Digital Intelligence as a catalyst for Digital Strategy

[This post gathers reflections on Digital Analytics, Strategy and Digital Transformation. It is an extract from an interview previously published on the Zenith Media Blog Spain: "Everything web analytics can do for us (and for our business)"].

"Digital" and "Data" are inseparable concepts.

KPIs, Digital Analytics and Digital Strategy

Honestly, I do not think any brand is able to put together any digital strategy at all without at least a working command of its own analytics data. In fact, "digital" and "data" are inseparable concepts. The companies I know that are doing the best job in digital are the ones that show an expert command of data in digital. I think that adding Analytics to (the word) Digital has created confusion among those who believe that analytics is the analysis part.

There are no fashionable KPIs. If we stop at data and do not know how to translate it into business indicators that make it possible to improve each company's results in its vertical or industry, we will only have done half the job. Perhaps the most relevant thing, and one of the challenges that most worries any digital professional today, is attributing the right weight to each user interaction in their buying decision process. A clear view of which channel contributes to the final purchase is a challenge still to be solved.

To carry out a sound digital strategy, all digital assets need to be tuned up. It is usually the case that the first step is having a limited view of them. A site-centric or app-centric view. Doing the homework when it comes to digital analytics means unifying the information so that the analysis translates into results. That would be making the leap towards the customer or user-centric view in digital. This means having a sufficient degree of (digital) maturity to start having a holistic view.

Identifying trends is an exercise in familiarity or learning curve. It is a mix of method, context and creativity.

How to Detect Digital Trends through Data.

Identifying trends is an exercise in familiarity or learning curve. It is a mix of method, context and creativity. When in mid-2014 we started to see that email opens were beginning to exceed 15% and 20% on mobile devices, all we had to do was combine the evolution of smartphone penetration data with the most common uses of these devices (reading email and consuming social and multimedia content) to know that something big was being created.

Today there are few companies left that do not design communications around the device they will be opened on (and there are still mistakes), and even so there is work left to do to define preferences by audience and to work out the contribution of each channel to the buying process. Perhaps we have to stop talking about digital analytics and talk about the intelligent use of data to improve each business's results -Digital intelligence? And that covers a broader spectrum of digital disciplines: digital analytics, media buying analytics, user experience analytics, conversion rate optimization, advanced use of testing and personalization, integration of digital data and non-digital data.

We are social beings making decisions and information is ubiquitous.

Digital Strategy and Non-Digital Strategy

Customers are not digital or analogue. Everything is mixed together. Even a user who is not very advanced in the use of social media or digital technologies sees their reality increasingly stained, through mass media, by information that originates in digital media. Social networks and TV or the Press are the best example that the media are blurring those lines. We are social beings making decisions and information is ubiquitous. Digital or non-digital origin? I am not clear that this border can be drawn today.

In my view, the handicap may lie in conceiving a digital reality of the user and deriving from there a digital strategy and a non-digital strategy. The digital surname should not be tacked onto every concept in the corporate sphere, or we run the risk of creating two organizations and generating a certain duality in the improvement of results (not to call it dissociation).

"Digital as a lever for transformation is a path and never a goal"

Digital Transformation: Digital Strategy based on Data.

Digital transformation cannot be a goal. If that is the approach, many sources of conflict are going to be created in any organization. Each company, depending on its competitive context, the peculiarities of its stakeholders, its relationship with the type of end customer and its internal capabilities, has different ways of maintaining its current leadership or reaching a position of advantage by making the most of the possibilities of the digital medium. The P2DT (Path to Digital Transformation) is a digital maturity model, a simple exercise in tracing a path across the pieces needed to reach a certain level of digital maturity in an organization. It is a digital transformation model leveraged on the use of data, Data-driven Digital Transformation? It is possible, and there is a great deal of the human factor along that path.

To set a beginning and an end, it is not possible to move forward in the digital transformation process without being clear about how digital strategy impacts the current business model. And this is an exercise in strategic reflection on what the desirable future situation of my business is once my users are increasingly influenced by digital media in their buying decisions. The final stage of this process would be to accept that digital stops being called digital and that every user interaction is measurable and makes it possible to generate learnings that help the corporate decision-maker move forward in the continuous improvement of results. The integration of On and Offline.

At the end of the day it is about data, learnings and results -and start over again.

And behind the data, there are ALWAYS people.

About me:

Bernardo Crespo is Digital Transformation Leader at Divisadero.

Director of the Executive Program in Digital Transformation at IE Business School and an Ontological Coach certified by Newfield Network in Bogotá (Colombia).

He holds a degree in Business Studies from UCLM and completed the final year of a BA Honours in Management and Economics, University of St Andrews. Executive Master in Relationship Marketing, CRM and E-commerce from ICEMD, and a lecturer at several business schools in Spain. He worked as head of digital marketing at BBVA España.

These days I help companies walk the path of Digital Transformation at DIVISADERO.