Leading your team to the digital horizon

Leadership in a Digital Age
Building a
Case for Digital
Transformation
Leading the team
to the Digital Horizon
2

Building a Case for Digital transformation
2
INTRODUCTION
You don’t need convincing.
You’ve seen the future for your organisation and it is unquestionably digital.
(If you don’t agree, stop reading now; you have bigger challenges than you might think!)
But then the questions start:
Who goes on the journey? How do you lead them along?
What direction? How fast? What’s the path?
Is the journey the same for everyone throughout the business?
Embarking on a Digital Transformation (DT) strategy can seem
daunting enough. But when you apply that strategy to large teams,
the numerous complexities and variables can make the whole
project appear just too exhausting a proposition to even bother
taking the first step, let alone all those steps that must inevitably
follow if it is to succeed.
You have three options.
1Give up and hope the various challenges sort themselves out.
This is the approach your competitors would LOVE you to
adopt, by the way.
2Sack everyone and hire a fresh team of digitally savvy
practitioners hand-picked to be capable and willing to
implement your strategy. Yeah, that’s really not going to happen.
3Understand the various objections and difficulties the team will
face so that you build the reassurances, answers and means of
overcoming them into your implementation strategy.
Are you ready? Then buckle up and let’s get this show on the road…

3
Outside of core digital teams for whom these concepts are part of
the job description, most employees lack the necessary skills and
understanding to effectively implement and manage new digital
programs1
. This is despite a growing shift in budgets to develop more
powerful and complex digital strategies, platforms and channels.
This disconnect presents a major challenge
for the success of those strategies.
The problem is that Digital Transformation is too often visualised from
an outside-in perspective. Look at our cool new app! Check out our
hip new Social Media Command Centre! Marvel at our online metrics
dashboard!
Huge investments in technology and systems might demonstrate
your brand’s commitment to digital. However—and here’s the
rub—behind all this wonderful technology is a group of mortal,
subjective human beings suddenly trying to make sense of it all.
While investment in technology continues to grow, little thought is
given to investment in the people who will actually determine
its success or failure.
UNDERSTANDING
THE PROBLEM
1 Digital Chameleon’s Digital IQ Index

4
Buying in the necessary digital skills might seem like an
obvious solution, but it is an expensive and uneven one.
Digital savvy employees are pricey and transient. No business
can afford to re-stock every position even if they wanted to.
There’s not enough talent and not enough money to do it, nor
would it be advisable even if it was possible. And while you
might gain the necessary digital skills, you would lose all of the
experience, detailed knowledge of the business, and all of the
other skills necessary to the long-term success of your brand.
Digital Transformation is an enhancement to help your
team achieve the business goals. It is not a replacement
for everything else your team brings to the business.
So your DT strategy MUST be embraced by your existing and
future staff if it is to have any chance of success. All employees
must share the same vision. Staff who are engaged and
invested in the company’s digital future will tend not to resist
the changes, instead they will help make the vision a reality2
.
Therefore, you need to be brutally honest about the need
for cultural change. The staff won’t embrace your DT
strategy as a favour to you, or because of a flat directive
issued from on high.
There’s an even more
fundamental question that
DT advocates need to answer:
What EXACTLY does digital
competency even look like?
How much does an individual
staff member need to know in
order to be considered digitally
competent? Organisations that
require credentials and very
specific training in some ‘mission
critical’ areas—such as Finance,
IT, Legal and others—barely
consider the need for the same
degree of understanding and
skill in customer-facing staff,
especially when it comes to DT.
We’ve talked enough
about the problem.
Time to look at some solutions…
2 Capgemini Consulting & MIT Center for Digital Business “Being Digital: Engaging the Organization to Accelerate Digital Transformation”

5
MEASURE TWICE,
CUT ONCE
Job descriptions form the building blocks of any
talent recruitment and retention program.
If these documents don’t reflect the needs of the
organisation, they are useless.
Who authors them? Usually, they are put together by line managers
and HR specialists, based on their subjective institutional experience
and evolved as necessary to meet the changing needs of the
organisations.
But what if the person preparing a job description lacks
the up-to-date insight necessary to craft them?
This is EXACTLY the case when it comes to digital competencies
and it leads to sub-par outcomes. Hiring managers without the
requisite digital experience are flying in the dark when it comes to
hiring and retention.
action item: Identifyyour target needs
Define the digital expertise your staff need if they are to operate
at a high enough level of competency.
What areas are most critical? There are probably more than a few, including
but not limited to: Online Advertising, Social Media, Content Marketing, Mobile
Marketing, User Experience, Analytics, Data and more.

6
CUT THE CLOTH TO FIT THE WEARER
There’s another wrinkle to consider:
not every staff member needs to be a digital superstar.
Different functions require different skill sets.
A Customer Service Rep might need a firm grounding in
social media but may require far less understanding of analytics.
A PR Specialist might need some content marketing nounce,
but may never be required to delve into the intricacies of
ecommerce behaviours.
A Marketing Manager would probably need a bit of everything.
So the first step is to develop a sustainable DT program aimed
at up-skilling staff in the necessary digital areas as defined by
their function within the organisation.
action item:
Tailoryour needs
Analyse and document the digital
requirements for each role within
your organisation to perform
effectively in a DT environment.
Then determine how MUCH
they need to know about each
particular digital discipline and
assess their current knowledge.
Once you’ve done this, you have a
solid foundation for addressing the
human part of the DT equation.
Assess & address: required vs actual competence by discipline
Required actual
digital skills gap: the difference
between the required and the actual skill set
Online
Advertising mobile search analytics social UX content

7
I OBJECT!
There ALWAYS seem to be plenty of reasons for a business
not to come to terms with questions of digital competency.
Let’s look at some of the most common objections and see
why these answers don’t address the big questions.
OBJECTION ONE:
“Our partners educate our staff.”
External education can be great, providing inspiration and other
perspectives from subject matter experts. However, when digital
training isn’t focused on the organisation’s business objectives, much
of the training may be an irrelevant waste.
It may be fascinating to hear about the digital strategies of McDonald’s
or Pepsi, but if you’re a heavy equipment maker there may be few
insights of value to guide the digital thinking of your employees. Plus,
you have not have hired your partners to provide training.
Why should your PR consultant or your development agency care
about the skill levels of your staff?
Even if they are happy to provide staff training, it will most likely be
limited to avoid eroding their commercial value to the business. Their
focus is on growing your commercial relationship so that you can do
more business with them, not on providing an unbiased, objective
view on digital disciplines.
“Digital literacy amongst brands, agencies
and media is as low (if not lower) than the
self-reported concerns highlighted in the
2012 Digital IQ Index”
Digital Chameleon’s 2014 Digital IQ Index

8
Case in point: financial sector
Digital Chameleon supplied digital training services to a well-known
Australian financial services company. The business had initially relied
on a major media agency to supply staff training as part of their existing
contractual relationship.
The brand was happy with this arrangement because it could ‘tick the
training box’ by merely providing occasional sessions with agency experts
in a variety of digital disciplines. The arrangement seemed to be working,
until the same agency responded to a client campaign brief by proposing a
major spend on online advertising.
Planning for the campaign was already advancing when an independent
external consultant pointed out that the major spend was completely
unnecessary. The financial institution ALREADY had a vast untapped
audience of qualified leads. All the brand had to do was develop a better
strategy to capture and develop the vast numbers of visitors to their
own website! The brand quickly switched strategies and the expensive
campaign did not proceed.
The agency wasn’t being underhanded or
deceptive. They simply have a business
model, fee structure and an agenda that
relies on persuading brands to commit
budgets to media spend. Clearly, their
“training” didn’t benefit the client in
this case – a commercial partner’s
commitment to a particular practice
or approach would naturally bias any
guidance or training they might supply.
action item: Learning audit
Review the previous year and consider the various methods your team currently
uses to learn about and gain experience in necessary digital disciplines. Partner
training, seminars, courses, conferences, newsletter subscriptions, private
experimentation—all count.
Now count the number of staff who were actually exposed to this learning.
Chances are you will find your learning coverage is spotty and wildly inconsistent.
The most motivated will have supplemented their learning and are inspired to use
their new knowledge, while the least interested may have avoided all except that
which is made compulsory. As this haphazard training continues, gaps in skill
levels will continue to widen, until the team finds itself running at two
or more different speeds.
And that’s when strategies can break.
Experts don’t always make great educators.
Training is a very different skill set. No amount of subject matter
expertise can make up for an inability to inspire and motivate
learners. Effective educators can translate complex knowledge into
digestible learner-friendly content that helps everyone to ‘get it.’

9
OBJECTION TWO:
“There’s no ROI for L&D Programs”
Most corporate training is compliance-based. It’s written into
the job description or the performance assessment or the staff
policy so that you have to do it. And that is how businesses have
protected themselves from certain HR issues for decades.
If an individual staff member doesn’t perform satisfactorily?
Compulsory training. Someone misbehaves or breaches a
key policy? Compulsory training. An employee causes a major
customer service snafu that makes the papers? Compulsory
training—followed by the obligatory press release to let everyone
know “we’re handling it”.
The principle is very simple—staff training protects
the business from getting sued.
Keeping the lawyers happy is obviously important, but this is a
rather negative approach to training. It lumps training in with
compliance, focused on controlling or restricting staff while
protecting the brand.
Most businesses don’t view consistent staff training as a potential
driver of more positive goals like innovation, opportunity and growth.
That’s a mistake. It assumes that
positive learning takes place through
personal epiphanies and can’t be
managed from an organisational
standpoint. It is often considered
difficult—if not impossible—to
develop a consistent and predictable
ROI from developing what are often
seen as soft skills.
Current approaches
to developing
digital skills are broken
Companies recognise the digital
skills gap and its importance
87% of companies feel
digital transformation is a
competitive opportunity
77%of companies consider
missing digital skills as the key
hurdle to their DT
Yet, they are NOT investing in
digital skills
Only 46%are investing in
developing digital skills
Moreover, existing efforts to
develop skills are out of synch
Only 4%of companies align
their training efforts with their
digital strategy
No company spends
more than 20%of it’s
training budget on digital
Source: Capgemini Consulting, The
Digital Talent Gap: “Developing Skills
for Today’s Digital Organizations”

10
Staff training CAN and SHOULD be strategic, ongoing, consistent and
developed to show a clear ROI. Otherwise there is little demonstrable
strategic or bottom line value to the organisation.
There needs to be a clear and direct connection between learning
objectives and business objectives. If the two aren’t connected,
you may as well invest the money on throwing an even bigger
Christmas party for your staff this year, because the ROI would be
pretty much the same (ie: nada, bar a little goodwill).
When you DO make the connection between staff training and genuine
business goals, measurable outcomes become possible.
Case in point: media sector
One of Digital Chameleon’s major clients is a global media giant. Like
many media players, they face a radically changed business landscape.
‘Business as usual’ simply isn’t an option.
Together, we jointly developed a customised learning program for the
entire team, complete with detailed reporting that assessed and measured
individual skill levels both before and after. Other agreed metrics included
team activity and actual revenue outcomes.
The program worked. Skill levels rose across the team. Specific digital
activities increased, as did client revenue.
However, not all results were consistent. Some groups responded differently
to the program. Where managers were committed to the program, their
groups emerged with higher levels of engagement and delivered superior
results. Meanwhile, managers who were less committed to DT usually
resulted in groups that struggled with the program.
When L&D and operational management were both on the same page,
there was a clear and positive ROI.
Action item: Connect with metrics
List your current business objectives in column A. Now list your current learning
programs in column B. See if you can connect each of the objectives in Column A to
the most relevant programs in Column B. Then list at least one meaningful metric to
measure the success or failure of each connection.
You may find that quite a few business objectives are not supported by relevant
learning, while some learning programs are not linked to current business objectives
Where there is a clear connection, you may not be adequately measuring the
effectiveness of your learning programs at driving those objectives.
“There’s a gap, and we have to work
relentlessly to close that gap. We’ve looked
for a way to describe it, and that’s fitness.
You can’t just work out once.”
Pepsi executive

11
OBJECTION THREE:
“It‘s too expensive!”
‘Expensive’ is a relative term. Bottled water might seem ridiculously
expensive in a city cafe—but when you’re in the middle of the Sahara,
any price might seem a bargain.
Is a training program a life-saving resource? Consider the fate of your
business—and even your future career—if your digital transformation
strategy doesn’t succeed.
As more businesses adopt DT and hire more digital talent,
the supply pool is struggling to grow fast enough to meet the
demand. Therefore, the costs of hiring in appropriate digital skills
are rising fast. Just look at starting salaries being offered for even
junior digital talent. And that’s assuming you can find them.
Cost remains one of the biggest challenges facing those digital
advocates trying to establish a DT program within their business.
Budgets usually don’t factor in the expense of addressing the skills
gap and learning needs of the team.
Source: Capgemini Consulting & MIT Center for Digital Business
“Being Digital: Engaging the Organization to Accelerate Digital Transformation”
“We are investing in the
necessary digital skills”
DIGITAL
MASTERS
82%
ALL
otherS
40%

12
This might seem like a minor issue at first when the priority is to
implement the new strategy and technology. But the problem
compounds over time, until it threatens the viability of your strategy.
No investment means no change. No change leads to a deteriorating
competitive advantage until the business finally throws resources at the
problem out of desperation, by which time it may already be too late.
Survival can be expensive — but it sure beats the alternative.
Case in point:
An L&D Manager for a multi-national ad agency reached out to Digital
Chameleon to help a major metropolitan office that was struggling to
adapt to digital. The team suffered from a severe lack of the skills required
to carry out even basic digital campaign activities. As the agency counted
many huge brands as clients, a lack of digital skill could be seen as a
serious weakness in the competitive agency market.
The manager’s ideal outcome was a one day session to cover the ‘brilliant
basics’. However, Digital Chameleon proposed an alternative, using a
‘flipped classroom’ model that we know from experience works well. But
the agency manager insisted on the requested one day session, citing a
lack of budget.
Digital Chameleon declined the opportunity because the manager’s
perceived ‘solution’ to the problem wasn’t sustainable, strategic or capable
of solving the problems identified. And the agency still continues to struggle
with the same problems. The business was prepared to compromise its
competitive advantage and risk losing major clients because it saw a
modest investment in the development of its team as ‘too expensive’.
What is a bigger expense to your business—a strategic and measurable
learning program or the loss of your competitive advantage, your
customers and, eventually, your profitability?
action item: Number crunch
Add up all of the costs associated with recruitment; such as HR staff,
job advertising, recruiter costs, training and induction, as well as the opportunity
costs associated with an unfilled position.
Depending on the size of your business and your turn-over rate, you may find that
for every new hire, the same investment could expose 5-10 times as many existing
staff to an immersive DT learning program.

13
HAVE YOU NOTICED
WHAT’S MISSING?
You might be thinking that we’ve overlooked
one crucial area: what do the staff
themselves want and think?
There is no secret here. Staff WANT DT
training. They NEED DT training. And they
aren’t usually shy about saying so. What
they DON’T want, however, is training that
seems irrelevant or that isn’t clearly linked to
their every-day performance.
Digital Chameleon has conducted hundreds
of DT learning programs. In none of those
programs have staff resented, avoided or
otherwise denied the need for the program.
They want to remain relevant in their roles
just as much as you want your brand to
remain so. The team isn’t a hard group to
persuade.
However, requests from staff for more
training aren’t generally acted upon by
management.
Staff surveys might indicate a strong desire
for more learning. Yet even though the
survey question comes from management,
most management teams ignore the answer
for many of the reasons we’ve covered.
Case in point:
Digital Chameleon has worked with an iconic
brand on a highly successful pilot program,
according to all of the agreed metrics. Yet, when
the L&D manager left the business, the incoming
manager cited “other priorities” and the program
promptly died.
Of course, this happens in business all the time.
But what was even more frustrating was the
number of team members, as well internal trainers,
who continued to contact Digital Chameleon
directly, asking when the program would resume,
even years later.
Those who had experienced the program loved it
and many others wanted the same experience.
The company continues to push out press
releases that boasts of its digital savvy.
Unfortunately, the truth from the inside is that
the business continues to struggle, deteriorate
and shrink. Eventually, no amount of positive PR
will matter.

14
There’s a storm coming
Digital is disrupting every sector.
What were once considered bedrock brand
assets — business models, distribution
networks, customer loyalty, leading
technology, etc — are being reshaped and
revalued in market after market.
No brand is immune.
Your staff already knows this, even if your
board or management team do not. The staff
are on the frontline with your customers.
They can see former market advantages
eroding away as more nimble competitors and
new startups eat up your market share,
steal your customers and take the lead away
from you.
So as they fight to hold the line, support your
team by investing in them. Developing their
skills will not only stiffen their resolve, but will
also attract new talent, keen for a career with
a brand that values its staff.
Brands that ignore their human capital will
see their troops desert. Those who remain
are probably the least capable and least
valuable to the brand’s future success.
Forget short cuts that avoid the main
problem. Instead, embrace the hurdles along
the way, as each one represents progress and
opportunity. Above all, value and invest in
your team.
If you do these things, your brand will
have a much greater chance of
survival as it thrives in the
Age of Digital
Transformation.
Digital leaders are pro-actively
communicating the cultural changes
required in Digital Transformation
82%of respondents in leading companies
agreed that their company is promoting the
necessary culture changes for
digital transformation
DIGITAL
MASTERS
82%
all
others
38%
Source: Capgemini Consulting & MIT
Center for Digital Business
“Being Digital: Engaging the
Organization to Accelerate Digital
Transformation”

15
what’s next?
Bridge your organisation’s digital talent gap.
When planning a DT strategy, don’t forget the people
who will need the skills and mindset to implement it.
Not everyone in your business needs to be
a digital expert, but everyone will need an
understanding of the tools and concepts
related to their roles.
Digital Chameleon unlocks
digital capabilities in large
organisations by establishing
digital competence
requirements, assessing
the Digital IQ of teams, and
designing learning programs that
bridge the gaps and align with business objectives.
The result is that everyone has the necessary skills to
make your DT strategy a success.
contact us today
Patty Keegan, Managing Director
patty@digitalchameleon.net
Mobile +61 (0)411 752 591
4306 / 4 Daydream St,
Warriewood NSW 2102,
Australia
Ph + 61 2 9997 7002
Unlocking digital capabilities in global organisations
WHAT’S
YOUR Team’s
DIGITAL
IQ?

Leading your team to the digital horizon

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