Culture Shift: How Leaders Can Deploy Digital Culture to Drive Business Value and Growth

In today's rapidly changing digital landscape, it's becoming increasingly important for organizations to embrace the digital culture. Digital culture refers to the mindset, behaviors, and practices that enable organizations to thrive in a digital world. Organizations that are slow to embrace digital culture risk falling behind their competitors and failing to meet the expectations of their customers. In this article, we'll outline seven steps that leadership can take to deploy digital culture in their organizations.

Digital culture is no longer an option, it's a must-have for organizations that want to stay competitive in today's digital age. According to a report by Accenture, companies that embrace digital transformation achieve 26% higher profitability than their peers. Furthermore, a study by Harvard Business Review found that companies that fully embrace digital transformation are 50% more likely to achieve revenue growth than those that don't.

Many successful companies have embraced the digital culture and transformed their organizations. For example, Amazon has transformed the retail industry through its use of digital technologies, and Airbnb has disrupted the hospitality industry through its use of digital platforms. These companies have demonstrated the value of digital culture and its positive impact on an organization's success.

But how can other organizations deploy digital culture in their own organizations? Here are seven steps that leadership can take to make it happen:

Step 1: Establish the Need for Digital Culture

The first step in deploying digital culture in an organization is to establish the need for it. This involves explaining why digital culture is necessary for organizational success and discussing the challenges that can arise when digital culture is not embraced. For example, organizations that fail to embrace digital culture may struggle to attract and retain top talent, lose customers to more digitally-savvy competitors, and miss out on opportunities for innovation and growth.

Step 2: Define What Digital Culture Means for the Organization

Once the need for digital culture has been established, the next step is to define what digital culture means for the organization. This involves discussing what digital culture entails and how it should be implemented in the organization. It's important to customize digital culture for each organization, as the needs and priorities of different organizations can vary widely.

Step 3: Build Digital Competency among Leaders and Employees

Building digital competency among leaders and employees is critical to the success of digital culture implementation. This involves providing digital training and resources for leaders and employees, such as training on digital tools and technologies, as well as resources to help them stay up-to-date with the latest trends and best practices in digital culture. By building digital competency among leaders and employees, organizations can ensure that they have the skills and knowledge necessary to drive digital culture implementation.

Step 4: Encourage Collaboration and Communication

Collaboration and communication are essential components of digital culture. In a digital world, organizations need to be able to collaborate effectively across teams, departments, and geographies and communicate with each other using digital tools and technologies. To encourage collaboration and communication, organizations can invest in digital collaboration tools, such as video conferencing, chat apps, and project management software, and create a culture that values teamwork and open communication.

Step 5: Lead by Example

Leadership plays a critical role in driving digital culture implementation. Leaders need to model digital culture behaviors and lead by example. This means embracing digital tools and technologies and showing employees how to use them effectively. By leading by example, leaders can create a culture of digital innovation and experimentation and inspire their employees to embrace the digital culture.

Step 6: Recognize and Reward Digital Culture Behaviors

Recognizing and rewarding digital culture behaviors is an essential part of driving digital culture implementation. By recognizing and rewarding employees who exhibit digital culture behaviors, such as collaboration, innovation, and experimentation, organizations can create a culture that values and encourages these behaviors. This can be done through formal recognition programs, such as awards and bonuses, as well as informal recognition, such as praise and feedback.

Step 7: Continuously Monitor and Adjust

Finally, it's important to monitor and adjust digital culture implementation efforts continuously. Digital culture is an ongoing process, and organizations need to be flexible and adaptable in their approach. This involves monitoring digital culture metrics, such as employee engagement and adoption rates of digital tools and technologies, and making adjustments as needed. By continuously monitoring and adjusting digital culture implementation efforts, organizations can ensure that they are on the right track and that they are achieving their digital culture goals.

In brief, deploying digital culture in an organization is a complex process that requires leadership, commitment, and resources. By following the seven steps outlined in this article, organizations can create a culture of digital innovation and experimentation that enables them to thrive in a digital world. The success stories of companies like Amazon and Airbnb demonstrate the value of digital culture, and organizations can follow the seven steps outlined above to achieve success of their own.