While 3 in 4 SMEs in Singapore say they have gone digital in at least one department, smaller firms are still lagging behind in terms of digital transformation and benefits, says a UOB study
HYJK Design believes that if we want our interior design business to be future-proof, we need to embrace digital transformation by experimenting with new technologies and rethinking our standard practices. Digital transformation is an evolution of three areas of a business: customer experience, operational processes and business models. As far as customer experience goes, using technology can help fuel customer growth and customer understanding while creating more touchpoints with them. For interior designers, digital transformation impacts the standard practice of business development and lead generation. Interior design is an industry where new business opportunities come through personal connections and word-of-mouth referrals. It is a consolidated practice in the industry, but recently there has been a shift.
As a business owner, we are very mindful about how we want to map out the path of our clients. We are very much aware that while word-of-mouth is not reliable or scalable, we have to learn new ways to grow our client base appropriately. Hence, the goal of mapping our customer’s journey is to be able to guide our targeted clients from beginning to end more efficiently and effectively. We hope that we can better understand how they discover and learn about HYJK Design and what catches their attention, why and when they decide to buy. Through the digital transformation journey, we are also learning first hand that we should be able to visualize and understand what our potential customers are thinking and doing at each stage of the purchasing journey. Knowing what they are thinking provides us with valuable information for decision-making in things like which marketing activities to invest in, what relevant messages create at each stage and information about traffic sources.
In a recent article on Straits Times, Jaime shares about how as a homegrown Interior design consultancy and SME, HYJK Design faces challenges such as high upfront costs, from technology to manpower, when it comes to implementing new digital solutions.
All these initiatives are part of a bigger plan: the ever-evolving process of digital transformation of HYJK design as an Interior Design Consultancy.