Conclusions

Modern marketing has ushered in an age of disruptive technologies, changing employee needs and customer demands, market drivers, and other often unknown factors. The solutions delivered by digital transformation programs need to adapt and evolve continually, and businesses must be willing to review, adapt, and optimize their processes and ways of working accordingly.

In addition to thinking through a holistic and long-term strategy, and understanding how you will measure success, business-as-usual planning and staffing is vital. Return on investment will be measured over the many years to come. This means budgeting for a permanent digital or business transformation team, including data quality and change management staff, to look after the program’s evolution. We typically see organisations ringfence a factor of 3x to 4x the technology total in their people, data quality and process optimization. This typically yields the most impressive ROI. Set the expectation that the process change, data models, and technology delivered as part of the program will need to evolve as it matures.

“It’s about ensuring the scale and sustainability of what you’ve invested in,” points out Tom Sloan. “Your investment is out the window if you haven’t thought ahead - so make sure you have the right team to support that. Otherwise, it will be a completely wasted investment if you don’t have all the components to support it. Always be thinking: What comes next, and who’s steering the spaceship?”