Change is not an option, it’s currency.

2 min readJan 3, 2017

Our behavior, regardless of our age, is different these days. Technology has made it so.

We expect instant communications, near-infinite options, products and services on demand, unlimited entertainment, anytime and every place.

As a business, meeting and exceeding these customer relationship requirements is critical for our success.

To do so, a company must map its touch points, value their importance, determine the ability to execute and start transforming to stay current. This is hard, really hard.

To ensure success, you need a new plan. Not the business, operations, and financial plan you already have, but a Marketing Architectural Plan (MAP) for building, remodeling, and renovating your business to serve the new digitally empowered customer.

This Marketing Architectural Plan differs from any other plan in significant ways:

- It includes an inventory of what technology and process capabilities you have in place to create business value; value is defined as critical to revenue and/or in support of business, operations, and financial plans.

- It includes value streams mapping, business process mapping, and value chain activities to illuminate how your existing business operates and therefore what parts are subject to digitization, breakage, and successful transformation.

- It creates a shared vocabulary so every department and function can agree upon the same activity and process with the same words and concepts

- It provides requirements for existing and new technology according to business needs and covers topics including interoperability, data management and structure, and data quality.

The result enables marketing ideas, needs, and requirements to be developed on solid business and technical foundations. It empowers marketing people with the knowledge and tools to precisely engage IT personnel and vendors. It provides transparency throughout the enterprise.

To use the building architecture metaphor, once the house is designed, construction components like infrastructure (plumbing, electrical) and space (rooms) are easy to see and understand, thereby making it easy to populate with furniture (software, systems, network) and interoperate and connect.

For a much deeper exploration into digital transformation and the use of business architecture, please read our white paper: The Architecture of Change

Change is not an option, it’s currency.

Written by lwsmith10011