Digital Strategy & Transformation
Digital is touching, or will touch, virtually all dimensions of a business. Customers, channels and competitors are all going digital — in the way they go to market and in how they configure and operate their businesses. To succeed, companies must critically evaluate where their digital performance and capabilities are today and where they need to go in order to sustain competitive advantage in a digital world. This process can be complex and daunting to some organizations because they need to prioritize and make sound choices on many fronts. Done right, a robust digital strategy — with a plan to transform the organization to deliver on it — creates massive benefits.
How We Help
We work with business leaders to develop strategies and action plans that identify and respond to the digital opportunities and threats relevant to their specific industries. For example, we can help you with the following:
Digital strategy
- Evaluate your business to identify where your digital abilities are class-leading or not
- Understand how digital serves, and adds value for, the most relevant customers for your business
- Create and refine your organization’s digital vision and strategy based on your customers’ needs and your capabilities
- Explore opportunities where technology and/or data can improve your existing product and service value (e.g., digitally enhanced products)
- Examine existing digital product and services offerings to determine areas for enhancement and attractive areas for expansion
- Build data monetization strategies
Digital transformation
- Put all the pieces in place for a coherent digital strategy, and create a roadmap for the transformation with meaningful expenditures and impact laid out
- Highlight organizational requirements and recommend structural changes required to achieve success with the digital transformation (e.g., centralization or decentralization of a digital function)
- Establish a sustainable roadmap that the organization can follow and critical KPIs to measure progress objectively at regular intervals
- Develop a repeatable project portfolio management program to streamline and optimize your organization’s ongoing process for identifying, evaluating and prioritizing digital initiatives and investments
A S.M.A.R.T. Strategy for the Industrial Internet of Things
Which products make sense for connecting to the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT)? It’s not easy to know — and getting it wrong can lead to costly R&D missteps. Enter the S.M.A.R.T framework, which helps designers identify the products that are worth IIoT investment along with the functionality to include in a connected product.
Digital Transformation Is as Unique as Your Brand
Digital transformation means letting customers engage with your product wherever they happen to be. Getting there, says L.E.K.’s Noor Abdel-Samed, is a four-step process spelling out a future entirely unique to your brand.
Digital Strategy: Activating Against Customer Needs
In an increasingly complex and digital age with new, vast amounts of data captured, there’s an ever-growing necessity to understand how data can be effectively leveraged and ultimately to create value across various dimensions of consumer needs.
Digital Transformation: Road Map to a Digital-First Organization
With the increasing penetration of smartphones, access to low-cost networks and advances in technology, the consumer landscape is well on its way to becoming a digital-first world. Consumer-related industries are rapidly moving to digital, opening new possibilities for better meeting customers’ needs for transparency, speed to value and personalization.
Your Benefits
- A clear vision for your digital future
- Conviction on the strategic and economic value of digital
- A strategy that guides organizational design and priorities, investment, and metrics across near-term and long-term time horizons
- The right digital investments to unlock value with your best customers
Successes
- L.E.K. worked with a leading vertically integrated metals producer to develop a 10-year strategic roadmap for digital transformation. Our team identified gaps in the company’s information technology (IT)/operational technology (OT) capabilities, explored the potential of new and emerging technologies (e.g., AI-driven demand planning, digital twins for part production), prioritized investments based on both strategic importance and return on investment, and provided advice on a variety of organizational and change management challenges. Read more
- A multichannel apparel brand with a catalog heritage had ecommerce sales and growth lagging industry norms. We were asked to develop a digital strategy to drive customer acquisition, engagement and satisfaction through fulfillment. Through deep analysis of site performance, marketing effectiveness and consumer insight, we identified key deficiencies in the brand’s strategy and scoped the ideal end-state strategy. This new strategy included core digital “table stakes” initiatives such as site experience optimization and social media engagement, and the launch of an innovative, VR experience on the site. The strategy also optimized digital marketing investment with historical catalog investments to deliver improved marketing ROI and additional sales growth.
- A leading B2B distributor with a worldwide footprint was looking to accelerate its digital transformation across its 150-plus subsidiaries, all of which worked independently. The client engaged us to help formulate a clear digital vision at the group level, assess digital performance at the group and individual country levels, and develop an implementation roadmap to improve performance. The project focused on digital both outside (e.g., ecommerce, customer service, new routes to market) and inside (e.g., productivity improvement, operational excellence, supply chain) the organization. Read more
- A digital media company had built a successful franchise on YouTube, but its key revenue streams of content licensing and branded content had natural limitations in their ability to scale. We helped the company assess and validate opportunities for growth and supported the development of a long-range strategic business plan. We also assisted the company with navigating strategic partnerships and identifying opportunities for investment to build its direct-to-consumer and international assets.
- A leading global Tier 1 industrials systems supplier faced a number of significant challenges with its legacy business, among them reduced margins, peaking market demand and increased disintermediation risk. They asked us to conceive a digital platform opportunity with the potential to develop new revenue streams while also building new business relationships and strengthening ties with existing customers. Through our discovery process, we determined that the client could position itself to compete for $2 billion in new spend on digital solutions globally over the next decade or less. Read more
- A leading multibranded outdoor products manufacturer engaged us to develop its ecommerce strategy. After aligning the organization to the key initiatives, including multichannel retail support, growth in Amazon sales and the launch of a direct-to-consumer platform, we were further engaged to develop the roadmap and action plan for successful internal execution of the digital strategy. We worked effectively across all functional areas to develop key milestones, align internal and external resources, and create a central ecommerce initiative tracking program. Through deep partnership and training, we ensured the client was able to implement the ecommerce strategy, realize strategic objectives and achieve the desired financial impact.