Why some companies seem to rely on their brand as a sole and key value, while others are able to be in the headline for all the right reasons? Why some companies look like they are stuck in the past and others are shaping the way to the future?
In our days one of the most frequently used buzzwords is the word transformation. Everybody has a plan to transform his business while big companies aim to make the way they deliver services and products and how they interact with end customers more digitized and more consumer-oriented.
The Digital Transformation Trend
This increasing trend focusing on changing, improving, radically transforming a business denotes a growing awareness about how society has been evolving and has been affected by innovation coming from different areas, such as technology and digital. And this is something good and prosperous only if it takes place the right way. Companies are used to spend too much time on planning. Most of the time everything happens in a strong rigid old-fashioned linear way 18-24 months ahead of the implementation. Therefore we end up having the oxymoron case – really expensive strategies that have been developed in the past for future implementations, with tools and approaches to be outdated the moment of the truth, when they have to be implemented.
In our fast-paced times everything has to be adaptive and agile – easy-to-absorb knowledge, learning and efficient-to-deliver prototypes and ready-to-be-implemented ideas in really short time frames. Change is a fast-paced process that needs a constant probe to fail attitude and the awareness that fast incremental changes are more effective than a slow transformation that delivers present needs in a future scenario, with not sufficient awareness of the ever-changing context organisations that are operating.
Digital transformation might be the most ambitious project for most of the companies in our days but at the same time is the most challenging one. Transforming business and the customer experience, understanding customer drop-offs on well designed on-paper customer journeys is a tango that takes two; both the brand and the customers.
Collaboration is needed, in-depth research becomes a mandatory, internal and external conversation and dialogues are required, together with the ability to listen to the user and business needs. Transformation is a process that happens here and now, through a constant iteration and interaction between the brand and its customers. There is not a silver bullet but hundreds of small steps to be finely tuned in order to create a customer journey without drop-offs which can provide a frictionless experience to the user and enhance their engagement with the brand.
Conclusion
All these steps should be based on a lean approach and be able to adjust the strategy in real time to the environment and the context, to measure the impact of it and make sure that it is not only the correct one but also the most well performing one. To achieve that agile way of work an adaptive digital cell is also necessary. Pods will allow you to run the digital audit fast and in depth and start doing things better and differently in order to make sure that the digital transformation is not just another word for your organization but a living, fast-paced approach capable to put you into the winners’ circle.
