Bluebik Group Public Company Limited (BBIK), a leading consultancy on end-to-end digital transformation, suggests “Digital-First Company”, the major trend and solution for businesses to deal with economic uncertainties and the behaviors of Gen MZ (the group of Millennials and Generation Z) who will influence societies and consumption worldwide in the near future. Digital-first companies are flexible and can apply innovations and technologies to achieve growth. Developing into “Digital-First Company” also paves the way for the successful digital transformation of organizations in all industries. Bluebik sees the 5 capabilities that make it easy for business organizations to become “Digital-First Company”.
Pochara Arayakarnkul, Chief Executive Officer of Bluebik Group Public Company Limited (BBIK), saidthat to become “Digital-First Company”, organizations must begin with the complete revision of all their business activities. Innovations and technologies are main factors for the change. They allow businesses to connect well with and satisfy stakeholders in the new business ecosystem where stakeholders are Company, Customer, Partner and Community. The stakeholders are complicated and have different pain points. The rapid changes that happened worldwide over the past few years created the New Normal and in the near future there will be the New World Order. Therefore, all organizations must quickly become “Digital-First Company” so that they can go through their digital transformation smoothly, make their business flexible, improve their efficiency and precisely reach and understand all target groups of customers.
“Digital-First Company” is the heart of today’s business but successful transition to “Digital-First Company” requires many fields of knowledge and expertise. This results in the widespread collaboration of internal and external teams. The teamwork between insourcing and outsourcing not only creates new business perspectives but also improves the business activities that organizations have not mastered. World-class tech companies use consultancies to maximize their performances and reduce mistakes and operating expenses,” Mr. Pochara said.
Bluebik sees the 5 important capabilities that stimulate transition to “Digital-First Company”. They strengthen the business ecosystem and increase the efficiency of organizations.
1. The development of super-apps – The popularity of super-apps has proved that they truly serve the lifestyles of the younger generation and can lead to the inclusive growth of business partners. Many organizations accelerate the development of their super-apps. However, the development requires core features and extraordinary complex systems. It also needs effective microservices, data sharing and mini-apps as well as sufficient investment, normally at least 100 million baht. Moreover, developers must excel in and value scalability, extensibility, cybersecurity, maintainability, efficiency and the solutions that need regular updates to serve demand. Therefore, experiences and expertise are key to super-app development. They can prevent problems such as image-tarnishing crashes and cyberattacks and can also support super-app monetization.
2. Augmented intelligence – This technology is gaining momentum. It facilitates collaboration between human intelligence and technologies namely artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), deep learning and big data analytics. The strengths of these components are used to improve each other for their best performances. Augmented intelligence is aimed at assisting humans, not taking over people’s jobs like AI does. The development of augmented intelligence can be successful and fulfill purposes if there is profound understanding of business and technology. The substandard development or abuse of augmented intelligence may have adverse impacts on business.
3. Digital immunity and trust – The development of strong cyber immunity for organizations must start with employees, processes and technologies. Software engineering solutions and strategies must be integrated to prevent risks and tighten up users’ security. Cybersecurity builds up positive images and the confidence of clients and users. It also reduces cyberattack-related risks and damage.
4. Sustainable technology – This type of technology responds to the ESG philosophy which is attracting international attention. Basically, technology can support and impact the environment, society and governance. For example, data storage on digital platforms considerably reduces paper consumption. Communities can have their online platforms and communication channels and blockchain technology can promotes business transparency. For successful ESG compliance, organizations should begin with innovation and technology application.
5. Agile operations – New generation organizations apply agile operations to cope with rapid changes in the business world such as customers’ changing demand and new technologies as well as new socio-economic scenarios. Agile operations enhance the efficiency and flexibility of organizations and enable them to maintain their competitiveness and smoothly achieve their digital transformation.
Regarding the business trend, Bluebik has readied the “Growth at Scale” strategy to help clients transform their organizations seamlessly. Bluebik has developed synergy with its subsidiaries to strengthen its comprehensive services, cover medium-sized and large-scale clients and take up major projects worth hundreds of millions of baht each locally and overseas. Bluebik has been expanding its business especially in other countries. It has resolved to establish subsidiaries in England, Hong Kong, India and Vietnam and is looking for business opportunities in the United States.
“Fiercer competition prompts business organizations to depend more on external experts. This is because the execution that is too slow to catch up with rapid business in the digital era may lead businesses to great opportunity costs, the loss of their leadership or even their closure. This is only one of the challenges that executives are facing worldwide. Although innovations and technologies offer advantages, they may have negative impacts if they are applied without sufficient knowledge and expertise or do not suit business and economic conditions. This is the reason why Bluebik is quickly expanding its business and services to meet all the needs of its clients so that they will have competitive edge in immediate, medium and long terms,” Mr. Pochara concluded.
