Digital Success Story | Darwin

The Situation

You have a company in your portfolio, where digital is a key differentiator and you want to sell it? We can help you create a convincing success story about the company’s digital capabilities, that will show the value of your asset. Rather than putting together a plain information memorandum, we can co-create a compelling story that makes the digital value stand out:

• Easy to read
• Applying techniques of data visualization and storytelling
• Including an infograph-style quick reference sheet

Our 5-Step Process

In 5 steps , we complete an inside-out and outside-in check of your target investment, and wrap everything up in a clear and comprehensive due diligence report.

Step 1: INTAKE

The first step of our process is an intake with key people in the target organization, to determine the digital history and landmarks over the last few years and their high-level digital roadmap for the next 3 to 5 years. In addition to that, we discuss how digital is a differentiator in their strategy and how it helps the company stay competitive in an ever changing world. This gives us a good overall structure for your storyline.

Step 2: INVENTORY OF DIGITAL ASSETS

The next step is to make an inventory of the building blocks of the organization, with a focus on how digital aspect make a key difference in that specific area. Common building blocks are:

• Business model & the place of digital in the financials
• Products and/or services
• Customer experience
• Marketing & CRM
• Operations
• Technology, tools & data/data quality
• Organization

Depending on the nature and priorities of the company you are selling, some of these blocks get more focus than others or other blocks may be added. If the company produces goods for example, there might be significant digital aspects in the manufacturing process that you want to talk about. Maybe they’ve built a strong CRM approach, increasing the long-term customer value. Or perhaps the company has used digital processes to significantly reduce environmental impact. These kind of extras will help us create a richer story.

Step 3: SOCIAL PROOF

To make your story more believable, we will add as much external/social proof as possible. In this step we look at things like rewards, certifications, PR-coverage and of course the ratings and reviews by actual customers.

It’s key that we don’t hide any negative feedback that may surface, but show that the company is aware of it and ready to address issues where necessary.

Step 4: QUICK WINS

During the previous steps in the process, we are likely to stumble on potential points for improvement. Some of these will be quick wins, meaning you can still execute them before selling the company, to increase its value for potential buyers. These will be things like adding simple tools, adapting/simplifying processes or even applying for certificates that the company, perhaps unknowingly, already qualifies for.

Of course, when we encounter this type of potential quick win, we will flag it, so the company can take the necessary action if they are willing and able.

Step 5: STORYBOARD

Finally, all the elements are brought together in the story documents. The format of these documents can be adapted to fit your own style of communication. It could be a comprehensive printed document, a highly visual slide deck, an interactive web page, a video… or a combination of these.

We recommend always adding a single page infograph-style overview, for a quick reference of the entire storyline.

Step 6: OPTIONAL

Executing quick wins

Perhaps the company you are selling doesn’t have the time, resources or expertise to implement the suggested quick wins on short notice. The Darwin network has a variety of implementation partners, that can assist in the fast execution of these suggestions, if necessary.

Comprehensive roadmap

In addition to the success story and our suggested quick wins, you may want help presenting a more comprehensive roadmap, that also includes bigger long term investments. We can help you prepare this roadmap and create a realistic estimate of the costs involved and the potential gain the company still holds for new investors.

What if digital is not the key differentiator, but still an important factor?

The company you are selling might have other strengths that are far more important to put in the picture and digital might simply be a facilitator for these strengths. In this case, it is unlikely that you’ll want to go through the entire process described above. Maybe you even have a large part of your information memorandum completed and only need help on the digital aspects.

In this type of scenario, Darwin can assist you in clarifying the role of digital in strengthening those other key aspects. We do this in a clear and easy to read language, that you can add to the documents you’ve already drafted.

What to Expect

• A network of best in class, renowned specialists picked based on your challenge
• An approach based on proven successes with companies like Action or LVMH 
• Focus on strategy, decision making and organization enablement
• Quick wins implementation to get momentum and create value