Stop hesitating, start transforming

You've been hesitating for a long time, but now you've decided it's time for a change. The business world is rapidly going digital. You want to continue to participate at the highest level and maybe get a head start on your competition.

But change is hard. It often forces people to move out of their comfort zones. Digital transformation is sometimes even more difficult and elusive because it lacks a readily visible path to follow and the amount of usable data keeps growing so fast. In addition, the actual benefits of digital transformation aren't always clear. 

Where to start

The single most important thing is to figure out your business strategy before you invest in anything. Also, you simply can’t do it alone. The primary challenges you will encounter are cultural rather than technical, so it’s important that you leverage insiders to use their expertise and be ambassadors. It’s unlikely you have all the answers in-house, so some specialist areas like data architecture, processing and compliance regulations may require external support; these people can give you their initial opinions, at least, for free.

If you start your digital transformation now, you won't be late to the party. Despite the hype, the majority of businesses have yet to embark on a full transformation strategy. 

Data is the key

One of the most challenging aspects of doing business nowadays is how to handle the immense amount of data generated every day. Increasingly, companies are unable to process this themselves, without automated analytical tools. 

This is why more and more companies are using Machine Learning (ML) to analyze and manage their data. The rapidly increasing availability of cloud computing has put machine learning within reach for everyone. Cloud-driven compute power makes it possible to combine analyses of structured, semi-structured and unstructured data and gain valuable insights from them.

You can use these insights to improve customer experience, increase your competitive advantage and boost sales or enhance your security and regulatory compliance. 

When you factor in the digitization of your analogue processes, you gain the ability to generate data that was not available before. Once error-prone elements of data management and digitalization are automated, data value - and quality of insight - significantly increase. Better data quality, fresher data, better data access and reduced risk exposure, create an additional virtuous cycle of improvement. This improvement in data quality, in turn, helps the organization to innovate further.  

And like most things in the cloud, the tools don’t have a huge overhead.  You can try them out easily and scale them as needed.

Leverage your high-value data

These data center and colocation services, from industry leaders like Iron Mountain, enable customers to capitalize on their digital assets. Just think about the possibilities if you leverage your data to make use of cloud storage, workflow automation, imaging and AI-powered SaaS. 

For more information and compelling digital transformation examples, download Transforming your business through data