The problem of digital silos<\/h3>\n
A common\u00a0problem in many larger organisations is that given the importance of digital marketing, digital skills are centralised in one or more locations, so\u00a0creating digital silos. So\u00a0pockets of digital knowledge become\u00a0dispersed<\/strong> internally rather than creating a joined up structure with different marketing teams working on marketing activities which integrate\u00a0digital marketing.<\/p>\n In the long-term, integrating your digital marketing team is an essential requirement for organisations wanting ro re-invent their proposition to a changing digital world, being led by disruptive digital technology and new ways to reach new audiences and new channels.<\/p>\n But at the same time, businesses need to stay agile and review the latest innovations in digital technology and marketing. As organisations embark on transforming to a digital culture by moving away from a dispersed structure, creating a \u201cdigital centre of excellence\u201d <\/strong>can help give\u00a0focus on a digital first culture that not only provides consultancy internally for an organisation but also helps\u00a0create a more agile team to service new market opportunities and initiatives within the external market.<\/p>\n To support a move to a digital centre of excellence, it is important an organisation is developing and training their workforce with the right digital skill-sets. One of the main obstacles to digital development within organisation are staff lacking suitable skill-sets or organisations hiring people with a digital knowledge but are hired into business departments not accustomed to hire or manage digital.<\/p>\n Making the leap from a Dispersed structure<\/strong> to a Centre of Excellence<\/strong> can take a lot of internal time, necessary budget, buy-in and resource in getting senior management to consider a change in structure as well as culture, so to test the model in changing structure, embracing a Skunkworks<\/strong>\u00a0type approach within a larger\u00a0organisation could be an approach to explore. The term Skunkworks\u00a0can be\u00a0defined as a<\/p>\n \u201cloosely structured group of people who research and develop innovative opportunities and business benefits\u201d.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Often Skunkworks are labelled\u00a0as Digital Labs or Digital Innovation centres also. Surprisingly the term is not new. It\u00a0originated from a second world war R&D project known as the\u00a0Lockheed Martin Skunk Works<\/a>, over 70 years ago. Since then,\u00a0its\u00a0Skunkworks has provided\u00a0helped\u00a0enhance its global reputation as a pioneer in creating breakthrough technologies and continually to redefine flight.<\/p>\n Ideally,\u00a0a Skunkworks has sufficient autonomy that it does not get sidetracked by current business needs. So it can\u00a0operate as an off-shoot of the main organisation, protected from cultures and processes that inhibit progress and has a remit to create, develop and concept test new opportunities, products and services.<\/p>\n Skunkworks will often benefit from bringing in new thinking from outside an organisation, for example using an open innovation platform like Innocentive<\/a>.\u00a0A recent retail example of this approach is the John Lewis JLabs approach<\/a>\u00a0which offers an incubator\u00a0startup lab for several retail startups, one of which wins a prize.<\/p>\n Before creating a Skunkwork or innovation lab, it is essential there are set measures in place to monitor and measure what benefit it is brining the organisation expecially during a phased to test approach.<\/p>\n Having senior management buy-in with set agreed set SMART objectives in place for the Skunkwork to achieve its goal or display value within an agreed timeframe will make the operation getting better buy-in.<\/p>\n It\u2019s essential regular feedback is provided to the organisation offering transparency to what the team is working on and what it plans to deliver and achieve. Not only does this provide direction and buy-in from the organisation but this also provides the ability for the Skunkwork to feedback the changing market, new threats as well as opportunities that digital provides the organisation.<\/p>\n Implementing a digital first culture within the team will provide existing digital execs within the organisation an opportunity to work with an train non-digital staff members. recently reported a growing concern for orgnisations is a growing requirement to skill-up their workforce to become more digitally focused where it was recorded 90% of professionals say technology impacts their job, only 20% had the right skills.<\/p>\n Consider creating a digital and technology staff development framework geared towards a digital first culture and introduced to all existing staff and future recruits. I wrote about this in my post on the\u00a0DARC framework for recruiting digital skills<\/a>:<\/p>\n Working with more external organisations in partnership provides the organisation with a a model of sustaining innovation and making improvements to make the product or service better. Building relationships with non-compete organisations offer the opportunity to build knowledge sharing, reciprocal training and guest placements for employees to swap organisations.<\/p>\n Example:<\/strong> Two leading digital marketing companies in the US, Moz.com<\/strong> and Seer Interactive<\/strong> did exactly this when both their CEO\u2019s swapped roles for a week and here is a brilliant post on the reasons why and opportunities it provided both companies<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Build direct relationships with your existing customers learn their requirements and needs from the organisation in genetrating. Your customers provide the perfect real-time survey for what the outside world really thinks of your company proposition.<\/p>\n Digital has seen the rise in choice and convenience for customers who can decide to shun your proposition and move to a competitor so it\u2019s essential you\u2019re out there meeting up with customers face to face to understand their views, frustrations, thoughts and suggestions on what couldmake your organisation remarkable. Here is a list of organisations who have done just that to drive collaboration with their customers.<\/a><\/p>\n Example:<\/strong> Threadless<\/strong> \u2013 A T-shirt retailer who put at the hear of their business their customer base. To create ideas for designs for t-shirts, rather than employing a department of designers, Threadless ran design compeititions through their social network<\/a> where member submitted their ideas for Tees and then the member voted on which designs they liked the best.<\/em><\/p>\n Growth HackingCalling for a re-position and re-think of how traditional marketing departments operate and relies on 4 key steps for Growth hacking<\/a>\u00a0as defined by author Ryan Holiday in his book Growth Hacker<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n PMF is the moment when the product and its customers are in perfect sync with each other. Don\u2019t be afraid to launch the product and to learn from your audience on ways to improve its value, embrace the fear.<\/p>\n Know your audience \u2013 this is essential to make your audience aware of the product\/service you\u2019re launching. The understanding of who your audience is, how they interact through digital and make them aware of your business.<\/p>\n Growth Hacking is about launching your product as cheap as possible in a unique and differentiated way to your competitors and spreading virally is a central component to this i.e. you are relaying on your users to help spread the word.<\/p>\nWhat is a Skunkworks?<\/h3>\n
Using crowdsourcing to gain new ideas for digital innovation<\/h3>\n
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<\/a><\/p>\n5 techniques\u00a0needed for\u00a0a Digital Innovation Skunkworks<\/h3>\n
Setting Objectives<\/h4>\n
Digital Training<\/h4>\n
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Collaboration<\/h4>\n
Listen to your customers<\/h4>\n
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