Digital Transformation is gaining momentum in line with Marketing Innovation and though questions about the ‘what’ and ‘why’ for it have been subject to in-depth debates, “the challenge is to implement it”, stated Allister Health, Telegraph Media Group Deputy Editor of Content during the Telegraph Digital Leaders conference held last month in London.

While the importance of putting the customer at company was put forward by some interveners through recurrent themes such as structural business model change, customer-centricity, emergence of new type of competitors, need for new metrics and attitudes towards risks and failure, Mark Lien, Director of Innovation and Digital Development at Lloyds Banking Group asserted: ““Customers’ fundamental needs haven’t changed,” he pointed out. “Their expectation of how services will be delivered has.”

Lloyds’ response has been in two phases. The first was to digitise the channel, creating a single digital platform and a hub to house digital skills and act as a catalyst for change in the rest of the business. The second, which is currently under way, is a three year process of taking 10 key customer journeys, and redesigning and transforming the customers’ experience of them.

REVOLUTIONIZED COMPETITION
Digital Transformation implies two categories of clients: those who responding to competitors treading on their toes and those who wish to tread on others’ toes. In fact, competitors are emerging from new segments adhering to different rules and principles as it is the case with Uber and Air B’n’B who are now bidding on access delivery. For them, marginal cost of supply is null with regards to old-school business models. In other words, a revolution in the economics of competition and it is time to attack the market by being a key player within the market.

PEOPLE AT THE HEART OF TECHNOLOGY
It was agreed during the conference that it was key that customers be placed at the heart of the business model. Stephen Kneebone, Nissan Europe’s Chief Information affirms that ‘customer opinion is the driver; technology is the strategic enabler of our objectives’. The argument that companies are focusing too much on technology to the detriment of people has been put forward by most interveners. The key questioning would be: is digital transformation turning things faster, cheaper and better for customers?

WHAT WOULD BE THE RESPONSE?
Companies should be able to respond and most of the speakers argued about how challenging it was to present digital strategic ideas to the board, more particularly to the CFO which clearly has to be educated about. Emphasis should be laid on distribution and engagement, at least at early stages. Moreover, risk management is critical and though failure is tolerable, people should learn from their failures to better perform.

Mark Lien finally added that “Innovation is only an idea until you deliver it”.

More on this topic:

http://www.cmo.com/articles/2015/7/9/the-why-of-digital-transformation-is-clear-now-its-time-for-how.html?cmpid=TT301xx/08/2015Marketing%20Innovation