In the past few years, as oil and gas prices began to drop and investment capital dried up, ‘business-as-usual’ models began to die a painful death for those companies that did not have a targeted digital transformation goal, or (at least) a strong eye on the prize with an actionable plan already in place.

The digital transformation journey can look very different for each company depending on what (if anything) you already have in place; but there are some pretty easy; highly effective and easy wins you can score right out of the gate.

 

Way, way back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, I had a very annoying flip phone that was really only able to make and receive calls and (upon the rare occasion) get and send a few random text messages from other techie types. The main reason I found this phone so annoying is I wanted it to be able to do so much more; and it seemed like it shouldn't be all that difficult to make it happen.

But, that's all there was on the market at the time.

I continuously wondered why on earth someone didn't make them to fetch my email, or have a decent camera in them. Then it finally became a reality and just like that we all became more mobile than we had ever dreamed of being! It was AWESOME being set free from waiting for an email, and unchained from my desk where I would often be found waiting for information to be sent.

 

If automation for you conjures up images of complexity along the lines of The Matrix or other elaborate theory, I have some good news. It doesn’t have to be that complicated.

As an example, I love looking at all the ways the actual data from creating automation can improve the bottom line and generally make life simpler. Or the way something simple like automating tank levels with alarms can actually save lives - the possibilities are endlessly beneficial, but not nearly as complex as you may think (or have to worry about anyway).