Did you know that the digital transformation revolution began in the 1940s, which was decades before artificial intelligence (AI), the internet of things (IoT), machine learning (ML), big data, and even the World Wide Web? Without these technologies in place, how could it have had such an early start? What exactly is digital billing transformation?
When the digital journey began, it was focused on converting analog technology into a digital format. Fast forward a few decades and digital transformation, as we know it today, began to show real promise. As defined by Salesforce, Digital transformation is the process of using digital technologies to create new – or modify existing – business processes, culture, and customer experiences to meet changing business and market requirements. This reimagining of business in the digital age is digital transformation.
While typically associated with the front office, digital transformation is now expanding its reach – and for good reason. When only a portion of your business operates digitally, the inflexibility resulting from non-digitalization can negatively affect your customer and employee experiences. Customers want a “seamless” customer journey, regardless of where the function resides within your company. However, with the disconnect between digitally transformed functional areas and those that are not, the customer experience can and is suffering. In fact, a recent survey revealed that a company’s net promoter score (NPS) can improve 60 – 70 points when the entire customer journey is “seamless”. And in today’s digital age, “seamless” means digitalizing your entire organization – front, middle and back office.
Digital Billing Transformation: The Final Frontier
Billing, invoicing, configure, price and quote (CPQ), fulfillment, and regulatory compliance management have traditionally been back office functions. They are now making their way to what is being referred to as the middle office. When it comes to the middle office, Deloitte refers to it as a “no man’s land that has eluded digital transformation” – the question is why.
It’s been proven time and again that digital transformation delivers a plethora of benefits, including:
- Enhanced data collection for better insights
- Improved customer experiences
- Increased agility
- Improved productivity
- The ability to take full advantage of new technologies
- Increased revenue and profitability
- Improved collaboration
Digital Transformation Benefits
Let’s take a closer look at a few of the benefits digital transformation provides.
Improved customer experiences
At the center of financially successful companies are loyal customers and brand advocates. Over time, the experience customers expect and would accept has drastically changed. Today’s always-connected customers expect you to know them, their preferences, and how they want to interact with you. Customers need to be the focus of your organization and companies that are making digital transformation a priority are reaping improved customer experience benefits, including 67% of consumers will pay more for a great experience, 74% of business buyers will pay more for a better B2B experience, and loyal customers are 5 times more likely to make repeat purchases.
Taking advantage of new technologies
AI, the IoT, ML, big data, cloud computing, etc. are today’s buzzwords. To take full advantage of these technologies, your company needs to fully embrace digital transformation. There now are more IoT connections than non-IoT connections. It was estimated that by the end of 2020, there would be 21.7 billion connective devices. Of those connective devices, 54% of those would be IoT. This figure is predicted to exceed 30 billion by 2025.
With an interdependent relationship, the increase of Internet connected devices is creating an explosion of data. Currently, we’re creating approximately 5 quintillion bytes of data every day, which is expected to generate $119 billion of revenue on a global basis by 2025. However, without the ability to gain insights from the data being generated, you will be missing the opportunity to reduce costs, improve profitability, innovate faster, improve efficiency and productivity, deliver better products and services, and lessen customer churn.
Increased revenue and profitability
As the first bullet indicates, customers that receive exceptional experiences purchase more, which equates to increased revenue and profitability, but there’s more! Regardless of where you are on the digital transformation scale – low maturity, medium maturity, or high maturity – you’re in a win-win situation. Deloitte uncovered percentage increases of net revenue and profitability within each of the following digital maturity transformation tiers.
Digitally transforming your organization isn’t complete without moving applications, including billing to the cloud. When the cloud isn’t part of your digital transformation strategy you could miss out on being able to take advantage of the benefits it provides. Even worse, it could mean losing customers to more digitally advanced competitors. Considered to be the foundation of a successful digital transformation, 80% of organizations view the cloud as an integrated part of their digital transformation strategy.
Unlock Your Growth Potential with Digital Billing Transformation
Although digital billing transformation offers countless opportunities, we’re going to focus on the top three ways a cloud-based billing system can put you on the path to complete digital transformation and the benefits it offers.
1) Improve customer experiences
With companies increasingly competing on the customer experience, it’s never been more important to consistently provide customers with the experiences they expect. As one of the driving forces behind digital transformation, have and continue to raise the bar on customer expectations. With a cloud-based billing system, you’re able to meet and even exceed their expectations.
For example, you can automatically send notifications when customers’ credit cards are near expiration, or if they are close to exceeding their usage limits. Fast notification made possible by automation gives customers peace of mind and frees up your resources to focus on revenue-generating activities. Transparency begins by engaging with customers in a way that gives them control. And what better way than to enable them to gain real-time access to their usage data, account history, or upcoming invoices. A secure billing portal gives them all of this and more, which means your customers gain a sense of control and you’re able to reduce contact center interactions.
2) Take advantage of new technologies
Leveraging the data gained from IoT connected devices requires a cloud-based billing system that provides for usage-based pricing and mediation. BillingPlatform delivers the native mediation needed to automate mediation of data streams and gain the agility to easily monetize the data. If your business model provides the option to generate revenue from data usage, additional revenue streams will quickly emerge as the amount of data generated and captured continues to grow. Without a billing system that was built to capture data from any source, you may miss out on revenue-generating opportunities.
3) Increase revenue and profitability
Your ability to launch new, competitive offerings can be the difference between success and extinction. Time is money, and sluggish product launches can put your company at a distinct disadvantage. A cloud-based billing platform provides the ability to launch an unlimited number of offerings quickly and efficiently. This enables your business to quickly adapt to market changes and remain competitive. More specifically, BillingPlatform supports subscription billing, which is a key component of the digital economy, usage-based billing, which is vital to the sharing economy, or any other pricing model you require– all from a single cloud-based billing system.
Digital Billing Transformation: The Promise Awaits
The promise of digital transformation is here for the taking. Is it an easy process – of course not, but the benefits outweigh the complexities of transforming your business. Regardless of where you are on your digital transformation journey, digital billing transformation needs to be part of your strategy. Without including a cloud-based billing system, your company can’t reach the highest tier of digital transformation.
Deloitte says billing and invoicing systems are a staple of the middle office. Especially those that can support new subscription-based business models This means that digital billing transformation is necessary for complete digital transformation. BillingPlatform was born in the cloud and with its ability to automate the entire quote-to-cash process, we’re ready to help you take your digital transformation initiatives to the next level.
Does that sound like something your company could benefit from? If so, our team is ready to help.
