Tag: B2B

How to Ensure Your Organization is Ready for Digital Transformation

Posted on by David Dinh

Digital information focuses the enterprise to get closer to the right technology, and understanding what no longer works for your organization needs to be replaced or upgraded. It is a process for management to rigorously measure performance and embrace advancement in technology, to create impactful results in your organization. I decided to write this as a short checklist to consider the three main bottlenecks of processes and communication I encountered when undertaking digital transformation projects.

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In an organization, opting for and establishing new technological advancements, outlining a new digital roadmap, creating an innovative vision strategy and a smooth execution of these transformations is extremely challenging.

Why is this all Important?

To compete in the world’s economy, and to get familiar with new innovative technology, management of many enterprises, especially start ups in Australia, are constantly shifting their efforts in a new direction to become visionaries and leaders in their industries. Almost all business regulations, processes, and functions can be transformed with digital technology. The Government of Australia has outlined a number of initiatives for digital transformation in the Budget 2017-18, stating that they will consolidate and modernize their systems along with members of training staff in digital skills. Governments are usually slow to adopt new technology, so has your organisation transformed digitally?

Does your Organization need to Adopt?

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Unless any organization or let’s say, a start up in Australia, is really at its peak, the answer remains “Yes”. Regardless of the operating industry, the management cannot turn a blind eye to digital transformation, if the management and the enterprise lack vision, has no understanding of its customer, has poor employee engagement, is operating on outdated technology systems and is unable to deliver excellence and innovation in their services and products, amazing results cannot be achieved.

It is nonetheless, naive to expect an organization to spontaneously and suddenly transform itself especially when it relies on the old and comfortable ways of working. The Digital Transformation Agency worked towards the transformation of the Australian government for more than 16 months and there are still many more years ahead of it to achieve it’s agendas https://www.dta.gov.au/news/all/

While the majority of organizations and managements think of digital transformation as changing the technical aspect of business, which is quite right in its sense, all the focus on installing advanced technology and modern systems, signing up and shifting to cloud based technology and diversifying the services and functions of IT within the business, can all fail dramatically if you do not execute the transformation correctly.

1. Digital Transformation begins with the staff

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According to the Canon research, 78% of the businesses state that they are willing to improve the management and employee experience by adopting digital transformation – this is in contrast to the 55% of businesses which opted to focus on customer experience instead. 

Employees are a critical part of the digital transformation process – if employees are not on board, it is undeniably impossible to shift the organization’s practices and processes. A vast majority of the businesses feel that change of management is a huge barrier to digital transformation. Moreover, successful changes depend on employee experience.

Nitya Padmon – Customer Marketing Head – Canon Australia says that the observed impact on employee experience is due to businesses realizing the need for digital transformation. They understand the need of transforming the workflows and processes if they intend to retain and attract young expertise.

2. Digital Transformation from Top to bottom

“The big difference between the companies that are just doing technology initiatives and the companies that are leading a technology-based transformation is how they’re putting the leadership frameworks in place,” MIT’s George Westerman.

In spite of the role employees play in the digital transformation of a business in Australia, CEOs have the same role in shifting and driving this change successfully. However, as per the survey of MIT, only half of the organizations create cases to facilitate digital investment. Hence, transformation flows from top to bottom in the organizational structure and as a part of a comprehensive business strategy.

Set an innovative platform and keep holistic view for technology

The landscape of digital transformation is in its infancy indeed. No matter how much we defy our current practices as being the most suitable ones for tomorrow as well, it is not the case. Set up your transformational project with continual development and change in mind and eradicate the processes that are lagging behind the modern world.

Since digital transformation will take over all aspects of business growth and success, it is right for a management to lead at the front-end in order to cultivate a digital culture founded on the grounds of consistent change and innovation.

3. Get along with the other platforms to optimize business

digital-transformation-platforms

Unlike the conventional approach of management, there is a demand for digitally transforming businesses to use various advanced platforms to optimize business growth. Instead of developing custom solutions, depending on reasons such as security issues or to have a belief that these solutions will help in ensuring a competitive edge, it is time to reconsider your options and make use of modern processes innovatively. Create a solid relationship with a digital solutions provider and help your organization in keeping a steady track of business growth.

Ending Note

Ultimately, ensuring the start of digital transformation in your organization is by creating meaningful metrics, having tangible benchmarks and ensuring clear communication of the expected progress.

6 Questions You Should Ask Before Executing Your B2B Campaign

Posted on by David Dinh

Many businesses in Australia and abroad fail to build a long-lasting relationship with a B2B marketing company. The reason given for this by most business owners is that they couldn’t find a B2B marketing company that understood the pains and struggles they’ve already had to deal with. Do you know why most businesses in Australia and abroad are unable to build a long-lasting relationship with a B2B marketing company?

The key to avoiding marketing misalignment issues and building long-lasting relationships is proper communication. You need to keep in mind that B2B marketing is all about ‘partnership’ and you need to do your part to make the relationship work. When it comes to communication, one of the most important things that you can do to build a long-lasting relationship with a B2B marketing company is being clear about what you want from the execution of the B2B marketing campaign. How can you do that? The best thing businesses can do to make their B2B campaigns successful is asking the B2B marketing company relevant questions. So, what are the relevant questions that you should be asking?

6 Questions Before Executing your B2B Campaign

1. Do You Have Relevant Industry Experience?

A B2B marketing company with experience of working for companies in your industry is more likely to know the ins and outs of your trade. By evaluating the experience of the marketing company, in your industry, you can minimize the risk of failure. A B2B marketing company will be able to understand your marketing needs faster and better if it’s familiar with the value propositions, the language and keywords, and the customer behaviour relevant to your business.

Related:
8 Signs You Might Want to Switch Up Your Online B2B Campaigns
4 Techniques for SMB B2B Marketers to Enhance Lead Turnover

Whether it has relevant industry experience or not, the B2B marketing company you choose should understand the intricacies of your business. Moreover, they must have the ability to develop the required skills quickly. If you don’t ensure the above, you’re going to have a mediocre B2B campaign at best.

2. Will You Listen and Try New Things

Before hiring a marketing company for B2B campaigns, ask yourself if you will listen to the company you hire and be open to trying new things. Now, this doesn’t mean that you implement every idea proposed by the marketing company your hire or adhere to everything they say. Rather, it means thinking about whether or not you’re willing to try something that’s different from what you’ve always done. If you aren’t then there’s no point of wasting your money on hiring someone to implement your ideas. Here is a reason to be open to listening new things: about 50% of the Australian B2B researchers are millennials. As the B2B marketing company your hire is likely to have ideas that help you specifically target Australian millennials, being open to what they have to say is in your business’s own interest.

3. What’s Your Communication Style?

Before hiring a marketing company to execute your B2B campaign, you need to determine your communication style. In case you aren’t familiar with the term, communication style means how you communicate i.e. through emails, over the phone, scheduled meetings etc. Once you’ve determined your communication style, find a marketing company that’s a good fit. This means finding a company that has experience in the same communication style as you. When the marketing company you hire has the same communication style as you, maintaining a working relationship becomes easy.

4. Can You Determine If We Are Focusing on The Right Target Audience?

executing-b2b-campaigns

One of the most important things that you need to know before executing a B2B marketing campaign is who you’re talking to or targeting. It is important that the company you hire for the campaign is able to give you a data-driven answer about whether you’re focusing on the right target audience. Also, find out about the segmentation practices of the company and how they plan to identify the sub groups in your target audience.

5. How Well Can You Help Your Marketing Partner Meet Deadlines?

To do their jobs and meet deadlines, every marketing company needs certain things. A lot of information is required to run successful B2B campaigns. Since the marketing company is running the B2B campaign for you, it is your responsibility to provide insights, answer questions, review material as it’s developed and give approvals in a timely manner to ensure that your marketing partner meets deadlines. So, before executing a B2B campaign, determine your ability to do things within specified time.

6. What Do You Expect Your Marketing Partner to Do?

When a business expects services that their marketing partner does not offer, problems start to occur. Not every marketing company does everything. So, determine what you expect your marketing partner to do and what they can offer you. In short, before executing B2B campaigns, ensure that you have the people and tools required to get everything you expect to get from them.