What is digital strategy?

A digital strategy, is a plan for maximizing the business benefits of data files and technology-focused initiatives. An ideal digital strategy requires a cross-functional team with executive, marketing and information and communication technology members.

So, there are many ideas of what constitutes a digital strategy in today’s organization, for defining a digital strategy, the best answer may be that it's all of the above or as power for website content, social media, e-commerce and email marketing.

Websites, e-commerce and social media have been commonplace for well over a decade, some companies have had websites for more than two decades now. Reliably, after twenty years, everyone and everything should be digitally transformed by now.

There are actually more recent elements that come into play, that are still fairly recent in the timeline like cloud computing that has become a great part of the digital equation, it offers a way to summing-up, automate and add processes and capabilities that may have previously been beyond the organization's understanding. Other important piece is the adoption of data analytics, and building analytical thinking into all levels of business decisions. Many enterprises are starting to learn how to pull insights from the data swirling around them, they are developing ways to run this data through algorithms and rules engines to deliver better, more responsive service.

This elements requires special skills, in fact question becomes where to invest to achieve digital velocity, and be able to answer polls such as this more affirmatively in the future.

To have success, the strategy should spot on where the company value chain is vulnerable to disturbance and could be made tougher and more economically viable from a digital start up. One of the dares for establishing a digital strategy is riddle out which services should be done in-house, which services should be outsourced to a third-party provider and which services require personalization in order to be effective. A digital strategy should be customer oriented and mark ways to improve the company's social media footmark, brand recognition, organic search results and customer engagement. It should also include strategies for reputation management.

Overhaul customer-facing technology system, customer journey/digital touchpoint mapping, process improvements to enable more agility with website /mobile /social platforms, build and manage web properties as part of an integrated approach, establish digital metrics and measurements, using mobile to support operational improvement efforts, customer engagement initiatives /new business opportunities and building applications that support the customer engagement model or other digital initiatives.These actions are part of the drive to digital, are steps along the way, but the important things to acknowledge are that there is no one "right way" to become a digital enterprise, and the journey will be a gradual and that there is no unified theory of digital transformation as of yet.

In conclusion digital strategy focuses on using technology to improve business performance, whether that means creating new products or reimagining current processes. It establishes the organization and direction will take to create new competitive advantages with technology, as well as the strategy it will use to achieve these changes. This often includes transitions to business models, as new technology makes it possible for innovational native companies to provide services that weren’t previously possible.