When you read about “digital transformation”, you’ll see the words “revolutionize” and "game-changer" thrown around a lot. The word “transformation” itself evokes images of a big, sweeping change that’s probably expensive to roll out.
So what exactly is digital transformation? At its core, digital transformation is the process of using technology to improve how a business runs. It involves bringing together new tools and processes to make things faster, easier, and more efficient for your business.
Despite what the typical language surrounding digital transformation suggests, it isn’t just a costly affair for enterprise teams. It can be—and is—accessible for all businesses, regardless of their size or resources.
Accessible digital transformation should be:
Scalable—Digital solutions that start small and grow alongside your business help you easily adapt to changes and manage growth without stress.
Cost-effective—Digital transformation shouldn’t strain your business financially, either at the start or when you scale.
User-friendly—For digital transformation to succeed, digital tools should be easy for your team members at all skill levels to use.
Designed to integrate—Data from different sources should be easy to bring together and access from one place.
Accessible on mobile—Your team and customers should be able to access information and services on their mobile devices, making it easier to get things done on the go.
With 93% of companies either adopting or planning to adopt a digital-first approach to their work, digital transformation has shifted from being a competitive advantage to a must-have component of your business strategy.
We look at the key benefits of digital transformation, how different companies are already implementing it, and why businesses of all sizes need a digital transformation strategy.
1. Improves data collection and insights
When you undergo digital transformation, you audit all your data and consolidate it into one unified system. Data that was previously siloed in paper folders, digital spreadsheets, or gated software can be digitized and collected in a single dashboard or piece of software.
Streamlining the way you work with data this way ensures your data is always accurate and up-to-date, makes it easier to analyze and report on your data, and ultimately lets you make more strategic decisions that are actively informed by your business data. It also simplifies reporting to leadership since all your data is easy to access in one place.
Compare this to how many businesses work today, where a single team can use as many as 73 apps (plus spreadsheets and physical papers). Information can get lost or forgotten and takes more time to access, leading to poor customer experiences, frustration for your team, and decisions made on incomplete data.
Digitizing your data and bringing it together in one platform can be done in several ways.
Using a scanner to convert physical documents, receipts, and invoices and saving them in PDF and image formats.
Moving all your files to a single cloud-based software or custom app that the whole team can access.
Using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) of AI image-to-text features to automatically convert handwritten or printed information into editable digital text.
Connecting multiple software tools—like accounting software or inventory management software—to transfer data more easily between systems, reduce manual entry errors, and have access to updated, real-time information.
Simplifying processes like approvals, invoicing, or customer support with the help of forms and automations.
Adopting a centralized tool to store all this data so that each team in your company has access to the same information.
No code builders like Glide even make it possible for non-technical team members to access data in digital databases like SQL without needing to write complex queries.
How real companies are doing it
As part of its digital transformation efforts, advanced chemistry company CarboNet brought all its data into one custom-built app, moving away from mismatched Excel spreadsheets. This made it easier for its team to access and update the same data that it could rely on to be accurate and current at all times.
“We went from a bunch of data sources (Excel) that didn't match, to a unified data source that did. One source of truth—and then the teams all viewed and updated that same source going forward.” — CarboNet COO and Co-Founder Bill Schobrun
2. Increases cost savings and revenue
When all your data is in a centralized platform, you can build dashboards to gain real-time insights into key financial metrics across departments, customers, and campaigns. You can quickly identify underperforming products or services that are driving up costs, analyze which marketing campaigns are delivering the highest return on investment, or spot inefficiencies in operations that are costing the business money.
This visibility helps you make data-driven decisions to allocate resources more effectively, reduce spend, and prioritize high-margin activities, ultimately leading to increased cost savings and revenue growth. According to Accenture, data-driven companies achieve 10 to 15% more revenue growth than others.
How real companies are doing it
ITV, a British broadcast television network, built a custom FinOps platform that lets each team spot and correct any excess spending on specific tools, reducing their costs by 50%. The platform helps the company handle a wide range of financial operations—view total current and historical spend, track costs, set budget, and manage cloud spend—and make decisions based on real-time data.
3. Makes your team more productive and efficient
Implementing new technologies starts with looking at how your team currently works, identifying inefficiencies and bottlenecks that slow them down, and determining what they need to work more efficiently. With this analysis, you can introduce digital tools that remove these obstacles and speed up processes, such as:
automation using APIs and webhooks that can streamline data transfer between software platforms
project management platforms that centralize task-tracking, team communication, and document sharing
custom apps that let you integrate multiple features to create a solution that’s tailored for your business’s specific needs
chatbots and AI assistants that handle routine customer inquiries that free up your team for more complex issues
All these digital technologies eliminate manual, repetitive, or unproductive tasks to increase operational efficiency and productivity.
Even adding something as simple as a search function to digitized data is an example of how to use digital technologies. It can save employees 4.4 hours a week they spend just finding the data they need and another 5 hours waiting to connect with people who have the data.
How real companies are doing it
Build-360, a commercial contracting business, built a custom no code app with an AI workflow that saves field managers 8 hours a week and the manual effort of writing and sending weekly client updates. The field manager clicks a button, and AI finds the relevant project information and compiles a summarized, point-by-point report in the app’s email component. The field manager can check the draft, make any changes they want, and hit send.
“We have to do 10 or 15 weekly updates and [have] just one field manager out there on the job sites. It could take over half an hour to manually assemble an update. With the AI, it only takes 2-3 minutes.” — Build-360 owner Robin Hahn
4. Improves collaboration and communication
Bringing all conversations into one place will reduce miscommunication and improve collaboration, as employees can document decisions and access communications from the field, while working remotely, or in the office.
To use digital technologies for improving team collaboration, you’ll first analyze all the places your team currently communicates, such as email, text messages, phone calls, or WhatsApp messages. This helps you identify communication gaps or inefficiencies, which you can address with a centralized communication platform that ensures everyone is on the same page.
Using cloud-based project management software like Asana or ClickUp, or building your own custom project-tracking app helps you bring all your documents, notes, and comments into one accessible place. Employees can share documents and data, stay on top of tasks, and communicate effectively within these platforms.
Digital communication tools like Slack focus on real-time collaboration. You can even share documents on the platform and add external guests, such as your customers or contractors, to communicate with relevant team members.
How real companies are doing it
Wholesale flooring company CPF Floors built a custom app to bring team communications that were fragmented between text messages, phone calls, and WhatsApp messages to a single app. This streamlined interactions among sales reps, management, and operations. Sales reps were able to easily access essential information and make decisions without constantly needing to consult management. As a result, the company processed $7 million worth of transactions in just 8 months.
5. Improves customer experience
Giving customers better experiences through digital transformation starts with examining the current customer journey and interactions, such as how customers get support, purchase products, make service requests, or access information.
By identifying pain points—whether that’s slow response times, lack of personalization, or difficulty using your products or services—you can introduce digital solutions that address each problem, such as:
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, which keeps all customer information and communication history in one place, and gives support agents better access to customer data, purchase history, and specific problem
AI chatbots to help answer routine and frequent queries that don’t require personalized support
self-service portals and knowledge bases that let users find answers without waiting for a support agent to be free to help them
online user manuals that are easy to update with the latest product specifications and features so customers always have the latest information
Some of these channels can help you provide 24/7 customer support without straining your staff.
But your customers’ experiences with your company aren’t just limited to support queries. Digital transformation can also automate and simplify more regular customer interactions, such as through customer portals for booking services or tracking project status and timelines.
Delivering great customer experiences is more important than ever today—according to Salesforce, 80% of customers place equal importance on the experience a company provides and its products and services. Teams with limited resources may find this challenging to achieve, and digital transformation can help bridge the gap.
How real companies are doing it
CarboNet developed an order management tool that forecasts when customers will need to reorder supplies and automates the reordering process. Customers no longer need to manually track inventory status and place orders. The order management tool streamlines their experience and ensures they never run out of essential supplies.
6. Helps your business scale
Scaling your business through digital transformation begins with identifying what parts of the business can function more effectively, and what will need to handle greater capacity as your business grows—is it product, distribution, financial management, customer support, or acquiring new customers?
Digitizing paper-based processes, consolidating information, integrating scalable digital tools, and automating workflows all reduce manual tasks, minimize human error, and streamline communication across the organization. This allows your team to manage larger volumes of customers, transactions, or data with improved efficiency.
It’s no surprise that many companies are embracing digital transformation to help scale. Altimeter reports that 46% of companies identified increasing core business growth as their top reason to invest in digital transformation.
How real companies are doing it
Logistics company Innovative Logistics Group built a custom app to automate monitoring their fleet of trucks, which doubled the team’s productivity. As a result, they were able to manage twice the number of carriers and gain a 25% increase in overall business—all without expanding their workforce.
How to adopt digital transformation with no code
Digitizing data and automation are two fundamental steps in successful digital transformation.
While using off-the-shelf software is an option, it often lacks the flexibility to meet your specific business needs. It can also be expensive and packed with features that may confuse your team instead of making things easier.
Building custom software with no code can offer a faster, more cost-effective approach to digital transformation, especially for industries that are underserved by traditional SaaS products. You can create tailored apps that include only the features you need and can easily scale as your business grows.
A no code app builder like Glide can help you digitize your data, automate processes, and integrate artificial intelligence into a cloud-based solution that gives your team access to data anytime, anywhere, on any device.
With fewer manual processes holding your team back, digital transformation helps them spend more time on work that encourages innovation, improves customer satisfaction, and leads to new revenue. And with digital solutions like no code being both accessible and affordable, businesses of all sizes can gain new opportunities to thrive.
