Digital Is a Necessity, Not An Accessory

Now more than ever, today’s businesses need digital solutions to stay afloat and stay competitive.

When digital options like web applications, self-service platforms, and online portals first entered the mainstream, few people likely understood how reliant business would eventually become on these channels. For some years, digital solutions were a nice plus, but in-person interactions were still the bread and butter of the day-to-day business. 

Needless to say, the situation today has completely reversed. Digital is the primary way many organizations, if not all, do business today. As a popular example, Domino’s Pizza former CEO Patrick Doyle spent years referring to the international pizza chain as a “tech company that happens to deliver pizzas.” In fact, investing in the brand’s technology infrastructure is arguably what led to 28 consecutive quarters of positive comparable sales.  

Still, many companies have been slow to begin their digital transformation because of what they perceive as expensive barriers to entry. However, to succeed in today’s business environment, modern companies can no longer afford to wait around. In a recent Forbes interview with our CEO Gary Hoberman, he brought up a phrase that’s become a guiding principle for our company—“Digital is a necessity, not an accessory.” Let’s explore what we mean by this.

An Inevitable Push Towards Digital

Digital transformation isn’t just a buzzword—it represents a fundamental shift in business strategy that will ultimately determine which companies will be successful in 2021 and beyond. According to Gartner, 87% of senior business executives say digitalization is a top priority for their company, and worldwide spending on digital transformation is on pace to reach $2.3 trillion by 2023. Statistics show that this is money well-spent—savvy business leaders can tap into the $100 trillion in economic value that digital transformation is projected to generate by 2025.

“Digital is a necessity, not an accessory.” 
— Unqork CEO Gary Hoberman

Three key factors and consumer trends have made digital solutions integral to the success of modern businesses:

1. Evolving Customer Demands: Today’s customers expect convenient, user-friendly tools that they can access from anywhere, and they’re not afraid to shop around if their current provider of services can’t offer them that. What’s more, future generations of customers are only going to become more reliant on digital solutions as time goes on. Digital transformation is an excellent and necessary way to future-proof your business. 
2. A New Pace of Business: From automation and machine learning to big code and a rapidly changing market, modern companies have a lot to keep up with. Without digital tools, it’s almost impossible to quickly adapt to change and make sure you’re offering customers what they want and expect before trends change. The right digital solutions will allow you to gather new insights and rapidly pivot as you identify what’s best for your business. 
3. Breaking Down Barriers of Scale: Even with digital solutions, it’s true that companies have a finite amount of resources. However, digital channels help companies stretch those resources to extend their reach in ways that weren’t possible just a few years ago. For instance, thanks to a cloud-based infrastructure, a company like Instagram was initially able to support more than 100 million users with only 16 employees. Digital transformation helps companies push boundaries without putting undue strain on their resources.

As we mention these key factors, we also can’t overstate the influence of the coronavirus pandemic. As stay-at-home orders and social distancing measures brought in-person business interactions to a screeching halt, companies had no choice but to adopt digital solutions to keep operations running. COVID-19 has also fundamentally changed consumer behavior for the foreseeable future. 

According to a McKinsey survey, 65% of consumers have changed their behavior in response to the pandemic—like doing all of their shopping online, for instance—and will continue to do so moving forward. Digital transformation is the only way to accommodate today’s consumers, keep them safe, and navigate the “next normal” as the pandemic continues.

No Longer a “Nice-to-Have,” But a “Need-to-Have”

Just last year, 85% of firms surveyed by Forrester viewed digital as something they’d like to have but ultimately could do without. As we enter a new year, it has become exceedingly clear that digital tools are critical to customer and business success, and business leaders who put off digital transformation are experiencing a reckoning.

As companies approach digital as a need-to-have instead of a nice-to-have, this mentality should also change the way they approach digital projects. It’s important to know that not every application needs to be a groundbreaking project. Especially right now, many enterprises just need something that helps them digitize their paper-based processes so they can stay afloat.

Watch this demo to see how easy and fast it is to set-up integrations with the Unqork platform.

For example, if you’re a financial services firm, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel when it comes to the account onboarding process. You just need to recreate a digital version of your existing process that’s user-friendly, meets customer demands, and allows you to interact with your customers in competitive ways. Business leaders should treat applications and digital software as a baseline necessity rather than a luxury—meaning they should be reliable, functional, and accessible. Perhaps most importantly, they should also be fast and easy to make. 

Taking Care of the Essentials with Unqork

No-code gives you all the tools to build exactly what you need in a fast, secure, and straightforward way. 

Rather than kicking off projects that are bound to go over budget and have delayed timelines with traditional code, no-code offers a radical alternative. Not only is it faster and easier to build with no-code, but it also makes it that much faster to adapt and pivot as your application needs inevitably have to address a changing market. As digital continues to become more of a necessity and more technologies flood the market, you need a no-code platform that can help you keep up. 

With the Unqork platform, you can even access pre-built digital solutions that come with 80% of the back-end configuration already done, which means companies can use the platform’s drag-and-drop components to customize the remaining 20% to meet the specific needs of their organization and rapidly make updates as needed.

Whether there are new technologies to integrate, new customer expectations to meet, or even new regulations introduced in your industry, no-code makes it simple to implement changes and roll out updates. By taking care of your necessities with no-code, digital is a breeze—allowing you to begin exploring what it is that sets your business apart from the competition. 

Want to learn more about how no-code can be used in your organization? Schedule a personalized demonstration with one of our in-house experts or sign up for the Unqork newsletter to read about the latest in the world of no-code.