Did you know that a successful digital transformation boosts the revenues of the average UK small or medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by 4.4% and cuts their costs by 4.3%?
With the right approach, businesses can use digital transformation to grow, on average, twice as fast as competitors. Another recent study estimated that digital transformation could help UK SMEs create almost a million new jobs.
But how do you get started with digital transformation? How can you navigate all the buzzwords and jargon to avoid the pitfalls and reap the biggest possible returns? What even is ‘digital transformation’ anyway?
In this post, we demystify digital transformation. What does it even mean? And how can you use it to achieve your business goals?
Table of contents
- What is digital transformation?
- What are the most common misconceptions about digital transformation?
- Why does digital transformation matter for SMEs in 2025?
- What are the 3 must-have elements of any digital transformation?
- What does successful digital transformation even look like?
- How to create a digital transformation roadmap?
What is digital transformation?
Digital transformation was coined by CapGemini (in partnership with MIT) in 2011. The consultancy defined it as “the use of technology to radically improve performance or the reach of businesses”.
But that could mean almost anything, from buying new workstations to completely digitising all the company’s core workflows. So, looking beyond the hype and the vast variety of different definitions online, what really is digital transformation?
Let’s start with the basics: ‘digital transformation’ isn’t just doing things in the same way, but with technology. In fact, technology is just the starting point for change that goes deeper and delivers greater benefits.
A true digital transformation uses technology to radically optimise your company’s working practices, culture, processes, workflows and business operations.
Working with an IT consultancy specialising in digital transformation services will help you design streamlined and optimised versions of your current workflows and processes.
The IT consultancy will digitise these optimised processes, choosing the technologies that best fit your way of working and your business goals to deliver the greatest possible improvement to revenue, productivity and other key metrics.
What are the most common misconceptions about digital transformation?
In our conversations with business leaders, we often come across many of the same misconceptions over and over again.
These digital-transformation misconceptions prevent businesses from realising the cost, efficiency and revenue benefits of digital transformation.
Here are the most common digital transformation myths:
- Digital transformation is all about technology: digitising existing workflows or replacing old technology and manual ways of working.
- It’s only for large corporations: digital transformation is so complex, time-consuming and expensive that only big corporations can achieve it.
- It’s a one-off project: you ‘digitally transform’ your company, and that’s the job done, with only one change to achieve the returns you’re targeting.
None of this is true. With the right IT consultant and technology partner, digital transformation is affordable and accessible for small and medium-sized enterprises.
And with a tailored approach, digital transformation yields a self-reinforcing cycle of optimisation long into the future.
Why does digital transformation matter for SMEs in 2025?
It’s been a challenging year for UK small and medium-sized businesses. And 2025 looks like it will be more of the same.
Firms anticipate hiring challenges, higher input costs and higher fixed overheads. They need to find ways to meet these challenges and seize new opportunities.
Digital transformation offers exactly this. We’ve seen how it’s helping businesses like yours reduce costs. It also helps them grow twice as fast as competitors.
Forty per cent of digitally transformed firms report improvements in operational efficiency, and 35% said it enabled them to meet evolving customer expectations.
What are the three must-have elements of any digital transformation?
Along with identifying and deploying the right mix of technologies for your business goals, there are three critical aspects to any digital transformation:
- Technology integration: migrate workflows to scalable, flexible cloud services to enhance collaboration, enable anywhere working and exceed business goals.
- Process optimisation: streamline and automate processes, eliminate repetitive tasks and reduce the scope for human error.
- Cultural shift: use a mix of evangelism and training to win employee buy-in, maximise your return on digital investment and secure your company data.
With the right digital transformation services partner, this approach cuts downtime, hardens network security, enhances staff skills and boosts business productivity.
For the best outcome and shortest time to value, choose an IT consultancy provider with a record of success in digital transformation for companies like yours.
The right partner will have experience in everything from initial gap analysis through IT systems design to implementing specific technology building blocks, such as network security solutions, managed storage and collaboration, Microsoft 365, the provision of specialised IT support — and more.
What does successful digital transformation even look like?
What does a successful digital transformation look like? The answer is different in every company, depending on that company’s specific needs, goals and operating model.
For e-learning specialist Mind Tools, digital transformation meant migrating data storage and productivity tools to the cloud while migrating staff to new, task-optimised hardware. The transformation gave the company a springboard for future growth.
Leading Scottish architect Cooper Cromar’s on-premises infrastructure no longer met its needs. With network upgrades, disaster recovery, new SaaS productivity tools and modern cyber security, the firm greatly enhanced front- and back-office productivity.
Wardog Studios works for game developers on sensitive IP. Its digital transformation focussed on state-of-the-art cyber security and managed detection and response (MDR). Thanks to the upgrade, Wardog was able to win a new high-profile AAA client.
How to create a digital transformation roadmap?
To make your digital transformation a success, you need a bespoke roadmap that covers:
- Assessment: analyse your IT setup against your current needs and future goals. Define and capture key metrics such as reliability, performance etc.
- Goal setting: determine what you want your digital transformation to achieve based on your goals and desired future state, and set milestones.
- Partnering: work with an IT consultancy services provider that understands your needs and business to form a long-term, strategic technology partnership.
Learn more about designing an effective, cost-efficient digital transformation.
Next steps
Currently, small and medium-sized enterprises in the UK face unprecedented challenges.
But if you can work out how to rise to those challenges, there are also rich opportunities to grow market share and gain a competitive advantage.
That’s why now is the time to start your digital transformation. Texaport is a specialist IT consultancy dedicated to helping businesses like yours achieve their goals.
Contact us today to speak to one of our digital transformation experts.
