On January 25th Scandinavian-Polish Chamber of Commerce, AHK Poland and Rusak Business Services together with ITSG organized a webinar on Digital Speedboat as a way of transforming one’s business and being smart while doing so. The webinar happened on Zoom and was led in English. The event was held by Cezary Dmowski – CTO at ITSG, Andrzej Wodnicki – Managing Director at ITSG and Tomasz Rusak – CEO at Rusak Business Services with the guest Łukasz Gehfeld – Warehouse and Logistic Director at Change Of Scandinavia.

Digital transformation is not just an option – it’s the future. During the webinar some real life examples of DT influencing businesses have been shown. For instance, Netflix, Spotify or Zoom have outperformed their competition while some companies changed their status from “nice to have” to “must have”. Digital transformation isn’t something that can be avoided – if you don’t put a strategy in place, your competitors will devour your piece of the market.

Digital transformation should be understood as the integration of digital technology into all areas of business, with the main goal to fundamentally change how one’s organization operates and delivers value to customers. 

The profits of transforming one’s business include higher income, decrease in operating costs, orientation on customer’s needs and satisfaction, lowered fragmentation and optimizing all operations within the structure. The concept itself is not enough however – in some cases, like Google+, bad performance and unrealistic expectations can put a risk on a company’s finances and lead to failure. Which is exactly why you need to have a translator, who will help you connect the vision with the technical aspects. 

Digital transformation should begin with a problem statement, a clear opportunity or an aspirational goal. Later a need for a good framework appears, and that’s the moment when ITSG’s Digital Speedboat is something to consider – your organization needs to implement new concepts fast (or at least faster than competition), effectively, with knowledgeable and experienced goal-oriented partners and moving forward one section at a time.

Introducing Digital Speedboat begins with a WHY – determining what is the purpose of your actions. Later you should be prepared for a marathon in which every single small step has its importance. And one really could use a good partner, who can translate a buzzword into the process that should improve your organization. 

The case study of Rusak Business Services was presented on the webinar as a phenomenal example of transforming the company by digitalization. Tomasz Rusak, the CEO of Rusak Business Services, explained what he wanted to achieve – „our WHY was changing the perception of RBS in the eyes of customers and workers” – he said. The company wanted to be seen as a digital partner and therefore they began with a small project that with time began a critical part of the business.

Transformation was possible thanks to digital leaders at both – Rusak Business Services and ITSG. The results were great – customs agents, even though originally skeptical, are satisfied to use new tools which increased their effectiveness, transactions became paperless which is not only good for the environment but it’s also saving a lot of time. More importantly however, digital transformation optimized customer service for more clients without increasing handling costs.

The second guest of that event was Łukasz Gehfeld from Change Of Scandinavia who confirmed the value of digitalization. From his perspective it allows to see the flow of documents more clearly which helps to organize formalities in the supply chain. This is particularly important when delivering the product Just In Time, since it’s crucial to know the status of the product to be sure that it will be delivered exactly when and where it’s needed. It was specifically said that the software has to be created from the perspective of the client, so it improves the efficiency of processes specific for that client. 

One of the questions asked in the Q&A sections was about the estimated number of programmers needed to go through the process of digital transformation. It was clarified that the number is not as important as having the right structure and a translator-figure, who can understand the client’s perspective and translate it into technical language. When it comes to time, the project started 3,5 years ago and it’s still going on with new features being introduced. The point is – once you see the benefits of the transformation, you keep creating new ideas.

Author: Leszek Warzecha, Digital Marketing Specialist at ITSG Global