Over the past several years, the term “digital transformation” has entered the realm of enterprise IT. Digital transformation is frequently misinterpreted and misunderstood. What does “digital transformation” really mean? What essential components does it include, and how does it impact the enterprise? Figure 1.1 illustrates that digital transformation should be regarded as business transformation.
The Global Center for Digital Business Transformation says that “organizational change is the foundation of digital business transformation.” That’s because changing the nature of an organization means changing the way people work, challenging their mindsets and the daily work processes and strategies that they rely upon. While these present the most difficult problems, they also yield the most worthwhile rewards, allowing a business to become more efficient, data-driven, and nimble, taking advantage of more business opportunities.
In my opinion, there are three essential components for businesses going through digital transformation efforts.
Figure 1.1 Digital transformation is business transformation
Engagement
Through content marketing, you can educate your customers about topics important to them and eventually your business offerings. It gives your brand a voice to engage with your target audience and establish a strong, trustworthy relationship with them. Setting up real good engagement with your audience is not as simple as it may look like. Sure, one of the main reasons for brilliant content creation is ultimately to create leads and increase revenue. But it shouldn’t come across that way. No one likes being pressurized into buying something without having the time to research or think about it first. Instead of trying to sell to your audience, try to help them. Your customer will be coming to you because they are looking for a product that you provide. So, producing content that answers their questions surrounding that product will build trust and leave a lasting impression.
Exposure
Going viral on social media is what every business wants to do. All the attention and all the respect can take your business to the next level. The problem is doing it. I’m a regular follower of social media and I’ve experimented with different strategies to garner more interactions. This is how you can improve exposure and reach:
- More content is better than less, but too much content is not the name of the game
- Client engagement is your goal, drive traffic to the best-converting pages
- Connect with your customers—let them speak to their needs and drive trust and reach for your brand by leveraging their experiences as part of your Social Media and Content strategy
- Identify opportunities to repurpose your existing content to drive active visitor and audience participation
Technology
Without implementing the right technologies, it would be fairly impossible to successfully migrate from a traditional business to a digital company. The most important technologies to use are marketing automation, big data, and business intelligence. Big data empowers other emerging technologies such as blockchain, Internet of Things, augmented and virtual reality, 3D printing, artificial intelligence, drones and robotics.
Many of the discussions surrounding digital transformation have focused on the technology: mobile applications, cloud platforms, artificial intelligence, big data, and so on. However, having the technological foundation to support such innovations is only one piece of the digital transformation puzzle.
To fully embrace this growing trend and reap all the benefits it offers, corporations need to make a major change to their company culture. Digital transformation is about more than just adopting new technologies: It’s about reinventing your business to be driven by data—and that starts with your team.
Think Business Transformation, Not Technology
In the business world, everyone is talking about digital transformation—from AI to robots to the Internet of Things. But according to many top experts in the field, most people are missing the point.
Technology doesn’t provide value to a business. Instead, technology’s value comes from doing business differently because technology makes it possible. I would like to refer to George Westerman’s MIT Sloan Management Review article, “Your Company Doesn’t Need a Digital Strategy.” Creating a digital strategy can focus the organization in ways that don’t capture the true value of digital transformation. Westerman, who is a Principal Research Scientist with the MIT Sloan Initiative on the Digital Economy, suggests that the right focus is on a better strategy that is enabled by digital.
Focus on Strategic Transformation, Not Technology Adoption
According to Westerman, technology helps you do business differently, but the right strategy is not technology-focused. It incorporates the right technologies for the right jobs. Regardless of your industry, Westerman suggests keeping these four points in mind to avoid common pitfalls.
Get Away from Silo Thinking
Focusing on the technology can direct aspirations toward what technology can do (mobile, big data, virtual reality, and so on) rather than what a transformed business should look like. For example, a mobile strategy comes to a screeching halt when the company fails to consider opportunities that are not enabled by mobile. This kind of incremental thinking misses much bigger opportunities across silos.
Don’t Push the Envelope Too Far, Too Fast
Looking too far forward toward advanced digital innovations can make other technologies seem mundane. However, business leaders leave easy money on the table if they ignore incremental steps and pursue risky opportunities that may not be ready to pay off yet.
Don’t Ask Your Tech Leaders to Drive Transformation Alone
Even the best IT leaders won’t be able to transform a business if they don’t run that part of the business. “While I’ve seen many successful digital transformations led by great tech leaders, the transformation comes from working with them, not asking them to do it alone,” writes Westerman.
Build Essential Leadership Capabilities, Not Just Technical Ones
Think of digital transformation not as a project but as a capability. When you focus on transformation instead of digital, you shift the weight to creating real business value from technological innovations.
Digital Maturity Matters in Every Industry
Digital maturity (see Figure 1.2) is a combination of two separate but related dimensions. The first, digital intensity, is investment in technology-enabled initiatives to change how the company operates—its customer engagements, internal operations, and even business models. Companies in all industries are investing in interesting digital initiatives. However, in many firms, these investments are uncoordinated and sometimes duplicative. Firms maturing in the second dimension, transformation management intensity, are creating the leadership capabilities necessary to drive digital transformation in the organization. Transformation intensity consists of the vision to shape a new future, governance, and engagement to steer the course, and IT and business relationships to implement technology-based change.
Figure 1.2 Digital maturity matrix
Source: Capgemini consulting and MIT center for digital business, 2012
Beginners
Pharmaceuticals: Executives see threat in digital transformation but less opportunity than other industries do, perhaps because of regulation. Many are building capabilities in analytics and worker enablement, but most firms are just beginning their digital journeys, leaving many opportunities untapped.
Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG): Digital opens new possibilities for firms to engage directly with customers. Twenty-four percent of firms surveyed stand out as digital masters, while others lag far behind. Generally, less-mature CPG firms can improve through stronger visions, greater digital investments and more robust transformation management.
Manufacturing: Traditionally slow to react to digital, manufacturing is on the cusp of emerging from “beginner” status. Efforts in digital remain focused on operational efficiencies and worker enablement, but the B2B nature of many companies may limit their attention to digital customer engagement. Manufacturers see less opportunity and threat in digital transformation than other industries. To mature, firms may need a transformative digital vision, plus the engagement and governance to develop impetus for digital investments.
Conservatives
Insurance: High expectations for digital and strong vision and governance suggest that the insurers should be leading the digital revolution. Yet, this is not the case for most firms. Generally, scores for engaging customers through social media and mobile are lower than average, suggesting that the combination of strong digital governance capabilities, regulatory worries, and a risk-averse culture would not be an innovation enabler.
Utilities: For the conservative utilities industry, efficiency is the name of the game in digital transformation. Constant pressure to reduce costs and the advent of smart metering create digital opportunities in customer experience, worker enablement, analytics and process improvement.
Fashionistas
Telecom: Facing ever-increasing levels of connectivity and data consumption, telecom firms have been quick to respond. Of the organizations in our study, 78 percent are high on digital intensity (Digital Masters or Fashionistas) and Beginners are almost nonexistent. To complement their digital strengths, telecom firms can focus on stronger digital leadership to integrate and align initiatives across silos.
Travel and hospitality: Since the advent of the Web, digital has turned the industry upside down. The industry has responded, with 81 percent of firms in the Digital Masters or Fashionista quadrants and no Beginners. Opportunities exist to improve worker enablement in many companies. To make the jump into Digital Masters territory, Fashionistas will need to build levels of excellence in transformation management to match their high digital intensity, including a transformational vision for the future.
Digital Masters
Banking: Digital is revolutionizing the relationship between customers and retail banks, who have responded with strong capabilities in customer service, analytics, and even social media. Banks have an opportunity to parlay these successes into new innovations in mobile or social customer engagement and internal knowledge sharing. In addition, opportunities exist to integrate initiatives and processes across corporate silos.
Retail: A decade-long history with digital disruption has seasoned retailers and produced a number of digirati (26 percent of firms surveyed). Retailers are generally confident in the potential for social and mobile, as well as their digital skill set. Moving forward, firms may want to focus on cross-channel consistency and worker enablement while building analytics capabilities.
High-Tech: For high-tech, digital is close to home. Firms generally enjoy well-developed capabilities and high digital maturity. They are also—not surprisingly—enthusiastic about digital’s potential. This momentum may create further opportunities in mobile and embedded devices.
Do We Have Time to Wait?
Executives in industries such as CPG, pharmaceuticals, and manufacturing might be tempted to believe they do not yet need to engage in digital transformation. Their industries are less digitally mature than others, so they might have time to wait. However, every industry, regardless of how digitally mature, hosts companies that are Digital Masters. In other words, every industry—from manufacturing to high technology—has firms that have already begun to gain the benefits of digital transformation. This should be a call to action for executives in every firm. It takes several years to build maturity, especially in the transformation management intensity dimension. Digital Beginners in any industry are several years from gaining the digital maturity that their Digital Master competitors already possess.
Why Culture Is Key in Digital Transformation
Digital transformation changes the DNA of an organization. It breaks down the silos, rinses existing processes, and makes sure the business is leaner, faster, agile, and more responsive than ever before.
However, too often, business leaders forget that for such a transformation to be successful, it needs to be backed by a corresponding cultural shift. “For any transformation to be successful, people need to buy into your vision,” according to Aashish Gupta, Research Analyst at Gartner. He added:
The culture aspect and the technology demand equal attention from the application leader, because culture will form the backbone of all change initiatives for their digital business transformation. The staff trapped in a ‘fixed’ mindset may slow down or, worse, derail the digital business transformation initiatives of the company,
In order to drive that cultural change, businesses need to invest in it. An online clothes and shoe retailer, Gartner cites, instructs all of its new hires to experience its call center. This, the company believes, allows employees to gain a holistic view of the business and helps them understand why customer service is the backbone of it.
If you’re looking for a plan to drive the cultural change, here’s a four-step plan recommended by Gartner:
- Create a compelling vision: Your vision should be able to inspire and motivate desire for change. Craft it carefully, share it with stakeholders, and ensure that everyone is on the same page as you are—seeking and pursuing growth. “A growth mindset demands people to be comfortable with the speed of the digital era, and they must be willing to make quick and risky bets instead of slow and safe bets,” said Gupta.
- Define: “What gets measured, gets managed,” said management guru Peter Drucker. When you’re pursuing a mindset change, similarly, you need to ensure your staff knows what behavioral attributes reflect the change and the individual key performance indicators (KPIs) or goals that must be targeted.
- Implement: To make the concrete changes and give employees a strong sense of direction, the human resources (HR) function must update individual job descriptions. Doing so involves a lot of extra effort but can help make a profound impact because it adds stability to how change is introduced, facilitated, and managed. “Acceptance will happen only if the change is visible throughout the organization. You should incentivize people to share knowledge or learn new skills,” said Gupta.
- Measure, monitor, and wait: Inspiring a change in your employees’ mindset isn’t going to be quick but it’s going to reap significant dividends in the long run. Gartner advises business leaders to allow some time for changes to percolate and to continuously survey employees about how they understand and perceive the change. “Be patient. Fostering a growth mindset culture that requires behavior changes among your staff takes time. However, the rewards are considerable as everyone perseveres, learns, grows and accepts that potential is nurtured, not predetermined,” explained Gupta.
How to Accelerate Digital Transformation
Our world is changing fast. Customers’ expectations for better and innovative experiences have been growing. This has forced businesses to transform themselves and rethink their service delivery to meet these demands. However, this transformation process needs to be fast. Organizations and their leaders need to keep up with the pace at which the world is evolving if they want to sustain their position in the market and grow.
So, how can the C-level management accelerate their organization’s digital transformation to meet the ever-growing customer demands?
- Focus on business and technology planning: As a digital leader, it is crucial that you start with an end goal or a business outcome in mind. Market leaders don’t jump at every technology that crosses their path. On the contrary, they start with business outcomes in mind and work backward to choose the technologies that fit their goals and which will help them deliver an experience that is smarter and better.
- Invest in your organization’s people and culture: It is essential for organizations to invest in its people and enable them to participate in your digital transformation. Finding people with the right attitude, investing in their training and development, and designing programs that recognize and reward employee’s contributions to customer experience go a long way in retaining talent as well as creating an organizational culture that embraces change on an ongoing basis.
- Keep your customer at the center of your business: It is critical for organizations to design their processes in a way that boosts customer experience and retention. Adopt modern technologies in concurrence with evolving buying trends that provide your customers with unique capabilities that save time in their day, add value to their business, and deliver services when and how they want to receive them.
- Simplify and modernize IT: Digital transformation leaders should focus on simplifying and modernizing their IT environments by adopting digital differentiators such as cloud-based systems, predictive intelligence capabilities, social and mobile enablers and DevOps practices to design leaner and more agile business processes.
- Look for continuous improvement: Successful transformation leaders are those that are continuously exploring the ways they can improve their organization’s processes to deliver superior customer experiences on an ongoing basis. Establish a set of key performance indicators that demonstrate the health of your digital business and keep raising the bar.
Digital innovation is changing the world faster than we can imagine. The only way that organizations can keep up with this speed is by thinking outside in, outlining key business outcomes, and working backward to adopt agile methodologies and right mix of technology, which will ultimately help them secure their market share and stay ahead of the curve.
Key Components for Digital Success
Engagement
Customers are increasingly empowered and businesses that do not provide a fast, multichannel experience will start to lose these customers. For this to happen “consistent, tangible feedback around the customer’s perceptions, motivations and expectations” is needed, and for the results for such surveys to be meaningfully analyzed. One of the core instruments to improve customer engagement is content marketing.
Content Marketing
Content marketing is a successful digital marketing strategy that can reach consumers and spread brand awareness. More than half of businesses spend time and money on content marketing, a number that will grow as more companies recognize its utility.
Most businesses publish a variety of content frequently, but many still want to make improvements to their content, such as creating more original and visual content.
Visual content, such as videos, images, and infographics, engages consumers and keeps their interest piqued for the whole post. Visual content stands out among other text-rich blog posts. It’s always nice to break up text with visuals because we’re all such visual learners. Our attention spans keep decreasing, so visuals keep a reader’s attention. It breaks up the monotony and leads the consumer through the content pieces. Consumers are more likely to read and stay engaged with your content if it is visual.
Exposure
Having a strong social media presence can help your business in several ways. Social media platforms of the business act as multiple gateways to a business’s website, creating an external linking structure and more opportunities to appear in search results. Social media creates a way to increase brand awareness and customer base. Any company has the ability to connect with customers in diverse ways while also driving traffic to their website to generate conversions. So let’s see how you can maximize your social media presence.
Social Media
Social media marketing remains the lynchpin of all other inbound marketing strategies, including e-mail marketing and content marketing. Creating a social media presence for your business can open up new growth opportunities by expanding your brand’s exposure and affinity. Every business should have established objectives before tinkering with their social media presence. Set goals early and monitor them constantly. Simply having a Facebook account is meaningless if you don’t create value for your customers.
Build Relationships, Not Traffic
Brand advocacy means your customers market and promote your products for you, which is not only cost efficient, but also more believable than what your employees say about your own company. Growing your audience and building relationships with industry thought leaders will position your brand to become a leading voice and an influencer. Before acquiring this status, it’s key to partner with influencers early on who will endorse and market your brand for you. This can be accomplished through sponsorship, engaging with them directly, and sharing their content.
Social media is also the ultimate user-review resource, so it’s important to immediately respond to any feedback or criticism to mitigate any negative exposure. Through strong social engagement you can be proactive, rather than reactive, in curating a positive social media presence. Once you’ve established your brand’s identity and built trust with your customers, drop a highly relevant promotion or offer directly in front of them to drive sales.
Provide Value
Share content, self-produced or not, that provides utility for your customers. This could even include a funny meme or a how-to guide from an industry publication. You’re essentially establishing your own syndicated content platform. Encourage your customers to turn to you for news and information. Provide value that will entice users to engage with your brand in the first place.
As an added bonus, the content you share will provide valuable backlinks for your website and help improve its search engine rankings. This will align perfectly with your multichannel marketing campaign. Your highest shared and compounding posts could also be featured on your website and in a company e-newsletter.
Interactive and Seasonal Content
Seek audience engagement by providing interactive content with value. Interactive content, such as quizzes, contests, and giveaways, is a great choice to entice user clicks and consumer brand engagement. This will promote a positive branded experience. One of the best forms of interactive content is hosting an event that draws people to your physical offline location. In addition to sharing your blog posts, you could simply ask your followers a provocative or interesting question that encourages debate and discussion. You could host Q&As or live streams that encourage users to post questions to the feed.
Analytics
Finally, assess how well your social media strategy is aligning with your bottom line. Actively track KPIs, such as the amount of referral traffic generated from social media channels and the social signals each piece of content is acquiring. There are many analytics tools your business could use, such as Hootsuite and Buffer.
If you have Google Analytics activated on your website, you can insert a tracking code that will track the amount of times somebody shares a blog post from your website. The important thing to remember is patience.
Final Thoughts
Social media is a community platform, not a marketplace for your brand. The focus of any inbound marketing strategy is to pull customers closer to you and this requires consistent engagement and value-added content. Align your content marketing strategies with your social media outreach to retain customers and create demand for your products. In an interconnected world, brand affinity remains the most effective weapon in a business’s arsenal to separate itself from the crowd.
Technology
Too many organizations are stuck in an “old school” seven-year cycle of technology implementation that is susceptible to budget overruns, delays, and major capital outlay without benefit. As a result, boards lose faith in technology departments, and are less open to trying again. In fact, Chief Information Officers (CIOs) are less likely to lead innovation across the business than their global counterparts (18 percent versus 26 percent) and are more likely to take a secondary role in driving transformation.
It is clear that while technology is a driver and enabler of transformation, it is not the answer in its own right. Successful technology transformation in today’s fast-paced world requires a fresh approach—one which is about the business model and people—not just technology.
Marketing Automation
Media and marketing are inevitably linked. With the extensive number of media platforms available to consumers and marketers and the wide reach of those digital platforms, marketers are now looking at the scale and volume of marketing operations that offer personalized customer experiences. Marketing automation can power campaigns, help identify leads, influence a buyer’s decision, and so much more.
The global marketing automation software market is anticipated to grow up to a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.26 percent by 2022. The market has generated a revenue of $3.86 billion in 2016 and is anticipated to reach up to $7.63 billion by 2025. Marketing automation categories make up a significant subset of marketing technology. All of these areas of marketing have been impacted by predictive analytics, machine learning and AI, and higher personalization of content.
Big Data
The power of predictive analytics and advanced data science is the reason behind the implementation of future strategies and immediate changes in the global businesses today. Big data and analytics are entangled with each other today to deliver best end-results unlikely following the traditional approach. Earlier, analytics and data management used to be two different sections under one enterprise. With the emergence of advanced data science, such organizational barriers are broken. The integration of business operations with information technology has brought about successful enterprise transformation.
The need for better business analytics has also arisen for business transformation. BI (business intelligence), with its skills and technological efficiency, continues to explore and investigate on past business performances to gain insights and deploy business planning. The integration of big data with traditional business analytics helps in creating a data ecosystem that enables businesses to generate new insights.
Engage Your Audience with Great Content
Creating business content is complex. It has to satisfy various needs such as raising awareness, driving traffic, generating leads, and ultimately converting customers. Content as shown in Figure 1.3 is often aimed at specific niche audiences of buyers and hence it doesn’t get widely shared.
Figure 1.3 Engage your audience with great content
However, there are some types of content that engage large business audiences. I have reviewed the most engaging business content published this year and identified 10 key content types that work well to drive B2B engagement.
Here’s a summary of the top 10 most engaging forms of B2B content:
- Technology developments: Industries can be destroyed and created by technological change, and quickly. Whether it is online banking, artificial intelligence, driverless cars or big data, business audiences eagerly consume content on technology change in their industry.
- Future trends: These trends may be related to technology developments, but they cover a wider range of trends such as customer engagement, regulation, cultural change, and political developments.
- Opinion or viewpoint posts: There is no shortage of viewpoints about business developments from ethical and moral perspectives to how to grow a business. Controversial or challenging viewpoints frequently provoke engagement. The views of successful business leaders such as Jeff Bezos also gain high engagement.
- Inspirational stories and case studies: Story formats are an increasingly powerful form of business content, particularly data-driven stories and inspirational stories.
- Practical tips and how to posts: Business audiences want to do their job better and actively look for practical content that may help them improve their performance.
- Personal career advice: Most people want to advance their career and they actively seek out and share good career advice.
- Research and reference content: Knowledge can become obsolete very quickly, and new research findings help business audiences to understand changes. Reference content is closely related to practical and “how to” content; it is helpful and a source of support.
- Leadership: Aspirational staff aspire to be leaders and good leaders want to improve. There is a thirst for content on leadership from practical tips to case studies and reflections by current and former CEOs.
- Industry news: We all have to keep up with the latest developments in our industry and sectors. Thus there is always interest in company news and significant market developments.
- In vogue topics or brands: Every year and in every industry there are celebrity brands and topics. These are the in vogue topics people actively discuss in meetings and coffee shops—sometimes in a good way, sometimes not. Recent celebrity brands have included Uber, Apple, and Tesla. Recent celebrity topics have included big data and artificial intelligence.
- Last but not least, LinkedIn Pulse articles: If you want to gain more attention on LinkedIn, then you need to be publishing on Pulse. Nineteen of the top 20 most shared articles on LinkedIn this year were published on the platform itself.
Boost Your Brand Using Social Media
The world of social networks is rising at an astonishing pace. According to some recent studies, the number of social media users will rise up to 2.62 billion by the end of 2018. So, what do these figures tell you? To put yourself on the radar of your customers, deliver a personalized approach, and improve your conversion rate, you need to create a solid digital marketing campaign.
However, boosting your brand awareness via social networks is not just about creating accounts on all platforms available, inviting random people to like your page, and sharing a few posts every once in a while. It’s about marketing and creating engagement to the right people, through the right channels. Good engagement with your audience is made possible by the use of social media, as shown in Figure 1.4.
Here are several social media marketing tips that will take your branding efforts to a whole new level.
Figure 1.4 Social media to create social engagement
Choose the Right Social Networks
Choosing where to focus your social networking energy may be a daunting task. You need to keep in mind that not all social media platforms will work the same way in helping you reach your goals. Precisely because of this, you need to be picky and make educated decisions. There is a plethora of questions you need to ask yourself, most important of which are:
- What are the social networks your customers use?
- How popular is a certain social networking channel?
- Does this channel make sense for your brand?
- How can it improve your brand awareness?
Share Engaging Content
Content marketing is an inseparable and most valuable aspect of your social media campaign. Only by delivering relevant, easily digestible, and shareable content will you establish yourself as an expert in your niche. However, improving the performance of your content on social networks requires more than writing good-old articles. You need to focus on an interactive and engaging visual content, as well. Use infographics, photos, videos, memes, gifs, and quote graphs to hook your followers’ attention and keep them interested in the content you share.
Be Unique and Consistent
To engage people with your brand, you need to deliver recognizable content people will instantly relate to your brand. Such an approach will help you build trust among your target audience and put an emphasis on your brand’s mission statement, goals, and core values.
Here are a few strategies that will set your brand apart from its competitors.
Find Your Tone of Voice
To make the most of the content you create, you need to define your tone of voice. Gather a representative sample of the posts you’ve shared so far and cast a critical eye on it. Are your posts trustworthy, quirky, or action-oriented? See what tone suits your brand the best and stick to it in your future content creation efforts.
Schedule Your Posts
To let your target audience know what to expect from you, you should stick to your content distribution calendar and share your posts regularly. Instead of managing your posts manually, you should make this process simpler by using social media management tools. They will help you sync your social networking profiles, find fresh content, and schedule hundreds of social media posts at once.
Answer and Acknowledge
One of the most powerful ways to earn your customers’ respect is to provide them with an instant feedback. To stay on top of your communication with your customers, you should use social media monitoring tools. With their help, you will be able to monitor your target audience’s discussions and participate in them in real time. When doing so, you need to obey the following rules of social networking:
- React and respond to all questions in a timely manner (consider implementing chatbots).
- Be polite and professional.
- If you were wrong about something, apologize.
Use Social Proof
Why do we stay loyal to famous brands like Coca-Cola, Apple, or Starbucks? The fact that there are millions of people around the globe using their products lends an air of authority, trustworthiness, and quality. That’s called social proof and, to integrate it with your social media campaign effectively, you need to:
- Share your users’ testimonials.
- Inspire your customers to rate and review your products and services.
- Seek for influencer endorsements.
- Show appreciation for mentions.
- Share your business’ milestones, such as reaching a certain number of customers.
Offer a Rewards Program
When done right, customer loyalty programs are immensely powerful customer retention boosters. As the holiday season is here, you should incentivize your followers for being loyal to your brand, as well as for sending feedback, making referrals, or sharing your posts. And, social networks are a perfect place for you to do so.
Turning Big Data into Business Insights
No matter how vast your big data sources are, if your company does not devise the right methods for garnering meaningful insights from it, the data is of no avail.
The entry of big data has revolutionized the way businesses work. However, till today, a large number of decision makers are confused on how to extract the right insights from big data. This is mainly because businesses embark on this journey without checking if they have all the parameters in place. Majority of big data projects are implemented after insight expiry or with defective strategies. Before tackling a voluminous amount of data, it is crucial that businesses formulate an apt big data initiative to suit their needs. I think that the following five ways are common to successful businesses and are an effective guide for turning big data into big insights, as shown in Figure 1.5.
Figure 1.5 Turning big data into big insights
Enhance Speed and Delivery
Speed is a key factor for productive action. For successful execution from insights, you need to act quickly. If you spend a long time discussing and analyzing big data in the hope of acquiring near perfect insights, all your efforts will end up fruitless. When it comes to big data analytics, it is crucial to focus on quick decisions and execution. Today, successful companies like Amazon and Microsoft have one thing in common—they make their decisions from 70 percent of relevant data available. If they, too, would wait for perfect information for perfect insights, their outputs and revenue streams would face the threat of paralysis.
Determine What’s Actionable
Before you start extracting insights from big data, you need to have a clear understanding of the things you want to achieve from it. Differentiate between the strong areas of your business and those that need reconsideration. Before diving in for answers, it is important to have the right set of questions for big data analytics. Address those questions first that you know are bound to lead to economic opportunities and are practically actionable. It is easy to get distracted by the vast availability of big data. Thus, narrow your approach to core business problems. Set achievable parameters; otherwise, you will risk the loss of manpower and valuable resources.
Assemble a “Smart” Team
The next step is to assemble a team of skilled professionals. Actionable insights can only be garnered from big data effectively with the assistance of intelligent humans. There needs to be a presence of creative personnel who can formulate new ideas, develop technological strategies, and produce efficient implementation. Look for individuals who have fair knowledge in the fields of AI, machine learning, big data analytics, and automated support systems.
Understand Customer Needs
How will you extract insights from big data if you don’t have an idea of your customer needs and your business requirements? Before going into insights, you need to focus on gaining qualitative customer insights. Thus, businesses must consider the challenges their audience is facing. This means interacting with people who use your product or service, recording their responses, and channeling those responses to spark your product or service.
Focus on the Right Sourcing
While a company’s main aim is to build insights from a range of data sources, it is crucial to focus on the types of data sources that will aid in the progress. The perfect dataset doesn’t exist. Start with analyzing data from a data mart. Most businesses are confused when it comes to the difference between a data mart and a data warehouse. A data warehouse is obviously an essential asset in any company, but a small and selective data mart produces quicker insights and prevents you from getting mired in complexity. Over time, you can then broaden your horizon and focus on additional data sets.
Integrating Marketing Automation and Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
There are so many leads, prospects, and customers from so many channels in the digitally connected world that you may need both a CRM and marketing automation software to adequately manage all of them. CRM and marketing automation are different processes with different purposes and utilize distinct tools. The confusion usually arises because both CRM and marketing automation typically deal with the same information (contacts, lists, profiles, etc.) and similarly work with leads. Figure 1.6 shows that marketing and sales alignment creates more effective commerce, and involves integrating marketing automation and CRM.
Figure 1.6 Integrating marketing automation and CRM
Main Differences Between CRM and Marketing Automation
Type of Users
Marketing automation platforms are used by marketers while CRM programs are utilized by sales people. Both offer automation, analytics, and reporting features to streamline daily tasks and provide users with important metrics and insights on the progress, efficiency, and effectiveness of marketing campaigns as well as sales activities and efforts.
Key Function
The primary function of marketing automation is to generate leads from marketing campaigns. A lead can be an individual or business that expresses interest in your product or services and may come as a result of referral or through direct response to your campaigns such as promotion, publicity, or advertising.
On the other hand, CRM assists the sales team to nurture those leads from information collected in the contact or lead database. Sales people use CRM to analyze the information gathered, categorize and qualify contacts, and follow through with offers or discounts and other similar campaigns, all aimed at transforming leads in to buying customers. CRM is also used for retaining existing customers.
Goal
Marketing automation is designed to help generate marketing-qualified leads (MQLs) to be handed over to sales. Meanwhile, CRM’s goal is to convert MQLs to sales-qualified leads (SQLs) and ultimately to sales. Although the respective goals are different as you can see where one ends and the other begins in the sales funnel, marketing automation and CRM have complimentary roles in the effort to transform leads into customers.
Role in the Buyer’s Journey
Marketing automation is to create awareness of your products and services while CRM is to set up or prepare for purchase. They are separate roles but at the same time complementary, unifying the two funnels that make up the buyer’s journey.
Features of CRM
CRM software is the main platform of your sales team and sales agents to improve their productivity and enhance customer interaction with the end goal of closing sales. For this purpose, CRM software brings with it features and capabilities such as the following:
- Contact management organizes your contacts by categories for easy sorting or retrieval. For all intents and purposes, this feature is sufficient for a small business to undertake a CRM program like e-mail campaigns or classifying customers based on their records.
- Sales automation is the main component of CRM software automates the sales process from prospecting to customer inquiry and sending out replies to order taking.
- Communication channels gives you the capability to connect, respond, and interact with customers and prospects from various channels including e-mail, phone, instant messaging (IM) or live chat, social media, and forums.
- Task/workflow management lets you efficiently manage activities and schedules, and come up with a contact plan.
The great thing is that CRM integration features allow it to work with most marketing automation platforms, giving your sales team access to customer information collated by your marketing them. Likewise, marketing automation integration means the software can connect with CRM tools and make available relevant information from the marketing end.
Features of Marketing Automation
Marketing automation software helps the marketing team generate leads and manage contacts. The software is equipped with these features:
- Lead management: This helps you generate, onboard, nurture, and automate leads. It comes with tools to track and analyze a lead’s activities such as website visits, e-mail opens, completing forms on your website, or reading your blogs.
- E-mail marketing: This allows you to compile a contact list from various sources and channels, and send targeted messages, onboard customers, and share both informative as well as promotional content.
- Market segmentation: The system can automatically classify and assign the lead to a marketing segment based on information gathered from your lead’s activities and interactions. With analytics, marketers get to know which leads are likely to be converted into customers.
- A/B testing: This essential marketing automation software features enable you to use advanced e-mail segmentation to test the effectiveness of different campaigns, compare results, and to optimize and determine the best approach for your marketing strategies.
To Conclude
CRM and marketing automation differs in purpose, users, and uses. It is, however, not a choice between two systems since each plays an important role in your business—driving productivity and efficiency of your sales team and marketing team, and ensuring the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns and sales efforts.
Emerging Technologies Powered by Big Data
The Essential Eight Emerging Technologies as illustrated in Figure 1.7 by Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC) will influence business models and the competitive landscape for years to come. And one thing’s clear: emerging technology is no longer the realm of IT alone. Business leaders need to begin learning and thinking about how to harness their potential.
Figure 1.7 The essential eight technologies by Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC)
Source: PwC, “How can boards tackle the essential eight and other emerging technologies?,” June 2017 © 2018 PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, a Delaware limited liability partnership
Blockchain
A blockchain is a distributed electronic database or, more broadly, an electronic ledger that uses software algorithms to record and confirm transactions with reliability and anonymity. The record of events is shared between many parties and information once entered cannot be altered, as the downstream chain reinforces upstream transactions.
Internet of Things
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a network of physical objects—devices, vehicles, appliances—embedded with sensors, software, network connectivity, and computer capability enabling them to collect, exchange, and act on data, usually without human intervention. The Industrial IoT (IIoT) refers to its use in the manufacturing and industrial sectors, or Industry 4.0. IIoT adds sensors to people, places, processes, and products across a value chain to capture and analyze information to advance the goals of the organization.
Augmented Reality
Augmented reality (AR) is a visual and/or audio “overlay” on the physical world that uses contextualized digital information to augment the viewer’s real-world view. AR-enabled smartglasses help warehouse workers fulfill orders with precision, airline manufacturers assemble planes, and electrical workers make repairs.
Virtual Reality
Virtual reality (VR) is an example of creative destruction. In a computer-generated simulation of a three dimensional image or environment viewers can use special equipment to interact with the simulation in realistic ways. However, VR has the potential to transform many other industries as well, especially in the realm of experiential training where workers can be thrown into hazardous, difficult, or cost-prohibitive situations without the intense risks associated with these activities in the real world.
3D Printing
3D printing creates three-dimensional objects based on digital models by layering or “printing” successive layers of materials. 3D printing has the potential to turn every large enterprise, small business, and living room into a factory.
Artificial Intelligence
Software algorithms are automating complex decision-making tasks to mimic the human thought processes and senses. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not a monolithic technology. A subset of AI, machine learning, focuses on the development of computer programs that can teach themselves to learn, understand, reason, plan, and act when blasted with data. Machine learning carries enormous potential for the creation of meaningful products and services.
Drones
Drones vary greatly in their capacity based on their design. Some drones need wide spaces to take off while quadcopters can squeeze into a column of space. Some drones are water-based; some can operate and navigate autonomously (via remote control) or fully autonomously (via onboard computers). In June 2016, the US Federal Aviation Administration cleared a path for commercial drone use, establishing safe-use rules that include airspace, speed, pilot certification, and other guidelines for operators.
Robotics
Robots are machines with enhanced sensing, control, and intelligence used to automate, augment, or assist human activities. The robot market, which has grown quite large for industrial applications, is poised for radical growth in a broad range of services applications. These applications are transforming manufacturing and nonmanufacturing operations with new capabilities that address the challenges of working in changing, uncertain, and uncontrolled environments, such as alongside humans without being a danger to them.
Summary
Over the past several years, the term “digital transformation” has entered the realm of enterprise IT. Digital transformation is frequently misinterpreted and misunderstood.
What does “digital transformation” really mean? What essential components does it include, and how does it impact the enterprise?
In the business world, everyone is talking about digital transformation—from AI to robots to the IoT. But according to many top experts in the field, most people are missing the point. Technology alone doesn’t provide value to a business. Instead, technology’s value comes from doing business differently because technology makes it possible.
Since technology is changing fast, it would be wise to develop a twelve-month roadmap. The reasons for developing such a roadmap are not self-evident. Certainly technology is important, but why must the business meticulously plan out their strategy for a year into the future, especially if the environment is working just fine as it is? The truth is that there are many reasons to draft your roadmap, and some of these reasons will be more or less relevant to different businesses depending on their industry.
Digital maturity is a combination of two separate but related dimensions. The first, digital intensity, is investment in technology-enabled initiatives to change how the company operates—its customer engagements, internal operations, and even business models. Firms maturing in the second dimension, transformation management intensity, are creating the leadership capabilities necessary to drive digital transformation in the organization.
Digital transformation changes the DNA of an organization. It breaks down the silos, rinses existing processes, and makes sure the business is leaner, faster, agile, and more responsive than ever before. However, business leaders forget that for such a transformation to be successful, it needs to be backed by a corresponding cultural shift. Culture will form the backbone of all change initiatives.
Creating business content is complex. It has to satisfy various needs such as raising awareness, driving traffic, generating leads, and ultimately converting customers. Content is often aimed at specific niche audiences of buyers and hence it doesn’t get widely shared.
However, there are some types of content that engage large business audiences. I have reviewed the most engaging business content published this year and identified 10 key content types that work well to drive B2B engagement.
The world of social networks is rising at an astonishing pace. To put yourself on the radar of your customers, deliver a personalized approach, and improve your conversion rate, you need to create a solid digital marketing campaign.
Customers’ expectations for better and innovative experiences have been growing. This has forced businesses to transform themselves and rethink their service delivery to meet these demands. However, this transformation process needs to be fast. Organizations and their leaders need to keep up with the pace at which the world is evolving if they want to sustain their position in the market and grow. Digital innovation is changing the world faster than we can imagine.
Having a strong social media presence can help your business in several ways. Social media platforms of a business act as multiple gateways to a business’s website, creating an external linking structure and more opportunities to appear in search results. Social media creates a way to increase brand awareness and customer base. Customers are increasingly empowered and businesses that do not provide a fast, multichannel experience will start to lose these customers.
For this to happen “consistent, tangible feedback around the customer’s perceptions, motivations and expectations” is needed. Without the right technologies, it would be fairly impossible to successfully migrate from a traditional business to a digital company. The most important technologies to use are marketing automation, big data, and business intelligence. Big data powers other emerging technologies such as blockchain, Internet of Things, augmented and virtual reality, 3D printing, artificial intelligence, drones, and robotics.
Homework Assignment
For students: consider a brick and mortar banking company that delivers products and services to the business-to-business (B2B) market.
For professionals: consider the company you’re working for or have been working for.
Your VP of business development wants to transform the company to a digital leader. As a C-level business manager with more than average interest in everything digital, you are asked by the VP of business development to conduct a research study, which will lead to a digital transformation strategy. Include exposure, engagement, and technology. Add opportunities to unlock new business values and increase competitive advantages.
You can do this exercise alone. However, for best results, consider forming a team with two colleagues with a business background and two with a technology background. You or someone else can take up the role of facilitator. The other team members will do their questions and answers. At the end of the session, the facilitator will wrap up the results.
The initial tasks are involving:
- Set up a digital transformation strategy
- Digital transformation feasibility and business case
- Digital transformation security and privacy challenges
- The competitive advantages you will accomplish by digital transformation
The homework assignment to be conducted is to draft a short report (4–8 pages), which addresses the following questions and topics:
- Develop a description, definition, and strategy of digital transformation.
- Define exposure, engagement, and technology as key components for digital success.
- When you consider using big data:
Define what data needs to be collected for your bank.
What data analytics are needed?
What actions should be needed based on the results from analytics?
- Find a list of top digital transformation platform vendors and their solutions (find at least 10 vendors).
- Align your strategy with the company’s business strategy.
- Inspire your VP of business development to take the next step, which would be a digital transformation session.