Let’s cut to the chase. Digital transformation is all fine and dandy only if it reflects on your bottom line. If your sales and marketing strategy is able to touch the three levels- the researchers, the decision makers and the influencers- then you are well equipped to position your digital transformation message in front of your customers and partners. Moreover, the perfect mix of digital marketing and direct selling will multiply conversions in the coming years.
Related: The Digital Transformation Advice a CEO needs in 2017: Part I
As a CEO, you might be wondering how you can create and implement that perfect digital transformation strategy. Here are a few useful steps:
Adopting the Triangulation method
Triangulation is a six-step method that helps companies in maximizing returns by combining digital marketing and direct selling.
Step 1- Profile your accounts based on the markets you are going to address
Step 2- Identify the influencers, recommenders and decision makers among your prospects
Step 3- Utilize the right digital marketing strategies to reach your target contacts
Step 4- Use your relationship management skills to build strong relationships and nurture them
Step 5- Make the best use of digital marketing to influence people who are engaging digitally. Identify the triggers, and build trust using digital channels.
Step 6- Watch out for triggers like event registration, resource downloads, lead scoring etc. and use the trigger to initiate a call for building relationships.
Well, that doesn’t sound so simple! Unless you define the purpose of digital transformation in your business’s context, these steps may not work for you. Primarily, you need to educate your customers on the positive things digital can do for them.
The 4 strategies that lead to successful digital transformation
The following strategies will empower your employees and ensure a seamless transition:
Strategy 1- Build a culture of change at all levels
If your employees are not keen to change with the new workplace technologies, you cannot build a culture of change. Organizations should be in a position to offer employees more independence, flexibility, and change with options like remote-log in, BYOD etc.
Break the old routines by:
- Investing in trainings: Train your existing employees and hire digital enthusiasts to bring the digital change in your workplace.
- Increasing the role of HT: HR should coordinate with IT and marketing departments for handling the cultural changes and apprehensions about changes.
- Encouraging employees to do more: Employees at the ground level have brilliant ideas about streamlining workflows and providing better customer experiences than you could imagine.
Related: 5 Principles for Smooth Digital Transformation
Strategy 2– Enhance your workflows with new tools
With so many vendors vying with each other in the market, you might face a technology overload. Ultimately, the technology you choose must drive efficiency and results. Conduct a strong discovery process by adopting a people-first approach, test and find out which technology can simplify your business workflows and improve accuracy. Your technology solution must support employees in realizing their goals and offer you real-time, measurable outcomes.
Strategy 3- Technology weds employee needs: A match made in heaven
Employees and management have different opinions and ideas about technological change. Ultimately, it is the end users who determine if a new technology triumphs or not. Does the new technology support end users to work efficiently? What pain points do customers convey to the sales and marketing departments? Gather all these end user insights to redefine your strategies. For example, the factors that most end users now look for include:
- Increased mobility
- User-friendly analytics tools
- Flexibility offered by Cloud
- Scalability
- Reduction in manual work
Related: The digital transformation trends that would dominate 2017
Strategy 4- Adopt a people-first strategy
Many enterprises proceed with the wrong notion that adopting technology is enough to attain success in digital transformation. A recent survey by CIO.com reports that these failures are rather people-based and not technology-based. Ask yourself these questions: Do my employees understand why they need to adopt the new platform? Can the new technology improve the workflow? How will the employee learning curve look like? Once you find the answers to these questions, you can easily prioritize your human capital ahead of technology. A people-first strategy supported by the right technologies can streamline your processes and goals, and minimize your risks. Putting people first is critical for change management in any organization that wants to taste the success of digital transformation.
Today, maturing digital businesses focus on integrating digital technologies such as social, mobile, analytics, cloud and IoT to transform the way their businesses work. A complete digital reimagining of business is possible if:
- You have a vivid digital strategy supported by leaders who can build and foster a culture of change and innovation.
- Risk taking becomes your cultural norm and urges you to seek a competitive advantage.
- Your employees (at all levels) are deeply committed to digital progress.
- Your talent management wing can scale the existing employees and hire digitally savvy resources.
The success of digital transformation is highly dependent on the scope and objectives that you define prior to adopting the change. Change is inherent, and you cannot turn your face away from it. People, technology and strategy must handhold to make the change possible.
Related Posts:
- How Digital transformation affects the lifecycle of products and services?
- How Cloud Technology Fuels Digital Transformation
- Digital Transformation in Retail
