Just how fast should digitalization be?

You've probably heard that Einstein's theory of special relativity imposes that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. It turns out that a laser beam is faster than that. If we point a laser beam at the moon and flick our wrist, the spot of light from it will travel across the moon's face in just about half a millisecond, which is 20 times the speed of light. How amazing is that? This brings us to the next point: Should digitalization be this fast? Certainly not.

When we say that digitalization, or rather the need for it, is moving faster than the speed of light, we don't mean it's moving faster than 300,000 kilometers per second (186,000 miles per second) or as fast as a laser beam. All we mean is that digitalization needs to move fast enough to satisfy the digital transformation of our society. We call it: changing at “the speed of digital.”

In this article, I will talk about the importance of digitalization, the need for speed, and how Storyblok can help your agency in the digitalization process of your clients.

Section titled Why digital transformation? Why digital transformation?

Long story short, digitization is to convert analog processes to digital, as stated by one of our certified partner agencies, Efiware. I have to agree with them when they say that there are processes that can be streamlined and optimized by taking advantage of digital opportunities in every company.

Digitalization transforms the way an organization operates by bringing together data across areas to work together more effectively. Systems, processes, and workflow improvements are guaranteed with digitalization. These improvements, amongst other benefits, help lower operational costs, enhance data collection, ensure strong resource management, provide data-driven customer insights, and improve customer experience.

When partnering with Storyblok, you get to deliver a solution that will blow your clients’ minds and significantly improve the interactions their customers have with their brand. Our CMS offers features that help you streamline your digital transformation projects and build powerful digital experiences:

• Visual Editor: Get a preview of the changes you make to your website, even before those changes go live. Looking at it from the partner lens, the Visual Editor also cuts down on client onboarding time massively.
• Content Types with Blocks: You may already create components like teasers, grids, or feature sections. Content blocks allow the developer to reuse those components elsewhere, refilling them with new content each time if necessary.
• Content Workflows: Define multiple workflow stages of your content and publish only approved changes through collaboration.
• Image Service: Transform, optimize, and cache images in a CDN for faster apps and websites.
• App Directory: Selectively add features to Storyblok. This keeps the UI clean and allows you to extend Storyblok even with your own apps.
• Omnichannel Publishing: Manage content and orchestrate your customer’s omnichannel experience across multiple devices.
• Internationalization: Speak to your audience in every language.

Section titled The need for speed The need for speed

The world has changed dramatically in the past few years and with it have consumer habits. We all live in a digital reality, and regardless of whether we are ready or not, the world will keep moving forward. Digital transformation post-COVID-19 and the “new normal” have made everyone realize the new world has digital written all over it. The question is: Are businesses adjusting to this new normal fast enough? And if they are not, how can they get on the fast track?

Most of our agency partners, who specialize in digitalization, tell us that some of the biggest concerns for their clients are slow project deployment, slow time to market, lengthy website downtime, and limited technology. These are issues that can be costly and devastating for any company. However, our agency partners have the expertise, tools, and technologies to execute a fast and painless digital transformation tailored to the client’s needs. They use Storyblok to build faster projects with a CMS that enables developers and content editors to manage their content.

Our partners have witnessed that, with Storyblok, projects get executed in just weeks instead of months. With Storyblok’s headless architecture, they have been able to transform rigid web templates into dynamic, flexible components that can be integrated and repurposed across any digital platform in no time. It gives users the ability to build off their technology stack and design anything with endlessly nestable components. It works with all frameworks and can integrate with all technologies, so there is no limit to what you can do without wasting time to find alternative solutions and excuses. Storyblok also allows a team to boost productivity by being able to publish faster with a suite of inclusive collaboration workflows that give anyone on the team a simple way to make a suggestion or take action. For example, our client Marc O’Polo, was able to set up Storyblok as their CMS in as quick as 2 days. Our partner Refactored, a marketing agency for complex B2B companies, were able to meet a very aggressive website redevelopment timeline with the help of Storyblok, while also providing robust access for stakeholders around the globe to administer content.

Lastly, by combining Storyblok with JAMstack, a modern web development architecture based on JavaScript, APIs and Markup, you can massively improve page speed and, with it, customer satisfaction. Most importantly, with Storyblok, whatever you add, edit, or update to your content editing, your SEO automatically does it too.

Section titled Speed and security Speed and security

When speed becomes a priority, do we toss everything else aside? Certainly not. However, security can often be undermined. As companies increase their reliance on the internet through digitalization, they have a lot more to lose if things go wrong. With stakes so high, businesses need impeccable and reliable digital data security.

Digital security involves the protection of your online presence (data, identity, assets). When partnering with Storyblok, your clients enjoy multiple levels of data and asset protection. At Storyblok, the security of our users’ information is our top priority. We rely on industry best practices and strictly enforced operational controls to ensure the safety of all electronic data users entrust us with. In addition, Storyblok is now ISO 27001 certified! This certification indicates that we’ve demonstrated rigorous adherence to the highest international standards of security. Lastly, I invite you to further explore our security practices by reading this article.

Section titled Key takeaways Key takeaways

Just like our certified partner, Together Digital, we believe that well-planned, highly collaborative website projects can deliver stellar business results: increased revenues, healthier margins, increased customer lifetime value, reduced pipeline volatility as well as better internal alignment of sales & marketing teams.

Although it's important to be leaders in digitalization, we do not believe it should come at the expense of reduced security and mediocre project execution. So, take your time and connect with some of our amazing partners through our Partner Listing to explore your options. As for all the agencies, explore the successful digitalization projects our partners have completed with Storyblok and get in touch with us.