The world is entering a new era of extraordinary changes, in which digital transformation across all sectors and in every country plays the fundamental role and is the driving force. In this new era with unprecedented challenges and opportunities, countries and businesses with great aspirations, modern vision and sharp execution strategies can make remarkable achievements. At the same time, along with the rapid development of modern science and technology had been continued to develop strongly and increasingly important for the process of digital cooperation between the countries around the world, especially in the context of the current COVID-19 pandemic. It can be said that the recent COVID-19 epidemic has contributed to the strong development of automated digital tools and pushed more strongly than ever into digital transformation into Vietnamese businesses. Digital with transformations that affect everyone and in almost every field of activity, the power of digital technology can be applied to every aspect of an organization.
- Results and discussions
2.1. Aspects of digital transformation
The digital transformation framework describes the foundation of transformation along the four dimensions. Empirical insights can help digitally compare transformation strategies across different industries to make judgments about similarities and differences. Digital transformation is the application of disruptive technology to increase productivity, innovative value and social welfare. Today, many countries, governments, multimedia organizations and industries, associations have created many strategic vision studies based on their long-term policies, digital transformation affects every aspect of an organization, so organizations must be constantly aware of this in order to drive change as needed, it is not a destination, but a journey. In digital transformation, there must be factors when global fluctuations are getting stronger and stronger, requiring each country and business to meet three conditions such as foresight, strong will to reform and consciousness foundation to stand firm against all regional and global fluctuations.
To be able to maintain and be strong, value creation needs to be the core goal and the main criterion. The value that enterprises need to create must originate from their development efforts, created from improving operational efficiency, upgrading strategic effectiveness, and promoting additive effects to improve operational efficiency to increase profits and reduce costs. Digital transformation is not simply an effort to invest in the application of information technology, but a comprehensive and profound transformation to make the most of the power of the times and technological advancements to improve efficiency, competitiveness and create a basic foundation for a long-term development journey. Therefore, it is necessary to enhance strategic thinking in both design and implementation of digital transformation.
2.2. The purpose of digital transformation
Digital brings a lot of benefits to all aspects of activities of individuals and businesses: from executive management to research and business. For businesses, the most recognizable benefits of digital transformation. The goal is to cut operating costs while still reaching more customers in the long run. Not only that, leaders easily make decisions quickly and accurately thanks to a timely and transparent reporting system, and it is easy and convenient to optimize employee productivities. This has contributed to increasing operational efficiency and improving the competitiveness of organizations and businesses. On the other hand, digital will play an important part in transforming the education system to provide skills and future orientation for those capable of working in the digital field of work and society. On top of that, digital creates and maintains digital communication infrastructures and ensures their governance, accessibility, quality of service and affordability. At the same time, enhance digital data protection, transparency, autonomy and trust in order to improve the accessibility and quality of digital services provided to the people. Digital transformation, if successful in the future, will see more organizations deploying new technology, especially the ability to use complex technologies, such as artificial intelligence, and IoT.
2.3. Development trend of digital transformation in the future
Facing the complicated situation of the pandemic, many businesses and agencies, including public institutions and the private sector, intend to build smart organizations based on digital technology. In the future, according to IDC – the world’s leading organization in market survey, digital transformation is gradually becoming the main strategy of businesses in the 4.0 technology era. Many businesses have taken the first steps in the digital transformation process from self-study, research, to implementation. In which, many leaders admit that this is a very important issue for business survival. Once the digital transformation is successful, the ability to understand customers will increase, improved labor productivity and breakthrough creativity will appear more and more.
2.4. Opportunities and challenges in digital transformation
2.4.1. Opportunity
According to Govsa (2020) Digital transformation offers opportunities such as: Replacing traditional workflows with digital ones, increase the time spent researching a new growth strategy instead of holding on to achievements, changing the modern and professional working model, constantly improving the spiritual life of employees. At the same time, digital will help increase workflow efficiency and reduce technical errors, adopt new services and technologies quickly and flexibly, improve the quality and improve the quality and appearance of the product.
In the process of digital transformation will inevitably bring challenges, it also created great advantages. Heinze et al. (2018) have suggested that the hallmark of digital transformation is that Information in organizations is more easily accessible, attracting leaders with the heart, vision and sense of urgency essentials of digital innovation, while consistently placing leaders in the process of working with digital transformation creativity over previous digital transformation efforts.
Currently, a number of industries have been transitioning to adopting holistic business models, completely redesigning products and services, and establishing and promoting closer interactions with customers, suppliers and long-term partnerships. The widespread development of digital transformation implementation will have profound impacts on the business environment.
2.4.2. Challenges
Digital transformation is a lengthy process, and it requires a robust, secure, and resilient digital network infrastructure. Therefore, it will also be a big challenge in Vietnam, when the cyber security situation threatens to damage the sustainability and quality of services, endanger national security and undermine growth economic. In some countries, if they are not fully prepared to deal with the cybersecurity threats posed, it will lead to the dispersion of resources, even struggling with the development of the digital economy. At that time, the leaders will be at the forefront of many difficulties, if it has professional and practical experience. A successful leader in digital transformation who is forward-thinking and able to maintain the relevance of organizational competencies in an ever-changing landscape must possess exceptional qualities with a solid knowledge of digital and new technologies. Another difficulty is that they must be able to think strategically, have broad influence, have knowledge and leadership capacity, and especially have digital literacy to improve the performance of the organization, to exploit technology trends such as innovation opportunities, digital leadership skills.
III. Conclusion
Developed countries are in the process of strong digital transformation, some industries have been proactive and active such as banking, finance, transportation, and public services. In particular, in the face of the Covid-19 epidemic, which has resulted in an increase in leadership, digital transformation has promptly responded to a number of leadership challenges in response to the pandemic and development of social leaders. Some authors have predicted that digital transformation will thrive after the Covid-19 pandemic is over. Faced with this reality, many businesses and agencies, including the public and private sectors, intend to build smart organizations based on digital technology. The technological revolution is transforming the world at an unprecedented rate, it is rapidly changing the way organizations at all levels operate, the way people connect and exchange information, and the way they interact working with partners in the public as well as the private sector. Governments need the right policy framework in place, leaders in both the public and private sectors need digital transformation leadership skills and building the right infrastructure to capture the tremendous value created by Digital transformation creates, timely response to the challenges of future leadership.
Bui Thi Dieu Linh1; Tran Dinh Minh1,*
1 VNU – University of Education, Hanoi, Vietnam
* Corresponding author: Tran Dinh Minh (minhtd.hes@vnu.edu.vn)