Digital Transformation: The Philosophy of Building on Top of Existing Things

In his landmark 2001 essay, futurist Ray Kurzweil mentioned while discussing the pace of technological evolution that, “Technology goes beyond mere tool making; it is a process of creating ever more powerful technology using the tools from the previous round of innovation.”

The same year biometrics as a security interface was made available to regular consumers, while it was earlier limited to military usage. Since then, it has radically transformed the identity authentication process, moving it from a process dependent on human intervention to a digitally automated process that is currently available at your fingertips. A disruption that validates Ray’s comment.

Digital transformation transforms existing business processes using digital technology to meet the evolving expectations and requirements of customers and the market. It encompasses the beginning and ends of how we think and how we engage with customers. A key outcome of this overall transformation is that results are achieved swiftly and efficiently.

Does this transformation entail disposing of earlier gains achieved through traditional means? Not really. Joseph Attack, the man behind biometrics consumer-centric direction, built on top of the technology available to the military since 1999. His expertise in merging the then cutting-edge tech of wireless Web stimulated growth. It improved the accessibility of this security feature extending its reach to mobile phones, handheld computers, and PDA’s. To consider everything and building new work on top of what already exists remains part of the digital transformation philosophy.

Digital technology has simplified archaic business operation processes in many ways. The underlying benefit of this improvement has been customer experience enhancement and overall reduction of operation cost. But with that, the set of challenges required to run a business has also changed. With new-age opportunities, businesses have to deal with new-age challenges.