Sure, individual IT systems are foundational but they do not make a business “digital ready” on their own. IT in business could be compared to car ownership. The cars your drive, like the IT systems in your business, get outdated regularly and need to be updated for many reasons.
When you first start out, you are happy to be able to get from A to B in any old jalopy. Maybe in business terms, this is the IT equivalent of having email and a website.
Over time, you find that your needs and tastes mature, and new items become available on the market. Upgrading the jalopy to the latest sports car not only becomes desirable, but essential if you want to move faster to keep up with traffic safely and reliably. Move over website to make room for a CRM, e-commerce website or B2B portal.
Today more than ever businesses demand competitive advantage. Keeping up with new technology that will give you that essential edge. Never once did a world champion F1 team decline to implement the latest in fuel injection systems in their vehicles, and neither should you decline to keep up with trends if you want to stay in the race.
And in essence, that is what digital transformation is about. The latest in business technology has arrived and just like your own journey with cars, the time has come to upgrade. The upside? Like your cars, your past investments are not wasted. The systems you use today can be reused, tweaked, mined, integrated and updated. You don’t have to wipe the slate clean and start over.
But you do need to start.