Digital technologies,which include mobile computing, social media, business analytics, big data, cloud, internet and the like, have become all pervasive and every one on the planet is contributing to the rise of digital technologies one way or the other. These technologies have been growing exponentially over the past five years and are reaching a critical mass that is changing business. The explosion of digital technology changed the whole landscape of business and customer connectivity.There has been a tremendous growth in Data in digital form. More than 90% of information on the planet is now in digital form.

But Digital is about much more than just smart devices. Digitization is driving every aspect of modern day businesses – how products are designed and produced, how transactions are done, and how connections are formed between companies and clients. Digital is redefining the human experience and creating a need for businesses to transform their processes, product, services and people to enhance and monetize customer engagement by going Digital. The digitization of everything is becoming a reality.The organizations which are quick to adapt to the changing trends and manage the old are achieving big performance.

Technology trends like Social Media,Mobile, Analytics and Cloud have changed the way businesses think about the total business process. This digital disruption is pushing traditional brick and mortar businesses to rethink the way they are doing business.

The main differentiators in digital disruption are

• Social Media – links people to their friends, work and each other in new and unexpected ways.
• Mobile devices – are a platform for effective social networking and new ways to work and connect with people.
• Analytics – help gain meaningful insights from the information, facilitating informed decision making.
• Cloud – enables delivery of information and functionality to users and systems providing anytime-anywhere computing.

The rise of these digital technologies can be considered both as challenge and an opportunity. The challenge for traditional companies is not only the Digital technologies but the pace with which these digital trends are growing. Nearly all the entities of a business – competitors, customers and partners are now digital.

There is an urgent need for organizations to quickly adapt to the changing trends and take advantage of the digital disruption instead of being left out. Organizations are now part of dynamic ecosystem of digital connectedness in which they operate.

Organizations must harness digital technologies, both to deliver a superior customer experience and to drive the agility and operational efficiency. Going digital is the only way for busineses to stay competitive.

Companies which are able to adapt to the changing technologies quickly using digital tools and systems to push for excellence across all  dimensions of the business are able to succeed in monetize the digital disruption. By rolling out digital across their business  smarter enterprises are moving forward and taking over the competitors.

The key components to going digital are :

Social Savvy: Successful enterprises harness the power of social media by becoming more connected to the consumers and provide the best services and staying ahead of competitors. Forward thinking organizations are extending their social networks beyond people to intelligent objects—such as their products. Social channels open up collaboration and create personal dialogues with key customers. They give rise to the possibility to follow every action of customer and use those insights to increase customer satisfaction.

Cloud First: Organizations are now approaching new system architectures with a “cloud first” mentality—they are already migrating IT systems to the cloud and looking at what can be achieved with the different forms of cloud, resulting in a hybrid cloud architecture.Put simply, businesses are getting the outcomes they want from upgrading their enterprise architectures. Availability of alternative infrastructure solutions are freeing resources for companies. Anytime, Anywhere computing is driving the dependence on cloud.

Bring in Analytics : To stay ahead of the crowd, enterprises now are utilizing the data to help in decision making process by using relevant analytic tools. A digital business is all about real-time business insights driving fast decisions and faster actions. These insights create the context for better digital customer experiences, enhanced workforce and supplier capabilities, and differentiated products and services. Analytics help organize and analyze the huge data generated by various channels for getting insights and better decision making process.

Think Mobile : Enterprise mobility has taken the front seat in changing landscape of digitization of the consumer. Being more connected and mobile, customers are more informed and have more choice than ever before. Businesses are in need of innovative mobile applications that provide sophisticated user experience. Present day end-user expect feature-rich, easy to use solutions in day-to-day activities. From an enterprise perspective, the mobility-transformed business means being able to move projects forward, close deals, serve customers and interact with colleagues and partners whenever you need to, wherever you may be, without having to worry about the technical details. Corporates are able to change the business processes by bringing mobility in all aspects of the business.

Building a digital business requires focusing on customer outcomes to achieve and maintain the right balance between marketing and operations. Like it or not, digital is here to stay.