I like to look in front of me, as far ahead as I can. I rely on my background, (education and experience) and intuition to choose the appropriate path to take. But most of all, I like to think I never go down a route I have seen before; the world is so vast and exciting.
For business topics, it’s the same! The below topics are some of the pain points for digital transformation I have had to deal with so many times, I now wish they belong to the past.
Let’s hope these received opinions
have not made it to 2016.
“Digital marketing is incompatible with luxury distant brand positioning”
At the contrary, these image brands should assess their reputation and their positioning by observing their customers’ publications on social networks. It is illusory to think that this may be constraint, except to wish to become a confidential brand … Brands must see the opportunity to tell and reveal their values to position themselves.
“Digital means cannibalization of sales or share of voice from conventional to digital channels, sometimes less profitable”
The Customer consumption model evolves in a back and forth between channels (stores, magazine, mobile, websites, social networks, blogs, posters, print catalogues …) either to gather information or buy a product. The absence of one penalizes the sum of the channels, damaging customer experience and slowing consumption. It’s the multi-channel approach, the sum of individual results, which must be considered in assessing the contribution of digital.
“Online revenue is a small proportion of the overall business sales; therefore working on e-commerce project is lesser of a priority”
While online sales of luxury or premium brands amount to less than one tenth of revenues, studies show that digital influences more than half of in-store purchases. Not selling online means missing the fastest growing channel and falling behind the development of a system capable of countering the sales of counterfeit, grey market and the increasing share of the multi-brand online distribution.
“Digital is going to disrupt our teams’ processes and habits”
This risk is real, but the benefit is great… Digital inclusion in strategies and projects will bring new tools, new ways of working and different ways to approach topics. A proper and thorough digital transition will move the entire company in common direction. The teams working in silos will be required to coordinate, repetitive and isolated tasks will be integrated into a modernized process, connected and secure. Is this a reason not to get started ?
“Teams and especially the management teams lack the knowledge and digital skills”
This is often a fear of change, because in fact, not many managers exclude digital of their daily lives. Rapid societal analysis based on their own experiences can reveal the connectivity of their target . This awareness and the analysis of the adequacy of their offer is often enough to reveal the direction to take. In terms of skills , training , coaching , counseling is readily available. Moreover, the temporary or permanent integration of digital talents (sometimes outsourced) allow to complete the digital transition .
“Before creating a digital team, other teams need to be reinforced”
The digital transformation often does not require a dedicated team, at least not permanently. The recruitment of sales and marketing resources are opportunities to enhance the skills and digital capabilities of these teams. The trick is to recruit profiles that can include participation in digital development tasks to their responsibilities.
“The digital is the playground of young geeks who bring businesses threatening disruption”
Indeed, it is interesting to entrust the younger employees with the digital transition projects: they understand by instinct and personal experience the digital context; they work with agility and enjoy creating a connected system. These young people, if properly supervised and guided, bring value to teams in which they will be integrated: participatory, agile, collaborative, innovative working methods.
Digital transformation is not a revolution of the business, but an evolution of ways of working and reasoning.
This requires to raise consciousness and coaching of each business unit, whose sole renunciation is stop ignore reality and look at the facts and figures of the world where their customers live.
2015 is past,
Happy 2016 with new challenges!
