There is a quote that has been going around for a while now that states “there is no digital strategy just strategy in a digital world”. This is something that I completely agree with and in a perfect world, “digital” is fully integrated and is part of the wider business decision making.
More modern organisations and digital disruptors are far more advanced in their thinking but if we look at the more established enterprise companies it reveals a much larger challenge that has to be addressed during a transformation. An interesting report I read from Econsultancy proposes a digital maturity model that has five stages of evolution:
- Dispersed
- Centre of excellence
- Hub and spoke
- Multiple hubs and spoke
- Fully integrated
Econsultancy claims that most of the companies they reviewed are somewhere between stages 2 or 3. Most companies I have seen actually sit between 1 or 2 and that in itself is a challenge. These organisations are looking to make their first real leap and are struggling to make a decision on what the first step is. There are so many articles, blogs, reports, etc that say that Digital should be in IT, or in the business or create a separate group.
I think we can boil down that first decision into two ways to be successful.
- Split it out like service delivery in IT and demand management in the business like Sales/Marketing. You would then need to ensure you spend a considered amount of time within the process part of your roadmap to ensure that you drive very close collaboration, governance, etc.
- Create a CDO (Chief Digital Officer) and have both IT and the business reporting into them. This can be a bit more of a politically-charged decision and would need you to spend more time on the people part of your roadmap but you may get faster execution with this option.
The first decision will impact how far and how quickly you can move through Econsultancy’s digital maturity. What needs to be avoided is setting up a digital organisation that cannot evolve and will require wholesale changes before you can progress even further. The digital landscape is not going to stop progressing and your audience is always connected. These digital citizens are placing more and more demands on brands and setting up your digital organisations to meet these demands is essential to either gain a competitive edge or in a more drastic situation, to survive.
We can help you navigate your transformation. We have extensive experience assisting companies with their gap analysis and understand where they are now and where they need to be. Whether it a complete transformation or the development of new technology, we will work with you on a tailor-made programme. Please get in touch for a no commitment initial meeting and we can discuss your challenges and how we can potentially help.
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