Developing a digital strategy for your business

What can digital do for your business?

What do you want to achieve by going digital? Do you want to attract more customers? Maybe you want to improve your delivery process. You might even want digital tools to help your team work better together. Whatever your reason, there can be benefits to using digital.

How businesses have benefited from using digital

Why do you need a digital strategy?

It can be tempting to go ahead and start using digital tools straight away. But if you have a strategy document, it will help shape and test your approach.

Building a digital strategy can help you:

How your digital strategy supports your business goals

Your strategy should show how digital can help your business achieve its purpose. So keep your main business goals and strategy in mind, as you go through this process.

Steps to build your strategy

There are many ways to create and structure a digital strategy. In this lesson, we’ll describe a 5-step approach. Think about what works best for you once these essential building blocks are in place.

These five steps are:

1. Define your goals.
2. Decide where digital can help.
3. Do your research.
4. Create a high-level plan.
5. Share your thoughts.

Over the next few chapters, we’ll guide you through each of these stages.

List your key challenges or goals

Look at your key business objectives. Rephrase them as either problems you want your business to solve or goals to achieve. This can help highlight the areas where digital support might help.

How do I do this?

Starting your research

You’ve worked out the problems or goals that digital input might help. Now it’s time to find the right digital tools to help. In this chapter, we’ll look at research ideas. You'll see how to take a deeper look at the products you're considering.

It can be easy to find a product that excels at what it does. But you need to ask: will it help solve the problems or  reach your specific goals? This is where research comes in. This can be hard. But, don’t worry – here’s a few research ideas here to get you started.

Work out the costs

You can sort the costs in three main areas:

• People
• Tools
• Other costs

Tools

Do you need to buy any tools to use or create the solution? This could be software (such as web design or planning tools) or hardware (like data storage or mobile devices).

Make a note of any products or ideas you have in mind. When you’re looking at products, make the most of the seller’s expertise.

Things to consider:

Benefits for your users

What do we mean by users here? They’re the people who will be using the digital solutions you’re proposing in this strategy. This might be your team, partners or customers. Whatever they do now, going digital will mean doing things differently, so let's get to know them a bit better.

Personas

There are lots of ways to describe your users. We’re going to look at using 'personas'. A persona is a fictional character you create. It represents a group of people who will use your digital solution.

Creating personas will help you focus your strategy on the kind of people it's most likely to affect.

Personas can help you:

Persona types include:

• Customers - People who might buy your products or use your services.
• Partners - Those who work with you.
• Members of your team - The ones who will use the new digital solution.

Building your personas

Your personas can include information on:

Benefits for your business operations

What benefits will your ideas bring on a day-to-day basis? Here, we’d like you to think about the routine tasks and activities that take place in your business.

Here are a few ideas to consider:

Focusing on what’s important

Once you’ve researched potential solutions, you need to decide how to prioritise them.

This means working out how important each option is, compared to the others. The aim is to work out which ones you want to use. You’ll also get a feel for the ones you want to start first.

In this chapter, we’ll look at two methods you can use to help you prioritise.

Using SWOT analysis

The term SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.

Here, instead of two columns, you draw a 2 x 2 grid. Use the top-left square to list the strengths might come from the idea. In the top-right one, list any weaknesses you’ve noted. The bottom-left square is for opportunities that this idea could bring. And in the bottom-right one, list any potential threats – what factors might cause issues for your business.

Beat in mind that SWOT analysis is more complex than a basic list of pros and cons.

Project plans

So far, your digital strategy may show you the digital solutions you want to use. Plus, why you want to use them. It won’t show you much of the ‘how’.

Once you’ve agreed your strategy, the next thing you’ll create is a project plan.

This plan will explain in detail how you’ll carry out the strategy.

A plan includes:

Your stakeholders

‘Stakeholders’ means anyone who has a stake, or a special interest, in what you’re proposing. Give them time to read your strategy. They’ll also want the chance to discuss it with you.

Tips for winning over your stakeholders:

• Send out your strategy before your meeting, so everyone has a chance to read it first.
• Make it clear what you’d like to happen next and when.
• Leave plenty of time for questions.
• If you have asks, state clearly when you need them delivered by.

An example

Imagine a business trying to put in place a new client management system.

They might share their strategy with their stakeholders and have a Q&A session with their team.

Their team session may result in several offers to help. Team members who show an interest could sign up as ‘Champions’. They would then receive training, test the system and shape the process for its use.