Digital Transformation Is ‘Like Teenage Sex,’ Jokes Deutsche Post DHL Group’s VP

“Nobody knows how to do it, but everyone thinks everyone else is at it,” said Arjan Sissing at the Summit. He encouraged the attendees to “just go for it.”

The exciting journeys, on which digital transformation is setting many companies, were highlighted at Adobe Summit EMEA in London yesterday as delegates sought to learn the lessons of bold companies reinventing themselves in the digital age.

Like any such journey, speakers agreed transformation can lead to a fluctuating mixture of anticipation and nerves, but none went quite as far to paint a picture of the experience from the inside as Arjan Sissing, senior vice-president of corporate brand marketing at logistics business Deutsche Post DHL Group.

“It’s like teenage sex,” he joked with delegates. “Everyone talks about it, and nobody knows how to do it, but everyone thinks everyone else is at it. In the end, you’ve just need to be a bit daring and just go for it.”

In the case of DHL, Sissing revealed the company had realised it was in need of digital transformation every time it looked at its website. The lesson it learnt, as it redesigned its desktop and mobile sites though, was, as with any inexperienced beginner, you cannot expect to get it perfect the first time, you just have to keep testing, and developing, and improving.

“We had to use digital to refocus the company on the customer because you only had to look at our website to see how inside-out we were,” he said.

“The page was organised in business units that meant something to us but was a puzzle for any consumer. They had to figure out our infrastructure to know how to navigate the site.”

The result now is a far clearer, user-friendly website that is being rolled out across multiple territories throughout the year. The site also comes with the benefit of being optimised for search terms consumers will typically type in for a Google search. Previously, customers were only aided on a search page if their query included the DHL brand name.

Smarter Working, Better Image

Similarly at Lufthansa, the focus has been to empower consumers to make new discoveries about the brand through aligning its internal and external communications teams. Both used to work separately, but now, through Adobe Experience Cloud, all publishing assets are made available to both teams.

Christoph Meier, head of communications at Lufthansa Group, told delegates that, by eschewing multiple providers’ solutions, the airline was able to align its internal and external teams on a single Adobe platform. This has had very positive results for the public as well as the group’s staff.

“Internal and external teams used to be totally separate, but now they work from the same platform, so my prediction is people wouldn’t notice in a year’s time they are two teams, they’ll appear as one,” he said.

“That’s not only good for our communications, but it means that a lot more stories and information flow through from our internal teams to the external-facing News Room site we’ve set up. Previously, the public might not have seen a lot of stories because external communications might find that journalists didn’t want to run every story. However, with our News Room, we’re able to bring a lot more information to the public. It’s great to give more insight, it’s great for adding a bit of colour.”

Banking On Success

Delegates at the Adobe Summit in London also heard that the importance of getting internal teams aligned is a prerequisite of using digital to transform systems and present consumers with new, improved experiences.

Lucy M Donaldson, head of digital customer experience at Lloyds Banking Group, explained how the 250-year-old financial institution had been on a three-year transformation journey that is just starting to come to fruition for “onboarding” corporate and pension customers. In a detailed account, with the bank’s transformation partner, SapientRazorfish, she described how it was an incremental process of designing new systems in which getting colleagues to take ownership of parts of the overall plan was vital.

“The main thing we’ve found is that, if you’re starting on a digital transformation process, you can’t leave your colleagues behind because they are the people who will be delivering it,” she said.

“Our advice is that colleagues need to feel a sense of purpose, and you can track their sentiments as the plan matures. They also need to be trusted with some autonomy, you need to let them take ownership of their part of the transformation, and you can also track their personal development so everyone sees how beneficial it is to the company as well as them.”

For those who are concerned that the process may be too tough, Donaldson has some reassuring words.

“It’s really tough, there’s no getting away from it,” she said. “I’d liken it to trying to pack the boot of a car for a holiday when the car’s already moving. You’re trying to work on digital transformation, but the company isn’t standing still for you. But it’s very rewarding too.”

If there were one piece of advice delegates could learn about digital transformation, it was a simple rule applied by Richard Earle, the director of performance analytics at SapientRazorfish. He helps many brands use digital technology to devise new customer experiences, including Lloyds Banking Group. For him, there is a very simple premise for judging which colleagues’ views should be taken forward.

“Be very careful to choose solutions over ideas,” he said. “You will find lots of people have something to say, but a lot will offer some interesting ideas that can never be acted on. You need to listen to solutions and that often means not just following the person with the loudest voice or who gets the most nods in a meeting.”