The digital strategy - how to define it?

Since 2016, the share of industrial automation technology and digitization in our reorganization and transformation projects has increased constantly as key elements. Especially the project work with Brazilian startups then additionally sharpened the knowledge of digitalization and solidly opened the view for the B2C sector.

What was and is more and more our core assumption, our guiding principle? No consumer is or will be 100% online. And no consumer will be 100% offline anymore. We need to be where the customer explicitly wants to shop. We believe that the multi-channel market is the best focus for our customers' business model.

So we need a digital strategy, a kind of guide for our customer to approach digital transformation. But what could be part of a digital strategy? So, as iMB, we have been contacting companies and specialists in Brazil and the US, and we have built a consistent network, which goes back to Executive MBA programs of mine in the US, among others. Thus, we are learning more and more about digital strategies and the use of social media platforms in professional applications - "learning by applying". 

Here are the learnings of the past four years or so: 

1. Digital business models have the advantage of being generally more cost-efficient than old-world businesses.

They also offer the opportunity to directly identify real customer needs, as user data is generally easier to obtain. There is no doubt in my mind that the integrated use of data is central to building digital business models.

Once the digital business model was implemented at our client, many things changed, and very quickly. The entire organization felt the impact. It was often not just a transaction of performance. Collaboration with suppliers changed, as did internal processes, working methods and competencies had to be renewed.

In addition, digitalization presents an even greater challenge to keep up with the latest technological developments. At this point, even organizational stress arises. After all, the use of new technologies is the key difference to traditional business models, and these are constantly evolving. A permanent engagement with technology is necessary. What are the different e-commerce stores? Which cloud technology should we rely on? Do algorithms and artificial intelligence offer us new opportunities? Questions like these have to be asked again and again in the company.

As interim managers, we can make a fundamentally important contribution to "technological freshness" on an ongoing basis after a successful project, but it also requires us to stay fully up to date. 

In order to do justice to this in day-to-day project work, we have appointed a responsible person in all projects together with our client, who acts as a technology scout and makes initial considerations as to how the respective technology could benefit the company. In most cases, an interim manager from iMB also works on such projects together with the client's own TechScout.

2. Solving customer problems and creating positive experiences - extremely important!

One thing became clear to all of us very quickly in all projects: Before you can design a digital business model, you have to answer the question of which customer problems you want to solve with it and with the digital products and services. What customer benefits are to be offered? There must also be a willingness to make product adjustments or enhancements or to develop features in response to changing customer needs in shorter cycles than in the offline world. The best digital channel is of no use if the customer experience is miserable. If you want to digitize customer interfaces and be responsive on multiple digital channels, you need to aim for a great customer experience.

3. Encourage an agile approach and mindset.

Once a digitization project was up and running at our client, the momentum in our client's organization increased dramatically. Long planning periods and development in silence are not uncommon, but they are passé in the digital world. Instead, products and features are developed incrementally in order to improve them step by step or design new features with the help of feedback, especially from the customer or user. This requires an open attitude of trial and error, a willingness to network and deal with customer problems, and the courage to keep trying something new. 

Therefore, so-called low-fi models should be developed and tested very quickly. It is not about perfecting a HiFi model with all the ideas you want at this stage. Perfection in this moment is poison!

It is about making the hidden necessities and wishes of our client's users and customers visible with the models to be tested quickly. In short: Find inspiration - develop LowFi solution model - validate application with customers.