Chart of the Day: What challenges do a successful digital transformation programme need to overcome?
Our latest Managing Digital Marketing Research report showed that many businesses are actively pursuing Digital Transformation with over one-quarter (30%) of businesses already having a transformation programme in place. 33% are planning to start a digital transformation programme within the next 12 months.
By its very nature, successful digital transformation requires significant changes to diverse areas including marketing, technology, and skills. This new July article from the McKinsey Quarterly highlights a range of challenges according to a survey of senior respondents in large businesses. It's useful since it highlights the main risks that need to be managed in a transformation project:
The biggest challenge featured as the headline and recommendations of the McKinsey article is not digital-specific, but relevant to any large change management project, i.e. Cultural and Behavioural changes.
The other challenges…
The must-know essentials to increasing your footfall through destination marketing online
If you work in the destination sector, you’ll ultimately be judged on ticket sales. We notice time and time again that the leisure and tourism attractions that smash their ticket-sales targets are the ones that fully understand (and influence) the modern consumer’s reliance on the internet when booking holidays or days out.
Today’s consumer will turn to the internet to research where to go, what attractions to visit whilst there, where to avoid, and what events coincide with their stay.
It’s your job as a destination marketer to get your attraction noticed during this research stage. This article will teach you how and will include details on how and why you need to...
Create buyer personas
Work from a content calendar
Influence each stage of the buyer’s journey
Employ the right tactics
Ensure your website is traffic-friendly
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Facebook digital transformation journey is 'only 1% finished'
I recently had the opportunity to visit Facebook’s Dublin HQ for a deep-dive immersion session. The objective was to up-skill everyone in the latest thinking and best practice in digital and mobile marketing from a Facebook/ Instagram perspective and over two days we covered a range of topics, from the rise of mobile video to the evolution of communication.
All of the presentations provided some really interesting and valuable insights, however it was the opening presentation that covered Facebook’s culture of innovation that really struck a chord.
At first I assumed this would comprise mainly of corporate propaganda, a list of reasons why Facebook is the #1 channel for marketers and ultimately an unassailable force for social good. Whilst there were inevitably elements of this there were also some interesting insights into a company that is a living and breathing example of digital transformation at…
Use our infographic as a visual checklist for planning digital transformation across your entire organisation
Digital transformation is an incredibly complex undertaking, particularly in larger organisations. But given modern consumers' propensity to demand more from brands, it is not optional. Businesses have to become more adaptive and quicker to utilise the latest technology to improve the experience of their customers. If they don't then they'll rapidly find themselves disrupted by more agile competitors since there are so many sophisticated multichannel marketing techniques required today.
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Too often companies recognise these trends but fail to transform successfully. They start a digital transformation process because they feel like they should, but do not integrate it across departments. Worse, they often focus on attempting to use new digital tactics whilst failing to actually develop a cohesive digital strategy.
This leaves a mishmash…
How to create a digital knowledge centre which facilitates your digital transformation and helps you delight your customers.
The way brands are being built is being re-shaped. This is in large part due to consumers’ digital habits; by-passing brands completely and opting for the likes of Amazon, Google or Tripadvisor to satisfy their needs and requirements as the tools of discovery for users.
So what can brands do when their market may be ripe for disruption? Start with why you exist and how you can migrate your offering, through digital transformation, in becoming a brand of authority and trust.
Authority and trust are two key assets brands can build a distinct unique selling point.
For brands that operate in a competitive marketplace, how the brand is perceived to a wider audience can be used as an advantage, in becoming a knowledge centre for your industry sector.
Brands as Knowledge Centres
So what is a knowledge centre?
It’s…
How workplaces at high-tech social media giants meld work and leisure
According to Edel Mahony's research, from All Systems Commercial Fitouts, there is a new phenomenon called 'Bleisure', referring to the blend of work and personal life, or leisure time and he showcases in his infographic how the big tech giants (Facebook, Google and Twitter) are accommodating this for their workforce through innovative work and social spaces.
Google provide free food for their staff (is this for the staff to work longer hours or to keep them sweet?) and nap pods (for late nights or does a quick nap increase productivity?).
Facebook's 'Bleisure' code is driven to 'change people's thinking' through their work environment by offering cupcake stores, barbeque joints and workable walkways for fast meetings.
Jeremy Myerson, Co-Editor of Time and Motion Redesigning Working Life, sees this new future as the 'new contemporary workforce where the gates never close'.
This may not be…
Marketing agencies need to learn from tech leaders
Having spent ten years spearheading one of the UK’s leading dot com companies to digital success, Dave Heath is now shaking up the agency landscape by taking dot com thinking into agency processes.
Dave believes all companies should behave like a dot com; and an agency’s role is to help clients take a dot com approach to gain competitive advantage, especially where technology is core to achieving business goals – arguably in 2016 this is almost every company.
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Some of the largest dot com companies are undoubtedly leading the field in digital innovation, delivering huge profits as a result.
Dot coms tend to act differently to multi-channel businesses that have added…
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August 19, 2016
How to go about transforming your business in a competitive market
We live in a time of digital Darwinism, an era when technology and its impact on business and society are constant with varying, but inevitable, degrees of both evolution and revolution. The effect of digital Darwinism is real and it’s enlivened though changes in people (your customers, employees and partners) and how markets are advancing as a result. To thrive in these times, many companies are investing in digital transformation to drive business evolution and modernization. In fact, all the big research firms and consultancies from Deloitte to Accenture to CapGemini and also my team at Altimeter Group are dedicating significant resources to study how companies are changing because of digital.
For all of its exposure (or over exposure), digital transformation is relatively young and still developing with much still to understand. For example, in my previous research, I found that…
Luke Bilton, Director of Digital at UBM, interviews Claire Hazle of Marie Curie
Claire Hazle, Head of Digital for Marie Curie, is taking the charity through a period of transformation… just don’t call it ‘digital’.
“Digital transformation is business transformation. A business strategy with digital at the heart of it.”
Claire Hazle, Head of Digital at Marie Curie
Speaking at a Digital Transformation conference earlier this month, Claire explained the transformation journey that the team have been through.
In 2012, Marie Curie commissioned a review of their digital capabilities and found they were 3 to 5 years behind charities of a similar size, with talent dispersed across the group with no strategic digital direction to bind them.
The independent report highlighted the charity would face significant limitations to future income if they did not improve the digital channels to make it easy to recruit and…
The 12 key areas you need to get right for a successful digital transformation project.
Transforming digitally is a complex process for companies to accomplish. They must look at how the digital age is impacting their business process and will have to make difficult decisions. The longer a company has been in operation the harder it can be to make the changes required. Newer companies can find the process of digital transformation a less daunting task as they have been created in a digital environment. They can be more attuned to the various factors that are affecting the modern business landscape. Many companies will be somewhere in the middle between these two outlying examples and have various parts of their business already digital but other parts that need more work. If you’re currently considering embarking on the digital transformation process, or if the process is already underway in your company, consider these 12…
