7 Types of Software to Make Your Digital Acceleration Easier
This is for those who wind up against a wall when it comes time to decide on what software you might need to make digital acceleration happen.
Is your business considering a digital acceleration? If not, it’s time you did. Why? Because by transforming your business to an all-digital platform, your company gains agility, flexibility, and the ability to better serve your customers, clients, and suppliers.
Digital acceleration has become such an important aspect of modern business that those who hold off on this task run the risk of falling considerably behind the competition. That’s especially true after the COVID-19 pandemic: Now, every day you hesitate to begin the process puts you behind even further.
So maybe you’ve started plotting out your digital acceleration process. You’ve laid out your roadmap, gathered all your data, and know where you’re heading. You might wind up against a wall when it comes time to decide on what software you might need to make this happen.
Never fear, I have a few suggestions that might help make those decisions a bit easier for you. Understand, however, that your situation will vary from others, so what you’ll read below is nothing more than that, a suggestion. Thus, you can always use this as a guide to help you get started on selecting the software your business will require to start down the path of digital transformation.
With that said, let’s get to the software.
#1 NoSQL Database
There’s no way around this, you’re going to need a NoSQL database. Why? Because that relational database (such as MySQL) can’t handle what you’re going to require once your business embarks on its digital acceleration process. You’ll need a database capable of scaling to meet your new normal as well as one that offers consistency for transactional data to be used by very demanding applications and systems.
You’ll find a number of NoSQL databases available, such as RavenDB, MongoDB, CouchDB, and Apache Cassandra.
One thing to consider, however, is that your business might require the help of a software development provider, in order to migrate your data from a relational database to the NoSQL database.
#2 Container clustering
At some point in your digital acceleration journey, you’ll realize that your company might be better suited to deploying some apps and services to a container cluster. This is especially true when you’re looking to automate a number of these processes. But doing so to a standard supply or development chain can be an incredibly challenging task. When you opt to make use of a container cluster, you will quickly realize that automation isn’t only possible, it’s considerably easier.
On top of automation, you’ll enjoy agility and high availability, unlike anything your business has ever experienced. In order to achieve a truly successful digital acceleration, you’ll need such agility on your side, otherwise, you won’t get the most out of this migration.
The tools you can look to for this are Kubernetes and Microk8s, both of which can be rolled out on datacenter servers or a cloud service (such as AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud).
#3 Office suites with collaboration tools
To make this process work well, you’ll need to employ tools to enable easy collaboration between staff, teams, clients, vendors, and customers. The trap is making use of an office suite that is limited in its ability to integrate. This is especially true if you’ve opted to make the cloud part of your process (which you probably will). When that’s the case, you must consider an office/collaboration suite that is capable of integrating with your cloud solution.
Possible solutions to fill this need include Google Workspace, Office 365, Zoho Office Suite, and Nextcloud, each of which offer plenty of integration and collaboration tools.
#4 Communication tools
One incredibly important tool you’re going to need will enable communication between the various teams helping to make your digital acceleration go ahead without problems. These tools will not only be about communication but collaboration. They allow the sharing of ideas, files, links, data, and be capable of either audio and video chat. Once the transformation is complete, that communication platform has to remain in place. Why? Because a critical component of business in the age of all-digital is effective communication.
Possible solutions to meet this need include Slack, Skype, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, RocketChat, Discord, and Mattermost.
#5 Customer Relationship Management
You can’t achieve a true digital acceleration without the means to effectively manage our customer relations. This becomes incredibly important as your business grows larger and your customer base increases.
As it stands, your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) might be handled via an isolated system, which might serve you well. However, in a digitally accelerated world, you’re going to want that system to integrate with your entire ecosystem. That might require you to hire third-party developers to work some serious API magic, but many CRM tools are perfectly capable of digital integration.
Possible solutions include Sugar CRM, Scoro, Salesforce, Pipedrive, WORKetc, and ZohoCRM.
#6 CMS
Along with a CRM, you’ll need a Content Management System (CMS). This platform is to content what the CRM is to customers. You’ll very likely have a lot of content to manage once you get your digital acceleration going, and you shouldn’t use a hodgepodge collection of tools to make this work. Instead, you’ll want to employ a platform that can not only manage all of your business content but integrate with your internal and external delivery pipeline.
When you select your CMS platform, make sure it is capable of managing all of the types of content you’ll need, which could include documents, images, video, audio, spreadsheets, ecommerce, and other types of files.
Possible solutions to fill this need include WordPress, Joomla, Xoops, Drupal, Woocommerce, and Wix. Of course, you can always go to a software development services company to make you a custom alternative.
#7 Hybrid Cloud
Your digital acceleration won’t function properly without the help of a hybrid cloud. A hybrid cloud allows you to make use of on-site, private, and public clouds working as a single, seamless entity. And the hybrid cloud could serve as the backbone of your digital acceleration by “gluing” all of the pieces together, such that they could work together seamlessly.
This is much more than just cloud storage (although that is a crucial component). Adding a hybrid cloud to your fully digital business is about deploying apps and services (with the help of a container cluster). In fact, if your business isn’t considering cloud-native technology, your goal of a full-blown digital acceleration becomes exponentially more challenging.
Possible hybrid clouds for your company to consider include AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, Rackspace, and IBM Bluemix.
Conclusion
As I mentioned, depending on the sector your company works in, you might have to add more tools to complete your digital acceleration. But it’s very likely that the tools listed here will be considered a must-have, in order to achieve your goal.
