Digital is the new norm. We are in a world of touchpoints and interactions. Everything is measurable and usually quantifiable. All we want is to understand our customers, their needs and wants, what makes them tick and how to win their loyalty.

What’s more, business has changed over the past 15 years, with a definite shift toward the customer. We’ve started to understand that people want more than one-directional encounters with brands. They want something more. They want an experience.

And as these consumer expectations evolve, tried and tested business models are being put to shame by agile, digital start-ups. A steady revolution is sweeping across the corporate world and those that don’t catch wind are getting left behind.

This digital transformation isn’t something that just happened.

Companies must embody digital inside and out. There is no point in designing a frictionless and award-winning digital customer experience if internally the company is resistant to change or is slow to adopt new technologies.

Only 11% of firms execute digital well.

– Prepare Your Business For The Digital Future, Forrester.

One way to drive digital forward is by implementing a digital center of excellence strategy. This creates a basis for digital excellence across the organisation which makes delivering key experiences and innovating easier in the long run. It will also mean that there is less chance of being left behind as technology inevitably evolves.

What is a digital center of excellence?

Is it a process? Is it a physical space? Is it an aspiration?

In reality, it’s a healthy combination of all three.

It’s a strategy that’s implemented across the business in order to drive effective and efficient digital processes. It has internal implications, given the necessity for free data flow, but at its core is a want to improve the digital experience for all customers and all interactions with the brand.

Quite often the digital center of excellence will be run by a central team that is dedicated to leading the change and establishing precedents for different teams and departments across the organisation. For the strategy to be a success, it must be rooted in collaboration, communication and a dedication to innovate.

Why?

Digital is the number one way people interact with your brand and it’s represented at almost every point of the customer journey. In fact, more and more user journeys are digital-only. As a brand, you need to be optimising across this journey. You need to be looking at the sum of all parts, but to do that you must have a strategy in place. This is when a digital center of excellence comes into its own.

When you think of companies like Airbnb, Spotify, Amazon, or Uber, what do they all have in common? Seamless, frictionless and pleasurable customer experiences, and they are winning market share.

This is now what customers expect. If someone experiences a pain point when interacting with your brand, you’ve already lost.

Given how fragmented the customer journey is and the huge multitude of owned and non-owned touchpoints, it can be really hard to get it right. Things get even more complicated when your bring offline experiences into the mix.

This isn’t to say that if your brand transcends online and offline that you can’t win at digital. The key is to identify the opportunities for optimisation and to avoid shoehorning digital into an interaction.

The combination and balance of these will ensure this strategy succeeds.

Digital Center of Excellence Considerations:

Before embarking on this project or progressing a process already in place, consider these questions and use the answers to shape your strategy to your specific needs and requirements.

• What’s the ultimate goal?
• How mature is the business?
• What level of data literacy exists within my organisation?
• What degree of customer-first processes are in place?
• Who are the key stakeholders?
• What’s the most effective way to initiate this strategy?
• How open to change is the business?
• Do we know what competitors are doing?
• What are the industry benchmarks?
• What will success look like?

Having a digital mindset as a company is no longer a nice to have, it’s an absolute imperative. Your customers expect the highest standards and are the lifeblood of your organisation, so do everything you can to foster their loyalty. Being digital inside and out will help you achieve success while also preparing for the future and the inevitable change that’s to come.

https://www.brandwatch.com

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Based on data from around the world, we can demonstrate that businesses that use design are more profitable that those that don’t. And if design is made part of the innovation process, the return on investment is even greater than if design is just used for styling.

The results can be seen at a national scale. Household names, from LEGO to Velux, have established Denmark’s reputation as a centre for innovation, so it’s perhaps not surprising to learn that 93% of Danish companies use design. And with good reason too: a study by the Danish government found that companies using design achieved additional growth of 250%.

The companies investing in design were also able to sell their products or services far more effectively abroad, with exports representing an average of 34% of their turnover, compared to just 18% in companies that did not use design.

Where design is made integral to a company’s business strategy, it has been shown to consistently yield long-term success. Researchers tracking the performance of the US stock market demonstrated that, over a ten year period, design-driven companies outperformed the rest of the S&P index by 228%.

In many European countries, companies can access mentoring, support and subsidies to invest in design in order to increase turnover and boost exports. For participants in the UK’s Design Council’s Design Leadership programme, for every £1 invested in design, the business can expect over £20 increased revenue and over £5 increased exports.

The greatest overall returns on investment are achieved where design is an integral part of the innovation process – rather than just a way of styling, packaging or branding a product as an afterthought. When it is fully integrated into the innovation process, design can add value at every step of product or service development – this includes idea generation, user and market analysis, concept development, prototyping, production and promotion.

The Design Ladder is a simple tool to assess the level at which companies use design – from styling, to process, to a strategic level where it’s an integral part of company culture.

A study of Swedish businesses showed that when design was only used for styling, the average growth in turnover was 6.5% – whereas in firms where design was used as part of the innovation process, growth was 9%.

There’s nothing in these findings that suggests the effectiveness of design is limited to a particular national setting or even a particular industry sector. But our growing body of evidence demonstrates that companies that use design are more profitable than those that don’t – and where design is used strategically, it produces an even greater return on investment.

Inspired by this evidence, governments across Europe are increasingly supporting businesses to use design, so it’s worth finding out if companies in your region are able to access mentoring, subsidies or tax credits.

By Anna Whicher
Head of Design Policy, PDR Wales

designforeurope.eu/news-opinion/value-design-business

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