McKinsey’s annual Global Survey came out in June, and what I found most interesting was that although respondents say their CEOs are more involved in digital marketing efforts than ever before, there are some pretty major hurdles for most large organizations to really see the impact of what digital can do.
Everybody is on board with using digital marketing to grow, and 30% named the digital engagement of customers as a strategic priority. However, only 7% say their organizations understand the exact value at stake from digital.
Why the disparity? If it’s truly a strategic priority, then why is there such ambiguity in what to do and why to do it?
The top 5 challenges for companies under $1 billion in revenue:
1. finding talent (32%)
2. lack of quality data to inform business decisions (19%)
3. organizational structure is not designed appropriately for digital (16%)
4. business processes too inflexible to take advantage of new opportunities (15%)
5. inability to adopt an experimentation mind-set that is key for best practices (13%)
Doom and gloom? For me it’s exciting. These hurdles can be overcome by leaders who see the value in investing in digital strategy for the long term. The beauty of digital is that everything is measurable and nothing is set in stone.
Create a plan, execute the plan, measure the plan, make changes to improve as you go along. What do you think? Is it that easy?
