As the National Broadband Network (NBN) moves ahead over the next 12 months, more focus on how it will impact business and communities will come to the fore. Business leaders must look at their corporate objectives in terms of digital delivery, and consider the game changing benefits of doing business in a high-speed broadband environment. It is imperative that they have a clear digital strategy in place that leverages these opportunities, and takes a whole-of-business approach. Those that don’t risk being left behind. Digital presents opportunities for technological improvements that can revolutionise the capability of organisations to improve their responsiveness, enhance customer service, control costs and standardise procedures. This can be achieved through the development of informative and engaging websites that improve your competitiveness; content management systems that manage and publish organisational information; applications that manage your supply chain; systems that promote personalised and effective customer management, and leveraging the increase in the take up of the mobile web to speak to customers anywhere, anytime. Accordingly, here are some key points for consideration to assist you in devising your digital strategy:

1. Having a digital roadmap. It is crucial to develop a digital roadmap. One of the first steps is to consider how digital can play a role in harnessing your offerings and competitive differences by engaging your customers, potential customers, stakeholders, suppliers, buyers and employees when you work through your strategic business objectives. This will require clarity on what you offer, who buys it and why.
2. What is the purpose of your digital mediums? Clearly identify your purpose and objectives when engaging with your different audience groups (B2C, B2B/B2b/B2P, and B2E/B2S) to help you determine which digital mediums will deliver the highest value. For example, should you focus on your website or internal intranet? Developing criteria to help define priorities will assist in providing a balanced score card for each initiative.
3. Governance and a publishing model are critical. Ensure a strong governance framework and publishing model is in place to support ownership, roles and approval definition. This requires a dedicated team to manage your digital mediums. Since 2001, we have seen an increase in the investment in digital teams by 133%.(1)
4. Need to consider mobility. With advancements in the speed of access to information, comes increased expectations of mobility. The functionality available in phones allows for 24/7 engagement between people and businesses. 77% of mobile users use their phone for more than text and voice.(2)  Organisations need to embrace this and provide ways to make access to information through mobile devices easier.
5. Content is still king. Define the ownership and supply of content and digital assets. It is important to understand what needs to be created, versus what needs to be sourced. This allows you to place a value on the content and define the space it will exist in.
6. Social media – if you are not yet ready to engage then at least listen. Start monitoring the conversations taking place about your brand and/or products. This will provide some great insights into real or perceived positives and negatives that you may want to address in the conversation, or use as part of customer service and product improvements. From there, you may wish to engage and nurture relationships through the creation of an online community of advocates.
7. Information and marketing relevant to the user. Targeted content and marketing are critical in ensuring that you can engage in a relevant way with your audience. Consistency of your brand messages, whilst providing relevance, is key. This does not only require technology and digital experience, but strong management of your content online. Digital is no longer seen as simply an effective tool for dealing with transactional activities. It is a way to connect to people in our work and play.
8. Digital changes the way we do business. The traditional value chain of the manufacturer controlling production is changing. Consumers have a greater influence over what they want and increased customisation options available to them. Through digital, feedback can travel directly to the wholesaler and manufacturer, meaning the conversation bypasses the retailer. Information about the product can be sought on many different sites; independent product/service comparison sites (e.g. www.choice.com.au ), demonstrations on YouTube (Open the box ….) and social media feedback.
9. Real time information will allow for more responsive and accurate decisions. Delivery of real time information that is relevant to the audience will increase the efficiency of decision-making. Systemisation of processes to provide information in real time leads to improvements in quality, better business operations and, hence, improved business performance. High-speed broadband will be key to facilitating this exchange of information.
10. Metrics and analysis. Employing effective tools to monitor feedback, and generate metrics and analysis is important to evaluating the performance of your digital mediums. This will feed into ongoing improvements, whether you want to know how a marketing campaign has had an effect on a targeted audience, or where your site traffic is coming from. This information also feeds in to your digital roadmap so that you can measure against the key indicators, and identify what is important and what is not, allowing for refinements.

Digital is all-pervasive. We know all about it. It touches many of us in our daily lives in one way or another. Most of us are using it more and more, and it is becoming central to how we all live, work and play. To stay ahead of the game, businesses must think of ways to leverage digital technology, particularly the opportunities available to them with the imminent roll out of high-speed broadband. There is little doubt that the firm of the future will be heavily reliant on digital, and, with that in mind, developing a whole-of-business digital strategy has never been more crucial. Mark Nicklin, Managing Director - Digital Strategy mark.nicklin@bullseye.com.au For more insights in to the impact of high-speed broadband on business and the business environment, please download our discussion paper, ‘business@100Mbps – A View of the Firm of the Future’ at www.bullseyereports.com.au.

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1. Intranet Design Annual 2009 - The Year's Best Intranets (Jakob Nielsen)
2. Changing Australian Mobile Phone Habits Revealed In New Report 29 September 2009 http://www.aimia.com.au/i-cms?page=6289