4 ways to help you manage change in your organisation

Don't stop moving, love your customers, move quickly and focus only on what makes a difference.

They know the potential risks associated with standing still, especially as we shift into the 'age of the customer'. However, actually driving change is hard. The four areas below are essential to any transformation programme. 

1. There is no end result - keep moving

In order to move rapidly and remain flexible, digital should by now, be ingrained in your entire business and definitely key to your marketing strategy. Digital is the only platform that can give you access to your customers 24/7 anywhere in the world, with full transparency on what is working and what isn’t in real time.

However, your digital platform and channels are only ever as good as the day they were built. Digital moves so quickly that even between briefing a project and delivery, there can be significant changes that would benefit the end result. I crossed through the word end because there is no such thing as the ‘end’ result anymore.

To produce a scalable and flexible digital strategy that keeps up with your business needs and more importantly your customer's expectations, you need to keep changing, keep adapting and evolving your products and services.

2. Your customers have to be at the centre of every decision you make

Econsultancy reported that improving the customer experience (CX) is the number one goal for the 2,000 marketers they surveyed.

But what exactly does CX mean? Unlike many acronyms in the world of digital, CX is actually a useful one to know! Matt Watkinson's definition is my favourite:

"CX is the qualitative aspect of any interaction that an individual has with a business, its products or services, at any point in time."

CX should form part of any strategic business, digital, marketing or innovation plans.

Putting customers firmly at the heart of your business will mean that everything you do is optimised for the very people you seek to serve, the buyers. You should have a set of guiding CX principles that the entire business works toward at any given time. These principles will dictate how you engage with your audience, what content you need to create and steer your business decisions. The results include great customer service, increased brand advocacy and in turn positive increases to your bottom line.

3. Study the principles of agile

Agile was originally based on 12 principles outlined in a manifesto. Agile is a philosophy, a way of life, a mindset that originated to support software delivery. In its heyday, it was a groundbreaking way of thinking and a decent approach to software development. But, this was back in the 90’s, when it was devised by a group of friends on a skiing trip.

Although the original ethos may be the same, it’s no longer the same methodology and processes that matter, agile has evolved. Complex ways of working have been developed and layered on top of the 12 principles. This has enabled development houses to gain more flexibility by adapting processes to fit their own principles and projects.

An agile project traditionally is run using methodologies such as Kanban, Scrum or Lean, however, within the ever-evolving world of development, new ways are emerging for delivering projects successfully. This could be a combination of two or more methodologies, think along the lines of a Scrumban or even a Scrumfall process, which in the 90’s or 00's would have been dismissed on the spot. Development houses now embrace change to allow for the creation of competitive advantage for their clients.

You can learn from the processes and mindset of an agile development team and apply the same principles to business, digital and marketing strategy. Embracing failure will increase innovation and creativity across the business. By ideating, prototyping and testing in an agile manner, you can quickly determine what works and what doesn't. You shouldn't be afraid to cancel or throw out an idea if it isn't working, despite the number of hours that have gone into it. There are no failures, only successes and lessons.