Companies are increasingly using digital tools to automate their processes. How well these tools interact with each other determines a company’s digital health.
“The way companies deploy and implement their digital tools determines whether they are digitally healthy,” begins Suvish Viswanathan, Head of Marketing UK and EU at Zoho. Companies are increasingly implementing digital tools to accelerate and automate their processes. These tools often stack up and operate alongside each other, which can impact productivity and user experience. How do you ensure that you have a digitally healthy company, and which countries set a good example?
Digital Health
“Digital transformation is not a new topic. It has existed for more than fifteen years,” Viswanathan starts. The digital health of a company is determined not only by the adoption of new tools but also by the way they are implemented.
A company’s digital health is largely determined by the adoption and integration of digital tools.
Suvish Viswanathan, Head of Marketing UK and EU at Zoho
“When a company has multiple tools, whether in the cloud or on-premises, it is a digital company. If these tools do not interact with each other or help protect the privacy of your customers, employees, or data, then you are not yet a digitally healthy company,” he states.
Integration of Tools
The integration between different digital tools is a determining factor in being labeled a digitally healthy company. Viswanathan illustrates this with an example. “Within a company, the sales department works daily with a Customer Relationship Management tool (CRM). This must be seamlessly connected to the marketing tool, so that the sales department receives the right leads. Additionally, the connection with billing and legal tools is important for creating quotes and reviewing contracts.”
A common scenario today is that companies work with different tools for each of these departments. “This variety of tools affects productivity and user experience,” says Viswanathan. Zoho helps organizations by offering integrated, cloud-based tools that work seamlessly together, eliminating the need for companies to spend time and money integrating different systems.
Technical Debt
Most companies are aware of their digital health, according to Viswanathan. However, not every company manages to achieve a certain level of digital health. “The complexity of implementing changes is sometimes so high that companies accumulate technical debt,” he states. “They maintain their old systems, causing the stack to only grow larger and making the transition to integration increasingly difficult over time.”
Such technical debt is a common cause for large enterprises whose digital health is not up to par. Small businesses also struggle with their digital health, though a lack of resources such as money or skills is the root cause here. “Small businesses often don’t understand what’s needed to improve their operations,” says Viswanathan.
Belgium Lags Behind
Zoho’s ‘Europe Digital Health Report 2024’ shows that the Netherlands scores lower on digital health than expected compared to other countries. “These are surprising results, as the Netherlands is considered very digitally advanced in daily life,” says Viswanathan.
Although Belgium plays a central role as the ‘heart of the EU’, it still has a long way to go in terms of digital transformation.
Suvish Viswanathan, Head of Marketing UK and EU at Zoho
He believes this low score is related to the gap between urban and rural areas. “In large cities like Amsterdam, Rotterdam, or Utrecht, the digital infrastructure and adoption are highly developed. Outside these urban hubs, there’s still use of spreadsheets, for example, which lowers the overall digital health of the country.”
The study focused on five countries: the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, France, and the Netherlands. Therefore, no specific figures are available for Belgium. “Although Belgium plays a central role as the ‘heart of the EU’, it still has many steps to take in terms of digital transformation.” Viswanathan believes that Belgium still has some catching up to do compared to the Netherlands.
Rising trend
Viswanathan is convinced that the digital health of companies will only continue to grow in the future. The rise of AI emphasizes the importance of modernizing systems and tools and providing a better experience for both customers and employees. “Companies are increasingly discovering that their existing systems are not sufficient for today’s digital requirements.”
Additionally, governments are increasingly contributing to digital transformation, both at national and European levels, through subsidies and services. “All indicators point to a positive trend in the digital health of companies,” Viswanathan concludes.
This is an editorial article in collaboration with our partner Zoho.