Organisations for years have relied on face-to-face communication to shift people from having a potential customer status into paying customers. This reliance that business owners, executives, and directors have on this way of selling has caused them to fail in their duties, and ultimately cause organisations to close their doors for the last time. We some this in part throughout 2020 but has become a much more common experience through 2021 thanks to our more recent outbreaks.

New Zealand and Australia has seen that for businesses and organisations to survive, we must be able to reach and serve our customers where they are and at whatever time they want. We are already rather good at reaching our clients through digital media and advertising thanks to powerhouses like Google and Facebook, but organisations have yet to adapt to supplying services through digital means.

I ask, does it make sense to show advertising at 2am if the only way for them to do business with you via a phone call? Are you missing out on people ready to buy because you’re not ready to sell?

What’s the best way to adapt my organisation?

The answer is simple. Let people engage your organisation anywhere, anytime. Adapt your organisation to provide to paying customers through a digital platform that is designed and curated for your business.

Making the transition to a digital platform will help grow revenues, enable the organisation to meet higher demands, or for those who are business owners, let you spend less time in the business.

Here’s where we’ve seen success for the organisations we’ve worked closely with in the past:

• Take what you do well and make it digital.
• Streamlining your data and information flows.
• Enable information/products/services on-demand to clients.
• Take advantage of on-demand modern infrastructure to keep operational costs low.

It’s no coincidence that all the large online retailers keep speed as their top key metric when evaluating performance.

• Google has published statistics talking about how ecommerce performance is negatively impacted by as much as 20% due to just a 1 second delay in site speed.
• Amazon invested heavily in their delivery network to support same day/next day deliveries.
• KMART invested in their internal company culture by integrating rapid staff feedback into their business giving management the ability to make faster and impactful responses to employee feedback.

Is going digital expensive?

The answer to this is going to come down to how long it takes to see a return on your investment to kick in and what your expectations of being digital are. We can often forget about the opportunity costs that we’ve giving up on when we choose not to act now. For example, a solution may be $30,000 to build and implement but will provide you with a return on your investment after a year through an increase in customer spending, number of customers or reductions to your cost of sale.

We’ve created a handy calculator to help you decided if you should invest in a new website (or platform) now, or if it’s something that can wait. The questions are simple, and the information you enter is only shared with us if you choose to do so.

Website Investment Calculator – Now or Later

Are there any risks in going digital?

In short, yes, but it comes part in parcel with running a business. In fact, some physical risks can be translated into a cyber risk equivalent risk.

For example, you may want to protect your physical store with physical security at the front door, keeping minimal cash in your till. In the digital world, you should have Web Application Firewall to protect your digital front door (i.e.. Your website) and keep as little personal data on your systems as you need to (cash in your till).

No matter how you decide to do business, we always recommend consulting from professionals that have expertise in risk management and governance. For the digital side of business, consider having a Fractional Chief information security officer.

How to get started?

If you already know how you’re planning to build your business into the on-demand digital culture, or you want to get an idea with some of your options, take a look at our capability and get in touch for a demonstration of our digital platforms and smart capability.

Check out: Cybercraft Digital

Check out: Digital Experiences