The term ‘digital-first’ is thrown around online and for some it just reads like the next buzz word being used by big businesses.
However, digital-first is a huge shift in business strategy and mindset. This shift has presented new opportunities and new challenges for those who have embraced the change. Summit LLC helps organizations make the monumental digital transformation with tools from the Salesforce ecosystem.
Digital-first companies focus on delivering their service through digital mediums. MuleSoft is an excellent example of a digital-first company, as they have developed an integrated platform that allows customers to manage their business processes in one uniform place. They also provide APIs so their partners can easily integrate with their products, enabling them to expand beyond the traditional enterprise market to a unified customer experience.
Digital-first marketing is expanding faster than ever. With inbound marketing costing 62% less than traditional outbound marketing, and a lucrative 55% increase in web traffic for those businesses that take advantage of new media tools such as Salesforce content hubs, it’s not surprising that businesses are pushing towards a solidly digital-first culture with an emphasis on digital disruption.
Connectivity and Data Drives Digital-First Businesses
When delivering a digital service, the focus should be on creating a great customer experience (CX) and building a robust online presence. Modern-day connectivity clears the way to make this happen. We’re more connected to the digital world than ever before. This connectivity means that a digital-first business can instantly gather user data and feedback, improve its offering, deliver quickly, and target its marketing through online mediums such as email, social media, videos, blogs and websites.
Consumers expect to find you where they want when they want rather than just receiving repeated and possibly monotonous email and text messages from your brand.
More often than not, a digital-first business will have a less physical presence than a traditional brick and mortar business. Think of the cost savings. Where traditional companies have transitioned into a digital-first existence, they have left a trail of empty offices, stores and banks scattered throughout the country. This business mindset isn’t just changing customer and employee experiences, it’s experiences it’s changing our landscapes.
The growing digital-first culture is helping cement the importance of global digital transformation. Ever-changing customer behaviors are becoming more complex with a growing desire for personalized communications. The more complex they become, the more important it is to track every level and stage of engagement in the customer journey. Customers are more demanding than ever before and businesses are taking advantage of customer-centricity to fully realize the potential and capacity of digital transformation.
A Different Way of Thinking
The digital-first business way of thinking isn’t just about adding an e-commerce store to a website, closing offices or moving marketing online. It’s about seeing where a business could leverage technologies such as cloud and API integration, where customer and employee experiences can be improved and adopting an agile mindset that embraces the continuous change that technology affords.
Salesforce has been at the forefront of customer relationship management since its inception and Summit has been implementing and customizing Salesforce technology since 2016.
A digital-first mindset focuses on:
- Delivering a service digitally.
- Creating a great user experience for both customers and employees.
- Online marketing and building a strong online presence.
- Integrating data along every touchpoint to exceed customer expectations.
- Enhancing a business with technology.
- Remaining agile and integrating new technology.
- Accelerated transformation.
The pandemic of 2020/21 accelerated the digital-first business transformation. The businesses that had no digital product or service sat by the sideline while the ones that did, flexed their digital muscles and continued to deliver. Many companies had to quickly transform to provide digital services or otherwise risk going under. This challenge impacted for profit companies, nonprofits, educational institutions, and government agencies alike. The unexpected demand for a cloud-based digital-first solution in every imaginable industry and vertical challenged us all to think outside the box.
Even with life returning to what it was before the pandemic, customers and employees are now spending more time at home and online, where they want to shop and work. Their expectations are of a smooth user experience that allows them (within reason) to achieve what they would if they were there physically. Digital transformation involves large-scale IT integrations, strong leadership and alignment, and a road map to a future that is anything but clear.
Digital-first marketing isn’t only about technology, it’s about consumers. Our modern technology demands that nearly every interaction a company has with their consumers is in some way a digital experience. Your business cannot transform to digital-first until your people do. And you people cannot shift to digital-first without the mindset and the tools to do so.Summit helps your company succeed in a digital first transformation because of our history of success in transformation.
A digital-first mindset is about putting the customer first and creating a customer-centric culture. It means constantly looking to improve the user experience and ensuring that customer needs guide everything. These businesses can stay ahead of the curve and capitalize on the latest trends and technologies. By focusing on the customer, a digital-first company can create a loyal fanbase that will stick with them.
Digital First Statistics
- 92% of businesses say that now is a unique time to accelerate digital-first transformation (Harvard Business School)
- 86% of businesses agree that user retention was amongst their main priorities in 2022 (Harvard Business School)
- 58% of businesses use product analytics, surveys, web analytics, and business intelligence to gain a competitive advantage (Harvard Business School)
- The digital transformation market is expected to grow at a compounding annual growth rate (CAGR) of 23% from 2019 onwards to $3.3 trillion by 2025 (Gartner)
- 89% of businesses have already adopted a digital-first business strategy or plan to do so (Gartner)
- 32% of all nonprofits surveyed said ensuring the mental health and wellbeing of their employees was a major issue for them over the past year, with 38% of nonprofits with revenues of more than $10M rating it a major issue compared to only 28% of those with revenues below $1M
To build a landscape that incorporates the multifaceted aspects of digital transformation, businesses are figuring out how to meet customer expectations economically while simultaneously prioritizing internal areas of focus and investment.Summit provides Salesforce implementations, custom development, integrations, training, and solutions that aid organizations in sailing smoothly into a digital-first environment while delivering amazing customer experiences.
