Business transformation is a growing concept that all business strategists are looking towards. In a study, McKinsey revealed that less than one-third of organizational transformations actually succeed in improving the company’s overall performance and growth. Only 16% of business executives feel that business transformation will give results.
The business transformation aims to drive business growth, increase efficiency, create better opportunities, and create new value. A good business transformation means that your company needs to survive despite everything and emerge victorious. The need is to ensure that market changes are met with as the business transforms.
Take, for instance, COVID-19. The world was revolutionized with it, and many companies were not prepared to handle the consequences. The ones who adapted to the situation navigated across multiple complexities to meet success. Companies who chose solutions and tips to aid the situation came out successful.
Customers of today expect omnichannel experiences which are dynamic and focused on them. To do that, it is important to evolve the business and enhance overall processes. This requires businesses to move towards innovation and sustainability.
But first, what is business transformation?
Business transformation is when a fundamental change in the organization helps it become more efficient and improves effectiveness. Business transformation is a long-term strategy that creates value and improves business opportunities.
Companies looking to reinvent and transform themselves need to chalk up a strategy that accelerates growth and improves overall functioning.
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When organizations want to implement business transformation, they need to be smart about the process. One of the primary aspects of business transformation is changing how customers view the product or company. Going from a retention mindset to an expansion mindset is important. Companies need to focus on expanding their revenue with the customer base. The main ways of expansion revenue are-
- Upsell
- Cross-sell
- Add-ons
- Reactivation
Retaining customers is definitely the key to scaling and growing. However, increasing revenue from existing customers or expanding offers more benefits. It is important to go beyond a common template to undergo a business transformation. Thinking beyond process, people, and technology to include the complete picture is important.
Top steps to keep in mind while moving towards an expansion mindset-
Goal Setting
The first step is establishing that you want to transform the business into an expansion mindset. Creating a mission statement that blends with the company’s overall strategy is important. You need to pick aspects that can be improved and correspond to quantifiable values. Important goals include-
- Making the product a part of customer lifestyle
- Forming a trusted community of product users
- Creating a loyal band of customers who vouch for the product
- Maintaining honest communication channels with customers
- Improving customer experiences with strategies
- Empowering customers with the product
- Eliciting positive social proof
Integration
The next step is clearly defining each department and team’s responsibilities, roles, policies, and rights. You also need to set processes for how different concerns in specific teams will be addressed. Integration of the strategy helps create improved results and performance. You need to chalk out a plan showing how customer success is ingrained in the organization’s DNA. Every team, from the product, sales, and marketing, to customer success, must keep the customer at the center of all operations. Every message or campaign must be focused on the customer.
People
The talent element comprises people, skills, tools, and the resources needed to reach a particular goal or task. Technology is the key to improving the overall performance of hardware, software, and more. Technology can help reduce many of the problems in infrastructure associated with the brand. Adopting customer success tools such as customer success software will help manage the increasing demand. You can improve the bandwidth of support teams and ensure they are able to manage customer questions. People need to be capable of using this technology. This is possible with adequate training and skill development. Overcoming product adoption problems is possible when one identifies where users are having a problem.
Process
Once the technology is in place, one needs to set the process. Most customer success professionals need to adopt a process to move from retention to expansion. Reducing churn should be the primary goal. Once that is achieved, and the customer is happy with the product and service, it is important to look for expansion opportunities.
Empowering customers with customer education and utilizing personalization techniques can help greatly. Keeping customers informed of latest product updates and features is also important. This will allow them to look at the product holistically and notice how it can solve niche problems.
Measuring goals
The next step to moving towards an expansion mindset is recognizing that goals are important. Measuring goals is necessary to see if the processes and technology meet the desired standards. Goals include improved communication, opportunities for development and growth, rewarding stakeholders, commitment to revenue, and achieving objectives.
- Boosting customer engagement
- Increasing customer lifetime value
- Personalized customer experiences
- Improve customer onboarding with a checklist
Feedback
If you don’t know what is wrong with your business, you will never be able to improve it. This is why it is important to create a customer feedback loop. Customer feedback is when you get honest updates about the product and its usage. This feedback needs to come from customers and help improve the overall functioning of the product and customer service. Customer feedback is when you collect, analyze, and look into customer surveys to understand how customers feel about the product. Maintaining a customer communication calendar can help. Talking to customers regularly can improve understanding of the product.
Customer feedback is necessary to improve customer experience and keep customers invested in the product. A customer feedback strategy is a must-have in every company’s customer expansion toolkit.
A customer success platform will help companies understand the scope of customer expansion. It is also possible to identify where upsells and cross-sells can occur. A customer success platform can track how customers use the product, and give comprehensive reports on customer health scores, customer churn, revenue churn, and customer demographics.
You can gain better insights and stand apart from the competition. It is also possible to get better revenue with this mindset.
- Communicate why the change is important in a compelling way
- Keep employees and customers inspired
- Give teams adequate resources to embrace change
- Make it simple for teams to understand their role and give them ownership of roles
- Chalk a plan of ‘how’ the change will occur and the desired outcomes
- Identify small areas of change and work accordingly
It is important to believe in the concept to truly bring about a change in mindset from retention to expansion. You need to persuade with data, logic, research, empathy, and responsibility. To be good change agents, you need to show credibility and results.
Change management is necessary to increase productivity and improve value. Becoming more agile and business oriented is when the results of the change occur. Disruptors need to understand that the right change is the right opportunity. This can include self-service platforms, automation, customer intelligence, and more.
Companies need to change because they need to thrive. An expansion mindset is necessary in this century while keeping key components like-
- Tackling uncertainty
- Emotional intelligence
- Technology with the right intent
- Processing consciousness
Bottom Line
Business transformation needs to be proactively taken for the best benefits. Companies must keep track of new technologies, tools, resources and more to set themselves from the competition.
You might also like:
- The Essential Guide to Customer Feedback – Customer feedback is the insights and information put up by the customers about their experiences with your company. But is that all? Let us find out.
- To see how SmartKarrot helps B2B companies streamline and scale customer success, Request a Demo.
Dattatraya Shetty is an IT Professional with 2 Decades of experience in areas of Product Development, Implementation & Service Delivery Management. As the Head of Implementations and SOC Compliance in Smartkarrot he is on a mission to provide relishing customer experience.
Published October 10, 2022, Updated March 01, 2023
