Four Building Blocks for Leading Digital Transformation in Your Organisation

I distinctly remember my father giving me a copy of Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach when I was just a teenager. I’ve read it countless times and always find something new to help me in my work and my life.

If you aren’t familiar with the story, Jonathan Livingston is a young seagull with a very contrarian nature. He goes against all existing norms of the ‘seagull community’ and is determined to live his life according to his dreams and grand vision. This ultimately proves to be his greatest strength.

Leading your business in an experience economy

There’s a lot we can all learn from Jonathan, especially as our economies undergo significant change with digital transformation.

True transformation requires a significant reboot — new organizational cultures, new mindsets, new technology, and innovative solutions to old problems. All of this, especially together, can be daunting. But that’s when industry leaders, stakeholders, and innovators need to be like Jonathan seagull and chart a path anchored in a bold, grand vision — even if that means going against the easy, the safe, and the comfortable.

For Indian businesses determined to focus on customer experiences, and apply digital processes to that focus, it means adopting these four central building blocks.

1. Focus on delivering personalized customer experiences

One size never fits all. Your organization and your customers are special, and the way you design customer experiences should be just as unique. If you try to apply a one-size-fits-all approach, you miss opportunities for personalization. Instead, focus on tailoring customer experiences for specific channels — especially mobile. Use solutions that help you be efficient by automatically adjusting your content to work on multiple channels.

2. Gain clarity by understanding your customer journeys

Top-performing companies are 50 percent more likely than their peers to have well-designed user journeys — journeys that facilitate clear communication and seamless transactions. With a solid understanding of what your customers need, you can identify the most important customer interactions. It is here where you’ll want to focus your efforts to surprise, delight, and deliver relevance to your customers.

3. Organize your data for better customer insights

Delivering personalized experiences to your market segments is essential for gaining market share. To do this, organizations must gather data from all sources across every part of their business — web and mobile analytics, voice interactions, in-person experiences, financial transaction, customer relationship management, and more. No longer can data be owned and siloed within departments.

Use a single data platform to ingest and integrate data from every source and then resolve the data into unified customer profiles. Having access to real-time customer data allows you to deliver personalized and contextual experiences at any moment.

4. Invest in ongoing digital skills training for your employees

An Adobe/Econsultancy report found that 45 percent of high-performing companies planned to invest significantly in digital skills and education, versus 23 percent of mainstream companies. India is a competitive market. Continually reskilling your employees is one way to stay ahead of the curve.

Putting the pieces together

Digital transformation is the wave of the future — 90 percent of Indian enterprises embrace the idea of digital transformation. But just 7 percent are “leaders.” This means the opportunity is wide open for you to leap past your competition is you are willing to apply a grand vision of what’s possible.

Getting your organization to focus their technology and processes on customer experiences takes a mindset shift — it takes being Jonathan and going against how you’ve traditionally organized your company’s processes and incentives.

There’s a great quote from Jonathan Livingston Seagull that truly speaks to this moment in time. Jonathan proclaims, “We can lift ourselves out of ignorance, we can find ourselves as creatures of excellence and intelligence and skill. We can be free! We can learn to fly!”

This same notion applies to this moment in our digital transformation. As a leader, you will no doubt have to wade into uncertain waters — and you should. Lean on the data, lean on partners like Adobe, and lean on your inherent seagull nature. When combined, those actions will help you push yourself and your business towards your future — a future that’s data-driven, customer-focused, results-oriented, and fueled by creativity, innovation, and the human spirit.