Digital Normal - Channel Winning Game Plan

             Guess what folks? The digital transformation is over – we need to stop talking about it – that phrase is simply over used and irrelevant in our new world where digital is the new normal. That’s right, fresh off the press – we have shifted to a “digital normal.” You may be wondering what is this digital normal? This is best explained with the perfect storm analogy. The trifecta of millennials, boomers, and the economy have crash coursed together to create the digital normal perfect storm. This trifecta is better known as culture-graphics. This phenomenon modernizes how we look at the market and changes the industry digitally. Younger generations are interested in convenience and culture, not demographics. The new digital normal matters because of its potential for innovation and economic growth. We aren’t questioning the options of taking a cab anymore, our Uber is already waiting outside. We aren’t hopping in the car to rent some DVDs, what are DVDs again? How many of you aside from photographers will pick up a DSLR camera in the next few months? Or is your cellphones camera too convenient?

             For example, cereal is less appealing to a millennial. It is difficult to eat – you need milk – and it’s often viewed as a snack not seen as not meeting the Instagram quality aesthetic. Whereas a subscription box like Daily Harvest brings you healthy and colorful food, with zero mess, delivered right to your door with instant shareable pics galore. Another example, 81% of millennials don’t use cable, millennials have cut the cord on cable and in their wake they’ve left winners and losers. Through the perfect storm a new digital normal experience is born, one that appeals not based on staid old demographics but on a new more fluid definition of how we work, live and play. This is culturegraphics. This resonates with the market and the people. This leads to the digital transformation. But succeeding in this new digital normal is not entirely easy. Too few firms are benefitting from this transformation. The success of sustainable impact is dismal from digital projects which leads to firms coming up with a losing team game plan -spending more and more on digital only to find they can’t sustain their results. So, how can you devise a blueprint for success in the new digital normal? By looking at the known failures and seeing how to overcome them.

             There are four main causes of failures in firms within the new digital normal and with the rate of failure over 50% it pays to figure out why others fail and avoid those pitfalls.

1. The first failure area was rooted in leadership. Changes in leadership and investments into key staff areas in channels are necessary to evolve in this new normal. Firms who aren’t embracing the new culture norms are not succeeding. The culture must go through a whole firm, without it your "transformation" will surely fail.
2. The second failure area was firms biting off more than they could chew - also known as boiling the ocean. This can happen when firms go too big with digitization. Going narrow with a limited high impact scope is the winning plan; ask yourself "what is the smallest thing I can do for the largest impact". Go fix that. One example would be for traditional channel chiefs to focus on third party digital channels for growth.
3. The third failure area was focusing inward instead of outward. Firms should be focusing on customer trends and how to evolve their experience. Using technology to improve how customers live, work and play is a key element of success but remember that you can't just fix some of your systems and hope to tape and wire the solution together. Today's customers expect you to be as easy to engage with as a "born in the cloud" company - anything less is just not acceptable.
4. The fourth and final failure area was harder to control....interestingly smaller firms, defined as those firms with less than 100 employees, are more successful with digital business models. While you cannot change the size of your firm you can change the size of your focus on digital transformations if you are in the tech industry and distribute through the channel. Channel firms are primarily smaller in size and a ripe target to make the change. Since few channels have evolved and their performance has thus been impacted negatively this is the time to focus them on their own digital journey to success.

The key to the right blueprint to improve the channel is simple – invest in data to help you target and engage the right partners. The turnover amongst channel partners is always evolving and you have to evolve along with it, holding on to your favorite partners may feel great at the annual event but it won’t help your firm grow if they aren’t evolving in this new age of digital. In fact, digital data is now a better indicator for future success than any current revenue or certification gate you may have today in your program – why? Because how relationships are built, and sales are made has changed forever – full stop! 

As an example, social media influence is critical, yet many of the largest partners don’t have a strong competency in this arena. That’s a formula for failure – and don’t be fooled by a sharp looking corporate media account. Social media is about people connecting with people – unless their leadership team and sales team has a following their business simply won’t keep up.  Why? Where do most people go these days for their information? The internet and social media. By not engaging with social media you lose website value and key connections. The new generations want digital programs and digital savvy partners – this moves beyond the technology and into a new way of doing business. The time is now, reevaluate your partners on a new scale, a digital one. Take into consideration elements like:

• website value
• reputation score
• google ranking
• and other digital measurements based on your business

Change your program to add these requirements and then give your partners the support and time to evolve, Don't take “that’s not how our business works” for an answer – after all we are now in the age of “digital normal” – it is how the business works - and our channels need to embrace that change. Have questions or want more information? DM me or email me at [email protected]