Published 10 May 2019

In the next few years you are going to see a major shift in the business market place. In the last 5 years many small to medium businesses have been scurrying to bring their websites up to date, and get up to speed on this wilderness called ‘social media’. What they have failed to do – is actually review their WHOLE approach to technology and digital at the same time.

If you still view the different areas of your business as ‘stand-alone’ then you are in the big box labelled “behind”. With the onslaught of the advance of technology, social media and indeed the enhanced click-behaviour and sophistication of prospective customers/clients…HOW we do business has had to transform before our eyes.

Think: multifaceted, organic engine. Not ‘silo’.

When I work with clients today, it’s very different to when I first started in the social media space in the back-end of 2009. In those days I was literally explaining what social media was (and looked like) … and that it was important to pay attention to it.

Today, my consultancy remit has vastly evolved into doing a full-on diagnostic session to evaluate the digital competency of the business. Why? Because if the business isn’t competent in terms technology and digital skills – it has no hope of harnessing the power and speed that a full digital marketing strategy brings.

Digital mindset starts at the top

In the 2018 Lloyds Bank UK Business and Charity Digital Skills Index report it’s clear that there is still a wide gap between where UK businesses need to be, to fully harness our digital future. It’s a little scary seeing what the mindset is for a good chunk of SME’s in the UK – especially around investing in digital skills for their team.

A digital mindset within your strategic leadership, threaded through to your investment in training – are the two big things that impact any future growth, innovation and adaption to technological change.

Future skills investment & a culture of learning

Looking to what’s coming, or more importantly: where your business is on the ‘wave’ of innovation – should be one of your key focuses as a business owner or leader in your organisation.

Seriously, I cannot stress this enough – we operate in a different world now. One that changes significantly year-on-year. Get your team and organisation buckled down and give them (and it) the systems, tools and training to take your business into the next 5 or 10 years.

In the East of England part to this Lloyds Digital Index report – I see that:

• 70% of SME’s do not want social media and marketing skills (with 18% having these skills already, and a mere 12% wanting it for the future)
• 73% of SME”s do not want data and analytics skills (with 16% having these skills already, and only 11% wanting it for the future)
• 74% of SME’s do not want strategic and leadership skills (with 13% having these skills already, and 13% wanting it for the future)

My friends, this puts our region (my region) in a pretty sticky situation – with their stubborn feet stuck in cement, not going anywhere soon. If you thought BREXIT was a massive life-changing issue – think again.

Culture breeds aptitude to change

The businesses and, indeed professionals, who will truly survive and thrive in the next 10 years – will be ones who are not afraid to move away from what’s known, and move towards what’s lesser known.

I would urge you and your teams to embrace uncertainty – because we are in for a lot of that to come. In the last 15 years, since social media has broken into our worlds, with it, it has brought disruptions like:

• narrowing the chasm between small and large organisations;
• blowing media channels wide open for self-broadcasting to the man on the street;
• the definition, need and use of hardware, software and applications;
• the need to “own” something versus having “access to” something;
• the pure processing speed and capability of smartphones;
• technologies that are annihilating whole industries and resulting in millions of jobs being null and void

The rate of change of technology is still at a rapid upward curve. In the next 3 to 5 years alone, you will see more and more machine learning and AI being implemented into simple day-to-day work and personal life tasks.

Everyone within your business needs to grasp and embed a culture of being curious and up-to-date on what’s coming. It will change people’s careers, job descriptions and even just ways of thinking about how a work day is structured. They will need to up-skill, cross-skill and delegate more to machines and software. They will clearly need to learn new languages as well – in order to operate and manipulate the ‘machines’ and software that are coming too.

Gone are the days where someone will be able to get away with the excuse “I am not a computer person” – that will not cut it in the world that’s coming.

Build a sustainable infrastructure

In order for your people and business to be able to cope with the rate of change and keep you profitable and competitive – you need to invest in training, systems, processes and technology.

It’s not going to be good enough to just send a few people on a low level training course to “get better” at digital marketing, or send a few staff members to “get better” at managing people.

This is going to require some STRATEGIC thinking and lateral, creative discussions about what you need to do at ground level to shift your business’ foundation completely towards being a digital-first business.

So, if the organisations who completed this Digital Index for Lloyds Bank are an indicative sample of the UK’s SME”s which drive 90% of the economy – we are in deep trouble.

The skills that are going to get you through are strategic and leadership strength; a thorough understanding of how to utilise data and analytics; and, believe it or not,  sound digital marketing and communications prowess.

Image courtesy of JL G, Pixabay.com  

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