‘Digital transformation’ is a term that encompasses an array of changes occurring rapidly across organizations of all types. A definition of the trend from i-SCOOP states that it is:
“…the profound transformation of business and organizational activities, processes, competencies and models to fully leverage the changes and opportunities of a mix of digital technologies and their accelerating impact across society in a strategic and prioritized way, with present and future shifts in mind.”1
That’s quite a mouthful. But it indicates the deep extent of change that is underway, a change that organizations must make in order to remain competitive, profitable, productive and attractive to potential employees. In fact, many in the millennial generation simply expect an employer to provide the latest in technology resources. And they, in turn, can be the strongest advocates of digital transformation within their organizations.
Now is the Time to Act
In today’s highly competitive and rapidly changing business landscape, sitting still is simply not an option. ViewSonic® visual solutions are at the forefront of enabling this shift.
According to the Global Center for Digital Business Transformation, 49% of companies surveyed in 2017 said they were being impacted by digital disruption, compared to only 15% just two years earlier.2 CIO magazine cites data from IDC showing that “40% of all technology spending will go toward digital transformations, with enterprises spending in excess of $2 trillion by 2019.”3
The goals for harnessing digital transformation, along with the technology to support it, can and should permeate the entire organization. Results can include innovation and competitive advantage, an improved customer experience, boosted operational efficiencies, reduced costs, and ultimately additional value and revenue.
Cultural Adjustment
Digital transformation is a response to several factors such as changing demographics in the overall population, the development of new technologies, shifting patterns in customer behaviors, and new approaches to communication and sharing information.
It often requires breaking down a siloed structure as well as the walls between the organization and its customers. It also leads to a rethinking of data and information resources and how to push intelligence throughout the organization.
Culture change requires a comprehensive, people-centric approach to strategic direction, leadership, communication, training and support. Everyone involved needs to experience the excitement of opening their minds and expanding their horizons, while embracing collaboration and the multidirectional flow of ideas.
The Changing Nature of Work
Research from IDC indicates that almost half of organizations around the world “are making strategic, organizational, technological, and financial decisions that will set them up to digitally transform their organization in the next several years.” Yet the firm’s study on the future of work showed only a third having strategy, technology resources and long-term spending in place to transform their work environment accordingly.4
IDC has described the future of work as a three-pronged, integrated approach built on the culture, the workspace and the workforce. However, about half of organizations are focused primarily on culture with less than a third emphasizing the workspace.
Three essential aspects of workspace transformation are collaboration, communication and productivity.
As digital transformation takes hold, workspace design and technology innovation are evolving along with it. This trend is evident in the adoption of open space office plans, high-tech conference rooms, and a move toward smaller meeting rooms and huddle spaces. Other practices include color-coded work areas as well as colorful signage and wayfinding solutions.
These resources are being deployed to facilitate fast information exchange, linkage of geographically dispersed teams, stronger engagement with customers, empowerment of telecommuting employees, innovation across the enterprise, and agility in the face of change.
Visual Solutions Empower Change
Visual solutions to enable the accomplishment of these goals include touchscreens, interactive whiteboard displays, ergonomic desktop monitors, eco-friendly laser projectors and large format commercial displays. Together, these technology solutions create an integrated approach to enhancing the three critical facets of workspace transformation.
As one key example, traditional meeting and conference rooms were outfitted with basic equipment for telephone, projection and flat panel display. Today, they are fully dressed with collaboration hubs, video communications, pan/tilt/zoom cameras, room booking systems, wireless presentation solutions, interactive display, mini-PCs and content/asset management systems.
Perhaps even more importantly, there are meetings and conversations happening everywhere, from huddle spaces to ad hoc areas like foyers, lounges and company cafes. Each of these spaces requires its own technology matched to its environment and purpose.
Interactivity, Interchange, and Intelligence
It’s an exciting new world at the center of which are advanced, interactive, touchscreen, flat-panel displays like the ViewSonic® ViewBoard®. In addition to delivering very high levels of functionality, these systems must be intuitive and easy to use for anyone in the organization as well as platform agnostic in terms of integration with a wide range of third-party platforms and applications.
Key functions include:
- Digital whiteboarding and annotation on a highly responsive touch canvas on which to write, draw, mark up, control the screen and save content using fingers, styluses and pens.
- Multicasting for wireless screen sharing from any device anywhere along with a built-in screen camera to record, save and play back presentations.
- Cloud-based content portability to easily store and share documents, images and other information on demand.
- Integration with Microsoft, Apple and Google operating systems plus access to applications such as Google search, YouTube, Zoom and many others to maximize productivity.
- Enterprise-level security to reliably protect sensitive and proprietary data in an age of open systems and multiple platforms all needing to work together.
These innovative features are integrated with myViewBoard™ software for a total solution that is powerful and user-friendly.
Along with these feature-rich displays, other digital transformation solutions include ViewSonic® high-performance desktop solutions that are ergonomically designed and adaptable to multiple configurations and applications, versatile large format commercial displays for communication and wayfinding, and interactive, high-brightness projectors.
Digital Business Agility
Professor Michael R. Wade, who holds the Cisco Chair in Digital Business Transformation at the International Institute for Management Development (IMD), has identified three core competencies for developing “digital business agility”:2
- Hyperawareness: Perceiving and dealing with sudden competitive threats; understand internal vulnerabilities and adjust business practices.
- Informed Design Making: Leveraging big data and analytics as well as promoting diverse perspectives and inclusion.
- Fast Excusion: Reducing organizational complexity and fear of the unknown to optimize time to market, experimentation and risk-taking.
Creating an interconnected, technology-rich ecosystem and culture can feed these core competencies throughout the organization from new product development based on customer input and data-driven marketing to value-based sales, customer service and to carefully selected strategic partnerships.
Visual display solutions play a fundamental role in helping any organization achieve these goals.
To Sum It All Up
Digital transformation is all around us. It is happening right now. To be successful and competitive, organizations must make cultural changes and embed that culture throughout their people, processes and resources. That process begins with a clear business strategy including prioritized goals; asking the right questions to set benchmarks and KPIs; developing the right organizational structure to support the business strategy; adopting the right technologies to improve collaboration, communication and productivity; creating motivation and buy-in at all levels of the organization; and adapting to change on an ongoing basis.
