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Digital Transformation in the Australian Professional Services Market

Digital Transformation Trends In The Australian Professional Services Sector

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In the business world, digital transformation is no longer just a buzzword. Neither is it a luxury that small and midsize professional services can do without. Instead, it’s a matter of survival—something that Australian businesses must do to beat the stiff market competition and avoid lagging behind. These service firms are digitising various aspects of their operations to drive business value.

 

Overview of Professional Services in Australia

Professional services, including accountants, tech consultants, legal experts, and management consultants have cranked up their contribution to the Australian economy. According to Alexandra Heath from the Reserve Bank, this sector accounts for 20% of the workforce. She also said that the sector accounts for 25% of gross value added today, up from below 20% in the 1990s.

How Professional Services are Adopting Revolutionary Technology

According to “The Digital Transformation Executive Study” survey by SAP/Oxford Economics, small business services across the globe find it necessary to adopt technology to streamline their operations and get the most out of their employees and knowledgebase. The research found that 61% of small and midsize professional service firms consider digital transformation to be critical to their survival. About 57% of enterprises in this sector digitise their processes to enhance their competitiveness.

Here are some of the critical digital technologies these service companies are adopting:

  • Cloud computing: The service delivers otherwise unaffordable technology and specialist skills to professional service providers. It enables small firms to compete effectively with their larger industry counterparts.
  • Mobile technology: It enables co-workers to collaborate remotely and work on the go. Firms don’t need a massive IT investment to leverage the technology.
  • Big data: Professionals services leverage big data in many ways, including harnessing in-depth customer and market insights. These firms may deploy machine-learning algorithms to gather and interpret data from both structured and unstructured sources. The technology helps extract business intelligence that’s critical to smart decision-making and enterprise growth.

 

What are the key aspects that businesses in Professional Services are digitizing?

Business services in Australia are leading in the absorption and development of a specialist workforce with high capabilities for critical thinking and complex problem-solving skills. Small and midsize professional service firms appreciate the role that employees play in boosting sales and revenue, and they’re increasingly leveraging talent recruitment and retention technology to achieve their goals.

Professional services are also digitising strategy and planning efforts. For example, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software enables enterprises to coordinate various back-office operations and workflows, including procurement, financials, and human resources.

Service providers that use sales and marketing technologies report higher customer satisfaction rates and revenue. They’re using customer relationship management (CRM) systems to streamline sales lifecycles and convert potential leads faster.

Other areas that service firms may digitise are data, platform, and network security. The companies can also harness technology to spread brand awareness and drive business revenue.

 

Challenges in Digital Transformation and How to Overcome Them

The main obstacle to digital transformation would be costs, but professional service firms in Australia are overcoming that by outsourcing their hardware and software. They’re engaging cloud providers as well as IT managed services companies to leverage economies of scale. The firms don’t have to maintain costly IT equipment and top talent to compete effectively in a flooded marketplace. Outsourcing enables smaller and midsize firms to tap into cutting-edge tech that was once the reserve of major corporations.

Professional service firms are now a top contributor to Australia’s economy. The companies are increasingly adopting newer digital technologies to cope with the dynamism of their work processes. Buoyed by affordable cloud-computing resources, these business services will continue to drive economic growth in the nation.

No matter your profession or industry, feel free to contact us for help leveraging digital technology to drive business value.

Customer Experience Technology by SAP

The Business Guide To Enhancing Customer Experience Through Technology

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We are all well aware that creating a great customer experience is how we ensure the future of any business.

Happy customers pay on time, purchase more products and provide references. We have to look beyond traditional ERP and CRM to ensure we are using technology to provide the ultimate enabler to help us better manage the complete customer experience, including:

  • Call Centre
  • Sales
  • Service
  • Marketing
  • Education
  • Returns and warranty
  • E-commerce

In today’s digital age we are all transacting, every day, through multiple digital channels. Our customers are finding multiple different ways to transact and to purchase our products and services. Mobility is key!

So too is ensuring that our business understands customers and their buying journey. Customers want choice – provide it to them and provide your customer with an outstanding buying and delivery process to get repeat customers.

So how do we make sure that we add value to every single customer interaction through the right technology?

 

Technology for customer experience: Enhancing the customer journey

Technology can help us better manage the customer buying journey through CRM, e-commerce, analytics, artificial intelligence, IOT and back office ERP integration.

ERP Solutions are a must have – managing financials, supply chain, cash flow and manufacturing is critical. There is massive potential in the ERP space to improve customer interaction and satisfaction, cash flow and supplier engagement. ERP is the starting point, now take that ERP information, integrate to a full customer experience solution and complete the picture with an end-to-end delivery of value for your customers.

End-to-end customer engagement: What are the key aspects?

  • Manage the customer buying cycle – most customers start the buying journey online. Whether your business is in a B2B or B2C environment it is highly likely that the buying journey starts with an online search for information. Track the customer journey and provide meaningful information and content for your prospective customers. Helping your prospective customers navigate quickly and easily to get the information they want is critical. Educate your customers with fresh, relevant content.
  • Digital asset management – your business will be building a wealth of digital assets. These assets will need management, version control and updating.
  • Taking customer orders – an Omnichannel model allows your customers to engage with you through their preferred buying process. Think e-commerce, click and collect, POS, direct ship or traditionally shipped orders. Make it easy for your customers (business or consumer) to buy from you.
  • Shipping – track shipping and delivery and provide your customers with real-time updates on shipping times, delays and back-order status.
  • Managing on time in full delivery – ensure on time in full delivery and keep accurate real-time data on any delays. Keep your customers informed for better customer service.
  • Managing cash – quicker delivery and happy customers shorten the quote to cash process.
  • Service and warranty – complete the delivery and customer feedback cycle by managing the service and warranty components of your customer engagement. Ensure you have access to customer warranty and service issues, timeframes and relevant feedback.
  • Front office / back office – a focus on the front office (customer engagement) relies on real-time integration to the back office (ERP) solutions. We want real-time data to flow between ERP and CRM / customer experience applications so that we can make accurate decisions. Information about stock availability, customer price lists, sales orders, manufacturing lead times and more need to flow between the front office and back office.
  • Big data – through various digital channels you will collect data which needs to be analysed for better decision making. Data analytics from multiple data sources to provide meaningful information is critical to success.
  • Personalised customer experiences – customers expect a personalised experience. The world is moving away from purely shipping products and towards a world of service, through every aspect of the customer journey. Use data analytics to provide your customer with a personalised service. Provide regular updates on shipping times, new product updates and digital assets to educate your customer.

 

Conclusion

Today’s technology solutions help you put your customers first, no matter what the business you are in. From e-commerce and retail to manufacturing, services, medical & healthcare and more.

Want to know more about transforming your business with technology and getting closer to your customers? Download the official SAP guide to customer engagement.

Want to receive a demonstration of how SAP Customer Experience can help you put your customer first? Contact us on 1300 045 046 or email [email protected] today.