Digitalising your business in the age of artificial intelligence
Digitalising your business is crucial when it comes to remaining competitive. And in an age dominated by advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, it is more important than ever.
08 July 2025, Text Saskia Wyss, Image: Swisscom 4 min
Using digitalisation to gain competitive advantages
Digitalisation is key to a company’s competitiveness, as existing business models are reaching the limits of their growth potential. Digital competition and the pressure to innovate are huge. Increasing cost pressure also requires adjustments to be made.
Moreover, customers favour more speed, simplicity and personalised support. Employees, too, have changing demands and expect a modern workplace. New technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning(opens in new tab) can intensify these dynamics.
Advantages of digitalisation
In summary, the main goals that businesses aim to achieve through digitalisation are increased productivity, lower costs and greater customer satisfaction. Results from the Computerworld Swiss IT Study from 2023 to date confirm these developments and underscore the benefits of digitalisation.
According to the latest Computerworld Swiss IT study, half of the companies surveyed even rated digitalisation as the most pressing issue for this year. The relevance of digitalisation is also reflected in IDC’s latest e-book, Beyond Digital Transformation. In a survey quoted there, 85% of the CEOs(opens in new tab) questioned see digital capabilities as a strategic differentiating factor for accelerating the revenue growth of organisations.
Measures for digitalising your business
In order to realise the benefits of digitalisation, appropriate measures are required. For almost half of the participants in this year’s Computerworld Swiss IT Study, the key measures within digital transformation are once again the digitalisation and documentation of business processes. Almost a third also prioritised the better use of their own data and the integration and automation of IT processes.
Definition of digitalisation
There are numerous definitions of the term digitalisation. What they all have in common is that they describe a comprehensive process of change driven by technology. New technological developments – currently AI in particular – enable companies to provide their services more efficiently and sustainably and to involve their customers, partners and employees more comprehensively in the value chain. Thanks to technology, companies can react quickly to changes and make their mark with innovative business models. “Digital First” is a central concept here.
Digital First
“Digital First” means prioritising digital solutions and embedding them in new and existing business models, processes and products. This is both a strategic approach and a mindset, and plays a central role in digitalisation(opens in new tab) within the business. At its core, it is about making the value chain digital, networked and holistic from end to end.
A digitalisation strategy based on this principle must firstly enable a networked view of the entire value chain and the organisational environment with all stakeholders. Isolated systems and media disruptions, on the other hand, lead to a poor user experience for employees and end customers. Rigid silo thinking is therefore a thing of the past.
Secondly, a Digital First strategy should be implemented gradually and be accompanied by change management(opens in new tab). The technological changes and the associated cultural transformation should be actively shaped by both management and employees.
A holistic approach to digitalising your business
In order to digitalise a business’s environment and value chain holistically, it helps to identify and address the key areas that have the greatest leverage for transformation projects. These include data-driven organisational development (data-driven business), customer experience, employee experience, the digitalisation of business processes and core applications.
Data-driven organisational development
Digitalisation enables companies to collect and evaluate large amounts of data, which is crucial for the development of data-driven business strategies.
For SMEs, efficient data analysis(opens in new tab) can offer the advantage of reacting quickly to market changes and deploying their resources in a targeted manner. Large companies use their data sets to identify complex patterns that can lead to precise strategic decisions. Artificial intelligence supports the creation of models that provide future-oriented analyses as well as historical data.
At the same time, the Computerworld Swiss IT Study 2025 shows the challenges that businesses have to overcome in data management and data analysis, with 42% of participants stating that the complexity of the data environment and poor data quality are a major problem. When carrying out data analyses, just over half see the selection and linking of relevant data as the main difficulty, while 43% consider the availability of and access to the necessary technological solutions to be inadequate. In addition, a quarter of respondents consider the shortage of qualified specialists with data analysis skills to be a challenge.
Customer experience
Customer orientation must give way to customer centricity, as excellent customer service is a key competitive advantage alongside high-quality products and services. AI, especially natural language processing (NLP), has become indispensable in customer service and can lead to a better customer experience(opens in new tab).
In the future, artificial intelligence will be able to recognise customer concerns even more accurately and proactively pinpoint potential issues. For example, a reactive service bot on websites can be supplemented by a sales bot that advises customers on the product range and supports them in the purchasing process. By integrating additional data sources, it will also be possible to create personalised interactions and strengthen customer loyalty. In addition, AI can use sentiment analysis to recognise the mood of the interlocutor and play out suitable conversation guidelines.
Employee experience
Investing in a digital employee experience increases productivity, improves work-life balance and can make businesses more attractive as employers. A digital and modern employee experience includes hybrid working models(opens in new tab) with options for working from home and remotely, together with the latest communication technologies such as Microsoft Teams and AI services such as Copilot for M365.
GenAI has considerable potential to improve the employee experience(opens in new tab). The greatest benefits are to be seen initially in the automation of routine tasks and personalised support in day-to-day work. With growing capabilities in prompt engineering and broader application, GenAI(opens in new tab) will be able to generate tangible business value in the future.
Organisations that seize these opportunities early and create a modern working environment(opens in new tab) will lay the foundations for a successful employee experience and will be in a better position to attract specialist talent, make processes more efficient and secure sustainable competitive advantages.
Digitalisation of business processes
Digital and seamless workflows reduce employee workload and also ensure a seamless purchasing process for customers. 38% of the companies surveyed in the Computerworld Swiss IT Study 2025 rely on document management automation, while 32% use artificial intelligence for automation and digitalisation.
A market study conducted jointly by HWZ and Swisscom shows a similar trend and provides additional insights into the adoption rate of generative artificial intelligence: 38% have already introduced GenAI and 35% systematically use data analysis. Alongside content creation and marketing, process automation is one of the most common use cases in these fields of technology.
Generative language and multimodal models in particular have great transformational potential – and all businesses can benefit from them. This is because GenAI can automate processes that were previously reserved for humans. This includes, for example, editorial skills, text editing and analysis as well as image interpretation, as Christof Zogg, Head of Business Transformation, explains in an interview(opens in new tab).
Core applications
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and other core systems form the basis for stable, end-to-end value chains. By integrating data and processes, a properly implemented ERP system provides a comprehensive view of the organisation and supports automation and increased efficiency.
In view of the constant emergence of new tools, it is important to harmonise digital applications and portals with a company’s core systems. Choosing the right operating model is just as important: in order to benefit from increased flexibility, scalability and efficient use of new technologies such as AI, moving to the cloud is becoming increasingly advisable for many businesses.
Digitalisation for business success
Digitalising your business is no longer an option. It is a prerequisite for successful business development. However, business digitalisation does not follow a uniform pattern – both SMEs and large companies benefit from individually tailored strategies.
Organisations of all sizes must therefore address the question of how they want to shape their digital transformation. This means that future-proof IT infrastructures and effective cybersecurity are essential. In addition, robust data governance and AI governance are essential for the secure and sustainable handling of data and AI systems(opens in new tab).