Our world is currently going through a digital transformation that affects most industries and businesses everywhere. Companies and enterprises keep introducing new technologies, systems, and processes to increase production and achieve a higher efficiency level. However, as the technology stack keeps growing in some areas, other business processes struggle to keep up. That's where the real problems start.
Matching the pace of technologically improved processes with the existing ones while ensuring that the orders are delivered on time proved to be complicated. That's why it's essential to go through the digital transformation across the entire operation.
Transforming a Business From The Ground Up
The digital transformation is affecting governments and businesses alike. It's finding an application in most processes around us, leading to social progress and various disparities.
One part of the world is adopting advanced digital technologies to improve its operations, while the other half of the world still doesn't have internet access.
The gap is getting bigger by the day, and equity is one of the biggest problems when introducing digital technologies.
The only way digital equity can be achieved is that the governments take a holistic approach with the social issues at the center of their plan.
New technologies must be people-centered, and the transformation has to rest on four essential elements.
1. Ensuring That Everyone Has Access to Digital Technologies
Whether it's a company, a city, country, or continent, ensuring that everyone involved has access to digital technologies is the only way to achieve digital equity.
Everyone needs access to broadband services, they need devices to connect online, and they need the skills to start using new technologies.
Simply put, access to broadband services is a must in the 21st century, but the many inequalities in education, economic situation, and social opportunities complicate the digital transformation.
That's why it's essential to start investing in providing everyone with broadband access and other digital technologies.
However, modern technologies are expensive, so companies and governments have to work together to make these technologies available on a large scale.
The good news is that the EU and US are already improving statewide infrastructure through massive investments, and the private sector is doing the same within their operations.
As the number of digital centers keeps growing everywhere, the digital transformation slowly takes hold of all levels of society.
2. Providing Skill Training and Accessible Resources
Even if everyone within a company or country has access to digital infrastructure, most individuals simply don't have the required skills to adapt to the new digital system.
People need the right skills to use modern technologies and digital services, so that's a huge challenge in achieving digital equity.
Governments and companies are struggling to find a way to help people develop the digital skills needed for the new environment.
Current estimations say that around 170 million Europeans aged between 16 and 74 still don't have basic digital skills.
That is why companies have found a way to train employees in digital skills and prepare them for the future since as many as 9 out of 10 modern jobs require that kind of skill set.
That means that everyone involved needs access to the same tools and resources that will help improve their quality of life. The information must be easy to understand, regardless of age, income, language, etc. It's a long and complicated process, as organizations have to ensure that their employees catch up with existing services before adopting digital technologies.
That is often done through AI-driven online engagement platforms designed to help people access skill training. In other words, digital equity is possible, but only if you take one step at a time and ensure that everyone involved is on the same page.
3. Transformation Designed for Equity
There are many different ways organizations approach digital transformation. First, the entire process must be created with the user in the center. However, finding a way to improve existing technologies while focusing on the human approach is much easier said than done.
It turns out that it's much harder to design an equitable digital service than most people think. The best approach is to think about the people destined to use the service. Instead of developing processes and services FOR people, working WITH them provides much better results down the road.
The process has to be as inclusive and transparent as possible. Traditional methods such as regular consultations with team members and employees are not enough anymore.
As a business owner, you want to empower them and include them in every step of the design process.
The good news is that there are plenty of artificial intelligence solutions to analyze mountains of user data to extract essential information.
The findings can then be applied to digital transformation and help programmers design a platform everyone wants to use.
The management must intentionally organize the change to include people from all company layers. Some enterprise software solution is needed to improve communication between departments and ensure that everyone involved in the process is on the same page at all times.
Including other people in digital transformation and developing new services will deliver better experiences at a lower cost. That's why the entire change has to focus on inclusion rather than exclusion, as was the case in the past.
4. Prioritize Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion Into All Activities
You should always prioritize and adopt the concept of digital equity in all future digital transformation efforts. The so-called DEI principles provide the best results in the long run, and staying true to them is the only way a digital transformation will succeed.
Governments and organizations all over the globe use this approach when planning, promoting and introducing new digital technologies into existing operations.
Once you involve your employees in the process and build services with people in the center, you have to find a way to engage as many of them as possible to achieve digital equity.
Of course, you can expect a lot of bumps and problems along the way, but the results far outweigh the risks.
Conclusion
Digital and data-driven technologies are the future, whether you like them or not. Organizations that welcome the transformation experience their benefits sooner, giving them a significant competitive edge on the markets. Moreover, they get a headstart when compared to other similar operations, but only if the transformation is built with digital equity in mind.
Introducing digital technologies into organizations aims to increase their productivity and efficiency by streamlining workflows using the best industry practices. So welcome the change with your arms wide open, grow your technology stack, and your company will flourish in the future.
