Thursday 15th October – Haymarket Hotel, London
Digital Transformation: Shaping your Strategy
The latest BTN event was engineered to provoke discussion around the topic of Digital Transformation. A number of senior change & transformation leaders from across a wide range of business gathered to discuss the following topics:
1. Has the customer created digital? Or has technology changed the customer?
2. How to monetise/measure the benefits of digital transformation?
3. How do businesses demystify digital?
Below are the notes from the meeting:
1. Has the customer created digital? Or has technology changed the customer?
• There is a point in time where the customer changed the face of technology
• It started with technology → became a customer push
• Social media has changed things – customers can now access things very quickly, leading to the obsolescence of a Chief Digital Officer
• eBay was a game changer in the ecommerce space → changed not only how the customer shops but how they think
• The customer is driving additional value to product by increasing digital use
• The company needs to recognise ALL of the customers – not all of them are digitally savvy
• How can companies leverage the learnings of consumers to identify improvements/changes/needs
• Technology has evolved in such a way that customers can now use it to their advantage in multiple ways (e.g Checking in on a flight – It’s about making things easy and simple to use)
• Use of analytics to change/follow customer
• Overtime the generational mind-set has changed… am I a CUSTOMER? vs am I a USER?
• Expectations grow quickly due to more competition
• User Experience with age gap → the bar keeps growing → how do we measure this gap?
2. How to monetise/measure the benefits of digital transformation?
• Income vs cost vs customer
• Cost: fixed assets/people; Income: measure budgets;
• Journey mapping analytics → building models
• Technology has enabled tracking of Customer Experience and Customer Journey across all measurable touchpoints
• How do we take info and predict the next move of this customer?
• Big Data is now becoming even ‘BIGGER DATA’ (How can companies then use this strategically?)
• Privacy vs non-threatening = opportunity
• Trust barrier for the customer however everything is now INSTANT
• Advertisers vs users … how do we apply personalisation? How far can we push this personalisation? How much is too much?
• It is about building new touch points and new outlets to build trust…this will create new platforms…in turn creating more money
• How do we monetise? = MAKE IT EASY
• 2 parts: 1) Make it easy 2) Let go of legacy systems
• Problems arise when the mind set begins moving quicker than the technology
• It is about relationships →build relationships then add value later (Could be 5-10 year relationship however the reward will be a greater value)
• Challenge comes when companies need to select where to focus efforts
• New competition always changing things (e.g. Uber vs. everyone else)
3. How do businesses demystify digital?
• Internal vs external
• Social media → how to start thinking about digital
• ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ (Can you treat me well = loyalty)
• Demystifying digital to business, not the customers
• Example – Tesco Home delivery for elderly customers
• Customers now want to use the digital journey in different ways
• ‘You do it’ → it is about enabling internal people
• Conversion between age groups
• Businesses need to make sure the staff BELIEVE they can do digital
• People are scared of job loss = resistance = slower pace of change
• Language vs arrogance (Technology is not always translated across the business)
• FEAR = IF YOU ARE NOT DIGITAL YOU SHOULD NOT BE IN THIS COMPANY
• Introduction of reverse mentoring (C suite being trained by Juniors and vice versa & Junior team members usually know what is best for their customer)
• Culture of digital (“social good”)
• Societal entrepreneurship → profit with a purpose
• Millennials are coming through→ change the landscape of organisations→free formers
Thanks to Eric Crabtree (Managing Director, Omni Channel Banking at RBS) for hosting the Digital Transformation event. Keep an eye out for our next BTN event on the website.
