01232405ÿ01711ÿ89 ÿ7ÿ4ÿ ÿ ÿÿÿ4ÿ110ÿ!!ÿ4140ÿÿ8 "# 6789:;?@AABCÿDEFB?ÿGHI?@J KLH?MBNÿ6789:;ÿh7AB8H B j8klEB8 7@C9BAcEH h9hE@ÿmA8G fgfÿH8n:E GE9lABCHo ÿ7ÿ4ÿ ÿ ÿÿÿ4ÿ110ÿ!!ÿ4140ÿÿ8 "# RSSTLMNUVWKX YKZKNTMU[\ ]K\U[[U[\ YUXÿ[T_ O__KLM_ pÿh7AB8H sÿh7AB8H j8klEB8 j8klEB8ÿl7EH 7@C9BAcEH B78ÿkHE h9hE@ÿmA8G GE9lABCÿqk8 GE9lABCHÿqk8 8GEÿh9hE@ 8GEnÿ9@EÿB78ÿAB r:7mHÿABÿ9B h@7hE@ÿfgf 7@C9BAcElÿm9n r7@e98o r@7eÿ87hAFÿ87 87hAFo ;ÿ=> >ÿh7AB8H j8klEB8ÿlAl B78ÿHkqeA8ÿ9 h9hE@o tosiÿh7AB8H j8klEB8ÿl7EH B78ÿkHE GE9lABCHÿ9Bl h9hE@ÿl7EH B78ÿr7::7mÿABÿ9 :7CAF9:ÿ7@lE@o `PU_KPUT[ aSTPK ;ÿ=> pÿh7AB8H sÿh7AB8H tosiÿh7AB8H >ÿh7AB8H g9hE@ÿF7B89ABH g9hE@ÿF7B89ABH g9hE@ÿF7B89ABH g9hE@ÿF7B89ABH g9hE@ÿF7B89ABH B7ÿE@@7@Ho uvt wvi xvs py C@9ee98AF9: C@9ee98AF9: C@9ee98AF9: C@9ee98AF9: E@@7@Ho E@@7@Ho E@@7@Ho E@@7@Hÿbz H8klEB8ÿlAl B78ÿHkqeA8ÿ9 h9hE@o d@9ee9@ =>ÿh7AB8H fgf ;ÿ=> =>ÿh7AB8H pÿh7AB8H sÿh7AB8H tosiÿh7AB8H >ÿh7AB8H g9hE@ÿF7B89ABH g9hE@ÿF7B89ABH g9hE@ÿF7B89ABH g9hE@ÿF7B89ABH g9hE@ÿm9HÿB78 >v=ÿfgf uvtÿfgf wviÿfgf xvsÿfgf HkqeA88ElÿAB E@@7@Ho E@@7@Ho E@@7@Ho E@@7@Ho fgfÿr7@e98 bzÿB7ÿh9hE@ m9H HkqeA88Elo g9hE@ÿ:EBC8G iÿh7AB8H wÿh7AB8H toiÿh7AB8H =opsiÿh7AB8H g9hE@ÿE{FEElH g9hE@ÿAHÿ=vu g9hE@ÿ>v= ~;f 8GEÿ:EBC8G h9CEHÿ7@ÿ7}E@ h9CEÿABÿ:EBC8Go @E|kA@EeEB8 tÿh9CEHo 9BlÿAHÿuvt h9CEHÿAB :EBC8Go 6789: ;ÿi >ÿh7AB8H j8klEB8ÿl7EH B78ÿHkqeA8ÿ9B 9B9:nHAHÿr7@ C@9lABCo ;ÿ=>> $%722&'!%%((&)%)*2*4!2(&&(2*!(+%2(9(*!2!,)*4!-*4!.(*'.' /00*4!.(9(*!1!(+./*4!.!.2332041435 22 01232405ÿ01711ÿ89 ÿ7ÿ4ÿ ÿ ÿÿÿ4ÿ110ÿ!!ÿ4140ÿÿ8 "# 6789:;;ÿ=>?98 @A8BC;:9D EFÿHIJKLM NJKJNONÿ P>>?BC;QRS8T UFÿHIJKLM NJKJNONÿ V878;?CQWX YFÿHIJKLM NJKJNONÿ Z8XQWWQWX [FÿHIJKLM NJKJNONÿ VQTÿW?\ :\\8BC\ FÿHIJKLMÿNJKJNONÿ $%722&'!%%((&)%)*2*4!2(&&(2*!(+%2(9(*!2!,)*4!-*4!.(*'.' /00*4!.(9(*!1!(+./*4!.!.2332041435 2 CHAPTER 4 Copyright © 2016. Business Expert Press. All rights reserved. The Second Principle of Digital Business Strategy— Know Your Customer The second principle is Know Your Customer. In a digitized context, this concept relates substantially to customer data dynamics and it can be broken down into three subconcepts: volume, task, and intent. Before we drill down into the subconcepts of customer data ­dynamics, it’s important for us to realize that knowing your customer is a precursor to the development of a unique value proposition, as outlined in the previous chapter. Should our perspective of volume, task, or intent change, it is highly probable that our value proposition will also require reassessment. This is true in reverse—should our unique value proposition change at any time, we will need to reassess McKeown, Niall, and Mark Durkin. The Seven Principles of Digital Business Strategy, Business Expert Press, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=5089199. Created from apus on 2021-10-24 23:28:14. 42 THE SEVEN PRINCIPLES OF DIGITAL BUSINESS STRATEGY our customer data dynamics to ensure that our strategy has taken everything into account. Let’s take a look at those three subconcepts. Copyright © 2016. Business Expert Press. All rights reserved. Volume If we are to create coherent strategy that permits us to achieve tactical excellence, it is vital that we understand customer volume and intent. In Chapter 6, we will discuss the engine of growth within the Ionology quadrant in more detail. The Ionology quadrant allows us to define our approach, identify what plays are available to us, and formulate our strategy for making those plays. Marketplace volume is a key part of understanding what plays are available to us. Conventional wisdom would tell us that high volume of search in the marketplace for our specific product or service (our task) is a good thing and that low volume is not good—but that’s not always the case. Understanding volume is about more than simply discovering what quantity of customers exists. It is about understanding the nature and level of demand which then means looking at the volume and intent of customers in the context of the marketplace and effectively judging our ability to leverage our resources to find a place in the market. A low customer volume could mean that we have a product or service that nobody wants—but equally, it could mean that the product or service we are looking to provide to customers is innovative and that our customers are not yet aware that it exists. The former may preclude us from entering the market, while recognition of the latter will permit us to formulate our strategy around the recognition that we must raise awareness of the availability of our product or service and convey the relative advantage of that proposition. By the same token, high customer volumes in our desired marketplace don’t necessarily mean that it is a good time to enter that marketplace. A high level of volume is often coupled with a lot of competition. Additionally, a marketplace that has a high level of volume might be approaching maturity, or even entering decline. McKeown, Niall, and Mark Durkin. The Seven Principles of Digital Business Strategy, Business Expert Press, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=5089199. Created from apus on 2021-10-24 23:28:14. THE SECOND PRINCIPLE OF DIGITAL BUSINESS STRATEGY 43 Copyright © 2016. Business Expert Press. All rights reserved. When we understand the customer volume that exists in our marketplace and why it exists, we can look at it in the context of digital business strategy and understand where we are in the Ionology quadrant. From here, we can better choose what course of action we should take to help us to achieve the ambition we defined under the first principle of digital business strategy. One of the most readily available tools for measuring volume is Google’s Adwords. Google Adwords is not the most accurate desktop tool on the market, but at the time of writing it is the most accessible and cost-effective. The only requirement for using Google Adwords is that the user should have a Google account. The keyword planner tool of Adwords, located under the tools option, has some very interesting and unique features. It allows us to plug in our keywords and then select a specific geographical area, for example. When we come to our macroanalysis and discuss Principles 5 and 6, we will discuss geographical lens locking, and through that, we will understand which geographical areas we may wish to target. Once we’ve selected a geographical area, we are able to obtain feedback about how many potential customers are searching in an area and to further narrow those keywords to give us a more accurate picture of what’s going on in the marketplace. McKeown, Niall, and Mark Durkin. The Seven Principles of Digital Business Strategy, Business Expert Press, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=5089199. Created from apus on 2021-10-24 23:28:14. Copyright © 2016. Business Expert Press. All rights reserved. 44 THE SEVEN PRINCIPLES OF DIGITAL BUSINESS STRATEGY To take an example of how high volume in a marketplace can translate into that marketplace being a poor choice for entry, we’ll look at orthodontists. In the state of Connecticut there is an average of 880 searches for orthodontists made daily. In New York there are 3,600 searches. This could easily be put down to the difference in population density between Connecticut and New York, but if we look at another area—California— we can see that the number of searches performed daily for the keyword “orthodontist” is disproportionately higher, at 12,100. What we see here is that there is a five-fold increase from C ­ onnecticut to New York, and there is a four-fold increase from New York to C ­ alifornia. From a digital perspective, volume is extremely high in ­California, in comparison with Connecticut, but if an orthodontist is looking to set up a business and compares the volume in the market to the level of ­competition that exists within that market, we might see that C ­ onnecticut could be as good an option as California—if not better—because of the level of competition within the marketplace. McKeown, Niall, and Mark Durkin. The Seven Principles of Digital Business Strategy, Business Expert Press, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=5089199. Created from apus on 2021-10-24 23:28:14. Copyright © 2016. Business Expert Press. All rights reserved. THE SECOND PRINCIPLE OF DIGITAL BUSINESS STRATEGY 45 And now for another example, where low volume in a marketplace does not necessarily mean that targeting that market is a bad idea. Form 4 Type 7 switchboards are electrical distribution systems that are used to take high voltages as they come into a data center and break them down into low voltages for use within computer racks. One of the advantages of Form 4 Type 7 switchboards is that each of the cubes that are used to power certain sections of a rack are separated out—this means that if there’s a fault in one cube, like a blowout, it has no impact on the other cubes that are within the rack. Form 4 Type 7 switchboards have been used in Europe for some time, but now companies that manufacture them are beginning to target U.S. markets. There is certainly demand as many of larger data centers want to switch to Form 4 Type 7 switchboards, but there are no signs of them going to Google looking for suppliers of it. In fact, when we look at the Google Adwords results for Form 4 Type 7 switchboards, globally, we can see that there are only on average 10 searches done per day. This doesn’t mean that there is no demand, but it does indicate that there would be little point in a business that provides Form 4 Type 7 switchboards attempting to make an attention style play with pay-per-click advertising or Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Rather, for companies selling Form 4 Type 7 switchboards, the apparently low demand portrayed through our Google Adwords data is a sign that business can be done better by using specifically targeted advocacy selling to find our customers. To summarize, the measurement of volume tells us that if there is low demand, it is an innovation that our potential customers are not yet aware of, that business by advocacy might be a better route to customers, or that the market is in decline and there is little point in attempting to find customers within it. If there is high volume, it tells us that there is an opportunity to make plays later that will allow us to use attention-driven plays and potentially become a prime business, because there is particular demand in our marketplace. In either case, whether the volume we see when using Google Adwords is high or low, we must use the data contextually to decide where we sit in the marketplace. McKeown, Niall, and Mark Durkin. The Seven Principles of Digital Business Strategy, Business Expert Press, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=5089199. Created from apus on 2021-10-24 23:28:14. 46 THE SEVEN PRINCIPLES OF DIGITAL BUSINESS STRATEGY Copyright © 2016. Business Expert Press. All rights reserved. Task For many traditional marketers, demographics have long been the holy grail of understanding and targeting customers. Using various indicators, such as age, gender, ethnicity, language, and home ownership status, marketers would attempt to identify specific demographic groups that might purchase the product or service they were offering, to better target them with advertising. With the explosion of the Internet and online business, we see the death of demographics as a tool for identifying potential customers. For example, cruise vacations have traditionally been marketed toward very specific demographic groups, in particular, the “boomer” woman, the older lady who longs for strolls along the beach in a sarong. Marketers set about selling to this demographic, creating images that portray the boomer lady in a sarong, strolling along a beach, but when we take a look at the demographics, we can see that this picture of the average customer is inaccurate. In fact, there is no such thing as an average customer, in terms of demographic factors. When we try to sell cruises, we find that it is neither the woman nor her desire for long strolls on the beach that actually makes conversions. People choose the cruise and vacations based upon three things—destination, how they can bring parties of people with them, and their ability to relax on the cruise. Their task, then, is the booking of a cruise that goes to a specific location, permits group bookings, and sails aboard a ship that facilitates relaxation. Messaging for this task needs to be specific, and gender is not a viable point of distinction because men book cruises just as often as women. The factors that convert potential customers into customers are those that help them to complete their tasks at hand. To look at another service, we recently undertook a project where a banking institution wanted to build a new website based on demographics for three stages of life: newly married, saving for college, and retirement. When the data are examined, though, we discover that people are not looking for bank accounts based on their stage of life. Rather, they are looking for bank accounts based on individual needs that are not necessarily affected by, nor reflective of, their demographic characteristics. Customers were looking for convenience tailored to their specific needs. Some wanted the ability to use nearby automatic teller machines, others wanted user-friendly online tools, and yet others were looking for close McKeown, Niall, and Mark Durkin. The Seven Principles of Digital Business Strategy, Business Expert Press, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=5089199. Created from apus on 2021-10-24 23:28:14. Copyright © 2016. Business Expert Press. All rights reserved. THE SECOND PRINCIPLE OF DIGITAL BUSINESS STRATEGY 47 personal relationships with the bank. The stage of life of the customer was not a factor in deciding which of these was a priority for them. The best way for this bank to target customers, then, is to target the customers by promoting these specific characteristics and advertising to the people who want them, and not by targeting specific demographic groups and presuming that they desire certain characteristics in their banking experience. To put it another way, if an architect wanted to sell their services, they wouldn’t look for CEOs and they wouldn’t attempt to target specific niches or people. They would look at the task the customer comes to them with and seek to respond to that customer task more effectively than anyone else in the marketplace. In the marketplace, we know that people are looking for architects that can make more efficient seating and eating arrangements—say a canteen has a specific seating issue they require a solution for. The architect that is best able to respond to the customer’s task of solving the seating issue will get the attention of the customer the quickest. That architect is the one that will receive the contact from the customer. Anyone might be making the call—the CEO of the company, the maintenance manager, or the canteen manager. The business may be large or small. It doesn’t matter. The one thing they have in common is that they all have a seating and eating arrangements issue, and the architect best placed to address that issue will get the business. So we see from these examples that, rather than attempting to sell our products and services to specific demographic groups, in digital business, we must identify what task the customer will be looking to undertake when they do business with us and focus on the ways in which we can be the most effective in the marketplace at allowing them to complete that task. Intent Angry Birds Don’t Need Therapists When we seek to understand our customer data dynamics as they relate to digital business, knowing what intention lies behind our customer’s decision to perform a specific search is vital if we’re to make a good strategy. A recent search for the keyword “angry birds” showed that 36,800 people McKeown, Niall, and Mark Durkin. The Seven Principles of Digital Business Strategy, Business Expert Press, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=5089199. Created from apus on 2021-10-24 23:28:14. 48 THE SEVEN PRINCIPLES OF DIGITAL BUSINESS STRATEGY had searched for the term in 1 month. Without contextualizing these data within the real world, and understanding that Angry Birds is a game, originating as a smartphone app, which has soared in popularity over the last 5 years, we might be led to believe that there is huge demand for veterinary services or bird whisperers to soothe our feathered friends’ tempers. Obviously, this would be a huge mistake and exemplifies just how important it is that we make sure that the customer’s intent aligns with the capabilities, products, and services of our business. Let’s look at some case studies that demonstrate how a company that has identified high demand and has clearly defined customer tasks might stumble if they misunderstand customer intent. Case Study 4.1 Copyright © 2016. Business Expert Press. All rights reserved. Certification Europe Certification Europe is an accredited certification body that provides International Organization for Standardization (ISO) management system certification and other management standards to organizations globally. The business conquered its main territory successfully and wanted to move further through Europe, with specific focus on its certification ISO27001, which is an information security standard. When the business looked at ISO27001, it saw large volumes of customer demand in the marketplace, using keyword data from tools such as Google’s Adwords. To help them to meet the demand for ISO27001 certification in Europe, Certification Europe decided to open a new office to help them better serve their clients. Their intent was to base certification consultants in this office so that they could use attention-driven marketing, such as pay-per-click and SEO, and send consultants out into the field when customers started calling for them. The first question they had is which country would be the best place to base their office; that is, which geographical area showed the highest ­demand for ISO27001 certification. Because the search term “ISO27001” is the same in any language, Certification Europe was able to get an ­immediate picture from the data of where, geographically ­speaking, the searches were being made from. McKeown, Niall, and Mark Durkin. The Seven Principles of Digital Business Strategy, Business Expert Press, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=5089199. Created from apus on 2021-10-24 23:28:14. Copyright © 2016. Business Expert Press. All rights reserved. THE SECOND PRINCIPLE OF DIGITAL BUSINESS STRATEGY 49 Inside Google Adwords, they were able to find the quantity of searches that existed by country. In France, there were on average around 180–220 searches per day. In Germany, there was around twice that v­ olume—360–440 searches per day. This immediately suggested, on the face of it, that G ­ ermany would be a better location for Certification Europe to open their new office, assuming the supply level within the marketplace was still low enough to make it viable, but when they looked at the UK, they saw that volume was twice that of Germany—733–896 searches per day. Within Google Adwords, it is possible to narrow down the geographic area even further. When Certification Europe looked at the data for London, it became apparent that the volume that existed just within a 25 mile circumference around the M25 in London was almost as high as the volume for the whole of France. Logic would tell us that if ­Certification Europe were to go into a new market, London would be the best place for an office, because it would be the most likely to permit their consultants to effectively serve their customer. So now that they’d used this desktop research to understand demand, and they had defined their task as consultancy and certification for ISO27001, they came to the logical conclusion that their best play would be to open a new office in London, but does this match up to the intent of the customer? To understand the customer’s intent, they must perform a test. The best test that can be used is what we refer to as baseline and base camp testing. With baseline testing, we’re trying to find out what the minimum amount of sales opportunities are, if we were to enter the marketplace. With base camp, we aim to ensure that we have a unique value proposition (as defined under the first principle of digital business strategy) by checking it against demand to ensure that our ambition is not misguided. In other words, we are testing our value proposition and ambition against customer intent. To test for this match, Certification Europe ran pay-per-click ads, because a high level of demand existed within the marketplace and created what’s called a minimum viable product. This concept is outlined in The Lean Startup by Eric Ries. The concept dictates that we do the minimum amount of work required to answer the leap of faith hypothesis (in this case “we believe that there are people in London who want to get ISO27001 accreditation, and they’re looking for consultants online”). McKeown, Niall, and Mark Durkin. The Seven Principles of Digital Business Strategy, Business Expert Press, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=5089199. Created from apus on 2021-10-24 23:28:14. Copyright © 2016. Business Expert Press. All rights reserved. 50 THE SEVEN PRINCIPLES OF DIGITAL BUSINESS STRATEGY We are seeking, with our testing, to prove this hypothesis is true. Certification Europe did this by creating a temporary website and running Google Adwords. The Adwords covered ISO27001 from two different perspectives and allowed the business to see whether their understanding of the customers’ motivation matched up to reality. The first version of the advertisements that were run by Certification Europe advertised help with certification for ISO27001. The second advertised information and training about ISO27001. The click-through rate of those who wanted to get ISO27001 certified (and would therefore be potential customers for Certification Europe) is 3.89 percent. For the advertisements offering training and information, it was approaching 32 percent. This clearly tells us that the vast majority of people searching for ISO27001 are motivated by a need or desire for education and not a desire to actually get certified. With these data available to us, we work out how many people are searching and how many of those we could potentially attract, work out the cost per search and the likelihood of conversion, and arrive at baseline figures. These figures then easily show us, when we factor in the customer’s motivation, that being a digital business in this crowded marketplace is not an economically viable option. Being a savvy business, Certification Europe recognized that the customer intent did not necessarily match up with their unique value proposition and resourced the project more appropriately. They created websites, supporting sales reps and building brand in the London area. Knowing they had to fight differently to gain a foothold in the marketplace, Certification Europe realized it could not wait on digital to deliver sales ­opportunities. Rather than ignoring or denying this fact, it acknowledged that this could have a knock-on effect on its growth ambition and started to develop a secondary set of tactics and resources to run alongside digital. In response to this test, Certification Europe also built a free o­ nline ­education portal to attract new customers seeking knowledge on ISO27001. They understood that if they helped deal with the customers first task, they would be much more likely to be in line to deal with the ­second, profitable task of helping the organization achieve its ISO objective. The concept of offering free training was not even a consideration at the outset of creating the digital business strategy. It came about by following the process of the Seven Principles of Digital Business Strategy and seeking to understand customer intent. McKeown, Niall, and Mark Durkin. The Seven Principles of Digital Business Strategy, Business Expert Press, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=5089199. Created from apus on 2021-10-24 23:28:14. THE SECOND PRINCIPLE OF DIGITAL BUSINESS STRATEGY 51 Case Study 4.2 Copyright © 2016. Business Expert Press. All rights reserved. Creme Global For 15 years (at the time of writing), Creme Global has been creating advanced models that allow us to understand the cumulative intake of toxins to the human body. For example, a person brushing their teeth would take in a small, harmless dose of toxin from their toothpaste. If that same person goes on to use lipstick, walks across pesticide-covered grass, and gets into a car, then with each new activity they receive another small dose of various toxins at each point. Creme’s models look at the cumulative levels and effects of these toxins over time. Because Creme’s models and modeling software are an innovative technology, little-to-no demand exists for them within the marketplace they see themselves entering. For a decade, Creme has aimed to talk to those who would be potential customers and has found it difficult to reach new clients—usually because their clients do not yet understand the concept or realize that the technology exists. The customer doesn’t necessarily know what task they’re even attempting to solve—they’re not aware that intake modeling across multiple geographies and multiple lifestyles exists. Once the customer does understand, they have a very clear motive, defined roughly as “We want to make our product as safe as possible.” The intent of the customer will then revolve around understanding how their products affect the toxin intake of people going about their day. The first thing the company needs to do is go right back to value proposition and understand that it must now create a new wave in order to ­create ­demand within the market. We cannot expect to find motivated clients within the market unless we create demand by raising awareness of our product. To do this, we must be able to clarify which customer task we are able to get done. Taking that into account, Creme starts to take a look at what it could use as a term that will work to effectively create demand. It looks across the web and uses Google search to try and find waves starting to emerge. One such wave term is around Advanced Consumer Safety Predictive Intake Modeling. This aligned with Creme’s desire to create healthier consumer products through their expert, real-world models but we felt the acronym just didn’t work. However “predictive intake modeling” as a wave term is something that could create demand and that Creme could “own.” McKeown, Niall, and Mark Durkin. The Seven Principles of Digital Business Strategy, Business Expert Press, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=5089199. Created from apus on 2021-10-24 23:28:14. 52 THE SEVEN PRINCIPLES OF DIGITAL BUSINESS STRATEGY When we start to see scholarly articles being cited for predicting ­intakes, and using mathematical models, we find that the citations are an indication of a breaking wave, but many in the academic world don’t necessarily have the ability to create tasks to align with customer motives, in order to convert them into customers. Creme Global decides that it is going to take up that challenge. It takes the term “predictive intake modeling” and says that this is what they’re going to do better than anyone else—they have invented the term and they wish to create demand and make sure the customers have that task at hand. Copyright © 2016. Business Expert Press. All rights reserved. Competency and Capacity The challenges both of competency and capacity are evident in these case examples and in understanding how and why staff may or may not get motivated around the digital opportunity. When managers and staff are busy “doing” and not having time to think it is unlikely they will see a need for the new analytical approaches and associated competencies needed in this new context. Many will not have the emerging competency sets needed for managers to envision and exploit what more sophisticated metrics and modeling can bring to their business. A competency is an underlying characteristic of a person, which ­results in effective and/or superior performance in a job or the attributes that firms require to be able to compete in the marketplace. A competency is a set of related, but different sets of behaviors organized around an ­underlying construct, which we call the “intent.” Competency also r­ elates to the “personal characteristics” of individuals. This approach focuses on the person and on the characteristics that make people competent. Managerial competencies have been variously described as the traits, skills, behaviors, and values of effective managers. While managers of a company are significant contributors to its competitive performance, there has been little success in pinpointing the competencies required for a manager to operate successfully in a particular organization. The context in which the firm operates is also extremely important when considering competency. It is argued that it is unlikely that a single, universal model of competence can be applied to different situations or contexts. Clearly, different industries and types of company have different McKeown, Niall, and Mark Durkin. The Seven Principles of Digital Business Strategy, Business Expert Press, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=5089199. Created from apus on 2021-10-24 23:28:14. Copyright © 2016. Business Expert Press. All rights reserved. THE SECOND PRINCIPLE OF DIGITAL BUSINESS STRATEGY 53 requirements that influence the particular grouping of skills required of individuals to satisfy those requirements. It has also been proposed that context is important. They have argued that the scope and process of management are not easily isolated from the context in which it takes place. Thus, managerial competencies are closely linked to the context of the organization, its culture, and its environment. So, in our increasingly digitized marketing environment, it is appropriate to consider if there is a competency base within the firm’s marketing team to manage both push and interactive communications through new media such as Facebook and Twitter, and as well as to what extent there is a competency in actually envisioning the potential value of such an engagement. One aspect of this is regulatory compliance, an area that has been considered by many researchers in relation to social media, with suggestions to aid compliance including “clear social media guidelines” and “training staff on social media compliance.” In smaller enterprises knowing what to say and when through these new channels can be challenging and time-consuming as can the management of the resulting engagement and ongoing customer dialogue. An organization’s culture also influences its competency when undertaking something new. George Day refers to “organizational rigidities” and a “fear of failure” when extending organizations capabilities, while KPMG calls for “something of a culture change” to implement social media effectively. In larger firms, the creation of a digital marketing employee post can prove a disservice to the organization as once again the perception that “digital is different” is perpetuated and inculcated within the culture of the company. In so creating a digital ­position, digital marketing efforts become separated from “traditional marketing,” and this artificial separation can create disconnected customer communications, bring branding challenges, and create issues around managing customer relationships effectively. In liaising with managers over the past 36 months and in combination with other business development and training activity, we became increasingly convinced that traditional models of marketing training and education were not fit for purpose in an increasingly digitized environment. Traditional teaching and training models in marketing management are characterized by linear and sequential thinking often rooted in a predictive rationale. So, for example, a traditional syllabus may advocate McKeown, Niall, and Mark Durkin. The Seven Principles of Digital Business Strategy, Business Expert Press, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=5089199. Created from apus on 2021-10-24 23:28:14. 54 THE SEVEN PRINCIPLES OF DIGITAL BUSINESS STRATEGY Copyright © 2016. Business Expert Press. All rights reserved. a process of opportunity identification through learning about internal resource ­potential and environmental audit, market ­research, new product development (NPD), segmentation, targeting and positioning (STP), planning, launch, and review. Many of these stages are hierarchical in themselves and together they reflect much from “big business” and bureaucratic thinking. As the implementation of such models was discussed in class/seminar contexts with the managers, it became ­increasingly clear that a gap existed in what such education provided and the usefulness of applying this thinking in the manager’s working lives and that over the 3 × 12 month training and education periods this relevance gap was widening. Understanding the aspects of digitized market ­environments appeared to require a different, nonlinear, and nonsequential thought process and one which was more comfortable in effectual rather than predictive modeling. As these challenges to prevailing teaching approaches in marketing education became more marked over the 36 months, the nature of the required competencies we needed to inculcate in these marketing managers also became an issue for greater exploration. A new competency set has begun to emerge in our thinking and a provisional competency cluster emerged as represented in Figure 4.1. Competency Set McKeown, Niall, and Mark Durkin. The Seven Principles of Digital Business Strategy, Business Expert Press, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=5089199. Created from apus on 2021-10-24 23:28:14. THE SECOND PRINCIPLE OF DIGITAL BUSINESS STRATEGY 55 This competency set was inherently interdisciplinary in nature involving thinking traditionally lodged within engineering, art and design, ­architecture and psychology, as well as in marketing. Table 4.1 illustrates the characteristics within each role and the ­emphasis required at a competency level for successful deployment. Copyright © 2016. Business Expert Press. All rights reserved. Table 4.1 Characteristics of role and issues of competency Role What they do Skills they have Where to find them Marketing technologist Discover, investigate, and prioritize Curiosity, inner geek, and network Journalism, large marketing agencies, academia, and information technology functions Systems Architect Create single customer view Systems, data integration, data quality IT, systems integrators vendors CX Engineer Map customer Multidisciplinary, engagement/process customer-attuned, blueprinting systems design Consultancy and marketing agencies Content Strategist Creation of useful and sustainable messaging materials across platforms Planning, creativity, and customer empathy Marketing agency and publishing Insight Analyst Predictions, associations, and performance Curiosity, statistics, and visualization Data science and marketing Behaviorist Discover, experiment, and understand Economics, psychiatry, and sociology Consultancy, academic, and megatech McKeown, Niall, and Mark Durkin. The Seven Principles of Digital Business Strategy, Business Expert Press, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=5089199. Created from apus on 2021-10-24 23:28:14. Copyright © 2016. Business Expert Press. All rights reserved. McKeown, Niall, and Mark Durkin. The Seven Principles of Digital Business Strategy, Business Expert Press, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=5089199. Created from apus on 2021-10-24 23:28:14.
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