3-Month Digital Commerce Strategy
A proven 5-step framework that guides you towards a realistic Digital Commerce Strategy including all 8 domains of your organisation.
Our approach to a successful Digital Commerce Strategy
Based on a proven framework
Success in digital depends on the orchestration of many components. That is why it is important to use a framework that ensures that proper attention is given to all relevant domains, including Financial-, Product/Market-, Customer-, Organizational-, and Technical perspectives.
Proven successful with clients such as Carlsberg, LVMH, Action and Xella, our framework is developed in-house by the same experts that will support you in this joint effort. And because every single case is different, all steps are executed in co-creation with you, leading to a shared understanding of needs and priorities.
The outcome of this process is a realistic strategy and a visual roadmap that prioritizes all initiatives across different perspectives.
Teamwork and stakeholder alignment
Our transparent processes and visualization assure that all stakeholders with different responsibilities from different departments understand the decisions made. This usually makes each participant embrace the plan without reservations, even if his or her favourite topic is not the current top priority in the bigger picture.
Staying in control
In a world that is moving ahead quickly, all plans are subject to change. We will coach you in taking ownership of our templates and tools that enable you to monitor and adjust the plan as conditions and forecasts are changing.
Our 5-step Approach
"First do the right things. Then do the things right."
Step 1: Where you could go
We start with a quick look outwards. Where are your markets? What is the right mix of products/services, customers and channels in each region? We analyze this in 3 steps:
- What does the market look today?
- How did the market evolve this way?
- What does this say about future trends, threats and developments?
We will use whatever information is available in your organization to keep this phase pragmatic and compressed, or do our own research, depending on your needs.
Step 2: Where are you heading
Determining what you want to achieve goes hand in hand with how you want to achieve your goals. It is hard to create a proper ambition if you do not know how to get there. And it is hard to develop a strategy without clear and measurable goals. That is why we define both of them together during this step.
By matching the purpose of your organization with the market input of step 1, you can now determine where you want to go. What is your ambition level? What opportunities do you see? And importantly: What are the high level, measurable goals?
This ambition will guide us through the rest of the process. We will come back to it each time when we are assessing new or existing initiatives: “Will this initiative enable us to reach our goals better or faster than any other candidate at this time and place?”
Your strategy describes how you will be realizing your ambitions. It is best to describe your strategy as brief as possible because it forces you to make decisions, it will be remembered better, and it is easier to use in practice.
A good 1-page strategy should answer the following questions:
- Customer selection: Who and where is your customer? - Which online/offline sales channels will you use to reach him?
- Value proposition: What makes you stand out from the competition? - Price, features, service
- Business case: How will you make it profitable? - What does the business case look like
- Activities: What is your core business and who are your partners? - What will you do internally and what is better outsourced?
- Managing success: How will you ensure sustainable success – Consider internal stakeholder management and governance of financial and non-financial goals
Step 3: What do you need
This step is often the most extensive. We will be looking in more detail at all relevant domains in your organization. What is the current status? How does this align with the ambitions stated in step 2? How can we translate the strategy into concrete features, processes and actions?
A gap analysis will show you the strengths but also the weakest links in your organization and application landscape. It is important to address these and balance efforts on quick wins with overdue maintenance tasks that will drive value in the future. Using high level pain/gain analysis or a complete Profit & Loss overview we will assess what changes will contribute most to a positive business case.
Step 4: What to do when
Your journey to digital maturity can be translated into a business- and operating model that will define the prioritization of concrete actions and requirements
We will help you to create a roadmap that includes changes in your IT/application landscape, internal organization, partner collaborations, and end-to-end processes. All set against forecasted profits, investments and running costs. With the right ambition level and the right timing we keep the roadmap feasible and realistic at all stages
Step 5: How to be successful
A strategy can only be successful if it is actually executed. And in practice this can be the biggest hurdle of all. Our goal is not to create a great strategy, but to get real world results and this goal is embedded in the heart of our approach. We plan for success and we help you in putting your plans in action:
- Always consider the business value of the changes.
- Make the plan financially and technically realistic: Plan top down, but check feasibility bottom up.
- Taking an outside-in look to ensure proper alignment with the market and customers.
- Most importantly: Involve the key stakeholders throughout the process. Make it their plan!
- Handing over tools that enable the organization to monitor progress and make early adjustments when needed.
- Offering continuous support of an outside-in view on all aspects of the program.
- Developing a data- and insights driven approach leveraging Operational- and Experience data.
- Executing the tasks, working in blended teams, sourcing the right experts at the right time.
What to expect
Apart from immaterial results such as internal alignment of stakeholder goals and a shared vision, the deliverables of the ‘3-Month Digital Commerce Strategy’ project depend on your needs and on what is already available, but typically, a full project may result in the following deliverables:
- Research Product/Market Combinations and Rollout Phasing
- One-page digital strategy
- Value Proposition, Personas, Customer Experience Map
- Business dashboard and Multiyear P&L forecast
- Analysis of IT, Data, Applications and Business Processes
- Pain / Gain analysis of possible improvement initiatives
- 360° Roadmap including IT, HR en FIN perspectives
We did this for
SQLI Offers
Whether you need:
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An outside-in perspective to assess your existing strategy.
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An eBusiness expert that helps to settle internal discussions and get things going.
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Guidance and expertise to create a digital strategy from scratch and execute on it.
Just reach out!
