Tribal Worldwide London About us Work Thinking Events News Join Us Health Stronger Than Before: Are Your Digital Ecosystems Ready? Organisation: Tribal Worldwide Keynote speakers: Nathan Still, ŠKODA UK When: 12/02/2021 Location: Online Creating A Digital Ecosystem That Benefits Your Business In February we hosted our first Stronger Than Before webinar of 2021, where we explored digital ecosystems, and how to provide more connected experiences. Those who invest in creating a digital ecosystem will find themselves better prepared to take on the challenges of modern business. Digital ecosystems can provide every company, regardless of vertical or size, with the tools and expertise it needs to gain a competitive edge. But their biggest long-term potential may be societal, not just economic. Key insights: How do you create value from digital ecosystems? How can you define an ecosystem strategy to fit your needs? The importance of personalisation in your customer journey. Why co-creation means better experiences. How you implement your earned, owned and paid for assets within your digital ecosystem. Hear from the experts and businesses on their learnings from building their digital ecosystem to maximise business value and growth. We were joined by: Nathan Still, Digital Marketing and Transformation at ŠKODA UK Yasmin Borain, Chief Experience Officer, Tribal Worldwide London Andrew Liles, Chief Technology Officer, Tribal Worldwide London Watch the recording of the event You need a digital ecosystem that suits everyone Today’s customers just expect consistent meaningful connected brand experiences across all touch points and that’s where the digital and human brand are recognising more than ever before. Yasmin kicked off the conversation. Andrew likened digital ecosystems to the Matrix, managing the data and challenges within the business and joining them together and if it’s not connected it “inhibits a fantastic digital customer experience.” The suggestion from the panel was to get rid of silos, businesses often have baggage from teams doing things separately, but for it to work, you need to merge the data and reach the vision of connected experiences. In his day job, Andrew looks at tricks and techniques to help with these silos and breaking them down. Nathan agreed that it’s the “responsibility of all departments, it’s the responsibility of everyone.” Why are some industries behind and where to start? Nathan gave a very honest viewpoint that “Innovation is scary, and it’s scary because it’s an admission that you’ve kind of been doing it wrong, probably for a long time”. It comes down largely to legacy, the new starters such don’t have the history of getting it wrong - or doing it the right but old-fashioned way to untangle. Often business have to decide whether to just start again or keep trying to fix the same broken thing. Perhaps that is why some industries like pharmaceuticals and finance are not as quick to adapt. Yasmin suggested “some organisations have a more ecosystems mindset and focus on adding value and think about the customer holistically”. When thinking about your digital ecosystem it’s key to take into consideration all of the potential touchpoints, data, pain points – and view these as opportunities. Like a lot of sectors, the automotive industry has had to diversify because of lockdown, Skoda used to focus on test drives but when you can’t get people into physical cars that metric doesn’t work. Nathan said “being digital isn’t our core business, we make cars, and it’s a lot of work to upgrade legacy systems. Lockdown has changed the way people interact with us, video calls have become more and more important, so we introduced video showrooms, which is growing in popularity”. Personalisation “Whether it’s your workout app, Spotify etc we have brands sending us personalised content every day, businesses need to get to know their audience better, and adapt to their needs” Yasmin suggested that businesses need to transform the way they communicate with customers, knowing how they’ve acted before and predicting what they are going to do next. Sharing things that will complement their life experiences and actions. Andrew suggested that when driving personalised experiences within a business, the “temptation is to do a single customer view project, but these are the projects that never deliver anything” and advised to get on with something more practical with these suggestions: Test out small personalisation Do A/B testing to see what works Look at customer journeys Nathan said to use Google optimise, a free tool to help you, and said “start small, unless you are Amazon you’re going to struggle”. Collaboration Internal collaboration also has to be better than it’s ever been for these ecosystems to work, silos have to be broken down to allow people to work towards a common goal and this has been the case for ŠKODA UK from HQ to the showroom. It’s an exciting time for partnerships and non-traditional collaboration and it’s all for the benefit of the consumer, fiving them something they need such as Deliveroo offering home delivery services for Morrisons customers. In the US Walmart have partnered with ThredUp a relatively small online thrift store and also Shopify. This opened the Walmart ecommerce marketplace for sellers and gave their consumers access to a broader range of products and services. Yasmin highlighted that “as businesses start their digital ecosystem, they need to understand that their suppliers, customers, competitors are all a part of it”. Internal collaboration also has to be better than it’s ever been for these ecosystems to work, silos have to be broken down to allow people to work towards a common goal and this has been the case for ŠKODA UK from HQ to the showroom. Data difficulties “Customers are getting a lot more on the ball as to the value of their data and whether they want to give that up.” Nathan touched upon the changes in customer behaviour with cookies and data collecting as some people see the value exchange and are happy to accept where as other people are more concerned about what will happen with that data. Andrew mentioned that the introduction of GDPR we’ve all had to take a pause and check what we’re allowed to do with data and that was a long time coming and for all our benefit. However when you’re creating an ecosystem to perform a service its important that each party responsible for that service is trusted to have the data they need to make the process seamless for the customer and this is allowed under the GDPR regulations Jamie also mentioned Alexa and Google Home other devices that seem to be always-on and collecting data and then connecting to social media to remind you of something you were previously talking about. Top tips for driving digital ecosystems in your business? Start with the customer, and always keep them front of mind Don’t try and do it all at once, start small, get use cases, prove your point Mapping exercises are important, and make sure everyone is involved and every touchpoint feeds into it Look at internal workings and the link of them to understand the business Don’t forget to leverage the data Make information digestible Try and get structured data so you know more clearly what someone wants Use search, see what search terms people have searched for and how often Remember you need to take customers on the journey Interview your audience, find out their needs, as you often get a different view Do your research, it doesn’t have to be expensive Have a final vision in mind to make big movements and get there quicker Closing thoughts were from Nathan, when thinking about your own digital ecosystem, he said “Speak to your customers and do your research if those people are frustrated you can quite easily say people are doing X and we want them to do Y. There’s nothing quite like hearing it from the horse’s mouth, rather than just a spreadsheet.” So, are your digital ecosystems ready? We are offering a free workshop to brands who want to check the readiness of their digital ecosystems. We’ll help map out your customer journey and create a framework with you to work out where you can make small improvements that will make a big difference. Please reach out to katie.delacruz@tribalworldwide.co.uk to find out more. Our Stronger Than Before webinar series takes place on the second Thursday every month at 11am. For more details click here. 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