10 digital strategy tips

1. Know why you’re going digital

Some­times the need for dig­i­tal strat­e­gy is clear. But even when it seems obvi­ous, it is worth spend­ing time to under­stand what the dri­vers are for any dig­i­tal project.

“It’s cru­cial to have a clear pur­pose or objec­tive before embark­ing on any dig­i­tal ini­tia­tive,” says Stephen Dann, a growth coach at GrowthAc­cel­er­a­tor, part of the government’s Busi­ness Growth Ser­vice.

“Many busi­ness­es don’t real­ly know why they are set­ting up a Face­book page or devel­op­ing an app – they just feel they should have one. Only by defin­ing a clear set of require­ments can you decide on the best approach to reach those goals.”

2. Put customers first

Again, this may seem obvi­ous. But the experts warn that the need to put cus­tomers first is all too often over­looked – and a key rea­son some dig­i­tal projects fail.

“Place the cus­tomer at the cen­tre of your dig­i­tal strat­e­gy. Sim­ply digi­tis­ing con­tent and blast­ing it out to social net­works and apps is a sure-fire way to waste your invest­ment,” cau­tions Lau­rence Buchanan, an advi­so­ry part­ner and dig­i­tal leader at EY, the pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices firm.

“Build­ing cus­tomer atten­tion, let alone engage­ment, is dif­fi­cult. It’s essen­tial to main­tain a razor-sharp focus on cus­tomer needs and the jour­neys they go through.”

3. Be ruthless about customer experience

Dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy is incred­i­bly flex­i­ble, but some­times that very flex­i­bil­i­ty is its down­fall as firms try to do too much.

The best dig­i­tal com­pa­nies are strip­ping away com­plex­i­ty and stress­ing sim­ple effi­cien­cy. This means empha­sis­ing func­tion rather than form. Accord­ing to Jiten Kach­hela, of con­sult­ing firm North High­land, suc­cess­ful apps and web­sites often now have just “one action per screen” and lit­tle in the way of options or embell­ish­ment.

“It is about being ruth­less­ly user-cen­tric in design; no one else gets a look in except the design­er and the user,” says Mark Rask­i­no, a vice pres­i­dent and fel­low at research firm Gart­ner.

4. Use data well

Com­pa­nies have built up vast trea­sure troves of data, about cus­tomers, sup­pli­ers and trends, but data is only valu­able if it con­verts into busi­ness deci­sions.

“You have to be able to under­stand cus­tomer data and be able to act on it,” says Rob Met­tler at PA Con­sult­ing Group. But this means more than smart ana­lyt­ics.

“It is easy to buy a lot of tech­nol­o­gy or get ana­lysts in and dis­cov­er amaz­ing things in the data, but you need to know where you are head­ing with it,” says Jason Lark, man­ag­ing direc­tor of Celer­i­ty Infor­ma­tion Ser­vices. This means know­ing the ques­tions the busi­ness wants to answer and mea­sur­ing results.

5. Make sure you measure

Data gives busi­ness­es insights into their oper­a­tions as nev­er before. But man­agers still need to test whether dig­i­tal ini­tia­tives have per­formed as expect­ed. What­ev­er your goals – audi­ence build­ing, aware­ness, clicks, engage­ment or pur­chas­es – ask your­self do you know how to mea­sure these things?

“It’s vital to mea­sure your strategy’s per­for­mance and analyse its impact, con­stant­ly fig­ur­ing out what the data is telling you and then exper­i­ment­ing to improve per­for­mance,” says Stephen Dann at GrowthAc­cel­er­a­tor.

“Don’t do any­thing, unless you can mea­sure it,” says Celer­i­ty Infor­ma­tion Ser­vices’ Jason Lark. “You need to under­stand the val­ue of what you are doing.”

6. Make sure the board is on board

Not all com­pa­nies have embraced dig­i­tal. So it is up to the dig­i­tal advo­cates in a busi­ness, what­ev­er their back­ground, to con­vince a scep­ti­cal board to invest. Per­haps you should even con­sid­er recruit­ing dig­i­tal exec­u­tives who will con­tribute effec­tive­ly to the company’s lead­er­ship.

“You have to have a hard look at your organ­i­sa­tion­al cul­ture. A cul­ture dri­ven by change is very dif­fer­ent to a hier­ar­chi­cal man­age­ment style,” says Krish­nan Chat­ter­jee, glob­al head of the dig­i­tal busi­ness task­force at tech­nol­o­gy con­sul­tants HCL.

“If your organ­i­sa­tion is going to kill change, you are bet­ter off doing dig­i­tal as a new ven­ture.”

7. Think about people and skills

When it comes to the unique assets that help busi­ness­es thrive, there’s arguably noth­ing more impor­tant than the right human cap­i­tal. Yet for so many com­pa­nies, find­ing the right tal­ent, specif­i­cal­ly dig­i­tal tal­ent, is a per­pet­u­al chal­lenge.

No amount of dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy will help a firm, with­out the peo­ple to make it work.

“Find, hire and keep the right peo­ple,” says Lau­rence Buchanan at EY. “Dig­i­tal has crept into almost every aspect of life with aston­ish­ing speed, but knowl­edge and skills are yet to catch up.” Firms that fail to nur­ture their dig­i­tal tal­ent will be at a real dis­ad­van­tage to those that do.

8. Be ready for change

The dig­i­tal econ­o­my has meant change has always been with us. But emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies, such as the inter­net of things and wear­ables, will mean still more change.

“Don’t think in end-states. You have to be com­fort­able mak­ing progress through con­tin­u­ous change,” says HCL’s Krish­nan Chat­ter­jee.

“Dig­i­tal is impor­tant to all com­pa­nies, par­tic­u­lar­ly those that trade around the world. We’ve always moved with the times,” says Alan Hugh­es, man­ag­ing direc­tor of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, the UK’s old­est man­u­fac­tur­ing busi­ness. Mov­ing with the times includes using a 4G data con­nec­tion from mobile provider EE to stream the sound of bells to clients dur­ing meet­ings.

9. Revisit your founding principles

The best busi­ness­es are those that are true to their found­ing prin­ci­ples, accord­ing to Gartner’s Mark Rask­i­no. Ford, for exam­ple, faces a world of elec­tric vehi­cles and dri­v­e­less cars, but chief exec­u­tive Mark Fields looks back to Hen­ry Ford’s ideas for guid­ance.

“Going dig­i­tal will test the foun­da­tions of what you are as a com­pa­ny,” says Mr Rask­i­no. “Go back to the founder of your cor­po­ra­tion and ask what would they have done?”

More times than not, the answer will be stay true to cus­tomer ser­vice through cre­ativ­i­ty, inno­va­tion and thought lead­er­ship, ensur­ing the busi­ness is fit for the future.

10. Make digital mainstream

Dig­i­tal is now part of every busi­ness and hav­ing a sep­a­rate dig­i­tal depart­ment, or even a dig­i­tal direc­tor, can slow growth. Some­times a sep­a­rate dig­i­tal depart­ment or even sub­sidiary may be the best way to go, but plan to bring this back in-house lat­er.

“Our advice for busi­ness is you can cre­ate dig­i­tal teams to accel­er­ate growth, but at some point they need to merge back into the busi­ness – and those dig­i­tal titles will dis­ap­pear,” says Jiten Kach­hela of North High­land.

Your organ­i­sa­tion needs to be imbued with dig­i­tal, your staff need to be dig­i­tal­ly skilled and enthu­si­as­tic about it, and they need to pass on both the enthu­si­asm and the skills.