Digital Transformation of Age UK Services

This report explores the digital transformation of Age UK services and the challenges and benefits it brings. It discusses the structure and culture of Age UK, its mission and aims, competitors, and product and service offerings. The report also examines the use of digital and social media platforms among older adults and the barriers they face in accessing digital services. It concludes with recommendations for Age UK to effectively deliver its services digitally.

Digital transformation
of Age UK services

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Main body........................................................................................................................................3
Research results...........................................................................................................................3
Discussion....................................................................................................................................6
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................6
Recommendation.........................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Digital transformation is referred as the process of adopting digital technologies in order to
transform business activities and services all its non-digital as well as manual process into digital
process and older digital technologies with newer technologies as well. Digital transformations
help business to adopt automation, innovation, creativity instead of supporting traditional
methods of transformation. In this report the chosen organisation is Age UK which is a charitable
organisation headquarter situated in United Kingdom. The organisation is formed on 25 February
2009 and launched on 1 April 2009 which is established to support to health and wellbeing of
older people of UK. As the pandemic of covid-19 impacts on every business and their
performance so digitisation plays important role in attaining all objectives and run business
smoothly. In this report all aims, missions and objectives of Age UK in discussed. Apart from
that challenges, barriers and recommendation for respective organisation is being covered in this
project report.
Main body
Research results
Structure and culture of Age UK organisation: Age UK is completely a local as well as
independent charity organisation that provides its services, advices, information and resources to
the people who aged 50 and over it in local cities. It is linked with national Age UK charitable
organisation and other local Age UK which is completely owned by local cities and government
of trustees across local areas. It supports the health and wellbeing of older people in order to
engaged them regardless of their ethical and cultural background, sexual orientation, gender,
nationality and religion as well (Age, U.K., 2018). These charities are operated by their local
offices and employed staff members deliver services across all community members. The culture
of organisation is to connect with all aged people in order to reduce loneliness of all communities
and provide support them to live their life in more-better manner.
Company mission/ aims: The main mission of respective organisation is to improve the lives
of older peoples of United Kingdom through delivering various product and services and
different employment, support, wellbeing as well as independence services. It provides clear and
confidential information and advice to empower old people and promoting independence and
wellbeing to their lives.

Figure 1Mission, vision and values. (2021)
Competitors: As the age UK is non profit organisation which offers companionship, advice,
information and support elder community in United Kingdom, although the organisation has to
face competition from many competitors such as Alzheimer’s Society, Contact, RNIB and The
Stroke Association. All these are charitable organisation which support old aged people in UK.
Product, services and organisation strategy: There are various products and services are
designed by the Age UK charity in order to improve the lives of elder people (Age, U.K., 2018).
It offers different types of insurances, independent living services, financial as well as lottery and
raffle services. There are various strategies are formulated by the respective organisation through
clearly defined all missions and vision. Strategies are developed for three years with detailing
objectives and priority to provide better quality products and services to elder people
communities. Five strategic aims to build strategies are enabling independence, improve social
connection, positive contribution, health and wellbeing as well as resilence and control.
Figure 2 Strategic plan of Age UK, (2021)

Digital or social media platforms among older adults:
Digital mediums as well as social media platforms enables the individual to being n
connection with another person world widely. There are different social media channels such as
Facebook, You tube, Pinterest, Linkdin, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and WhatsApp. These
social media channels are preference according to different age group. Among all these social
media platforms Facebook and You tube are top mediums that are used by the older adults and
the rest are low popularity as compared to both platforms (Ashwell, 2017). Adults used these
channels to share their ideas, thoughts and information to others in order to avoid their
loneliness.
Barriers that are faced by clients to access digital services:
Digital services and internet resources bring various facilities of connecting, learning as
well as working with others. In order to access all digital services, user have to face difficulties
and there are number of barriers that affect the use of technologies. These barriers are discussed
below:
Areas of skills: Proper knowledge, skills and competencies are required to access digital
services in effective and efficient manner. Old people do not have these skills more that limits
them to use digital platforms in order to connect with other ones. Digital skills as well as
understanding is required.
Access: Accessibility is the biggest barrier to use digital services efficiently. The ability
to access and understand the information in proper manner is important in order to utilise digital
as well as social media platforms. Images, videos, graphics and PDFs are shared through digital
platforms in order to enhance understandability by these contents prevent some people to access
information (Gong and Ribiere, 2021). Lake of accessibility of digital devices and internet
connection or internet signals create barriers such as lack of funds.
Motivation: Motivation is the factor that affect proper accessibility of digital services. It
is underlined in different research that number of people are affected by the motivation. Most
elder people are not motivated to use any social and digital media channels to connect others and
use digital services as well. Proper understandability of benefits of online services as well as
overcome the fear and mistrust is required.

Discussion
There are various challenges are faced by the Age UK such as proper understanding of different
digital platforms as well as social media channels in order to reach different target audiences
such as Email, Facebook, You Tube, Twitter and Zoom application. Identification that which
local digital services like visiting service, information and advice, wellbeing services, computer
drop-in sessions as well as other opportunities may be suitable in order to transforming digital
delivery, promoting and encouraging people engagement of digital services through overcoming
various barriers such as skills, access and motivations. As in the pandemic of covid-19, there are
various challenges are faced by the age of UK regarding awareness of different digital medium
such as Facebook, Instagram and You-tube. Lake of digital skills as well as understanding as
well as networks issues impact on digital deliveries. In order to eradicate all these challenges
different training or proper demonstration regarding use of digital mediums are provided in
simple or non-technical language. Before these services are provided through face-to-face
medium but in covid-19 pandemic these services are provided by digital platforms, wellbeing
calls and telephones as well (Misuraca, Pasi and Viscusi, 2018). All these digital services are
suitable for the younger older adults age of 55 to 75 who have enough skills and competencies to
access digital devices in effective manner. It is analysed that to overcome all these challenges
proper training should be provided that enable them to use all digital and social media channels
such as WhatsApp, Facebook and webinars. These training programmes facilitates elder people
to get information and advice about different topics, protect them for loneliness and isolation as
well as enables them to overcome all barriers by enhancing knowledge.
Conclusion
From the above report, it is analysed that Age UK is the charitable organisation that support the
health as well as wellbeing od people who are living in the city. In the covid-19 pandemic these
old generation has become socially isolated that effects their health and well- being. In this
situation the respective charity thinks about them and facing various challenges and barriers in
order to providing their services as well as engaged older people. In my point of view there are
various benefits to the people to being aware with digital technological aspects such as different
ideas, information and data is gathered according to requirement. As there are various benefits of
using digital mediums in the pandemic of covid-19, it facilitates people to being in connection
with their friends and it is easy to use and access. It saves time of age UK apart from that it

enhances feeling of isolation among age UK. According to my views the Age UK provide
different technical as well as interpersonal skills through training that enables the old people to
keep in touch with other people as well. The use of WhatsApp, Facebook and other social media
Channel in the pandemic of covid-19 to stay connective with other people (Peters and Wilson,
2017). I think that the respective organisation enhances the area of skills and competencies to
access different digital services as well as motivate to use internet which is right thing for old
people.
Recommendation
From the above report, it is recommended that UK choosing limited number of services for the
transformation through digital delivery. All these local services transmitting through face-to-face
connection with people or by the telephones by in the pandemic of covid-19 in is not possible to
provide all service personally so the respective organisation use digital service delivery option
for some services (Rodgers and Williams, 2019). These services are information and advice,
wellbeing services, visiting services, day care services and other opportunities are provided to
the old age people through the e-mails, wellbeing telephone calls and other digital platforms.
Apart from that other services like computer drop-in session and social gathering, chums need
face to face connection or do not delivered through any digital medium as well. It is not possible
to transform whole service through digital delivery. In the pandemic of covid-19 it is not possible
to connect with people directly and provide them services so, digital transformation in the
effective way to deliver all services through digital mediums in order to enhance life style of
people of UK. So, it is recommended to the Age UK to transform the services to old age people
which as necessary for them and which would be transform in proper manner to digital delivery
and satisfy all needs and demands of these people properly (Shehata, Salhin and El-Helaly,
2017). Digital platform plays important role in the pandemic of covid-19 and facilitates every
one to keep in touch with others as well as take service through digital mediums.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Age, U.K., 2018. Creative and cultural activities and well-being in later life. Age UK, London.
Age, U.K., 2018. New analysis shows number of older people with unmet care needs soars to
record high. London: Age UK.
Ashwell, M. L., 2017. The digital transformation of intelligence analysis. Journal of Financial
Crime.
Gong, C. and Ribiere, V., 2021. Developing a unified definition of digital
transformation. Technovation. 102. p.102217.
Misuraca, G., Pasi, G. and Viscusi, G., 2018, April. Social Innovation and Resilience: exploring
the dynamics and impacts on the digital transformation of governance & society. In Proceedings
of the 11th international conference on theory and practice of electronic governance (pp. 91-
100).
Peters, I. and Wilson, K., 2017. The business case for employers supporting carers: reflecting on
a UK model. International Journal of Care and Caring. 1(3). pp.415-420.
Rodgers, P. and Williams, C. C., 2019. Entrepreneurial practices in an age of super-diversity: A
study of Ukrainian entrepreneurs in the UK. In Informal Ethnic Entrepreneurship (pp. 29-44).
Springer, Cham.
Shehata, N., Salhin, A. and El-Helaly, M., 2017. Board diversity and firm performance: evidence
from the UK SMEs. Applied Economics. 49(48). pp.4817-4832.
Online:
Strategic plan of Age UK.2021[Online] Available
through:https://www.ageuk.org.uk/leeds/about-us/strategic-plan-2018-2021/>
Mission, vision and values.2021 [Online] Available through :<
https://www.ageuk.org.uk/devon/about-us/mission-vision-and-values/>