What Is an Example of a Digital Product?

You may have heard other tech leaders discuss digital products and how these systems can help companies expand their internal capabilities and revenue streams. 70% of organizations identified by McKinsey as top economic performers say they’re using internally developed digital products to differentiate themselves from competitors.   

Despite this growing trend, it may not be clear to you exactly what digital products are and how they can directly compliment your company’s larger business strategy. Afterall, it is important that every initiative your teams invest their time and resources into shows measurable value to stakeholders. 

Below, you’ll find five real-world examples of digital products and how these systems delivered value to each organization. You’ll also discover the steps you’ll need to take to follow in these companies’ footsteps.

What Is a Digital Product? 

A digital product is any digital system you deploy that benefits your customers and organization. These products take many forms but generally help you improve business operations, expand your revenue streams, or even begin entirely new business ventures.

Digital Product Examples 

E-commerce platforms and both mobile and web applications are all examples of digital products that benefit consumers. For B2B companies, examples of digital products include customer relationship management (CRM) software and healthcare revenue cycle management (RCM) software. Many examples of digital products are also employee-facing, such as data platforms.

1. E-Commerce Platforms

While the in-person shopping experience is still important to many people, consumers in 2023 expect that anything they could do in your office or storefront could also be done online 24/7. 84% of consumers told Forbes recently that they’d rather make purchases from a company with digital, self-service options.

E-commerce platforms connect potential customers with your full suite of products and services whenever they need them. Customer-obsessed companies will develop next-level UX for these platforms, making the buying process as satisfying as possible for their target audience. The combination of convenience and memorable buying experiences gives consumers little reason to check out the competition. 

While e-commerce platforms are convenient for customers, they’re also useful for your internal teams. Employees can use this platform as a vital data source, understanding which products consumers often buy together and learning how to recommend options for the customer’s next purchase intuitively.  

We recently helped a leading energy provider build an e-commerce platform that allowed them to connect customers with all their offerings digitally for the first time. Now, their residential customers can make important purchasing decisions at their leisure from any device.  

Programmers also integrated this e-commerce platform with the client’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) systems. That way, the energy company had all data related to customer-facing interactions in one place, advancing their long-term goal of becoming data-driven.

2. Employee-Facing Data Platforms 

Now that you know digital products can boost your analytical capabilities, let’s look at an example that takes this to another level: employee-facing data platforms. These platforms centralize insights within your organization, making it easier for your business teams to find the information they need. 

Many companies struggle with data silos, a phenomenon where each department has its own data source that no one else can access. With data silos, everyone in a company makes decisions based on different (and often inaccurate) information. It’s no wonder why only 26.5% of organizations report being data-driven, according to the Harvard Business Review. 

A centralized data platform helps your business leaders make informed decisions and gives your organization a shared source of truth. This is also a space where executives can track their most important KPIs, allowing them to quantify progress and target inefficiencies.

Let’s look at a case study: One of our clients is a car rental company with nearly 100,000 vehicles across the country. For years, they relied on a slow and fragmented data solution, making it difficult to keep track of all their assets.

We created a comprehensive data platform for this car rental company in just six months, giving them full visibility into each of their vehicles. Now, they can check important metrics such as age of vehicle and current odometer reading to know when it’s time to replace a specific car with a newer model.

3. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software 

Next, let’s look at some examples of digital products that can benefit B2B companies, starting with customer relationship management (CRM) software. Many B2B organizations serve clients who are customer-obsessed and are always looking for ways to improve the customer experience. 

Developing an intuitive CRM platform that directly targets your clients’ needs could add a substantial revenue stream to your organization. Instead of building and maintaining a CRM platform themselves, these clients will pay you annually or monthly to use your software, boosting your bottom line and improving client retention.

For example, one of our clients in higher education has a CRM platform that helps colleges track how they nurture prospective students during the recruitment process. Most colleges and universities must reach out to thousands of high school seniors each year with digital marketing, direct mail marketing, in-person college fairs, and more. Keeping track of this fast-paced, multi-faceted campaign each year is how our client’s CRM platform constantly delivers value. 

We’re proud to say we worked alongside this client to make the platform even better. We migrated their CRM into the cloud, reducing the time colleges had to wait to see updated data from one day to one hour. Now, our client can provide an even more dynamic product to colleges and universities. 

4. Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) Software 

Here’s a more industry-specific example of B2B digital products: revenue cycle management (RCM) software. These digital products allow healthcare companies to make sense of their complicated billing environment. From pre-screening a patient’s insurance before an appointment to collecting payment, there are many steps to track and act upon. 

75% of health systems use RCM software, according to RevCycleIntelligence, with adoption increasing exponentially during the COVID-19 pandemic. If you’re a B2B company in the healthcare industry, offering RCM software as a digital product could directly address your clients’ most pressing need.

Our long-time client provides RCM software to oncology practices across the US. This digital product tracks procedures the oncology practice undercharged Medicare and private insurance companies for. Instead of looking through countless documents manually to detect inaccurate billing, oncology clinics receive weekly reports from our client’s RCM platform.

Programmers helped this product detect underpayment more accurately by adding more rules for the AI to follow. That way, the system can make decisions independently and rely less heavily on manual intervention, which can lead to errors. Speaking of AI, we also automated the weekly reports sent to each oncology practice, saving our client’s employees from redundant tasks and making report delivery more reliable for our client’s customers. 

5. Web and Mobile Applications 

We saved the digital product you’re probably most familiar with for last: web and mobile applications. Customers are hopping between countless devices daily, including personal laptops, work computers, tablets, and cell phones. 

Web applications allow your customers to work within your digital ecosystem effortlessly, regardless of which device they’re on. Meanwhile, mobile applications ensure you have a robust presence on your customers’ phones, where they spend approximately 4.8 hours every day, according to one study.

We recently helped an HR tech company develop an alerts and notifications system that would work across devices. This allowed employers to warn their staff of hazardous work conditions or notify them of upcoming events. 

Alerts needed to reach employees quickly, so we ensured the system sent messages out via each employee’s preferred contact method, whether it be a push notification from the mobile app, an email, or a text. We also designed an intuitive web application for employers to submit their alerts, streamlining their ability to get messages out quickly. 

Why Should I Create a Digital Product? 

There are many benefits to digital products. For customers, a new system that intuitively meets their needs will encourage them to spend more time and money in your digital ecosystem. 

Stakeholders within your company will appreciate how digital products add new revenue streams that make the organization more resilient in a turbulent economic market. Meanwhile, employees will often leverage these systems to do their jobs more effectively, boosting efficiency and their overall job satisfaction.

How Do I Develop a Digital Product? 

The most efficient way to create a digital product is through agile digital product development. Using this methodology, tech teams can deliver new systems quickly by dedicating each “sprint” to the most important feature of a new digital product. 

To some extent, many organizations have already implemented agile methods. However, companies often slip into the slower “waterfall” development process they tried to avoid. Work internally or find a trusted partner to ensure you have digital product development processes that are truly agile and value-driven.

To ensure organizations stick closely to the agile methods that drive value quickly, we created the Agile Experience. We combine agile processes with the teams, tools, coaching, and metrics you need throughout development. The Agile Experience provides everything you need to build high-impact software in the most efficient way possible.

How Do I Choose a Digital Product to Develop? 

Digital products need to align with your company’s short and long-term goals. Tech leaders who build systems with no clear use case often lose buy-in from stakeholders quickly.

Sit down with your c-suite and figure out how they want to improve internal operations and the customer experience in the near future. Then, brainstorm ideas with them on how new digital capabilities can streamline their path to better outcomes.

It also helps to work with an objective tech consulting company like Programmers. We can facilitate these conversations with your c-suite and use our broad range of tech experts to figure out how digital product development can uniquely boost your bottom line.

Final Thoughts 

As you’ve learned in this guide, digital products help your company become more efficient and gain market share. Examples of digital products are as far-ranging as web applications, employee-facing data platforms, and B2B systems such as customer relationship management (CRM) software. 

No specific digital product will be the right fit for every organization. That’s why it’s important to work with your stakeholders to find where new digital capabilities can get you closer to your business goals. You can also leverage the insights of tech consulting companies like Programmers to develop the most valuable digital product possible.

Let us know how we can help you.