When B2B marketing leaders are asked to build an integrated plan to support digital transformation and growth initiatives, it’s natural to consider how your team will get there. Most organizations have grown digital capabilities organically as challenges or opportunities arise.
Marketing leaders should identify the digital capability requirements needed to successfully achieve goals and deliver value to the business. Taking a strategic approach to digital allows broader consideration of teams, processes, skills, and technologies to determine the most effective plan.
“Digital” refers to the application of technology to enable business strategy. If marketing capabilities are the solid foundation we must build upon, then digital is the scaffolding around the building as we move our competencies up to build to the next level. There are three important steps to enable marketers to accelerate digital within their organizations:
1. Assess The Business Objectives Of Digital Transformation Or Change
The first step is to define the objective of the initiative and how marketing can support the achievement of desired business goals. Identifying the correct level of digital transformation is required. No matter how advanced our technology gets, it’s still a manual job to prepare for the foundation. We need to ensure everyone is working from the same plan for a strong structure to be built upon. There are three types of transformation to consider:
- How we interact and present the company to the market, including engaging with our buyers, customers, and partner journeys
- How we work as a company — i.e., how the company runs, including workflows, internal routines, systems, processes, and/or infrastructure
- Who we are as a company. This is the largest type of transformation and impacts the core attributes of the company — e.g., how revenue is generated, the markets the company focuses on, and/or the way it positions itself to the market.
2. Identify Required Marketing Capabilities
After assessing the digital objectives, leaders can then begin to identify the digital capabilities that are required for marketing to successfully achieve its goals and devise a solid foundation to deliver value to the business. This review will help to establish current capabilities and identify ones that need to be built or further developed.
3. Define Marketing Competencies
Forrester defines competency as having the knowledge, skills, processes, and/or tools required to perform a job optimally. Competencies such as core B2B principles, processes, models, and best practices can be shared across the marketing organization to create a consistent approach to marketing. There can be role-specific competencies that range from basic and fundamental knowledge, skills, and processes to intermediate ones (e.g., best practices to enable marketers to quickly achieve the desired productivity level) to advanced and specialized competencies that are developed when specific circumstances arise.
If you are looking to build digital readiness or successfully maintain an existing digital initiative and want to accelerate business outcomes, register to attend Forrester’s annual B2B Summit North America.
This post was written by Principal Analyst Rani Salehi and it originally appeared here.