How can businesses guarantee a greater chance of digital transformation success when entering the Fourth Industrial revolution?
For those of you who have forgotten, this is the latest revolution that builds and extends the impact of digitization in new and unanticipated ways.
In my final digital transformation series of blog articles, it’s important for me to share some insights on how businesses can move forward in Uganda.

First off, businesses need to reflect on the nature of their relationships and the partnerships they build.

When promises are not kept, the trust element is broken and you will not find it easy to get it back again. As in many circumstances, the KEY issue here is people. Putting people at the centre of your business plan is critical and yet so often underplayed. For instance, SafeBoda, if I may bring it closer to home, have literally disrupted the way the boda boda business is run in Kampala. You may ask how?

Is it by adding value? Is it the brand promise that has left the competition scared?
Or is it the little things in the ecosystem that make the biggest difference? Taken further are local businesses giving enough thought to customer needs in this digital age? It’s important to note that technology has no emotion, it wants to be used. However customer expectations keep growing and reliance on technology to do business means a relationship needs to be managed.

Another important factor to consider, is how adaptable is this disruptive technology in context and language to be easily used by the customer. Does it take into consideration the degrees of customer behaviour? It’s a challenge most startup businesses are faced with as they try to market their innovative products.

On the other hand, when we speak of ‘digital’ do we know what the customer experience entails? Customer experience in the digital sense can mean; frictionless transacting, convenient contracting, privacy in communication and easy on boarding.

Businesses also need to consider digitizing ‘legacy systems’. Even today, many businesses continue to put reliance ‘paper’. There is still a paper trail to package and finalize a business deal. And this involves tedious procedure that reinforces bureaucracy which in the end places added challenges to make the digital transformation.

In this day and age, for any business to be successful they need to believe in the conversation of digital transformation. However this also requires the responsibility and investment to make this thing happen.