The Digital Revenue Organization | A Post-Pandemic Perspective
Surveys off more information about the state of the DRO post pandemic.
For more than a decade, B2B marketing, sales and service organizations have been modernizing how they engage with customers. Data and technology have fundamentally changed how the revenue organization operates. The pandemic served as an opportunity for laggards to catch-up and leaders to commercialize years of investment.
Alexander Group surveyed digital, marketing, sales and service leaders across industries to learn more about the state of the Digital Revenue Organization post-pandemic. The results? Leaders widened the gap while laggards installed the foundation needed to catch-up.
The research delivered the following insights:
1. The Meaning of Digital
Digital means many things―63% of participants indicate that their organization does not have a common definition. And 100% agree that the lack of a common definition impedes execution.
From e-commerce, e-business, digital commerce and omnichannel, the meaning of digital is different from company to company. However, at its core, digital is all about the customer experience. Aligning the organization on a common definition, vision and roadmap is the first step.
2. The Digital Maturity Model
Often born out of a narrow e-commerce remit, digital revenue organizations start out developing foundational capabilities to process online transactions and as they move forward, they begin experimenting with new-found data and technology capabilities―often applying the skills to how they market and engage customers. They then integrate marketing, sales and service capabilities to deliver both online and offline customer experiences.
Those that achieve the transformational level of maturity deliver innovative and disruptive omnichannel customer experiences. Marketing engages across the customer lifecycle, buyers transact seamlessly via an array of channels and service is delivered when, where and how customers prefer.
3. Digital Organizational Structure
As digital revenue organizations move through the phases of maturity, they demonstrate new capabilities. Marketing moves to automation, online transaction solutions expand, sales provides data-driven custom offers and service shifts to self-service portals and preemptive support.
Delivering those capabilities takes people and investment. Bringing together the capabilities into a centralized function, customer engagement takes place across a complex mix of marketing, sales and service channels leading to new organizational designs and roles.
4. Inhibitors and Enablers
Bringing a digital vision to life can be difficult. Leaders describe a path riddled with obstacles. They face a breadth of expectations from customer and the business. Even if they are well-funded and have a vision, they run into difficulty gaining cross-functional buy-in and support due to lack of a common digital definition.
Developing a clear digital roadmap that focuses on quick wins that build toward an ultimate vision is key. Unifying the organization to a common charter, definition and centralizing resources while keeping innovative customer experience at the center will have the greatest near-term impacts.
5. Cross-Functional Team Collaboration
Stakeholders tend to understand digital when discussed in terms of a function (like digital marketing), a channel (like e-commerce), or technology. The definition gets cloudy when digital is talked about in terms of delivering an experience―the intersection of functions, channels and technology.
Digital leaders are investing in ecosystems that allow customers to get the support when and how they want it all the while reducing service organization workload. This signifies the importance of using cross-functional teams to collaborate on programs, bringing the digital vision to life. The impact? Improved customer experiences and lower cost to serve.
A whitepaper of the full survey findings will be available. It will include a deeper dive into each of the five insights along with best practices to set your organization’s digital definition to bring your digital vision to life.
Be the first to know! Contact an Alexander Group practice lead to be first in line to receive the whitepaper or to sign up for a complimentary briefing on the Digital Insights study findings.
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