8 Digital Transformation Trends and Strategies for 2024

Welcome to 2024, the year of digital transformation!

TL;DR

👉 Digital transformation is the utilization of advanced technologies and digital experiences to enhance business processes, goals, and strategies while improving workflow and customer experiences.

👉 In 2022, the market size for digital transformation was estimated to be $731.13 billion and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 26.7% until 2030.

👉 Some best digital transformation practices include:

-The explosion of Customer Data Platforms (CDP)
-Refocus on cybersecurity
-Democratization of AI
-Multi-cloud architecture
-Contactless solutions, digital payments & BNPL
-Accelartion of automation
-5G
-Data Analytics

👉 RAM's success story is a great example of successful digital transformation for employees.

As we step into a new year, it's exciting to think about all the ways technology is shaping our world and changing the way we live and work.

From virtual reality to AI-powered automation, the possibilities are endless.

In this blog post, we'll take a closer look at the latest trends and innovations in digital transformation and explore how they're set to revolutionize industries in the coming year.

So grab a cup of coffee, and let's dive into the future of technology together!

But before we do, let me be extra clear; digital technology trends really are in full swing.

Don't believe me?

I wrote this intro using ChatGPT 🤖

I am a firm believer in authenticity in writing, but for today, we're going with digital trends, and talking about digital trends, let's first clear up some definitions:

What is digital transformation?

Digital transformation, from a business point of view, is the utilization of advanced technologies and digital experiences to enhance business processes, goals, and strategies while improving workflow and customer experiences.

A digital transformation journey is a must to exceed customer expectations; and in improving customer journeys, digital trends can help set business strategies and business outcomes.

Here’s how Gartner defines it: “The process of leveraging emerging technology and supporting skills to build a robust new business model.”

But another important question is:

What makes the digital transformation so important?

Why should you transform your business into the digital space?

Here's a simple stat:

In 2022, the market size for digital transformation was estimated to be $731.13 billion, and it is expected to grow at a CAGR of 26.7% until 2030.

Why?

Because it’s what makes businesses grow.

Think about it.

Essentially, digital transformation is all about cumulating all weapons in your arsenal to be able to put up a good fight with your competitors in the big league.

The more you implement it, the higher your chances of being the last one standing. But it won’t do a thing if you don’t know the trends.

So, let’s take a look at the top digital transformation trends.

Top digital transformation trends

1- The explosion of Customer Data Platforms (CDP)

In the digital age, data is being collected everywhere.

Companies now have access to a lot more data about their customers than ever before.

Whether they are interacting with your company or purchasing one of your products or services, you’re getting all sorts of information from them.

This holds true for both small and large businesses.

The only difference is how this data is used to learn more about customer behavior and their desires.

This would not be a problem for smaller companies with a limited marketing stack. However, for businesses with a wide range of products, marketing channels, and customers, extracting information from such a wide pool of data can be difficult.

And that’s where the customer data platform comes into play. A customer data platform (CDP) is a single source of customer data that you can use to create more personalized and engaging marketing campaigns for your customers.

CDPs may appear to be solely for the marketing department at first sight, but this is not the case.

The finance and IT departments can also use CDPs to make quick decisions about services, products, and other company investments.

2- Refocus on cybersecurity

Ever had to renew your password?

Bet you did.

Digital transformation began as an innovative approach to process and product development a few years ago.

As part of their quicker go-to-market strategy, companies began fast-tracking initiatives like DevOps.

One thing that was left behind at the time was security.

In fact, Gartner predicted that by 2020, 60% of digital businesses would experience major service failures due to security teams’ inability to handle digital risk.

With the rise of cyberattacks in recent years, the prediction has come true. More than 445 million cyberattacks were reported in 2020.

And this year, it is expected that 33 billion accounts will be breached.

That is, of course, if companies fail to understand digital transformation trends and overlook cybersecurity.

Although there is no one solution for all security risks, striking a balance between people, processes, and technology is necessary.

Security teams must ensure that the organization’s security practices keep up with the speed of digital transformation.

As part of risk management, IT companies now have CISOs (Chief Information Security Officers) who hold cybersecurity high on their list of priorities.

So the question is not “How can I speed up a process?” anymore.

It is, “How to safely speed up a process?”

No more gambling.

It’s time to incorporate artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and the cloud into security solutions.

And talking about all that:

3- Democratization of AI

I already said I don't really enjoy AI.

But it is reshaping the business landscape as we speak, and our best bet is to let it help us reach our business goals - faster and easier.

Democratizing AI is making it accessible to every organization and even to every person within that organization.

This involves using AI-based tools to spot and recognize trends, make decisions, forecast, learn, and improve.

Every company, from tech-savvy startups to large corporations, will try to incorporate AI into its systems and processes.

The best example of this is the ChatGPT craze going on:

But of course, not all AI tools are free, and to cut operational costs, a fully-fledged AI technology for companies comes at a price.

Still, we will be seeing more and more artificial intelligence and machine learning made more available to everyone.

4- Multi-cloud architecture

A multi-cloud architecture refers to distributing software and workloads within an organization using one or two private or public clouds.

A multi-cloud strategy is used for a variety of reasons, including disaster recovery, data residency requirements, and resilience.

Multi-cloud architectures were essentially popularized by the need to secure business continuity when the pandemic hit.

This was due to companies’ desire for easier ways to manage the modern working model, which includes a greater emphasis on enabling remote work and security.

But this year, it seems like we are looking at even more buy-in from developers and IT people around the world.

This year, the cloud will have more room to grow and expand by 7-8% more.

The only stumbling block is the increasing complexity of infrastructure management.

To manage their various cloud environments, businesses must search for cloud management and automation solutions. These will also assist them in meeting agility requirements and trying out new delivery models.

5- Contactless solutions, digital payments & BNPL

This year’s digital transformation trends to watch include the rise of no-touch solutions, as well as contactless and digital payments.

Restaurants and cafés have been developing contactless solutions to take customer orders due to COVID-19-induced social distancing norms in the last few years. This involved not only online ordering for food delivery or takeout but also in-seat ordering.

Digital payments, on the other hand, are a great way to avoid having to make contact with someone in a shop.

People and companies all over the world can now access the digital economy through the use of digital payment methods.

Digital payments are a part of the banking industry’s numerous digital transformation initiatives. The overall transaction volume in the Digital Payments market was expected to hit $6,685,102 million in 2022, according to Statista.

This year, the total transaction value in the Digital Payments segment is projected to reach $9.47 trillion.

Also, according to Statista, the global BNPL (Buy Now, Pay Later) industry was anticipated to be worth $576 billion by 2024.

That is, if not slowed by a potential economic crisis.

6- Automation

It is usual for automation and digital transformation to coexist. The main explanation for this is that when one is adopted, the other follows.

Companies will increase the pace of digital transformation within their organizations by automating more of their processes. While automation is the process, digital transformation is the end result.

COVID-19 is another reason businesses will now place a greater emphasis on automation than ever before. Those in manufacturing and other secondary industries, in particular.

Business leaders will now need to follow automation practices in order to keep their companies afloat and to make business operations run smoothly.

According to the World Economic Forum, 80% of CEOs are speeding up efforts to digitize work processes and implement new technologies. We can also expect automation in other industries, such as retail and cybersecurity.

Moreover, Gartner says that hyper-automation will be a major technology trend. It defines how technologies such as machine learning, RPA (Robotic Process Automation), artificial intelligence, low code, and others are used together.

Businesses can also turn to cloud-based automation systems for increased scalability and lower total cost of ownership.

So, as you can see, the digitization of customer experience is all around us.

7- 5G

For the last 2 or 3 years, 5G has been a popular buzzword, and last year there were many developments, though the technology is still not in common use.

But one thing is for sure.

The adoption of 5G will speed up the transformation of the digital world.

For telecom providers, 5G offers a whole slew of benefits, ranging from increased capacity to the delivery of new content, services, and experiences in previously unthinkable ways and at incredible speeds.

But from a business perspective, 5G also has the potential to transform business models and operations by dramatically improving how services are delivered to end-users.

It will provide faster speeds, lower latency, and a higher density than 4G networks.

To deliver and reap the full benefits of 5G, companies will need to invest more in network infrastructure, especially cloud service providers.

Meanwhile, CSPs will have to figure out how to provide services over 5G in the most efficient way possible.

This will also pave the way for the adoption of telco cloud, a software-defined technology that will support both the existing 4G and the latest 5G.

8- Data Analytics

Making data-driven decisions is a key tenet of digital transformation.

Data is the lifeblood of your business, but it must be sorted, processed, and analyzed to reach its full potential.

Smart data analytics can help you in extracting valuable information from the raw data that has been processed.

It helps improve decision-making and increases the productivity of the organization.

Data and analytics will be essential in accelerating a company’s digitization and transformation efforts.

Gartner predicted that by 2022, 90% of corporate strategies would specifically reference information as a critical business asset and analytics as a critical competency.

The different types of data analytics can have different implications across different departments.

Although descriptive analytics can help you figure out “what happened,” diagnostic analytics can help you determine “why it happened.”

As a result, these data analytics measures can be used by different departments within a company to find solutions to complex problems. It can help in customer behavior prediction, supply chain process optimization, sales pipeline optimization, and so on.

A Digital Transformation Success Story: RAM

RAM, a South Africa-based hand-to-hand courier service, was going through a change.

They were adapting to the digital transformation and decided to change everything in their internal IT platform.

What was the challenge?

Thousands of couriers needed to learn the new platform.

Onboarding is obviously one of the core challenges of digital transformation. But RAM took on the challenge and managed to come out victorious.

With UserGuiding.

After they have utilized UserGuiding’s interactive guide feature to help onboard 40 branches of employees, nothing can stop RAM in their digital transformation.

👉 Check out their full success story here 👈

Impressed?

You can be the next RAM 👉 jump right in.

To Wrap Up

Digital strategies and digital trends allow businesses to take place in digital transformation.

Which allows them to succeed in business transformation.

Whatever the trends might be, the key takeaway is to see how they align with business objectives and make use of only the ones relevant to your business.

Otherwise, you might make up costs where you should be cost-saving.

Don't forget to check out our digital transformation article 👈

Best of luck in advance!