How To Create A Digital
Strategic Architecture
For Your Company
By Doyle Buehler
Step 1
• Complete the 18 Point Digital Strategy
Planning Questionnaire
– Email [email protected] if required
Step 2
• Define your Value Statements
– Who are you?
– What does your customer want?
– What’s on offer?
– What are you about?
Who We Are
(example)
We are a company that exists to serve…
[example: the young at heart; embodying their perception of self
into our products. Purchasing our product is an experience as
satisfying as the product itself.]
We use….
[example: technology to enable our clients to impart an image of
themselves into a product - technology is only a tool, not our
product.]
We offer..
[example: an escape from reality, providing a short-term
entertainment experience with the memorabilia to remember and
relive it. We render our customer’s fantasies in a way that they can
touch, feel, and interact with.]
Our unique value proposition will fundamentally change…
[example: the toy and gaming industry, making personal products
for the individual, rather than the mass.]
Step 3
• Define your “domains”.
–
–
–
–
–
Review your strategy answers
What concepts or ideas come up regularly?
How do you interact with these concepts?
Do they have meaning?
How do you articulate these core concepts as an “idea
with audience value”?
– Select only 3 core concepts
• How do you “progress” along each of these core
concepts?
List Your 3 Domains
1. ________________________________
2. ________________________________
3. ________________________________
Domains (Example)
Entertain :
Interactive
Emersive
Addictive
Entertain
Personalize :
Custom
Personal
Aspiration
Provide
experiences
worth
remembering
Creating fun events for
individuals
Gratify :
Satisfy special request
Instant Gratification
Empower customer fantasy
Personalize
Gratify
Made to order
Step 4
• Describe each domain in detail
– What is it?
– Why is it important?
– How do you deliver it?
– How are you going to get there?
• How do you make progress and improve over
time?
– Detail the steps along the way in terms of your
value offering over time
Describing the Dimensions in detail Domain 1 “Entertain”
(example)
Entertainment is at the core of everything we do.
“An experience that entertains is an experience that is remembered”.
Our products provide for entertainment that is functional and explicit in the outcome of the
experience as a self-hero. Interactivity and immersion propagates involvement in the process,
further developing entertainment. This process provides an experience that is fundamentally
inspiring and addictive to necessitate re-gravitation towards the process.
Describing the Dimensions in detail “Entertain”
(example)
Entertain is about fun and involvement in the purchasing experience. This is Enteraction.
Changing process based on user and on
previous encounters.
Entertain
Addictive
Make the selection process a
game
X
Sony, Nintendo, EA sports
Immersive
Computer interactive process to
change product features and
see the changes
Interactive
X
Simplified
transaction with
walk-through
process
Mattel custom Barbie Dolls, Hallmark
Custom Cards
Domain 1: ______________
Detail: __________________
Concluding Point of Value
_____________________
Median Point of Value
__________________
Starting Point of Value
__________________
Describing the Dimensions in detail Domain: “Personalize”
(example)
Personalization of our products provides a path for individuals to realize self-conceptuality.
“I Am Famous”.
Through our ability to inherently customize one-off products, we provide a path for customers to
embody their personal image and values into their own product. Our customers aspire to the
perfect world of themselves.
Describing the Dimensions in detail “Personalize”
(example)
Personalization of our products provides a path for individuals to realize self-conceptuality.
Personalize
Link to brands, sports heros, pop culture
characters
Aspiration
X
Offer unlimited choices other than dropdown menu. Embody physical attributes
of individual in product
X
Offer fixed product
selection
Andgor & Toybuilders.com
Personal
Nokia
Custom
X
Subway, Hallmark Custom
Cards, Mattel custom
Barbie Dolls
Domain 2: ______________
Detail: __________________
Concluding Point of Value
_____________________
Median Point of Value
__________________
Starting Point of Value
__________________
Describing the Dimensions in detail Domain: “Gratify”
(example)
Gratification of oneself provides an inherent self-identity and need within our product offering.
“What I want is what I get”.
We satisfy our customers’ basic needs to define exactly what they want. Special requests will no longer result in varying
costs and quality, but rather define the norm as special in every product. Our products will define the link between the
product that the customer desires and the event in which the product is produced. Customers’ fantasy’s and desires
become real and physically tangible. Our products will exist to be capable of satisfying unknown needs, defined exclusively
through the creativity and imagination of the customer.
Describing the Dimensions in detail “Gratify”
(example)
Gratification of oneself provides an inherent self-identity and need within our product offering.
Gratify
Link product and event.
Empower Customer
Fantasy
X
Disneyland
Instant Gratification
Instant output of product or
transaction
X
Deliver a
customized product
Fantasyland Hotel
Satisfy Special
Request
Domain 3: ______________
Detail: __________________
Concluding Point of Value
_____________________
Median Point of Value
__________________
Starting Point of Value
__________________
Step 5
• Describe “HOW” you are able to interact with
all of your domains.
– How do they work together?
– What skills and competencies do you need?
Describing the Architecture (Dimension Interaction)
(example)
The interaction of the dimensions, personalize, entertain, and gratify, allows us to provide the means for a dramatic
product/service offering. Focusing on these dimensions will allow us to combine and converge several technologies in a
product desired by our consumers. It is a product that allows for self-realization, gratification, and enjoyment.
ENTERACTION
Step 6
• Describe the context that you operate in.
– What is the environment?
– Where do you operate?
– How do you operate?
Context (Example)
We play directly in the North American consumer market, successfully merging mass market toys and gaming with a
purchasing experience. Our products are aimed at children, youth, and young adults. Self-creativity and self-hero imaging
allow our customers to produce a product customized specifically to their needs.
Through the use of several emerging and enabling technologies, we allow for our customers to master the art of their
personal product development, from commencement to repeat conclusion.
Our products, technologies, and tactical strategies are licensed to allow us to interact with locally, with global impact in
world communities.
Step 7
• Define how you are unique
– What sets you apart from your competitors?
Why is it Unique (example)
Self-hero creation; fantasy enablement
Personalization of attributes; movement away from generic products
Customer controls levers on outcome (customer power); customer creativity
Consumer controlled outcome
Buying experience is as much a part of the purchase as the product delivered.
Step 8
• Define how you make money?
• How do you treat your customers?
How we make money (example)
We make money in multiple ways:
1.
2.
Direct sale of physical product to consumers.Repeat customers who purchase for both the product
and the self-manufacture experience.
Licensing of Personalization capabilities to existing retailers, service providers, and OEMs.
Advertising and product placement in our products and sales experience.
We develop repeat customers by serving a variety of personalized products aimed for consumers ranging
from children, young adults, and other demographics. Following initial on-site buy-in of the
customer to the concept of personalization, we access repeat business through multiple channels
but primarily focused through retail site locations and the internet. The consumer has the
opportunity to “trendisize” their latest creation, to reflect current events, fads, a change in their
physicality, and change in personal desires and controlled outcomes.
Step 9
• Defining your discontinuities
– What makes your solution work?
– Where do you “break” existing barriers
– How do you “disrupt” your market?
What makes it work (Discontinuities):
(example)
From Mass Market to Niche Market :
Mass market has taken on a new meaning with generic goods and services varying little across all markets
(e.g. McDonalds, Star Alliance). Individuals have effectively been assimilated into the larger world. Will they
continue to do so willingly? In the search for personal identity people are becoming more discriminating about
the products and services that they purchase. Changes in the availability, processing, and mining of consumer
information are making it possible to identify the differences within groups. This information may provide
roadmaps for niche products and services that meet the demand for specific needs. Mass customization and
made-to-order technologies are now capable of adjusting to slight nuances in customer created design.
Understanding the group-within-a-group enables not only new markets to be seen, but also makes it possible to
market directly to them.
From Centralized to Decentralized : (From make it and store it to make it on demand – Zero Inventory
Manufacture – ZIM)
Economies are demanding faster product lifecycles and substantially lowered costs associated with
holding an inventory (read JIT). Technologies in both consumer demand forecasting and production methods are
making it possible to produce products on demand. Consumers control the spending dollar and hence should be
able to control their product. The recipe is based on the simplification of raw material usage patterns. The
enabling technology allows for the direct conversion of thought to product, negating the industrial revolutionary
conception of mass manufacture production line products.
Step 10
• Why does your solution work, for your
customer? What are your customer insights?
– How does your customer see your solution as
valuable to them – whether it is apparent or not
– What is your customer telling you?
– What insights do you have for your customer
journey (‘What’s in it for me’)
What makes it work (Customer Insights)
(example)
Make me my own hero :
The world is full of Heroes and Idols. Children and adults alike all perceive themselves as important - nobody is
happy being themselves. The self-perception of being famous is currently transferred and embodied into those that are,
resulting in idolization. Consumers are buying products based on the image that goes with it (Nike, Air Jordan, WWF, etc)
and the perception that they can embody that by using that product. For far too long, society has idolized images of
success in and amongst superstar athletes and movie stars. “I am famous” is the new adage.of our domain.
I want a product made just for me :
Creativity is suppressed in today’s society as a result of marketing to the masses; one product, millions of
consumers. The success of the Dell business model illustrates consumers’ needs to identify and create a product of their
own choosing. However, under further analysis, the Dell model falls short; I can choose only from a preselected selection.
The customer controls the creativity and is empowered to make changes to their needs and desires. This is my product; I
have created it.
Step 11
• Define the “orthodoxy”
– What is the ultimate “truth” of you, your
audience, your customers?
or·tho·doxy noun \ˈȯr-thə-ˌdäk-sē\
: a belief or a way of thinking that is
accepted as true or correct
What makes it work (Orthodoxy)
(example)
I am at the mercy of what the manufacturer produces :
Show me true freedom in my choices
I can only buy mass-market products :
I do not desire what my neighbor has; I desire my choices, my personalization
Step 12
• What are your core competencies?
• How do you combine your competencies to deliver
your value?
What makes it work (Core Competencies)
(example)
Enablers to performing function:
Computer programming – buyer interfacing, web, systems integration
Distribution of core products
Marketing
Sales in consumer toy market
Engineering and Materials Processes Backgrounds
Project Management
Step 13
• What competencies are holding you back?
– What do you need to develop, to reach your value
goals?
Core competencies and abilities to develop
(example)
Enablers to performing function:
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Computer programming – buyer interfacing, web, systems integration
Distribution & inventory management of core products
Marketing
Sales in consumer toy market
Personalization
Entertainment
Product Customization
Partnerships and Alliances to build
(example)
Competency
Item
Potential
Software Development
Unknown
Doll Manufacture
Personal Viewers, Browsers,
Creation Software, Gaming
Importers
Three-Dimensional Vision,
Scanning System
Three-Dimensional Printing
Photo Booths and vision
system set-up
Dolls, action figures, finishing
Web
Web Interactivity
Vision
Rapid Manufacture
Project Development
Geometrix, Genex
Z-Corp
Auto-Photo
Canada
MacFarlane Toys,
21st Century Toys
Unknown
Step 14
• What does your industry and market look like?
– Why are you going after this market?
– What does it look like?
– What does your market tell you?
– Where are you going to make money in your
niche?
Primary Domain Markets (example)
Primary Domain Markets (example)
Primary Domain Markets (example)