How to pivot to ecommerce

If it wasn’t clear at the start of 2020, the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic has brought into sharp focus how crit­i­cal it is for busi­ness­es of all sizes to ensure they are well on their dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion jour­ney. Those that start­ed long before the cri­sis had the frame in which to move quick­ly and with great agili­ty to accom­mo­date the rise in remote work­ing and ecom­merce.

“Many mul­ti­chan­nel busi­ness­es that were already invest­ing in ecom­merce as a growth chan­nel have sud­den­ly found dig­i­tal form­ing the major­i­ty, rather than the minor­i­ty, of their sales and ecom­merce turn­ing into a far more sig­nif­i­cant prof­it dri­ver,” says Andrew Hood, founder and chief exec­u­tive of data ana­lyt­ics con­sul­tan­cy Lynch­pin.

How to start a digital transformation

Multi­na­tion­al cam­era giant Canon is an exem­plar of an organ­i­sa­tion that has shift­ed its gaze to ecom­merce in the last five months, with aplomb. The com­pa­ny, estab­lished in 1937 in Japan, approached Lynch­pin four years ago, when its ecom­merce offer­ing bare­ly exist­ed, to help cre­ate a roadmap for dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion and data-dri­ven deci­sion-mak­ing. And when the pan­dem­ic hit, Canon moved through the gears.

“Like many con­sumer busi­ness­es, COVID-19 has dra­mat­i­cal­ly accel­er­at­ed Canon’s dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion,” says Hood. “Lynch­pin has sup­port­ed, thanks to our abil­i­ty to pro­vide fast, action­able insight across fac­tors rang­ing from chang­ing con­sumer behav­iour to pric­ing dynam­ics in the mar­ket.”

John Don­nel­lan, direc­tor of e‑commerce ITCG at Canon Europe, has been in the dri­ving seat of the dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion. He stress­es the impor­tance of part­ner­ing with an expert: “Lynch­pin helps us to unlock the mil­lions of dat­a­points we have and turn them into valu­able insight, which we use dai­ly to improve our traf­fic, cus­tomer jour­ney and sales per­for­mance.

“The pur­pose of the dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion is to man­age Canon’s vis­i­bil­i­ty in the dif­fer­ent dig­i­tal spaces – Google, Ama­zon, YouTube and spe­cial­ist sites – active­ly and to deliv­er an online expe­ri­ence that reflects the high expec­ta­tions, qual­i­ty and inno­va­tion of the brand.”

How did Canon solve this mighty chal­lenge and secure board-lev­el sup­port? “In a com­plex matrix, inter­na­tion­al and mul­ti­chan­nel com­pa­ny, you only gain trac­tion if you have a com­pelling sto­ry that relies on hard data,” says Don­nel­lan.

“By being able to demon­strate the size of the appetite from online cus­tomers, by show­ing the lev­el of inter­est for Canon prod­ucts and val­i­dat­ing the will­ing­ness of cus­tomers to buy direct­ly from Canon, we gained buy-in from inter­nal stake­hold­ers to increase Canon’s vis­i­bil­i­ty on its prod­uct, as well as increase con­ver­sion by sim­pli­fy­ing and improv­ing the expe­ri­ence.

The secrets to success

“The oth­er crit­i­cal rea­son for suc­cess is a relent­less focus on ambi­tious, but achiev­able, tar­gets. By imple­ment­ing effec­tive best prac­tices across all aspects of ecom­merce, includ­ing dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing, pro­mo­tions and the over­ar­ch­ing cus­tomer expe­ri­ence, we have been able to review, opti­mise and demon­strate suc­cess.”

There have been man­i­fold ben­e­fits for Canon, not least a much stronger resilience to events such as COVID-19. Undoubt­ed­ly the company’s invest­ment in dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion has been vin­di­cat­ed. “Being able to demon­strate that Canon’s direct sales could sup­port the busi­ness dur­ing chal­leng­ing times and active­ly con­tribute to improv­ing prof­itabil­i­ty has accel­er­at­ed the inter­nal adhe­sion to the impor­tance of ecom­merce,” says Don­nel­lan.

“The strate­gic process­es put in place have shown that this suc­cess was not acci­den­tal but engi­neered with the cus­tomer at the core.”

Offer­ing advice to oth­ers embark­ing on a sim­i­lar jour­ney, he adds: “Be ambi­tious yet hum­ble. Have a clear vision, be con­sis­tent, and build up your cred­it and influ­ence in the organ­i­sa­tion. Har­ness what you can con­trol before ask­ing for more. Final­ly, always rely on facts and leave emo­tion aside.”