September 22, 2015 How to Navigate Digital Transformation in 3 Key Steps Business Share this post: Having accompanied a number of senior executives in setting and driving the digital transformation agenda, it strikes me that many people continue to take it from the wrong point of view. Just like BIG DATA is anything and nothing, can be powerful or ineffective, can be big or small, digital transformation is, at times, belittled to nothing more than a new social media strategy or viewed as a behemoth mountain, too hard to scale. [See my article, Scaling the Digital Mountain, published on CMO.com] I suggest a three prong approach to navigate digital transformation. Setting your North Before even starting any digital transformation program, the key is to make sure that the company's vision and strategy are clear Click To Tweet and appropriately shared by the top team. Otherwise, dysfunction very quickly sets in, corrupted by the requisite transparency, cross-functional collaboration and real-time interaction that digital necessarily brings with it. Navigating your digital transformation agenda There are 3 key areas that need to be addressed: Product/Service: Is the product/service you are selling the right one? The value-added around your product/service needs to be carefully evaluated as part of the business model. Marketing/Communications: How can digital enhance the way you communicate to your customers and potential consumers? Internal operations: How can digital improve the internal flow of communications, sharing of knowledge, continuous learning, etc.? In short, this is about internal culture. Any digital transformation program that does not address all three of these components is bound to be less powerful. At the end of the day, they are necessarily intertwined. A new service around your product can be the way you sell it (via eCommerce) and support it (customer service), which will require changes in the way you communicate externally and operate internally. It is my observation that some chief executives are more focused on the first and second areas. However, the third component (internal operations) is absolutely fundamental to the success of the first two. It’s no good saying that you want to have a better customer service if the internal communication systems (and organizational bureaucracy) have not been adjusted to accommodate the customer expectations. To work effectively and efficiently, digital transformation requires work inside the company on organization, culture and communications Click To Tweet Your thoughts and reactions are welcome! NEWSletter Subscribe to Minter’s Bi-Weekly NEWSletter and receive a free copy of the exclusive and updated 8 Golden Rules of an eReputation Your Gift For Signing Up 8 Golden Rules of an eReputation SUBSCRIBE! You have Successfully Subscribed! business, customer service, digital mountain, digital transformation, Internal Communications, value added Minter Dial Minter Dial is an international professional speaker, author & consultant on Leadership, Branding and Digital Strategy. After a successful international career at L’Oréal, Minter Dial returned to his entrepreneurial roots and has spent the last ten years helping senior management teams and Boards to adapt to the new exigencies of the digitally enhanced marketplace. He has worked with world-class organisations to help activate their brand strategies, and figure out how best to integrate new technologies, digital tools, devices and platforms. Above all, Minter works to catalyse a change in mindset and dial up transformation. Minter received his BA in Trilingual Literature from Yale University (1987) and gained his MBA at INSEAD, Fontainebleau (1993). His newest book Heartificial Empathy, Putting Heart into Business and Artificial Intelligence, bowed in December 2018 and won the Book Excellence Award 2019 as well as being shortlisted for the Business Book Awards 2019. It's available in Audiobook, Kindle and Paperback. He is also co-author of Futureproof (Pearson, Sep 2017) and sole author of The Last Ring Home (Myndset Press, Nov 2016), a book and documentary film, both of which have won awards and critical acclaim. Minter has a new book on leadership, You Lead, How being yourself makes you a better leader, published by Kogan Page, that released January 2021. It's easy to inquire about booking Minter Dial here. View all posts by Minter Dial Previous post Next post
The Making Of A Digital Board of Directors October 21, 2015 at 4:34 am […] In the Financial Times recently, there was an article entitled, “Europe lacks non-execs with digital knowledge.” The article, written by Maxine Boersma, cites a PwC survey that says that 9/10 chief executives believe they “should champion the use of digital technologies to the get the most from investment.” In these ever-changing times, there is definitely a strategic role to be played by Board Directors. Constituting the right mix of board members is critical. The mix will, of course, need to vary according to the business and maturity of the company. However, pretty much every company today has to have a digital component. This is a particularly key issue for companies undergoing digital transformation. […]