Term Project Report: How Digital Transformation Affects Large Manufacturing Companies' Organization

Saleforce.com is an American cloud computing organization that is based in California that is involved in offering customer relationship management services and the commercial application. In the case of social networking and this is through internal development and acquisition. It was started in the year 1999 and it enjoys various core competencies, such as the availability of knowledge and resources that enables it to remain unique in the market. The firm is an international organization considering that it serves various customers around the world. Its products are used globally and this has been made possible by the advancement in technology meaning that end users can purchase the goods online from any region (Hashem, Yaqoob, Anuar, Mokhtar, Gani & Khan, 2015). The firm is involved in the activities of Digital Business Transformation when conducting its operations. It is the process of integrating technological tools in all the activities that a firm is conducting leading to changes in the way that they are being done with a view of providing value to the clients. The main aim of the program is to ensure that processes have become effective and transform every process into something that is better. The desire to access new market has enabled Salesforce to widen its market through the newly acquired portion of the customer base (Almorsy, Grundy & Muller, 2016). The growth of the facility is facilitated by the gain of economics of scale, the ability to hedge the risks that the company faces in addition to gaining of the customer insight.

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The digital transformation process is faced by various challenges, such as the costs involved to facilitate the process being high, managing the relationship with the clients and suppliers of the company becoming a problem , controlling the risks that may be involved among other issues. The other challenge that the organization may face include the case of employee pushback when uncertainty hits the business operations and the lack of expertise to lead the digitization program. A lot of funds are set to be used towards running the program and when there are no professionals to facilitate the change, it may lead to the money getting lost. The organization structure may limit the ability of the firm to acquire some of the digitization programs. When the initiative is implemented, it means that some of the employees' routines might be changed, their roles may be reversed while others may lose their position through an overhaul (Assuncao, Calheiros, Bianchi, Netto & Buyya, 2015). Salesforce may fail to have a digitization strategy meaning that the management may fail to understand the crucial areas that need to be digitized leading to funds being used on facilities failing to improve the business operations. The inability to have adequate funds is another problem that the organization will have to endure in its move to digitize its operations. The management of the business has turned to Business Intelligence and the use of Analytics with a view of improving the decision-making process.

Salefrce.com is an organization that is involved in a digitization program but there are various issues that are likely to rise when the program is being implemented among them the employee pushback. It can be stated that staff members like to follow routines that make them feel comfortable at their place of work. There are certain procedures that they follow every day and they become accustomed to them to the extent that they become their habit. They get themselves into a cocoon that they rely on to complete their activities and any changes to the procedure are likely to raise problems as they are moved out of their comfort zone (Hinterhuber & Liozu, 2017). No one likes changes since they bring uncertainty or they are likely to lead to more responsibilities being assigned to a worker. At the same time, there are some changes that are likely to trigger an overhaul of the workforce meaning that some of the employees will end up losing their jobs. Digital transformation programs is an activity that many staff members do not like to experience for it creates discomfort and the fear of being threatened. Salesforce desire to implement the digitization program is likely to rub its staff members the wrong way with a significant number of them feeling it is not the right thing for the firm to do. Changes are a necessity to ensure that the organization keeps up with the times and the technological advancement. Failure to adopt the latest technology may lead to an organization being left behind by the rival businesses and this will mean lost sales and the market. The result may be the closure of the business which is not the goal of any company in the market. Failure to change may even be a riskier option to undertake compared to the resistance that may be received from the workers considering that digitization is vital to the activities of Salesforce.com. It is hard to erase doubts from the staff members' minds but they can be alleviated (Lins, Grochol, Schneider & Sunyaev, 2016). The tool that can be used in managing the problems that may arise is being transparent and there is a need to ensure that they are well informed about what is happening in the firm with a detailed account of every step that the organization undertakes. They should be enlightened and provided with a future that they can all work towards realizing together as a unit. By ensuring that they understand what is at stake, they can be more empowered even to support the whole program change leading to successful digitization program. It is crucial to ensure that even after Salesforce adopts these technological tools, the workers are the ones who will be using the tools to run the firm activities. Therefore, it is critical to make sure that they are well-informed and involved in the program with a view of ensuring that they accept it.

Another issue that Salefiroce.com might experience in its move to digitalize its operations is the inability to have a strategy that will be followed in managing the activities. Doing things haphazardly will not offer the business the opportunity to realize the intended goals but rather the process will only lead to the use of resources without any desirable outcome. Salesforce management may lack the vision or some set goals and objectives meaning that the team that will be given the responsibilities of installing the new systems will not have a clear understanding of what they are supposed to be doing. It is surprising to find that less than 50% of the firms adopt an individual business unit for the transformation program an issue that is not recommendable (Bayraktar, Huang & Zhou, 2015). The digitization process should not be carried out by a single individual, but rather all the parties that will be directly and indirectly affected by the program's effects. It is an indication that even the other stakeholders that are interested in the affairs of the business, such as the customers, shareholders, debtors and creditor need to be notified of any changes that are happening so that if there are things that they will be needed to make, they will do them to be in line with Salesforce operations. The process of ordering goods may change and this means that the way that Salesforce.com interacts with the suppliers will only need to be altered. The lending of goods to the debtors may also need to be altered and the debtors will be needed to follow suit to ensure that they are complying with the new set policies and procedures (Becherer & Kentia, 2017). Therefore, the management of the company will need to set the goals and objectives that it aims to achieve before it begins the process of digitizing the company. It will be critical to think of the various parties that are keeping the business going for the firm was created to meet an unmet demand in the market.

Another problem that the firm may experience in its moves to become a digitized entity is the inability to involve professionals in the digitization process. It takes the combination of the technology and talent to achieve the desired outcome in the move to remain digitized and there is no way that one of the two elements can work without the other. If Salesforce discovers that the current system is holding back its operations and limiting its inability to realize its potential, then it is time to change. There will be many technical challenges that will be realized in the process of facilitating the changes and this is the reason why the company should seek for professionals to undertake the project. Failure to do that may lead to massive losses through the inadequate program being adopted that will not solve the intended problems. It is, therefore, critical to bring the right people on board and ensure that the staff members are taken under some refresher courses that will ensure that they are digitally literate and ensure that they are skilled enough to handle the systems that will be installed (Herrmann, Muhle-Karbe & Seifried, 2017). The process will lead to additional expenses being incurred by the firm which will lead its ability to conduct future expansion programs. If Salesforce fails to take the initiative of making an investment in its workforce, there will no positive results that will be realized from the digitization program. If there are no available expertise with the company, the management will have to seek from an individual outside the firm to implement the digitization process. When a firm installs technological tools for use in its various business operations, it may end up incurring fees through the recruitment of the personnel that will be given the responsibility of ensuring that everything is working in the right way (Matt, Hess & Benlian, 2015). Continues monitoring of the way the tools are performing will involve the use of funds and therefore, there are instances that the increased expenses may reduce the funds available for other activities like the expansion and growth into new markets.

The Salesforce organizational structure may prove to be a hindrance to the digitization process considering that the transformation is a substantive initiative that may trigger changes in the chores and activities of various personnel within the entity. It may be that the IT department in the firm has been reporting to an individual but this should not be an issue that should prevent changes happening in the business. It is even possible that adopting these changes will give the entity the opportunity to change their operations for the best and even improve the workforce ability to manage the firm's operations. The Salesforce must ensure that the organizational structure should be fluid considering that the new frontier of the customer experience, data and technological systems will require this to be the case (Kane, Palmer, Phillips, Kiron & Buckley, 2015). Some of the issues that may limit the organization's ability to remain active and digitized are the inadequate funds to implement the digitization programs. Budgetary constraints may lead to the firm not managing to make changes in all the sectors of operations meaning that the coordination among the various departments may not be effective. There are some sectors that may not optimally utilize the resources they have due to the inefficiency of operations. Considering that all the department need to work as a unit for the overall goals to be realized, then it means that failure to automate all the sections may lead Salesforce to fail to achieve the desired objective.

Conclusion

According to an article titled How Digital Transformation Affects Large Manufacturing Companies' Organization, the author states that the future expectations on business place a lot of pressure on its operations considering that it is expecte...