Enterprise Digital Transformation - A Practical Approach!

More and more enterprises are investing into a full-blown digital strategy that caters to the evolving needs of their users. There is an enhanced eagerness to adopt all things digital, including; digital marketing, paperless customer interactions, content push, brand promotion, account management, product servicing, the list goes on! It is imperative that an enterprise digital transformation be looked at holistically, with a road-map to tactically implement the strategy. Here are the 5 parameters that I found useful for such design.

• Digital P&L Ownership – often a line item in marketing or operations, digital enterprises need dedicated resource(s) to ensure proper planning, evangelism and management of budgets for optimum allocation based on data-driven approach. Typically, after an initial fanfare, digital programs tend to get buried under the more direct customer measurement metrics – and organizations wonder, “Why are the customers not happy?” In the new paradigm –

“Digital evangelist is a must for delivering the best customer experience”

• Consistent Brand Voice and Tone – a holistic strategy is needed, when kicking off an enterprise initiative across all customer touch points (sales, marketing, social, content, community, customer service, shopping cart, etc.). Investments can be phased, but not customer experience. Define how customers are to interact with the brand and engage with customer management platforms, keeping in mind that –

“Customers expect seamless and consistent brand engagement”

• Operational Capabilities – here is also a need to assess in-house competencies and explore outside technologies to complement these. The digital owner needs to ensure there is persistent org support to facilitate project prioritization. Organizations need to understand that –

“A great customer experience delivers long-term value, while a bad one shows up on churn numbers.”

• Analytics and Data Management – makes sense to plan out a transition to consolidated data storage and processing, given the multiple online and offline data that will be flowing through. Test & learn & edit should be part of the ongoing strategy to deliver a consistent customer engagement and lead-gen program. And, if your organization utilizes eCommerce, then the funnel conversions adds a whole new dimension of complexity and urgency for digital excellence. The abundance of data needs to be harnessed and utilized to deliver excellence.  

“Most of the ROI is realized at this stage of digital transformation life-cycle.” 

• Personnel and Team Needs – hire or contract, but don’t underestimate the need for sustained management, analysis and improvements. This is not a “project delivered” category, but a “persistent nurturing” category of projects – digital enables consistent monitoring and course-correction, which cannot be achieved through one-off matrix resource. Have a team dedicated to digital management and knowledge-sharing, which has the potential for an organization-wide impact – don’t cut corners there. 

“Digital investments can help build smart and intelligent organizations” 

Remember that once the project has been undertaken, there is no turning back and/or haggling on key deliverables. The imperative to transform is now and a solid foundation is absolutely a must – this is the only way forward for catering to the next generation of digital savvy consumers, irrespective of the industry.