5 steps model for transitioning to a new organizational structure that supports long-term digital integration

Agree on the Organization's Goals with Digital

Initially, the management team and department heads must agree on goals and move-forward strategies. Open employee forums are powerful venues that can reveal challenges and opportunities. The team must be prepared to deal with whatever comes up in these forums. Selected focus groups within each department can open the dialogue in a more limited fashion. Here are some questions that need to be addressed:

1. How does your organization currently manage digital?
2. In what ways can digital help your organization maintain a focus on the CX?
3. How well do your digital channels (web, email, social media, mobile) perform against your competitors?
4. Can you innovate and respond fast enough?
5. Is digital focused in one silo of the organization, or does it Integrate all silos?
6. Do internal departments feel well supported by organization-wide digital efforts?
7. Does the organization have an agreed-upon digital strategy?
8. Is there resistance to change?

Launch a Digital Innovation Project

Launching a Digital Innovation Project requires the least amount of change and political confrontation, yet it can produce a significant impact. This type of project creates a small, and nimble division placed outside of the existing organizational structure. It reports directly to a C-Ievel executive, and is tasked with creating cutting-edge digital products and solutions that support customer and business needs; it is in charge of the company's entire digital footprint.

Implement Digital Innovation Unit

This requires a hand-picked group of digital experts, including some of the individuals from the Digital Innovation Project, to develop and implement an organization-wide digital infrastructure unit designed to meet both customer and business needs. It is a fully accountable business unit with its own performance objectives; it has the authority to influence company-wide operations. Its main focus is to get non-digitally savvy employees to use digital tools to advance business goals. Upon completion of its objectives, key members of the Digital Innovation Unit should be reassigned to relevant departments throughout the company to further aid digital integration.

Integrate Media

The next step is to integrate the online and offline functions of a particular area of the organization. For example, a single customer-service group should handle issues via telephone, email, and social media, and a retail merchandising group should manage products in both offline and online channels. The result is an organization organically structured around each stage of the relationship with the customer.

Launch DIO Digitally Integrated Organization

The most progressive organizations design their structure to reflect the Network: they distribute digital staff across key departments and leverage a core group of experts to lead key initiatives. Some digital projects are launched by business units and others by the Digital Innovation Unit. This type of distributed leadership model reflects one potential structure of the Digitally Integrated Organization.?