What Digital Transformation for Associations Means in 2021?

Digital Transformation is the fuel for businesses to survive in an Era of Millennials who turn to digital for almost everything. It is one of the most Powerful notions that is getting the Right attention because of its success and scalable infrastructure. For every company, the meaning of Digital Transformation is different depending on their business needs and goals but, some of them are resilient to understand its true potential. Well, as the Digital Era has become predominant, Companies have now realized that adopting digital measures can be their only solution to tackle the digital gap to survive in this technological revolution. “Global Digital Transformation Market was valued in the year 2020 at USD 998.99 billion whereas, with the steady incline growth, is now predicted to touch a value of USD 2744.68 billion by 2026.” Digital Transformation How does Digital Transformation impact your business? Having the right Digital tools and platform will Accelerate your business growth, improve customer engagement and communication, enhance operational efficiency and boost business agility. In 2021, Digital Transformation aims to restructure the system adopted, team, and responsibilities assigned with the help of Data analysis. This bridges the gap between an Agile solution and Digital adoption. Digitization promotes a culture within the organization that ensures collaboration of Initiatives & responsibilities among the team by making it certain that every task results in optimum efficiency. Do you have to get rid of all the old ways of doing business? Many are confused with the fact that what exactly Digital Transformation really is? Is it using Slack or Skype to communicate with other team members or using Cloud as primary storage? In simple layman terms, Digital Transformation is defined as the transformation of business by changing the old methods that no longer serve the fast-paced work culture and adopting new digital technologies to power the existing model. How Professional Associations are adopting Digital Transformation practices? Association Framework According to the IDC Forecast, by 2021 prominent industries will extend their digital platform, enabled by blockchain, thus reducing the transaction cost by 35%. Professional Associations have adopted new means of Digital Transformation to amplify their interaction with their members not only in the form of communication but also in terms of User-Interface, Member Collaboration, and Member Engagement. Following are the points mentioned below that will cover how an Association can benefit from the Digital Transformation process. 1. Social Network Platform for Member Engagement Newsletters and Email Marketing Campaign has been a Great strategy for communication, but going beyond and adopting other social networking sites to create member engagement have proved to be a Popular frontier. It will be possible for the companies to encourage members to embrace this wide arrangement of communication channels with the latest digital strategy. Well, social networking sites will not only be limited to sending out updates or news but will be used as a platform to plan conference meetings, agendas, and networking events. 2. Transcend Manual to Online Process Earlier, Member applications used to go through the strenuous process of filling up a variety of documents, which means a lot of paperwork and a Huge space to store and track every document ensuring there is no mishap. Digital Transformation eliminates the long process of bookkeeping data and instead adopts methods to transfer those data from a manual process to online. As the membership application is done on digital forms, the process is much quicker and cost-effective. Eradicating paper-based processes is one of the main goals of Digital transformation that aims to fulfill. 3. Member Management With Digital Transformation, you can easily manage members within the association by creating member persona and delegate unique code to differentiate them from other members. With the help of data provided by the system, you can easily automate the Membership lifecycle. A social networking community builder tool can be used to allow members to share or network 24/7 with other existing members which increases the user engagement rate. Everyone aims to build and grow their community but longevity is not given much importance whereas, Digital platforms have paved a path in Expanding the community and Retaining the members with higher conversion rates. 4. Digitally modified Conference Meet-ups Conference Meetings play a vital role in an organization, whereas Digitalization has been a genie in a bottle for struggling Startups and also Top-Notch Companies by adding value in offering an end number of tools for a better member experience. Now mostly meetings and conferences are being held Online with Digital assistance, i.e, via an app or attendee management system. Online Meet-up in 2020-21 is the new normal and is equivalently giving the same output or more compare to physical meetings. Hence, the adoption of virtual meetings is at a steady growth. 5. Event Management As Covid-19 enforced lockdown worldwide, it has derived a new alternative for event planners to create Events on an Online Platform. Event Managers can now Design and Execute events with the adoption of Digital Transformation. You can easily promote Events to gain more exposure by using data analytics and manage data systematically. Monetize events with the digitalized registration platform with a Payment management system for a quick payout. 6. Data & Content Management Data is an association’s asset, and they have lots of it but they do not have the smallest clue on how to utilize it for their own advantage. Data analytics have proven to open channels of opportunities to accelerate business growth and find loopholes to boost efficiency. Professional Associations have found out that data analytics provide vital insights that can customize the content and offer a personalized experience. Digital Marketing can leverage data analytics and improve the way they reach out to the new audience and the existing members. As we have understood, how Digital Transformation can boost the engagement approach and promote data-driven design that can enhance the website. It further proves the point that the adoption of new Digital technological advances not only makes the process efficient but it also accelerates the overall business operations and revenue. “According to Gartner’s CIO Agenda, an average of 36% of Business gross revenue in 2020 was from Digital business.” Digital Transformation is truly changing the perspective of every Business leader of how an organization adopts technology to change their business performance. 7. Low-Cost, High-End Solution Convincing the Key stakeholders on boards about the Digitization of association requires a broad mindset. It is the process of breaking down the silos and building digital skills onto the team with limited financial resources and making a powerful impact. You can use paid marketing automation tools to provide insight into user activities. Such applications save on additional expenses in delivering targeted marketing strategies by sending the right message to the right person. Machine learning and Artificial intelligence are powerful technology tools that can also be utilized to build a chatbot to have a quick interactive conversation with the customer. “Altimeter surveyed that Growth opportunities were the driving force for Digital transformation in 2019, said 51% of World Business Leaders.” Final Verdict Digital Transformation minimizes the gap between potential and reality by powering the management system to give out more than it can deliver. Digital Tools can be utilized and customized to your metrics that will increase the proficiency of achieving your goals. The absence of Digitization throttles the growth because of the gap created between the traditional and online working models. Digitization of Associations offers a strategic approach to utilize data to gain insight on taking counteractive measures to transform a Traditional Business into a Highly-Efficient Online Business model. Professional associations have to take a Major step in adopting Digital Transformation technology models as the current era is upgrading and evolving itself steadfastly in technology. The only wrong move you will be making in Digital Transformation is not believing its potential to scale your business to heights.