Digital transformation is a global tendency in business to shift from physical operating models and value delivery to digital. Since the 1990s, when digitalization disrupted music and entertainment industries, up to the mobile and social media revolutions in 2010s, technology has been leading the world to the hyper digitalization era. Today there’s no industry left immune to change. Businesses have to embrace transformation to stay on board.

While the transformation happens inside businesses, the main driving force is customers. Brands can no longer dictate the rules of interaction as mere customer expectations have evolved. So there are two main paths to align with transformation.

The first path imposes the holistic replacement the physical value with the digital. E.g. brick-and-mortar stores and rental services that were offering films and music went obsolete as soon as online video-streaming proved its convenience. But digital transformation doesn’t necessarily mean the replacement of a physical proposition. The second path is to preserve physical value but digitalize processes. Here, the change impacts the ways brands connect with the digital audience, automate internal operations, and cooperate with partners. This should be applied for less disrupted industries like food retail. To make the first step you are always bound to choose the path.