Business technology innovation goes through three phases: informatisation, digitisation and Artificial Intelligence. However, many domestic enterprises in the Mainland have remained in the informatisation phase, relying solely on the Internet and basic office software to run their business and believing that it will be sufficient for their business needs. However, the pandemic has magnified the inherent weaknesses in this approach. Digital transformation is not simply useful for enterprises to grow and expand – it is essential.

Digitalisation is much more than incorporating Big Data, IoT and Artificial Intelligence (AI) into an existing business model. It means reshaping that business model at a core level to refine operations and improve internal management efficiency. These innovations and breakthroughs in your business model can reduce operation and maintenance costs and improve efficiency.

Even though digital transformation can significantly enhance an enterprise's value, it is easier said than done. Through our communication with customers, we've identified some of the most important factors that could undermine the success of digitalisation:

Faulty decision-making

Some enterprises think digitalisation is unattainable without adopting disruptive innovations. Therefore they blindly pursue high-performance digital construction without examining their actual needs. Others suffer from "survivorship bias", believing their existing technical capabilities are sufficient for their needs, despite their overreliance on manpower and experience. As a result, they only make limited investments in IT technology innovation and avoid making clear strategy regarding the role of digitalisation and the goal of transformation.

Funding issues

Revenue and profit are also key factors in small- and medium-sized enterprises. Even though digital transformation must be implemented step-by-step, the cost alone can discourage these companies from going ahead with their plans.

Technical talents

Because digital transformation requires using mid- to high-end technologies to integrate existing IT systems and applications and adopt new systems, tackling these technical issues means hiring IT professionals, which can be another hurdle.

Outmoded business processes

Finally, many enterprises fail to achieve digitalisation despite having tremendous amounts of customer information to leverage because they persist in adhering to their existing business processes. Traditional industries can find digital transformation difficult if they are unwilling to make big changes in these processes.

Before the pandemic, we saw a steady growth in digitalisation. Since the outbreak, the digital economy's development has accelerated sharply. I always believe that where there's crisis, there's opportunity. Only by evolving our perspective and daring to challenge ourselves can we adapt to changes in society.

Rather than exploring digital transformation on their own, enterprises could partner with professional IT teams with the expertise to help them choose solutions that will best fit their needs and properly manage their resources to achieve a gradual transformation.

My team and I have found that when it comes to digital transformations, the traditional IT operation and maintenance service model cannot satisfy the needs of enterprises’ increasingly digitalised production and operations. With today's rapid digitalisation, enterprises must also evaluate and update their IT service model, user scenarios, management dimensions, and evaluation model.

Traditional IT outsourcing management services whose primary goal is to reduce costs are not equipped to meet the needs of digitalised enterprises. Similarly, services that only provide digitalisation tools and operation templates will be given up by enterprises in need of digital transformation. A true digital IT management service model empowers its client enterprises with professional value, leverages intelligent tools to improve business efficiency, and applies IT management experience to elevate core competitiveness. These IT management services not only support their clients’ intelligent digital operations, but also provide value of innovation for their core business.

Today, many client IT management service systems have successfully integrated AI services. We've also seen a lot of success stories with IT expert knowledge pools and AI robots based on deep learning technology. By applying these new AI technologies, clients can fulfil nearly 40% of service requests with no human intervention, allowing for higher professional service efficiency and service quality.

In addition, many enterprises have started adopting new IT management service models based on digital message mechanisms, such as active multi-dimensional warning mechanisms and RPA automotive responding mechanisms. Using their knowledge of problems that arose under the traditional fixed processes and SLA response mechanisms, managers can leverage these systems when the problems occur, and change passive responses into active interventions and early avoidance, achieving a smart service model.

According to the Development Report on China Banking Contact Centre and Air Bank (2018), 73% of customer service centres in the banking industry provide WeChat services, 71% provide customer service through online channels, 60% provide mobile phone client (APP) services, 28% provide video services, and 23% provide Weibo services. These comprehensive, convenient and multi-channel online consulting services have allowed the banking industry to improve their customer service experience. Behind the scenes, these changes are facilitated by optimised IT management systems integrated with AI technology.

In other industries, smart customer service is being used to fill the gaps in human service to achieve real-time 24/7 online customer service. It can also be connected to data platforms to achieve aggregation and centralised processing of all kinds of business data. And by analysing big data generated through a customer service centre's daily client interactions, it's possible to achieve customer-centric data operations as well.

At HKBN JOS, we have undergone our own digital transformation successfully.

HKBN JOS processes a very large number of sales orders every day. Our traditional manual input system could not meet the expanding needs of our heavy workload. To turn this situation around, we optimised the process and developed an RPA system to manage orders. Our internal analysis showed that a large number of sales orders could be processed in just a few days even in the debugging stage, with a success rate of over 95%. Based on our digitalisation experience, and having personally verified the effects of digital smart data processing functions on our business's operation and management, I can attest that intelligent service helped improve our internal operation efficiency and reduce labour costs and error probability. More importantly, by using a more comprehensive business statistical analysis provided by AI learning, we know first-hand that it's possible to make more reliable business decisions in combination with market changes.

Before kicking off your company's digital transformation, it's important to understand your internal situation and clearly define your goals. Look for a technology partner that offers industry experience, professional qualifications, and comprehensive ICT expertise. That way, you will be able to make use of information and digital technologies to develop business models, optimise the process and take executable, realistic and valuable actions.

After confirming the digitalisation process and required technologies, a good IT service team will leverage their expertise and insight to develop a customised system. They should also offer you advice based on their past experiences and achievements, and the lessons they have learned from them. Lastly, the team should provide customised digital solutions and IT management services that can help you enhance your core value with new technology.