As traditional revenue streams are disrupted by technology breakthroughs and changing customer behavior, major corporations are maximizing the potential of digital business platforms (DBPs) to enhance their digital activities in an era where digital transformation is no longer just an option but a necessity. This strategic approach has not only driven them to the forefront of innovation but has also positioned them as pioneers in a constantly changing corporate landscape.
These systems provide a holistic approach to generating digital revenue, allowing organizations to engage consumers, manage operations and uncover new monetization options.
Digital business platforms are cloud-based, integrated systems that incorporate a variety of technologies to enable digital transformation within a company. They are the building blocks for developing, managing, and delivering digital goods, services and experiences. These platforms intelligently coordinate goal-directed labor and enable interactions between humans, software and machines.
According to a recent IDC Perspective titled "The Rising Digital Bar: How Leading Organizations are Scaling Their Digital Business with Digital Business Platforms," 17% of organizations in Asia Pacific are forging ahead with business transformation, achieving impressive digital revenue growth and demonstrating a holistic approach across multiple domains.
These business leaders are using technology as a tool to succeed in the rapidly evolving digital-first economy. The use of digital business platforms, which not only enable new business models but also strengthen company resiliency while simplifying the production of creative digital goods, services and experiences on a large scale, is central to their approach. This platform-centered strategy demonstrates the importance of establishing a solid technology foundation that can be extended to accommodate future projects, providing these businesses with a competitive advantage that extends beyond the current fiscal year.
The capacity to engage consumers in unique and personalized ways is one of the key reasons behind the development of digital business platforms. Companies may obtain deep insights into client preferences and habits by leveraging the power of data analytics and artificial intelligence. This allows them to provide personalized experiences that resonate with specific consumers, resulting in enhanced customer loyalty and conversion rates.
Amazon, for example, makes personalized product suggestions using a sophisticated digital business platform that analyzes client data. This not only improves the shopping experience but also promotes incremental purchases, leading to Amazon's huge surge in digital revenue.
Organizations that have completely adopted digital models across their company, operations and workforce are the ones that can innovate, create and capture value at scale. The arrival of generative artificial intelligence in late 2022 has boosted the pace and scope of commercial operations, emphasizing the need for organizations to function and develop at previously unheard-of speeds. This emergence of AI represents a transition toward a future characterized by widespread use of AI, in which AI pervades every aspect of business, operations and work. The tactics of these forward-thinking firms are thereby setting a high standard for others to follow.
Key Success Factors in Using Digital Business Platforms
According to IDC, the following are some of the best practices from these innovative organizations:
- Broad digital experience strategy with executive-level support
32% of organization leaders favor digital efforts that are both aimed at improving the customer experience and supported by executive-level sponsorship. At the same time, they broaden these activities to include ecosystem players such as partners and suppliers.
- Standardized processes with real-time information flow to improve responsiveness
42% of executives have set up a center of excellence to build, oversee and upgrade operational procedures. This lays the groundwork for the implementation of AI-driven automation and enterprise-wide coordination.
- Cross-functional and agile product teams to enable experimentation and faster time-to-market
40% of executives have formed specialized product teams based on their IT, digital and business knowledge. These teams use flexible methods to offer incremental capabilities in weeks-long iteration cycles.
- Data is managed as an asset that enables business agility
26% of leaders use integrated datasets to improve decision-making quality, while another 27% see data as a strategic asset that should be shared across the company. They make investments in gathering data from external sources, ecosystem partners and client behaviors in order to achieve targeted business objectives.
"Leading organizations' holistic transformation practices are paving the way to the future of AI Everywhere. To be ready for this not-too-distant future, organizations must develop platform and data-driven capabilities that scale transformations in business, operating and organizational models," noted Lawrence Cheok, associate research director, digital business strategies, IDC Asia/Pacific.
A comprehensive strategy, including leadership, staff, procedures, data and technology, enables businesses to successfully leverage enterprise-wide resources and capabilities in the execution of groundbreaking initiatives. Advancements in one area can fuel development in others when combined with a technological architecture designed for scalability, encouraging a constructive feedback loop across the whole organization.
