Digital Darwinism — The Do or Die Digital Dilemma

Firms are struggling to keep pace with the constant and continuous change of technology and with escalating customer expectations. They are faced with do or die digital decisions and there’s no time to dillydally. It’s simple — transform or perish, invest or be left behind, become customer centric or there will be no customers.

Where to start? What to do next? How much to invest? Most C-Suites are impatiently seeking answers to these questions and more. So let’s begin to unravel the quandary, starting with:

It’s simple — transform or perish, invest or be left behind, become customer centric or there will be no customers.

The Customer

Do you know your customers? Not their transactions, but their preferences, their behaviors, and their desires? To survive in this customer-driven world you must better know your customers if you want to better serve them.

There is no more one size fits all, or even one to many approach that today’s market finds acceptable. Personalization is the only answer; anything less and you are wasting time, money and giving lip service to your “customer centric, customer first, customers matter” mantra. If you don’t have a digital customer journey map that illuminates when, where and what is happening you are guessing at why it occurred. Not a place you want to be in today’s market.

Digital has created the “micro-moment” — the ability for a consumer to get exactly what and where they want it — instantly. This has changed traditional delivery models from do it right to do it right now, and firms are scrambling to keep pace.

It’s simple — transform or perish, invest or be left behind, become customer centric or there will be no customers.

The Culture

We all know culture eats strategy for breakfast (lunch isn’t fast enough to in today’s market) so be real about where you are and what it will take to get where you must go. Every leader, from the CEO down must accept and embrace the change that is needed.

Firms who once incented on profits and reve- nue alone must now incent on customer cen- tricity too, with equal weighting. You must set the goal and measure the progress being made. Be transparent, be bold, admit when you fail, because you will, and celebrate your successes no matter how small. Bring in Change Management Experts — you will need their help in preparing your firm for the shift. Don’t forget to communicate, communicate, and communicate.

The Talent

Not only will you need the best possible digital talent available in the market but you are likely to need a new organizational model too. Bring in Organizational Design Experts to help access and properly construct your teams. Talent is scarce; especially digitally savvy analytics talent, so accept the fact that “you get what you pay for” and fork over the package needed to attract the very best. It doesn’t stop at finding and hiring them either, the challenge then moves to keeping the people you just worked so hard to obtain.

If the culture isn’t right these people will be gone faster than the blink of an eye. Honestly access the current talent, know what is needed and move quickly or risk your contractor or candidate will be off the market before the second interview.

The Technology

If you have failed to properly invest in technology to support the shift to digital in the past, prepare yourself to pay for that oversight. Technology is the foundation for agility, speed and knowledge. Your ecosystem must be automated to meet the customer need in the moment they click, chat, tweet or like. If your contact strategy isn’t orchestrated, automated and personalized you are playing catch-up. Leaders must have near real-time information on what is happening and what will happen next. Reporting is so yesterday — predicting is what is needed to anticipate the clients need before the moment occurs. Rethink your technology roadmap through the lens of the customer. It’s the only view that matters.

The Process

Business as usual is no longer an option. Everything has changed. Fail fast is the new jargon for go fast and don’t worry about ensuring it works perfectly. Test and learn in everything that touches the customer. Try it, if it works scale it, if it doesn’t try something different. Do this over and over again to constantly improve your ability to serve the customer. If you abandoned your voice of customer research for cost cutting measures — refund it. You can’t fix what you don’t understand. The only way to know what the customer wants is to listen to your customers. Focus groups, panels, customer advisory teams, primary research, gamification — get the picture-listen and learn. Acting without this knowledge is guessing not knowing. The processes to create a product, implement a service, design a support model, and everything else you do starts with the customer. Oh, one more thing — do it all fast the way the customer wants it or someone else will.

The Data

Data is the new currency. It holds the keys to knowledge about the customer you are attempting serve. Firms of all sizes have invested in data warehouses and are collecting and storing more data than most can imagine. If that data is siloed in divisions or by brand or function it is only a part of the customer story. If the only data you have on your customers is some demographic information and their transaction- al history then you don’t really know your customers and you currently can’t predict their future behavior. Data must be rich and comprehensive if you want to transform it to insight. Insight without the automation to act immediately is of little use in the digital world. You must know what motivates buying behavior and what will incentivize this customer to leave before it happens. Inventory the data you have by building a robust persona of a customer — see what you know and don’t and find ways to quickly fill in the blanks.

Data Is The New Currency.

Conclusion

Digital Darwinism is real. Firms will need to evolve at the speed of the market and the customer or face extinction. Sounds harsh but it is the new norm. The speed and scale at which firms must change is largely dependent on how aggressively they have attempted to change already. Studies show that only a small number of firms have a real digital strategy, a true digital customer journey map, the talent needed to transform or the ecosystem to support the change. If you are among those that stay awake at night thinking about what should be done to keep pace, here are some things to ponder:

Start with a Digital Maturity Assessment

You must objectively know where you are on your journey and the only way to do that is to measure your progress against others. There are a number of digital

maturity models available in the market. Find out first if you are a digital dinosaur or a digital darling and then chart where you want to be in the next two to three years. The amount of change your firm can afford and culturally endure will depend on the timing. The faster the better as new entries are constantly disrupting every industry.

Seek Advice From Those That Know What Good Looks Like

Either hire someone in the C-Suite who has successfully transformed a firm to a winning digital model and then empower and fund them to make the change, or hire a consulting firm who understands what needs to be done, how to do it, and has the talent and technology ready to step in and quickly instrument your company with all that is needed, or both.

Firms will need to evolve at the speed of the market and the customer or face extinction.

Unconventional Ways To Achieve Your Goals

Today’s market is prime for out-of-the-box solutions.
Contemplate these approaches:

• What if you handed over your digital footprint to a partner and ask them to start fresh and craft an end-to-end solution, and ask them to pay for the majority of it because you were willing to share in the revenue lift. You could then decide if you want to build your own in a parallel path, migrate the partner’s solution in house or simply continue to buy from others. The bold move gave you the time to decide and immediately enhanced your digital muscle. You just decreased your chances of extinction dramatically.

• How about asking a partner to completely augment your staff with the talent you are missing either on your soil or elsewhere. You could have an agreement that talent would be hired, trained and transition back to your staff over time or simply leverage your partner’s scale to ensure you always have the best talent possible.

• What if you ask a partner to help you find the funds to achieve your goals either through cost take outs, acceleration of opportunity to cash or other means to make the initiative cost neutral. All of these options are possible in today’s market. Don’t be shy. Find a firm that you know can deliver and brainstorm ways to succeed. Make that call today.

• Even the largest firms across the world are finding they need help-why should yours be different?

The bottom-line is you don’t need to be another Digital Darwinism statistic that failed to adapt fast enough to keep pace with either the technology or your customers. As a consultant I’ve seen firms who made the shift and are now thriving. Unfortunately, I have also seen others who chose instead to continue with business as usual until there was no more business. The choice is yours.