Digital Transformation and the Future of Business

We are in the middle of another Industrial Revolution. Only, this time it is digital transformation.

That’s according to Gladstone Grant, the National Director of Solution Sales at Microsoft Canada’s Technology Centre. However, Grant says that businesses that are prepared for this Digital Transformation are going to thrive and leave their competition behind.

Speaking at CRM Dynamics Digital Transformation event at Toronto’s BarChef, Grant pointed to the example of Uber as a business that others should look to emulate.

Gladstone Grant, middle, at the Digital Transformation event. Gil Moore is at right with Rob Triggs of CRM Dynamics on left.

“Uber has disrupted the taxi industry – and industry that has been in existence for 1,000 years – without owning a single taxi cab.”

The key word is “disrupted,” Grant says. The digital transformation we are going through is disrupting conventions that seemed untouchable just a few years ago. Whether it is the taxi industry, or hotels and Airbnb, or even Microsoft itself, Grant says that the ongoing digital change can be a threat to any business that isn’t willing to re-evaluate how they do things.

“I remember when I started at Microsoft,” Grant told the audience at BarChef, “We were still shipping CDs to customers.

“When we moved to the Cloud there was a resistance. Even I questioned whether customers would follow. Why change what was working?”

Digital Transformation event attendees enjoyed BarChef’s unique cocktails.

Today, it seems obvious that the right move was to the Cloud, Grant suggested.

Digital Transformation in the music business

CEO of Metalworks Studio, Gil Moore, agrees with Grant.

Moore, who was the drummer for the Canadian rock band Triumph knows the music industry from the inside and out. For years, he says, he made music the “old fashioned way.”

As a businessman, he knew that things had to change.

“Music has always been a universal language…but it’s always been made on a regional basis,” he said. “I could see where things were headed…music was becoming a bigger and bigger deal for more and more people, especially younger people and people that weren’t involved before.

It was there that Moore saw an opportunity.

“I could see that a Cloud-solution was needed. We had to find a way to link a songwriter in Australia with a vocalist in the United Kingdom. That required a re-think for how things are done.”
Working with CRM Dynamics, Moore has been developing a new disruptive technology that he says will change how music is made.

“We’re close to Beta. Hopefully the rest is history,” he said to the crowd at BarChef. “We developed a platform that will take that to the music world – allow for international collaboration.

“What we are trying to do is create a much bigger tent.”

The event at BarChef was a tremendous success. It brought together clients of CRM Dynamics along with many interested in what the future of business holds in this digital transformative era.

Although it is always great to go to a special space like BarChef, CRM Dynamics is committed to helping businesses grow and thrive. Obviously, as a business, we’d love to have you as a Dynamics 365 partner, but we also offer several learning opportunities for those that are looking for ways to improve their performance.

Whether our Ebooks, our Learning Academy or events like we held this week, these are always free. Why not sign up for the Learning Academy and take things from there?