Alastair Badman: The importance of digital transformation for SMEs

11 Mar 2020

For SMEs, operating efficiently is one of the keys to business success.

However, for small businesses operational control is a challenge. Ensuring processes are running as smoothly and effectively as possible is often easier said than done, especially when you’re a small team and you don’t have the ability to access extra resource.

So, what is the solution to greater efficiency? Digital transformation is the answer and this why SMEs should be taking note.

What is digital transformation?

Digital transformation will look different for individual businesses, but it can be defined as the integration of digital technology into all areas of a business resulting in fundamental changes to how businesses operate and how they deliver value to customers.

Digital transformation is the process of using digital technologies to create new or enhance existing business processes, culture, and customer experiences to meet changing business requirements

Digital transformation enables a business to assert operational control and understand how your people, processes and systems are working together to help you achieve your end goal.

The current state of play

For small businesses, building and running a modern business on spreadsheet, post-it notes and a plethora of shared documents just isn’t sustainable. Thinking, planning, and building digitally sets you up to be agile, flexible, and ready to grow.

Why companies need to adopt digital transformation

For all SMEs digital transformation can be a painful experience. From integrating a multitude of systems to championing a cultural shift away from long-standing and time-consuming processes, digital transformation is not without its pain-points.

Yet for all growing SMEs digital transformation is becoming a necessity. From a business leader’s perspective, digital transformation allows the senior management team to assert operational control and it allows companies to truly integrate people, processes and systems to help deliver better business value.

The benefits of embracing technology for a small business are obvious. As an example, going digital allows your company to become more competitive – a task often perceived as difficult due to restricted budgets, pressures on time and resources, or low staff numbers.

SMEs can also experience greater efficiency and accuracy, reduced costs, and a more productive workforce by getting on board with digital transformation.

Automating tasks for a happier workforce

By embracing technology and adopting a truly holistic approach, digital transformation will allow you to automate processes. From an order and inventory management perspective, time-consuming tasks such as managing stock, editing dispatch notes and processing invoices can all be automated.

Not only will this give you greater control and accuracy, but this approach will allow employees to focus their attentions on tasks that will either bring in revenue, or reduce business operating costs whilst boosting morale.

How Workhorse can help

Here at Workhorse, we help companies embrace digital transformation by providing customised business management software (such as order and inventory management) that helps streamline business performance helping you to increase business productivity and performance. If you’re looking to discover how Workhorse can help your business, request your free demo today.

Ready to transform your inventory management?

Ditch the spreadsheets and provide your team with the tools they need to make better inventory decisions.