List the activities, thought process, considerations, and potential constraints
How does one transform an enterprise into a digital one, as per the blueprint for digital success?
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Henry
1. Current and future assessment: This assessment has external and internal components. The external or marketplace analysis gathers holistic insights on how customers behave, examining how those behaviors impact their attitudes and decisions. The internal review sets priorities and looks at how an organization is set up—employee skills, operational capabilities and infrastructure—to implement digital strategy.
2. Strategic recommendations and phased road map: Based on insights from the assessment phase, recommendations are developed under key themes, such as “broadening the partner ecosystem” and “driving commerce activities.” For each theme, specific recommendations are developed for products and services, platform features and tools, brand experiences distributed across the Web, partnerships and media. These initiatives can then be prioritized based on business economics, customer needs, the needs of internal constituencies and operational readiness.
3. Experimental agenda for digital alternatives: Even as the core initiatives are built out, companies should set aside a budget specifically for looking at emerging technologies. This is where brands can experiment and learn from trends such as viral ideas in social media or prototypes for new interaction designs, all without creating distractions from the core digital business. The key is having the discipline to set aside funds, develop a learning agenda to focus on business or marketing questions and set up a robust test plan with the right metrics and measurements on the back end.
A digital blueprint provides companies with the vision to develop better customer experiences and effectively implement fully built-out digital solutions. It lives at the intersection between the company’s business strategy, marketing strategy and technology road map. The digital blueprint integrates elements such as major campaign themes and brand guidelines with planned upgrades to back-end systems. Plus, it prepares other stakeholders with information they need to evolve their plans. The key is to uncover, discuss and resolve all issues that can affect the digital strategy, and ensure alignment within the organization—even if the outcome is certain digital initiatives aren’t feasible in the short-term.
Implementing the digital blueprint
Going from strategy to implementation is a major challenge and requires a collaborative, fast-moving engagement model. First, the development process needs broad representation from key internal constituencies and buy-in from senior executives. Second, teams working on the digital strategy need a mix of participants who can develop pragmatic strategies and tactics. Third, there needs to be a balance between rigor and speed. If too much time is spent in the planning phase, organizations lose momentum and it becomes harder to drive to implementation.