Written by Lori Schmidt, AWE Bold Leadership Program Lead.
With the pandemic, business owners around the world were pushed into adapting their businesses for the digital world as a means of survival. Building and implementing a digital strategy for your business is often seen as just updating technology and processes, but it is much more than that. It is about driving value for your business, your customers, and your bottom line. When done right, a comprehensive digital strategy can drive value for your business in the following ways:
1. Creating new sources of revenue
Digital ecosystems drive new revenue streams by looking at how organizations can track and analyze data flowing through the business and use it to create new products and services, as well as improve customer interactions and their access to your company’s offerings. These improvements can include enhancing delivery times, building price matching programs, advising customers instead of selling to them through consultations on how to use your products, and using data to create customer profiles to provide customized recommendations and assistance (like a personal shopper).
2. Lowering operational costs
Companies that have embraced digital transformation are finding measurable cost savings through improved business processes. Besides increasing workflow efficiency, end-to-end integration improves your working relationships with customers and partners and reduces operational costs due to automated data processes. It also makes it easier for your employees as they will now be supported by systems that help them be more efficient in their work functions.
3. Increasing the speed of technology adoption and potential for success
Building the right digital strategy for your business allows you to fully utilize and adopt new technology in ways that will help you grow your business. You will be able to achieve that by first evaluating the systems and data you already have in place, and then identifying the opportunities available to serve your customers more effectively and with more value. When done correctly, you will have implemented a strategy that works for your business the first time, rather than simply jumping into the latest technology on the market which may not give you the results you had hoped and may cause delays in your timeline.
When thinking about ways to drive value for your business, it is very important to start looking at it in terms of a digital strategy. It is just like any other business strategy you have built in the past, but you will instead be looking at it through a digital lens. Here are a few key things to keep in mind:
What are your business and financial goals? Make sure you are looking at them in terms of how you are creating business value.
Understand your customers. You should be able to define your value proposition and be able to map out your customer journey.
Look at your internal processes and see how you might add value to your customers and meet your financial objectives. Build in measures to constantly look for areas of improvement and innovation.
Ensure that you are setting up your people for success. Build digital champions within your business and foster a digital culture of continuous learning. Attract and retain people that are going to help you continue to build into the future and achieve your goals.
AWE’s newly launched Bold Leadership program is designed to help women entrepreneurs create the digital strategy they need to keep their businesses relevant and profitable. Applications for the January 2021 cohort are now open. Learn more about how the program can kickstart your transformation journey.
