A digital strategy in a company is a plan of action to implement digital transformation  in the company, digital marketing and sales, and the development of digital business models. All departments of a company are included in the digital strategy.

The digitization and digital transformation make a new form of strategic planning is required: the development of a digital strategy. In addition to the vision – a clear idea of ​​the role a company would like to play in the digital markets of the future – concrete measures and projects for digital transformation. The digital strategy also serves to get employees excited about digital innovation and to make them active drivers of change.

Digital Strategy for All Areas of the Company

While innovation in the past often only included product development, innovation management, idea management, and the continuous improvement process, the development of digital strategies is much more complex. It affects all areas of a company. Analog processes and procedures are converted into digital ones but not taken over one-to-one.

Digital technologies make it possible to rethink processes through collaboration mechanisms or through the use of artificial intelligence. Employees of a company can use platforms that offer Innovation management software that can be included in the collaborative development of digital strategies. As with the beverage manufacturer Gerolsteiner, you will jointly develop the elements and ideas for implementing the digital strategy.

The development of digital processes and measures affects all areas and departments of companies: From corporate management to human resources and production, marketing and sales to finance. In the book “ Digital Winners,” you will learn how the various areas within companies will change in the coming years. Together with the book, you will receive a free software license with which you can implement the recommendations.

A second level is the design of digital customer relationships. The focus is on which digital services customers expect from your company or could expect in the future. For example, device diagnostics that used to be carried out using measuring devices are now possible via the cloud and apps.

These digital services help customers to make better use of your company’s products and offers, but they often do not represent an independent source of income. This part of the digital strategy ensures that a company remains competitive. A third level is the development of digital business models that represent an independent added value. Digital offers from companies represent such great added value for customers that they are willing to pay for them.

Development of a Digital Strategy

A digital strategy is developed in numerous successive steps, which are outlined in more detail here.

Step 1:

A trend analysis is used to research the effects of digitization on a specific industry and the changes to be expected. Which key technologies will change the industry? How will competitors develop further? Which innovative use cases are recognizable in their beginnings?

Step 2:

The digital requirements for a company are defined: How digital will workflows, processes, and production methods become in the coming years? What form of the digital customer relationship will there be in the next few years?

Step 3:

Specific use cases for a company are defined, discussed and evaluated.

Step 4:

Definition of a digital roadmap. Development of an action plan to implement the digital strategy: projects to digitize internal processes and procedures, projects in the individual departments, projects to design digital customer relationships, and projects to develop digital business models.

The digital strategy implementation is often based on the principles of agile project management: Instead of a plan of action carved in stone, digitization projects are regularly evaluated and redefined. Due to the high level of uncertainty in the field of digitization, it is necessary to review projects, change them or even terminate them regularly. Knowing that certain tasks can fail is one of the most important basic requirements for a successful digital strategy.

Digital Strategy – Different Starting Points for Companies

What is digitization in companies? Digitization or digital disruption can be improved in many places. New digital possibilities are implemented to make them more effective, enhance and maximizing profits or reducing costs.

Due to the many possibilities and business or even private areas in which digitization and a digital strategy occur, there is more than just a specific definition when looking in detail at the sub-areas of the company or everyday life.

Digital Marketing Strategy

With a strategy for digital marketing, you can improve your current marketing measures or find the right way for a start-up.

The right digital strategy for marketing aims to ensure that the message to the customer works well together on the right channels and leads to the individual goal of the campaign at the lowest possible cost. This can either be the performance in the search engines, the proportion of customers who find their way from the click of an advertisement to the sale, or the number of followers on social media channels.

Digitization of Processes

Industry 4.0 is understood as a sum of the digital strategies in industrial companies that can also be transferred to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Digital strategy example for internal and external processes:

Relocation of the worlds of life to the Internet of Things, new interaction between man and machine without intermediaries.

• The shopping experience is being digitized: online showrooms are replacing shops.
• Increase in efficiency through data collected from processing operations and their analysis and use.
• Virtual test runs in production improve the start of a new system.
• Digitization of communication.
• Processes in companies and production that are supported by artificial intelligence (AI)

Cloud Service for Companies

The relocation of data and systems to online storage (cloud) opens up new opportunities for companies. With Managed Cloud, you can, for example, relocate the functions of your inventory control program to an online environment, use storage space on servers more effectively, and access company applications more easily and securely from your home office.

Analysis and Data

Digital strategies are also linked to value creation due to the effective collection and analysis of data. You can gain data from production, customer behavior, or your employees’ effectiveness and working methods directly with every process. This simplifies and makes the evaluation more effective and saves important working time in controlling.

Digitization of Administration

Another example of digital strategies from everyday life is the digitization of administration. In some countries, official visits can be done completely online. This is contemporary; after all, algorithms guide us through everyday life today, help us find a business on Google, or receive traffic jam reports. This works, for example, via access with the online banking account or via ID cards with a digital registration function. Often there is still the option of dealing with matters locally in these countries.

Digital Strategy for Companies

Business transformation through digital strategy is an important question today to emerge as one of the winners. In all areas, it is not a question of finding better methods than the competitors on the market. Good digital marketing can make a difference, and the competition is worthwhile. But in other areas, such as internal data acquisition, there are tried and tested tools that have proven to be as functional and practical in all companies as electrical power or the use of computers.

In order to find the right digital strategy, SMEs and large companies analyze the current state and plan a realistic target state with the available resources. For this purpose, the digital status quo of the company is recorded in the digitization audit; the possibilities and their feasibility are budgeted and arranged in a time frame. For many digital strategies, the specific objective is possible and offers good scalability of the expected profits.

Digital strategies: Will Robots Pay to Control Soon?

Digitization is a process that extends through all areas of life. Eliminating this is rarely successful: Even the small traditional handicraft shop can improve its success through simple digital strategies and maybe even be saved from damage in difficult times.

The current task is to help shape digital change with precisely these important strategic developments. The corona pandemic has shown many industries that a topic that caused headaches for many brings opportunities and, with good planning and professional implementation, from customers to employees, all can be taken along without problems.