reform

Or… the year that business leaders started to wake up to the opportunities – and the challenges – of digital.

2011 has been a challenging year for many businesses. Certainly across our client base we have been exposed to – and engaged to help to resolve – many challenges around the continual growing pains of digital.

Don’t get me wrong, digital is a clearly wonderful thing for businesses: it represents growth opportunities as well as efficiency drives, especially around using the Internet and web technologies to provide a cheaper and more scalable way of acquiring customers, of servicing customers, of listening to customers, and of getting products to market quicker and more cost effectively.

Yet despite the Internet now entering its 19th year and its phenomenal impact on the global economy and society, its commercial growth potential remains untapped or misunderstood for many businesses. Even the other day we spoke to an insurance company who don’t yet use the web to generate leads or sell policies! It is unbelievable that such companies are still in business.

When you scratch the surface of businesses, you come across a lot of ‘pain’ surrounding digital literacy and growth. Many are growth pains – the hiring of Generation Y, and investment and implementation of new technologies, the inefficiencies of new operational models and silos created across new skillsets and disciplines. There are also cultural pains – resentment that digital talent is valued (paid) more than staff who have been loyal to the business for decades. Political pains too: the rapid rise of the geek or the online expert – the online marketer, the CTO, the social media strategist who has the CEO’s ear – who treads on the toes of his peers as he or she targets a place in the board room. Much of digital falls between the two stools of marketing and IT – and if the departmental heads don’t see its value, or don’t believe that they will be recognised for its success, then progress will be blocked.

And then there is the C-suite – our noble business leaders. Many business leaders have spent the last five years hoping and praying that digital will be a problem that either goes away before they retire, or that will remain in the darkened ‘geek corner’ of the office. But it won’t. Digital is the new high street for retailers, the new subscription model for publishers, the foundation for the international expansion plan; search is now the primary customer sales channel, Facebook and Twitter the new customer services channels, and social media the new way of monitoring and responding to corporate crises. The C-suite is in panic mode.

Digital is quickening the pace of business growth, it is challenging traditional infrastructure and leadership, and it is making people more accountable. In an FT special report on World Retailing, published earlier this month, retail experts conclude that “[retail] leaders need to be able to respond quickly, given the speed at which digital developments are altering the retail landscape” – that in order to survive retail leaders must embrace new technology and know their customers inside out – which means knowing their behaviours online as well as in-store, and tailoring their business models and plans according to what customers want in this multichannel, multimedia world.

Hopefully 2012 will be the year that business leaders embrace digital, embed it in their strategic planning, and invest more confidently in its people, platforms and channels.