The average lifespan of a top 500 company is shorter than ever. Despite this damning evidence of the inertia of big organisations, we surely must assume it is possible to change company culture.
Arguably there are some organisations that have done it, with Government Digital Services the current poster child for digital transformation. There are many more that have failed.
So, how is it done?
Google is making many companies nervous. Anything bought online that involves the collection of information naturally falls into Google’s path.
Even outside of this large niche, Google is getting stuck into larger engineering projects like the self-driving car.
Let’s take a look at industries ripe for disruption by Google.
2014 is another exciting year for mobile.
With many new technologies coming to market, emotional investment in our devices along with usage is at an all time high.
This is the definitive A to Z guide to mobile marketing and commerce. Enjoy…
Digital technologies are re-imagining the human experience, reshaping the way we live, work, play and connect across the world.
Everything is being re-thought, simplified and improved, with nothing left untouched by the march of technology.
A chief catalyst among the changes is something that shouldn’t surprise anyone reading this post: customer expectations.
Today more than ever before, businesses need to focus more on the timing, targeting and treatment of their customers. The combination of the delivery of the service and the context in which it’s delivered roll up together to create the all-important experience.
Making the experience delightful will always come down to design.
Digital has changed our world. The web has transformed the way we gather information, make purchases and carry out daily tasks.
Social media is altering the way we interact with friends and even the nature of society as a whole. And mobile has nurtured the 24/7, always on culture.
Organisations are scrambling to adapt to this new reality. Some businesses have been too slow and digital has forced them to close their doors. HMV, Tower records, Kodak and Blockbusters are all high-profile victims of the digital revolution.
But some organisations are making the transition, even in sectors harmed by the arrival of digital. One such organisation is the Guardian newspaper.
Enterprise software is now about marketing. According to a frequently cited report, the CMO will spend more money on technology than the CIO by 2017.
How the CMO spends is now a strategic issue. Here is how to think about it…
Companies are well aware of the need for digital transformation in a world where their customers are ‘always online’.
Consumers are using computers, mobile devices and social platforms as integral parts of their day-to-day lives.
While technological advancements are empowering consumers, they are also creating new opportunities for businesses that can acquire and process the data from these activities and use the insights to drive decision making and action.
But according to the Econsultancy and Adobe 2014 Digital Trends report, only 23% of marketers believe they have the marketing technology they need to be successful.
This highlights the need for organisations to replace their legacy systems with technology that positions them to capitalise on current and future opportunities.
So, you think your manager is an idiot? Looks like you’re wrong, as senior level employees have better digital knowledge than their juniors.
That’s according to preliminary averaged results from the Econsultancy Digital Skills Index, designed to test digital knowledge across marketing.
It seems that senior level digital employees can put their money where their mouths are as they scored higher than mid-level respondents, who in turn scored higher than junior respondents.
The average scores for each level of seniority were 67% for juniors, 72% for mid-levels and 74% for senior respondents.
The assessment will remain live and continue to hoover up data, so take the test if you’d like to benchmark your skills against those of your peers.
In this post I’ll reveal a few findings from the assessments so far and discuss them in light of the skills of the modern marketer (incidentally, the title of a new Econsultancy report in our Digital Transformation series).
Looking to future proof your CV? Want to make sure your marketing team has the right mix of talent?
Our recent Skills of the Modern Marketer report defines the skills that senior marketers are seeking for their team. Both the broad knowledge areas and the deep vertical skills needed to be successful in marketing.
As Neil Perkin’s blog post on the report mentioned last week, we also found a surprising focus on soft skills – in particular, adaptability, inquisitiveness and willingness to collaborate.
We created this infographic to summarise the findings of the report, based on interviews and a survey with senior level marketers.
We hosted a Digital Transformation roundtable on rethinking your customer here at Econsultancy’s London offices yesterday and I wanted to share some of the themes that were discussed, and in particular the focus on the customer.
Our roundtables are free to attend for Enterprise subscribers. The format is simple. We invite 20 people to come in and chat about an issue under Chatham House Rules (the conversation cannot be attributed).
Attendees set the agenda at the start of the session by naming the topics they’d like to discuss. Yesterdays topics included:
What are the skills needed by marketers to be succesful in the future?
In our research for the Skills of the Modern Marketer report, we asked senior level marketers that question and have come up with 15 essential skills – organised into three ‘top five skills lists’ for marketing.
Why three lists? When we asked respondents about the skills essential to marketing there was a surprising focus placed on the soft skills.
So in addition to the usual broad knowledge areas and vertical skills areas, marketers need the right soft skills to be able to work across the organisation. The best ideas will founder without buy-in across the organisation and support from multiple teams.
Marketers also need to be able to adapt quickly in response to the rapid pace of change all around us.
So that leaves us with three top five lists, one each for soft skills, broad skills and technical skills.
Social media is a major part of Ford’s continued evolution in digital and in many cases features some of its most groundbreaking work.
Ford was the first automobile manufacturer to reveal a vehicle on Facebook, it was the first brand on Google+ and it runs perhaps one of the most uniquely enjoyable and surprising Vine accounts.
Last month I wrote about why Ford’s social media strategy is so good, in which I discussed Ford’s various social channels and how it expertly tailors its output and connects to each channel’s audience with the right content and tone of voice.
At the helm of this strategy is Scott Monty, Ford’s global digital & multimedia communications manager. Within just a few years Scott has transformed the 110 year old car manufacturer into one of the most successful brands in digital and social.
I recently had the opportunity to interview Scott Monty for the blog and he had the following to say about Ford’s social media strategy, the challenges the company faces and Ford’s overall digital transformation.