Founder of Small Business Britain Michelle Ovens CBE, Biplab Rakshi, Managing Director of Atomic Acquisitions, Kim Antoniou, co-founder of Kafoodle, Melissa Snover, Founder of Get Nourished and Pete Oliver, Managing Director of BT & EE joined us for the first day of Elite Business on 11 March as in the digital transformation panel, speaking about the ways businesses can discover real opportunities in digitisation and how they can take the right steps to explore emerging technologies.
When a new emerging technology jumps on to the market, businesses may feel the need to jump onto these newer platforms – and even social media platforms, like TikTok.
But Michelle Ovens CBE advised businesses to think of the next step forward that will serve their businesses in the current climate, rather than worrying too much about the hype.
Digital transformation has brought about not only a change in the way businesses can work as a team, but also connect with their customers in ways they were never able to before.
Through online surveys, Melissa was able to receive overwhelming customer feedback to tailor her vitamin products to fit their needs, as many had requested vitamins for mental health benefits and to help reduce anxiety.
“I think that’s one of the best things about having a digital business,” Melissa said.
Kim Antoniou advised businesses to seek out expert help and support especially if they are planning to new technology, rather than trying to do it all on their own.
And I think the lesson for me was the fact that we tried to do that internally for a couple of years and we had a little bit of success, but then we realised that you have to work with the best people and we partnered up with the University of Edinburgh and that was absolutely powerful and that’s what enabled us to actually build the now patented technology that we’ve got.
And what’s interesting from the last 12 months is that we’ve all had to learn how to use Teams and Zoom and allow people more flexible ways of working and that’s something we think will continue in our company.
Even when we return to the office, we’re going to be able to offer people the ability to work more remotely as well, and that’s potentially good for the individual as well as the business.”