ACHIEVING
DIGITAL EXCELLENCE
Why Smart Strategy Matters Even More in the Digital Age
THE
DIGITAL
CONSULTANCY
78%
INTRODUCTION
Over the course of more than two decades, digital has
become central to our lives. Yet many companies still
struggle to make digital central to their business.
This begs the question: Why?
In our work with top executives
at some of the world’s largest
enterprises, we have found that
the struggle to achieve digital
transformation stems not from an
inability to see the change as it
happens outside the business.
Instead, the struggle stems from
an insufficient focus on formulating
the right strategy to drive digital
forward inside the business.
In fact, according to research we
conducted this year, 78% of Chief
Marketing Officers report that they
do not have a company-wide digital
strategy1. This is a sobering statistic
that we see echoed in a recent
Forrester study, in which 79% of
respondents reported that their
CEOs have failed to set a clear vision
for digital2. As a result of patterns
like these, far too many corporations
find themselves “trapped in tactics”,
conducting a disjointed array of
of Chief Marketing Officers
report that they do not have
a company-wide
digital strategy1
digital experiments that aren’t always
aligned to key growth drivers and
often don’t achieve key business
objectives in a meaningful way.
In an age when 87% of CMOs are
under increasing pressure to deliver
a positive return on every
investment3, this isn’t good enough.
However, our aim here is not to point
out shortcomings but to lead the
way toward success. A clear digital
strategy empowers marketers to…
Know their customers.
Do what works.
In a market where only 40%6 of brand leaders believe
their marketing is effective, an effective digital strategy
creates marketing confidence through accountability and
measurable results.
Make smarter choices.
Achieve more for less.
A global digital strategy helps organisations eliminate the
duplication of effort and expenditure that comes from
scattershot tactical execution, delivering upwards of
38%7 in global savings.
When 93% of organisations don’t know their
customers’ digital habits, an evidence-based digital
strategy provides a clear understanding of how your
customers use digital today.
4
At a time when 73% of marketers believe they have
too many digital assets, and a majority struggle to
manage them and fail to recognise their current value.
The right digital strategy allows you to focus your efforts
on the assets that create the most value for your
customers and capture the most value for your company.
5
With this report, we will arm you with a clear and compelling case for strategy in the digital age. Then, we will
help you take your first, confident steps toward digital excellence by bringing focus to four strategic imperatives
that are practical, actionable and – most importantly – achievable for businesses of just about any type.
Achieving Digital Excellence
THE
DIGITAL
CONSULTANCY
A CASE FOR STRATEGY IN THE DIGITAL AGE
A look at even a small handful of the many ways in which digital is shifting the
balance, paints a vivid picture of an utterly transformed business environment.
Empowered buyers
demand more.
Billions are hyperconnected through
technology.
As the result of a digital revolution,
already more than 20 years in the
making, the web, social media,
mobile, cloud computing and big
data analytics (not to mention the
new and next waves of wearables
and the Internet of Things), billions
of people are more connected to
each other, to content and
information, and to the “companies
they keep” wherever, whenever and
however they wish.
‘Always-on’ access to information,
has shifted control to consumers
and customers, allowing them to
consider more options and make
smarter choices. They expect the
companies they choose to be
hyper-connected too, rewarding
(with their hard earned money) those
who match marketing promise with
the always-on requirements of their
customers. If buyers demand more,
sellers need to respond accordingly.
Traditional competitive
advantages have been
rendered obsolete.
Industrial advantages derived from
scale are giving way to digital era
advantages like agility, innovation,
collaboration and true customercentricity. Where once the big ate
the small, in the digital age it is the
fast that eat the slow.
For companies slow to adapt to this
new normal, the penalties are severe.
Kodak once led their sector but were driven into bankruptcy by their inability to respond to not just one, but
three successive changes in their industry: digital cameras supplanting traditional film cameras (despite having
registered one of the first patents for digital camera technology decades before the first digital camera was
introduced by a competitor), the growing prevalence of digital photo storage over photo printing, and the
popularity of online photo sharing.
Blockbuster passed on several early opportunities to acquire Netflix, viewing the company as a decidedly
niche play. Today, Blockbuster is out of business, while Netflix continues to reinvent its business to keep pace
with changing media consumption habits and boasts a multi-billion dollar valuation.
The New York Times, who have struggled to replace “traditional dollars with digital dimes”, continues
to lean too heavily on a 100-year heritage that has grown less and less relevant to the next generation of
media consumers. In a dense 90+ page report leaked to the media in April 2014, the Times’ team provides
ample evidence of its digital problems but recommends little more than the formation of a task force to explore
solutions – their transformation is just getting started. Meanwhile, the new generation of infojunkies have
already abandoned newspapers in favor of “quick hit” digital media powerhouses like Huffington Post and
Buzzfeed and instant peer-to-peer knowledge networks like Twitter.
Achieving Digital Excellence
THE
DIGITAL
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For businesses that embrace digital fully – not simply from a technology
standpoint; not merely as a new way to market; but as a new way of doing business across
every area of the enterprise – the benefits are positive, tangible, and impressive.
9%
More Revenue from their
Physical Assets
26%
More Profitablility
12.8%
Higher Market Valuations8
This holds true not only for digital native businesses like Amazon, Apple and Google,
but also for traditional enterprises as diverse as Burberry, Ford and Asian Paints
(India’s largest coatings manufacturer).
THE
DIGITAL
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The signals are clear.
In order to thrive in the digital age, you must formulate
and execute a sound digital strategy – one that spans all
areas of your business, one that is embraced at the top
of the organisation, one that aligns the entire organisation
around efficient execution, and one that recognises that
digital strategy is not simply a matter of technology, nor
merely a mode of marketing, but an entirely new way of
being in business.
Your company wins when you have the right business
answers to the most fundamental digital questions: How
must our business evolve to thrive in an environment that
is increasingly digital, social and mobile?
Achieving Digital Excellence
How must it evolve to meet the needs of digital consumers
and customers who are hyper-connected, always on, and
more demanding than ever before?
These are big questions, for sure – and their implications on
your business can be massive. It’s not surprising that digital
transformation has made its way onto the boardroom
agenda, even as CEOs struggle to set the vision and CMOs
worry that their strategy isn’t solid. But even in a game with
such high stakes, we believe that action comes from distilling
strategy down to its most fundamental components.
THE
DIGITAL
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THE FOUR IMPERATIVES OF
GOOD DIGITAL STRATEGY
Strategy – whether business or marketing, digital or
otherwise – is all about making informed choices among
the many options available to you. You don’t need to do
everything (even if your competition does). Remember,
73% of marketers believe they’re doing too much and
achieving too little. Their agency partners and media
vendors aren’t making matters any better, as they bring
forward a dizzying array of tactical ideas without the
backing of proper diligence. That’s hardly strategic.
Instead, you need to do the right things – for your
business, and for your customers – and you need to do
them consistently, efficiently and effectively across your
entire organisation, in order to get the best possible
results. This is the essence of good strategy.
1
While no two strategies are the same – and in a constantly
shifting business environment, no single strategy is
set-and-forget – our work with clients has shown that all
good digital strategies share the following four
imperatives:
2
Data-driven
decision-making
A clear roadmap of
activities, deliverables
and goals
3
4
The right metrics
for success
Achieving Digital Excellence
Done correctly, a digital strategy provides you with a clear,
high-level plan for achieving your most important goals,
even under constantly changing market conditions. By
defining a clear strategy for doing business and engaging
customers in the digital age, you establish a set of rules
that focus everyone in your organisation on the right digital
activities to achieve a single, powerful set of overarching
business outcomes.
A consistent
focus for all internal
and external
stakeholders
THE
DIGITAL
CONSULTANCY
93%
1.
DATA-DRIVEN DECISION-MAKING
Know your customers.
When 93%9 of organisations don’t know their
customers’ digital habits, an evidence-based digital
strategy provides a clear understanding of how your
customers use digital today.
It’s not that most brands don’t use any data to make key
digital decisions; it’s that they may not be using the right
data.
Digital is descended from a mass marketing legacy that
places a high premium on scale – the ability to reach the
largest possible audience, not knowing what portion of
that audience might be interested at any given moment in
time and sometimes not knowing if they’re even the right
audience at all. As early 20th century
of organisations don’t
know their customers’
digital habits9
retail mogul John Wanamaker famously said, “Half the money
I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know
which half”.
While the primacy of the popular carries over to digital –
marketers invest heavily in the largest web portals, place their
bets with only the largest global social networks, and measure
their effectiveness by likes, followers and viral views – the truth
may be even more dire than in Wanamaker’s day. Far more
than half the money spent in digital is wasted. We know
because we struggle with sub-1% response rates.
If that’s the bad news, the good news is that data not only
tells us what isn’t working but gives us insight about what
will. Smart strategy is built upon a keen understanding of our
consumers, their behaviors and their needs.
Consider:
•
How do your best customers and target consumers
spend their time online?
•
What information do they want, what information do
they need, as they make important decisions?
•
Where do they go and how do they behave when
they’re there?
•
Where are they most likely to go online to find that
information – and who is most likely to provide it?
•
In what ways do they interact with businesses and
what are their expectations for how those businesses
will interact with them?
•
How can brands provide that information through
content, utilities, real-time support, and more?
To a large extent, you can understand digital consumers by observing their behavior – the websites they visit,
the brands they like and follow, the content they share and the online conversations they have. But sometimes,
the best way to gain insight into their true needs (and what they need from your company specifically) is to ask
the question directly.
In the end, it is through deep understanding of the consumer that brands are armed with the insights they need
to make smart choices about how to build their digital roadmap.
Achieving Digital Excellence
THE
DIGITAL
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2.
A CLEAR ROADMAP OF ACTIVITIES,
DELIVERABLES & GOALS
Make smarter choices.
At a time when 73%10 of marketers believe they have
too many digital assets, and a majority struggle to
manage them and fail to recognise their current
value, the right digital strategy allows you to focus
your efforts on the assets that create the most value
for your customers and capture the most value for
your company.
In a recent TDC review of the top 100 global brands, we
found that the average company maintains 14 different
digital platforms – from their website and mobile
applications, to social networks like Facebook, Twitter
and Instagram. And that’s even before breaking it down
further to account for product and campaign microsites
or multiple profiles on any single network. We’ve worked
with some brands that have 18 Facebook pages alone –
often where one would do the job just fine.
•
•
A well-coordinated system of prioritised
digital channels, each with its own defined
role in conveying your brand’s value proposition
and delivering benefit to your consumers.
A balance between long-term commitments
that result in greater loyalty and advocacy
among your most passionate customers and
quick win campaigns that deliver near-term
results and valuable learning.
Achieving Digital Excellence
What’s worse, these digital assets are often not managed as a
single, integrated ecosystem of presences but instead suffer
from a notable lack of coordination, significant inconsistencies
in level of activity or engagement, and even substantial
duplication at the product or regional levels.
Yet, for every instance of a brand doing too much, we can find
instances where brands are doing too little. For example,
87% of the marketers we surveyed do not invest in search
marketing to drive audiences to their properties and, when
they do, 63% do nothing more than point traffic to their main
page (even where other, more targeted pages exist online11).
A focused digital strategy should be manageable, integrated
with your core business and marketing strategies, easy
to understand and implement by all stakeholders. Most
importantly, it should translate data-driven insights into a
clear and justifiable set of recommendations that make sense
for your company and your consumer.
•
Clear criteria for evaluating any new
opportunity or idea, allowing for innovation but
protecting against shiny object syndrome.
•
A basis for establishing and managing the right
resources – financial, human and otherwise –
to sustain the planned programs and activities.
•
And finally, the basis for measuring success
and optimising for performance.
THE
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3.
THE RIGHT METRICS
FOR SUCCESS
P
P
“Cheap, fast, or good.
Pick any two”
Do what works.
In a market where only 40%12 of brand leaders
believe their marketing is effective, an effective digital
strategy creates marketing confidence through
accountability and measurable results.
There is a popular business adage that goes, “Cheap,
fast, or good. Pick any two”. Although this saying
originated in project management circles, it happens to
highlight some common misconceptions about
what matters most when measuring digital success:
•
That digital marketing is (and should be) cheap
•
That the only digital results that matter are the ones
you get fast (even immediate)
Naturally, it’s “good” that often gets lost in the shuffle.
After all, what good is a “like” if it doesn’t contribute
to a deeper, more meaningful relationship between a
brand and its customer? What good is a click if your
back-end systems can’t track that user through to the
sale?
A robust digital strategy is insight-driven and validated by
data. It allows your business to measure and analyse
every digital action – the ones you take and the ones your
audiences make – against the right set of measures. But
even where results rule, there is increased evidence to prove
that digital builds brand value over the long term. It’s not that
cost efficiencies and short-term gains don’t matter anymore;
it’s that they are merely two viable measures among a range of
metrics that (depending on your business objectives) might
include digital’s contribution to:
•
Overall brand awareness and perception
(brand value)
•
Lead generation (for subsequent conversion)
•
Attribution and/or lifts to response rates for
other marketing channels
•
Sales and cost-per-sale
•
Relationship management
•
Retention
•
Loyalty
•
Advocacy (increased positive word-of-mouth)
A proper measurement plan balances cost per impression (or cost per engagement) efficiencies and simple
click data with a richer, more nuanced set of key performance indicators in order to paint a more vivid picture
of how digital contributes to the strength of the business overall.
More importantly, proper measurement gives you the data you need to optimise the performance of your
digital programs, and the proof you can use to demonstrate the value that digital provides to your
organisation as a whole – not to mention to each and every stakeholder, both inside and outside your walls.
Achieving Digital Excellence
THE
DIGITAL
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4.
ALIGNMENT OF ALL INTERNAL
& EXTERNAL STAKEHOLDERS
Achieve more for less.
A global digital strategy helps organisations eliminate
the duplication of effort and expenditure that comes
from scattershot tactical execution, delivering
upwards of 38%13 in global savings.
Even the best strategy is worthless if it can’t be executed
by the organisation. As companies invest more budget
into digital – by some estimates, as much as 75%14 of
marketing money may be allocated to digital within the
next five years – it becomes vital that organisations excel
in four key areas of execution:
Consistency across all programs and de-duplication
of efforts between teams and regions.
In our work, we’ve seen instances where online brand
consistency is as low as 13%15 when viewed across
campaigns and markets. As various stakeholders inside
and outside the company, and across multiple regions,
execute similar programs in absence of a unified strategy
to steer them or governance to guide them. This not only
results in wasted time, effort and money – but also in
confusion among consumers who often can’t distinguish
between new messages and old.
Online Brand consistency is as low as 13%
when viewed across campaigns and markets
Clear internal communication of the strategy,
so that there is organisational alignment around
actions and accountabilities.
Digital competency-building that ensures the
organisation has the right skills to deliver on the
digital strategy.
As digital strategies become more robust and
investments more significant, it is critical that your
strategy can not only be explained but also understood in
every department and at every level of the organisation.
In our recent Marketing Survey, only 48% of marketers
said they feel “highly proficient” in digital marketing and
only 56% do not believe they have the skills to implement
agency recommendations16. Rather than putting digital in
the hands of a few carefully recruited “experts”, we’d
suggest that enterprises infuse digital thinking and skill sets
throughout the entire organisation – ensuring commitment
at the highest levels of leadership and involvement across
every business function.
Alignment of external partners such as agencies,
technical vendors and media partners.
Smart strategy results in flawless execution when you
have the tools to brief, challenge and evaluate external
stakeholders and the approaches they take to deliver
upon strategic mandates. Reviewing outside work
against an evidence-based strategy is more objective,
while creating clear guardrails within which creative and
innovation can thrive.
Achieving Digital Excellence
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ACHIEVE DIGITAL EXCELLENCE
Business success today requires a customer-focused digital strategy that is focused, actionable, and results-oriented.
An effective strategy is built upon a solid foundation of data-driven decision-making, a clear roadmap, the right metrics,
and stakeholder alignment. In this report, we’ve shown you why digital strategy matters and we’ve given you a high level
framework for thinking about digital strategy in your organisation.
In Stepping Up To The Challenge 2014, IBM17 reported that 63% of top executives turn to their Chief Marketing Officer
for strategic input on digital strategy. Similarly, according to Altimeter Group’s latest report on The State of Digital
Transformation, 54% of the business leaders surveyed expect the CMO to champion their company’s digital
transformation initiatives18.
We’d say the next step is yours – if digital creates challenges for your enterprise, it also creates opportunities for
marketing leaders who are ready, willing and able to push their companies to the forefront of digital excellence.
CHALLENGES
OPPORTUNITIES
STRATEGIC IMPERATIVES
93% of companies don’t
know their customers’
digital habits
Know your customers
Conduct data-driven
decision-making
73% of marketers believe they
have too many digital assets
Make smarter
choices
Create a clear roadmap
of activities, deliverables
and goals
Only 40% of marketing leaders
believe their digital marketing
is effective
Do what works
Establish and measure the
right metrics for success
Duplication and
misalignment
Achieve more for less
/ 38% in global savings
Align all internal and external
stakeholders around flawless
execution
Achieving Digital Excellence
THE
DIGITAL
CONSULTANCY
ARE YOU READY
TO BE A DIGITAL
STRATEGY LEADER?
You don't need the word 'digital' in
your job description to be a digital
strategy leader. Given what you
know about the state of digital
inside your organisation, use this
simple 10-question self-assessment
to gauge how well your strategy
meets the four imperatives we've
outlined in this report. What actions
can you take to guide your business
toward digital excellence?
Digital Strategy Self-Assessment
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Does your organisation have a single, global digital strategy?
Is that strategy clear and simple enough to be understood by
every member of your team and all your outside partners
(e.g., agencies, media partners, technology vendors)?
Do you feel that your digital strategy is being executed
consistently by all team members and outside partners?
Have you researched and documented your customers’ digital
consumer journey as a basis for data-driven decision making?
Can you gauge how well your current digital activities meet the
most important needs of your customers and prospects?
Have you audited your current digital assets to ensure global
consistency, minimal duplication or efforts, and adherence to
quality standards?
Can you articulate the specific role each digital asset plays in your
overall marketing mix, and do you understand how effective that
asset is in achieving its purpose?
Are you measuring success consistently – with a robust
measurement framework and routine reporting – then optimising
your digital efforts to drive both near- and long term results?
Do you feel your organisation, as it stands today, has all necessary
skills to implement your digital strategy?
10. Do you feel your outside partners – especially your agencies –
have the necessary skills to provide you with strategic guidance
and implement your digital strategy efficiently, effectively, and with
minimum duplication of effort?
Achieving Digital Excellence
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ABOUT THE DIGITAL CONSULTANCY
The Digital Consultancy enables senior management to understand and exploit digital strategy as a key driver
of brand value and business growth. Objective Strategic Digital Expertise is at the heart of our business; every
engagement is different and as such we tailor every assignment to provide a bespoke approach and
recommendation. Our proven experience and expertise encompasses three main areas:
Strategy.
Our recommendations are always
analytics-driven with clear,
actionable next steps and timings.
We use proven methodologies and
tools that add value to the business,
create true consumer understanding
around audiences and customers
and ensure the right strategic
framework is in place to be able to
gain collective understanding and
adherence to the agreed strategy.
Capabilities.
Without the right capabilities in place
across an organisation the strategy
will be difficult to land effectively. Our
capabilities team assesses existing
and future capability needs and
develops the right training tools,
which are tailored to the needs of
global or regional management
boards and local marketing and
sales teams.
Engagement.
In order to embed the digital strategy,
we work with our clients to effectively
engage the right stakeholders across
geographies and functions. By
ensuring they buy in to the strategy,
we help create the right environment
to ensure the agreed company
approach is understood, embraced
and exploited.
For additional information please contact:
UK
US
Andrew Phillips
Greg Verdino
Tel: +44 (0)20 7902 0664
Tel: +1 631 543 1910
Mobile: +44 (0)7970 840063
Email: [email protected]
Email: [email protected]
Achieving Digital Excellence
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DIGITAL
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END NOTES
1. The Strategy Review. The Digital Consultancy, 2014
2. State of Digital Business. Forrester Research, 2014
3. The Strategy Review. The Digital Consultancy, 2014
4. The Strategy Review. The Digital Consultancy, 2014
5. Marketing Survey. The Digital Consultancy, 2014
6. The Strategy Review. The Digital Consultancy, 2014
7. The Strategy Review. The Digital Consultancy, 2014
8. The Digital Advantage: How Digital Leaders Outperform Their Peers in Every Industry.
Capgemini Consulting and MIT Sloan School of Management, 2013
9. The Strategy Review. The Digital Consultancy, 2014
10. Marketing Survey. The Digital Consultancy, 2014
11. Marketing Survey. The Digital Consultancy, 2014
12. Marketing Survey. The Digital Consultancy, 2014
13. Marketing Survey. The Digital Consultancy, 2014
14. Marketing Survey. The Digital Consultancy, 2014
15. The Strategy Review. The Digital Consultancy, 2014
16. Marketing Survey. The Digital Consultancy, 2014
17. Stepping up to the challenge. IBM, 2014
18. The State of Digital Transformation. Altimeter Group, 2014
Achieving Digital Excellence
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