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Digital Strategy 2020 vision, using Digital to do Service Delivery Better

Digital Strategy 2020 vision

Digital Strategy is a business answer to a digital question. “How should our business evolve to survive and thrive in an increasingly digital world?

The Digital Strategy is not a separate strategy, but instead a lens on business strategy. The Business Strategy should be reviewed in light of Digital Strategy considerations, and these considerations used to leverage business operations today, and into the future.

It is important not to confuse the Digital Strategy with the IT/IS Strategy. The Digital Strategy lays out how a Business can meet today’s and tomorrow’s customer expectations for information and product delivery, but the IT/IS Strategy defines the specific key technological, staffing and process implementations in order to support the Digital Strategy vision.

Digital customers expect control over what and how they buy, as well as what value they receive for their money. They are empowered by technology, and have the ability to affect price, critique and buy anywhere. This relationship of customer control, technology and consumerism is called the “Nexus of Forces”.

The traditional view of a customer as a simple consumer is no longer valid – it is important to recognise that in the digital age, interoperability becomes the key to offering exceptional customer value. As such, customers are evolving to include downstream service providers, appliances, intelligent personal devices and ‘things’.

It is possible to draw parallels between our current position and our future if there is no change to our strategic objectives in the near term. Our current model relies on a number of competitive pillars that have proved impotent when faced with competitors who use digital to do business better:

1. Brick-and-Mortar divisions with a flexible digital competitor

a. Blockbuster had a unrivaled retail presence that did not address a flexible, rapidly changing digital competitor (Netflix) and is no longer a viable business for the long term
b. HMV, Tower Records, and Virgin Records no longer exist due to market share erosion from digital competitors iTunes and Pandora

2. Household names with a digital competitor offering superior value

a. Weight Watchers are now a distant second in market penetration compared to brands such as Fitbit, Garmin and Apple
b. Flight Centre and Student Flights are no longer the first port of call to search for best value flights – Kayak.com, Expedia and Webjet are now the leading brands due to better digital models.

3. Monopolies protected by government or other forces

a. Taxi Services are being challenged by web incumbent Uber
b. Hotels are being challenged by crowd-provider AirBNB

Every industry faces these online challenges (known as digital disruptors). Deloitte’s Digital Disruption Map (2012) put us in the highest risk, biggest impact sector – the “short fuse – big bang”. Businesses in this sector have a low barrier to entry and allow competitors to deal large amounts of damage to the status quo. Should a serious challenger arise, it would take only a short term and relatively small investment for them to capture a significant share of our current customer base.

Digital Disruption and implementation of our Digital Customer Led Strategy

Like most agencies and organisations in the world, we too are facing difficult challenges. How could a highly traditional service and governance organisation remain relevant and provide a satisfying, rich customer experience? Staying traditional – but pushing the envelope towards digital disruption, and implementing the digital strategy presented a unique set of challenges which needed to be met:
 

1. What were the major obstacles with implementing a digital strategy in a slow-adopter environment?
2. Why were stakeholder engagement and outcomes-driven discussions necessary for implementing the digital strategy?
3. What are the main structural elements for a successful digital strategy implementation?

1. Implementing a digital strategy in a slow-adopter environment:

Change the language: objective-based to outcome-based. Every coach knows that plans are only good until kick-off. Have a plan, but emphasize what you learn. It’s not about sticking to the plan, it is about; 

  • it’s about what we will learn about the customer
  • it’s about what how we can evolve the product

People understand Action Plans:
Step by step action list is easier to understand than essays or abstract concepts

  • Get going and prove what you’re saying – until you do so, it’s all hot air
  • Do as little as possible to prove you’re right.. or wrong – data doesn’t lie

Navigate the Corporate Wheel of death: identify stakeholders on interest vs. power and always manage them accordingly;

  • Uninterested Stakeholders with Low Power – let them lie
  • Interested Stakeholders with Low Power – keep them informed
  • Uninterested Stakeholders with High Power – demonstrate the benefits
  • Interested Stakeholders with High Power – help them drive

2. Why are stakeholder engagement and outcomes-driven discussions necessary for implementing the digital strategy?

  • It’s a new thing: It’s hard for people to understand benefits if they don’t know how things will work
  • It’s new to you too!: It’s not about being right, it’s about doing the right thing for the customer. Being wrong and stopping it before it goes further is a great outcome too!

3. What are the main structural elements for a successful digital strategy implementation?

The Customer: If you don’t have a customer, you don’t have reasons to exist = the customer is all. To keep our customers happy, we need to know the customer.

  • Measure everything: Until you can prove it, it’s all hot air
  • Test everything: Until you know it’s better, it’s all the same
  • Build a solid foundation: Check that old assumptions are true before you build new experiences on top.

Ship it: If your customer isn’t using it, it’s worth nothing to you.

  • Small evolutions beat big revolutions: The sooner you can get something out there, the quicker you can collect data
  • Just enough to make the customer happy: No one remembers the perfect product that didn’t ship – everyone remembers the great product that did.
  • Leverage technologies and processes for speed: The slower you are, the bigger the gap you will have.

PARTNER

Qlik’s vision is a data-literate world, where everyone can use data and analytics to improve decision-making and solve their most challenging problems. A private company, Qlik offers real-time data integration and analytics solutions, powered by Qlik Cloud, to close the gaps between data, insights and action. By transforming data into Active Intelligence, businesses can drive better decisions, improve revenue and profitability, and optimize customer relationships. Qlik serves more than 38,000 active customers in over 100 countries.

PARTNER

CTC Global Singapore, a premier end-to-end IT solutions provider, is a fully owned subsidiary of ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation (CTC) and ITOCHU Corporation.

Since 1972, CTC has established itself as one of the country’s top IT solutions providers. With 50 years of experience, headed by an experienced management team and staffed by over 200 qualified IT professionals, we support organizations with integrated IT solutions expertise in Autonomous IT, Cyber Security, Digital Transformation, Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure, Workplace Modernization and Professional Services.

Well-known for our strengths in system integration and consultation, CTC Global proves to be the preferred IT outsourcing destination for organizations all over Singapore today.

PARTNER

Planview has one mission: to build the future of connected work. Our solutions enable organizations to connect the business from ideas to impact, empowering companies to accelerate the achievement of what matters most. Planview’s full spectrum of Portfolio Management and Work Management solutions creates an organizational focus on the strategic outcomes that matter and empowers teams to deliver their best work, no matter how they work. The comprehensive Planview platform and enterprise success model enables customers to deliver innovative, competitive products, services, and customer experiences. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, with locations around the world, Planview has more than 1,300 employees supporting 4,500 customers and 2.6 million users worldwide. For more information, visit www.planview.com.

SUPPORTING ORGANISATION

SIRIM is a premier industrial research and technology organisation in Malaysia, wholly-owned by the Minister​ of Finance Incorporated. With over forty years of experience and expertise, SIRIM is mandated as the machinery for research and technology development, and the national champion of quality. SIRIM has always played a major role in the development of the country’s private sector. By tapping into our expertise and knowledge base, we focus on developing new technologies and improvements in the manufacturing, technology and services sectors. We nurture Small Medium Enterprises (SME) growth with solutions for technology penetration and upgrading, making it an ideal technology partner for SMEs.

PARTNER

HashiCorp provides infrastructure automation software for multi-cloud environments, enabling enterprises to unlock a common cloud operating model to provision, secure, connect, and run any application on any infrastructure. HashiCorp tools allow organizations to deliver applications faster by helping enterprises transition from manual processes and ITIL practices to self-service automation and DevOps practices. 

PARTNER

IBM is a leading global hybrid cloud and AI, and business services provider. We help clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. Nearly 3,000 government and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM’s hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently and securely. IBM’s breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and business services deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM’s legendary commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity and service.

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