Key Points

• The case studies on this list include digital transformations from brands like Disney, Netflix, and Starbucks. 
• There is little debate that many of these companies owe their success today to the digital transformations they began years ago. 
• It’s unlikely that any company launching today will be as successful as these brands without a digital-first strategy. 

One of the most promising advancements to the bottom line of companies worldwide has been digital transformation. For better or worse, the digital age has forced businesses to adopt technology to stay ahead of the competition and differentiate themselves from the very same competitors. In today’s business world, if you can’t differentiate yourself from the competition, it’s game over.

As fast-paced as business landscapes have become, you must keep up with technology to have a chance in the market, and there is no sugarcoating this reality. For this reason, you can look at how some of the most famous companies in the world have utilized digital transformation practices to increase their profits and grow, even during some of the most difficult economic times in modern history.

What Is Digital Transformation? 

To understand how all the companies successfully integrated technology, the first and most important thing is to understand digital transformation. The good news is that it’s straightforward. Companies must incorporate new digital technology into their business and ensure it’s part of their overall business strategy. 

While a digital transformation doesn’t happen overnight, if a company is serious about making big changes, it hopes to get sign-on from all key stakeholders and be up and running in months. This includes training employees and updating customers on changes affecting how they do business with the company. 

Disney

If you think about a company like Disney, they always seem to be at the forefront of technology. However, Disney didn’t heavily emphasize a digital experience with its theme parks. With the launch of Disney+, the brand became almost instantly aware of the need for personalization and what a digital transformation could mean. 

This was the company’s catalyst for taking advantage of its massive theme park audience and launching MyMagic+ wristbands. Anyone who wears these bands in a theme park or anywhere on Disney property can use the RFID technology inside the band to perform various functions. 

Whether you use your wristband to open your Disney property hotel, pay for services, book rides, or enter a theme park, Disney can take everything it learns from how you shop, where you shop, what you eat, etc., and convert it into personalized preferences so it can better target you with ads, offers, and hints at new experiences. 

IKEA

If you are looking for a company that embraces digital transformation, IKEA may be one of the best examples in history. First, in 2017, TaskRabbit was acquired. If there is one thing IKEA suffered from, it was jokes about the complicated methods it took to build anything you purchased from IKEA. 

Acquiring TaskRabbit, a company where you could hire someone to build your furniture, was a genius move. This meant that customers who might have otherwise not purchased from IKEA to avoid any potential concerns over putting something together now had an easy way to get someone to help within a few hours or days. 

However, IKEA’s powerful embrace of augmented reality was even bigger than TaskRabbit. When buying furniture, it’s nearly impossible to imagine what a desk or bed might look like in a bedroom. However, with the use of augmented reality, you could quite literally “see” what a piece of IKEA furniture could look like in your home or apartment before you made any purchase. 

As it turns out, IKEA now says that over 80% of its customers who use its websites have used virtual and augmented reality to visualize what home furniture will look like in their homes. 

Netflix

One of modern history’s most famous digital transformations undoubtedly belongs to Netflix. Launched in 1997, Netflix was famously a DVD rental-by-mail service. Users would receive DVDs in the mail, watch them, mail them back, and do the whole process again with a new DVD.  

However, after 10 years in the DVD rental business, Netflix saw the writing on the wall and transitioned into the digital space. While everyone knows how the story ends, Netflix would begin the era of streaming by pivoting into providing customers with an instant way to watch movies and television shows on demand.

Starting with just a few of its own productions like House of Cards and Lilihammer, Netflix embraced the idea of a digital future and hit the jackpot. Fast-forward to today and Netflix is the leader in the world of streaming services, with over 300 million paid subscribers worldwide. 

Thankfully, Netflix’s digital story doesn’t end with just a streaming service. It has also embraced the idea that AI algorithms can help surface new content that might interest you. This technology has helped Netflix keep its customers paying monthly and drive loyalty year after year. 

Starbucks

With Starbucks, this company is now well-known for its outstanding mobile app and the ability to order ahead. Starbucks’ real effort to make a digital transformation began with the economic slowdown that took place as a result of the mortgage crisis in 2008. 

Starbucks learned that as business began to slow down, it needed a metaphorical shot in the arm to bring customers back into its stores. Thankfully, the company saw its opportunity in 2015 when it introduced its Mobile Order & Pay feature. 

This feature was introduced to the Starbucks app so customers could order ahead and pick up their coffee or drink without waiting in line. Within the first year of its introduction, the mobile order and pay system accounted for approximately 20% of all orders in Starbucks stores. 

Starbucks’ efforts to remain digital first took another large leap during the COVID-19 pandemic when business slowed in its stores. To help boost business yet again, Starbucks introduced the “Starbucks Pickup” store, exclusive to customers who just wanted to place mobile orders. The result was that Starbucks saw 3 million downloads of its app in 2020 alone. 

Adobe

Adobe is a brand famous for being central to digital marketing and one of the leading names in creating content for businesses of all sizes. However, in 2008, Adobe found itself at a crossroads as the country entered the financial crisis, and it had to change to keep customers purchasing new software. 

The result was that Adobe made one of the most dramatic shifts it could as it pivoted from a one-time license purchase to a cloud company that operated as a software-as-a-service. With this, the company introduced Adobe Creative Cloud, which enabled customers to “license” software like Photoshop and Lightroom by paying Adobe monthly or annually without owning the software. 

While Adobe has been criticized for its pricing, the company is unquestionably the industry leader in digital content creation, and this strategy was well worth the risk. Adobe’s revenue in 2008 was $3.5 billion, and after the introduction of Adobe Creative Cloud, company revenue grew to $12.8 billion in 2020. 

Walmart

The world’s most successful retailer, Walmart, is a global giant with over 10,000 stores worldwide. However, Walmart was slow to adapt to the digital age and, as a result, had to take some essential steps to catch up. 

This effort began when Walmart purchased Jet.com in 2016, which was initially billed as an Amazon alternative. When Jet.com found that Amazon was too much of a global behemoth, a Walmart acquisition must have seemed like a dream come true. As a result, Walmart was able to give itself a significant boost to its e-commerce business. 

Once the Jet.com deal was closed, Walmart spent money handover first to catch up to its competitors with a digital transformation that should be taught in business classes worldwide. Most importantly, Walmart was able to reach new customers online while utilizing the talent that built Jet.com to improve the look and user experience of Walmart.com. 

In addition, Walmart incorporated the supply-chain innovations that helped Jet.com grow massively in such a short amount of time. 

Sephora

One of the most popular beauty stores in shopping malls all over the country, Sephora is one of the brands that fully embraced the idea of a digital makeover, no pun intended. Sephora quickly realized customers were using their smartphones in stores to either talk with friends, see how they looked with samples, or shop online. 

Learning this behavior, Sephora went all-in on digital innovation. In 2015, it took its retail lab space, which once tested physical store layouts, and converted it into a testbed for digital solutions. One of the company’s first and most impressive accomplishments was the “Virtual Artist” app, which was released in 2016. This app allowed customers to try makeup using augmented reality without ever having to step foot in stores. 

Since this transition, Sephora has only leaned harder into how digital can help it achieve bigger sales goals. In 2021, Sephora launched its “Color IQ,” which enabled it better personalize how its products could match the different skin tones of its customers in September 2021. This has led to greater product personalization and, as a result, more sales. 

Other Useful Tools and Concepts

When you think about all of these case studies as success stories, the writing is on the wall in an obvious way that digital transformation can be a big win for companies. Even as these companies took different approaches to digital transformation, they all intended to create a better experience for their customers. They succeeded, in many ways, more than they could have possibly hoped to achieve.  

Digital transformation aims to create a customer experience that enables more profits and increased customer loyalty. However, there is also a strong argument that an internal digital transformation can be just as significant. Any steps a company can take to make internal processes more seamless will be a big win for employees. 

Conclusion 

If you look back at these case studies, it’s clear that they provide a roadmap for other companies to follow in their digital transformations. While the hope is that any company launching today will have a digital-first focus, this isn’t always the case. However, it should be the first thing a company should consider when launching a new product.

The bottom line is that it’s a great idea to see every company think about digital in silo, but this isn’t going to help any company be successful. The best way a company can win customers is to use the tools that customers want to use, like a smartphone, computer, or tablet. Through these tools, companies who want to build brand loyalty in the future will find their most loyal customers.