are allocated to the relevant recipients online (without using paper and without discontinuity of media) and later stored in an audit-proof format in the DMS.

Sometimes, a “long pipeline” is the first problem that can be solved. We had one customer, for example, that needed to access data through a VPN tunnel. The connection was not reliable, plus it was slow. Since they implemented Office 365, all their employees are now able to access their data – anytime, anywhere. The data is even accessible via smartphone or tablet. Using apps from the Office 365 Suite makes plenty more functions available – functions that can also be seamlessly integrated into the ERP system.

Try the COSMO CONSULT DigiCheck today, and find out how digitized your company is, compared to the competition. Or take advantage of our offer for a free first consultation to start building your very own digital world with the help of our experts.