How can you make digital innovation a top priority for your organization?

Leading digital innovation is both deeply exciting and deeply taxing at the same time. Digital innovation means change - it almost doesn’t matter what the implementation is, hangs is on the horizon. And managing change is one of the hardest things to do for any organization Once the change is understood and key people embrace it - the innovation can start. The best advice is to find your ambassadors of change. These are the people who will make your innovation shine. The other half of the equation is to understand the end goal. Digital transformation for the sake of transformation is really disruptive. Start with the end goal and build a plan to get there.

Innovation is a culture you need within your teams. Having a shared attitude and approach to embrace change, to challenge what you have and to exceed the defined business and marketing goals. Like anything, plan for what you're looking to do, provide clear rationale and reasoning and then before you press 'go' make sure you know what success looks like and how it will be measured.

To prioritize digital innovation, companies should establish some sort of Innovation Council to assess the impact of technologies on their company and audience. Actively listening to your audience's needs, allocating resources, fostering internal collaboration, and embracing calculated risk-taking are key steps. This approach ensures that digital innovation becomes a top priority, contributing to your company's growth and success.

Digital transformation became a widely used terminology that is Iver used without meaning it for real. From my perspective, since we are talking about digital innovation and transformation this means we are not talking about a fortune 500 or a mature company, hence, a real focus from the top management is the key to kickoff the project but the key to success will be "consistency" from the top management

Leadership need to have appetite for change and the ability to gain buy in for activities that might disrupt the ‘normal’ state for their teams.

Cultivating a culture of innovation is essential for organizations to stay competitive and adapt to changing landscapes. It begins with leadership setting a clear vision for innovation, emphasizing its strategic importance. Open communication and idea-sharing are another crucial points to foster a culture of innovations. Create platforms and channels where employees at all levels can contribute ideas without fear of criticism. Recognize and reward innovation to incentivize participation. Invest in training and development programs to nurture employees' innovation skills. Provide access to tools, technologies, and resources that facilitate innovation.

Pilot. Test. Learn. Evolve. Key principals behind my team's innovation mindset. They're encouraged to take calculated risks, to try new technique - if they don't, they can't evolve their offering or our value as an agency. Learn from mistakes, never stand still, push for better. And the increased self-worth is invaluable in building that empowered culture that's so important.

Provide leadership training and development programs to enhance the skills and abilities of both current leaders and potential future leaders (for example effective communication, strategic thinking, and team building) Also, strong leaders should excel in communication, both in conveying their vision and in actively listening to feedback and ideas from employees at all levels.

Culture is built top down. Innovation will be an area of focus in your firm if it's an area of focus for you. To foster a culture of innovation do as below - 1. Talk about it's importance clearly to your employees 2. Assign people in various areas the responsibility to drive innovation initiatives 3. Reward ideas, share success stories 4. Create an internal newsletter and section on innovation on your internal portal 5. Conduct innovation challenges/contents 6. Dedicate a specific week on various innovative things happening in your industry and challenge staff to come up with new approach and solutions

The key thing here is that you can't be afraid to fail. Innovation requires experimentation. That means many initiatives just won't turn out like you expect. Orgs often say they want to 'fail fast' but what they mean is they don't want to fail at all. Innovation = some risk, always. Taking calculated and ring fenced risks should be the goal or innovation stagnates.

Always put the customer first. The buyer has to be at the centre of your activity, the need to meet their desires should lead to innovation in your communication, marketing activity and systems. So put yourself in the shoes of your target end-user. What do they need? How does my business meet that need head on? How to I provide the user with invaluable information, advice, quality service?

Implement short, focused innovation sprints where cross-functional teams work intensively on solving a specific challenge or creating a new product or feature. This time-bound approach can yield rapid results.

Be clear on who your customers are, using archetypes/personas to build shared org understanding of customer value in terms of their problems/needs, not yours. Encourage feedback and celebrate failure, it’s where you’ll discover the best learnings and insight to quickly pivot into the right direction. Make sure to track learnings over time to build up knowledge while avoiding making similar mistakes.

I believe that equally important is the ability to foster a culture that embraces change and continuous learning which ensures that digital solutions can pivot and adapt, aligning with the ever-shifting digital landscape and emerging user needs, thereby ensuring sustained relevance and value delivery in the digital innovation journey.

You must adopt the proper agile methodology (no one size fits all) but also adapt it to the culture and possibilities of your organization. One step at a time, looking for the low hanging fruits.

Data continues to be the most important component of marketing today. Without insights, how can decisions be informed? It's just a stab in the dark. Use your initial objectives and ideal outcomes to judge whether you've been successful in adjusting your approach. Do this through monitoring, reactive adjustment and data-driven change control, all aligned to better digital marketing performance. A single view of activity, within dashboards or otherwise, is crucial.

Data and analytics are vital for digital innovation, enabling you to measure impact, enhance performance, and uncover fresh prospects. By gathering data from diverse sources like web analytics, social media, surveys, and feedback, and applying analytics to test hypotheses and monitor progress, you can make informed decisions. Sharing these insights with your team and stakeholders and using them to shape your future actions is also essential for driving digital innovation effectively.

By harnessing the power of data, we not only validate and refine our hypotheses in a relentless pursuit of excellence but also illuminate the path forward, ensuring each step is deliberate, impactful, and perpetually optimized for unparalleled performance and user satisfaction. Sharing these invaluable data-driven insights with our team and stakeholders doesn’t merely inform—it empowers, catalyzing a culture where every decision, from the granular to the grand, is meticulously crafted to propel the innovation engine forward, ensuring sustained relevance, impact, and value creation in our digital endeavors

Strategy drives everything. Supported by data. Data needs to be at the core of all decision making throughout the organization.

In the digital age, data is often likened to oil - a valuable resource that powers decision-making. But raw data, like crude oil, must be refined to extract its true value. By employing robust analytics tools and strategies, organizations can derive actionable insights from vast amounts of data. This not only informs the innovation process but also validates the effectiveness of implemented strategies. In essence, data-driven innovation ensures that decisions are based on evidence, not just intuition, paving the way for more predictable and successful outcomes.

Set clear goals and KPIs according to the vision to track progress. Gather feedback from employees and customers to refine innovation strategies. Celebrate successes and learn from failures. Share stories of innovation within the organization to inspire others. Building an innovation culture takes time, but the rewards in terms of creativity, competitiveness, and adaptability are worth the effort.

My tip here is to set up a healthy, competitive spirit within your teams. Allow your teams to have a voice and a part in the decision making process, avoid any top-down approach to managing innovation. And define ownership early on. "You're responsible for assessing and developing tool 'x', feature 'y' and alternatives in market". A culture of empowerment and recognition for transformation is a critical success factor.

Improvement shouldn’t always about weakness. I think improvement is mastery within areas of superpower. If that means being a T-shaped broad thinker, continuously learn and grow to be the very best version of that! Don’t focus on skills other people think you need to satisfy outdated competency models.

There are some analytics that are just as important as a sale but may not affect the bottom line at that moment. Did the audience engage with your article, video, poll etc.. If they did but did not make a purchase at that moment it may not mean they won’t later with digital innovations like retargeting.

The illusion of mastery stifles growth. True experts maintain beginner's minds. Knowledge quickly becomes outdated today. Curiosity catalyzes improvement, not proficiency. The day we stop learning is the day we forfeit the future.

If innovation is important, make it important to your employees by rewarding their ideas, encouraging their suggestions, and recognizing the people who surface ideas for how to do things differently. Far too often their ideas get shot down in a haze of “that’s not how we do things here.“ Or managers who say “yes, that’s certainly an idea” and don’t support their people in taking steps to see how to make innovation happen.

Digital marketing has continuous innovation. It amazes me that some organisations do not assess their technology stack, or features they're utilising (or underutilising) regularly enough. New tech, AI-driven or otherwise, is launching daily. And standing still as digital marketers is not to be encouraged. Through innovation and well-managed change, successes can be accelerated.

What's needed to be successful 1. A digital North star that provides the vision and serves as guardrails 2. Driving the organisational changes required to embed and scale digital successes 3. Strong execution strategy with a focus on tangible results today and over the long-term

In order to make digital innovation a to priority, particularly for the banking sector, companies must adopt a strategic approach and employ specific tactics. Below are my top five: 1. Set a Clear Vision that aligns with the overall Business Strategy, and map to Business Objectives (short-term and mid-range). 2. Establish KPIs by defining measurable metrics that can truly gauge progress. 3. Build a Cross-Functional team of high-caliber professionals with diverse skills, and encourage a culture of collaboration and innovation within said team. 4. Cultivate Customer-Centricity by putting the customer at the center of every digital initiative. 5. Embrace Emerging Technology while Prioritizing Security and Compliance.

From the Toyota Way, people can learn the importance of continuous improvement and innovation. Just as Toyota emphasizes the concept of "kaizen" or continuous improvement in manufacturing, organizations can apply similar principles to digital innovation. This means fostering a culture of continuous learning, adaptation, and improvement, just as Toyota has done in its production processes. Also, the Toyota Way encourages employee involvement and empowerment, which can be applied to digital innovation by empowering teams to experiment, learn from failures, and contribute to the innovation process.