Risk getting left behind.
In a nut shell, the best reasons to transform your business to Digital is on-line services are quicker, more convenient and cheaper to use.
Cabinet Office Digital Efficiency Report suggests that transactions on-line can already be 20 times cheaper than by phone, 30 times cheaper than postal and as much as 50 times cheaper than face-to-face.
What is Digital?
By ‘Digital’ I mean desktop computers, laptops, tablets, mobile phones or some fantastic device not yet invented that has the capability of connecting and browsing the internet.
The move from Analogue to Digital television has ensured that the Digital age has reached most households, with 82% of adults in the UK shopping on-line. While completing transactions on-line has become second nature to a lot of people, not everyone has adapted easily to the change.
As Small Medium Businesses (SMBs) you will need to have some idea of the impact and the scale of the imminent EU Directives and Digital Agenda for Europe.
According to Lloyds Banking Group study of Digital Maturity within Britain’s Businesses and Charities, on-line capability can mean attracting more customers, reaching a wider geographic market, increasing customer interaction and reducing costs as well as increasing sales.
Improved Consumer Loyalty
Digital Services are rapidly gaining strong reputations and loyalty from consumers.
A 2012 YouGov poll saw Amazon, Google and iPlayer become the highest-rated brands in the UK, overtaking more traditional companies such as John Lewis and Marks & Spencer.
Going Digital isn’t just about saving money, everyone including us SMBs increasingly expect to access services quickly and conveniently, at times and in ways that suit us.
The most frequent reasons people gave for choosing to use Digital transactions
- It saved me a lot of time – 85%
- The website was clear and easy to use – 62%
- I could do it outside office hours – 61%
Breakdown of UK population by use of government Digital services and internet use
The five best reasons for businesses to go Digital
1. Transportation
Digital content is easy to transport, no need to carry around lots of paper documents or heavy books, information can be accessed from any device any time anywhere.
2. Interaction
There can be more interaction with information with links to videos, and other multimedia. Readers can engage with the content in a way that suits them best, whether they prefer to read it on a screen or listen and watch the audio-visual material.
3. Customisation
It’s easier to customise Digital material than printed material.
If readers only want certain sections of a book, they still have to purchase the whole book.
With Digital content, publishers can give readers the option to select sections of different materials to compile customised content easily and at a much lower cost.
4. Revenue and Costs
There are considerable reductions in cost in printing, binding, and distributing when new and revised editions of books and documents are released. These costs can be reduced or even eliminated by switching to a Digital version that can be streamlined
5. Environment
An important consideration of any discussion of Digital vs. print is IT industry’s massive carbon footprint, the environmental impact of printing / paper material has on trees.
How Environmental is Cloud Computing – Research has found that Cloud Computing has a positive environmental impact, helping to reduce the IT industry’s massive carbon footprint.
There are lots of other reasons to go Digital but from our experience and research these are the top 5.
Imagine how this will change over the next 2, 5, 10 years.
Make sure you’re not as risk of being left behind by embracing the Digital World.