Digital Roadmap 2020: How your digitization strategy should look now

Have you already developed your Digital Roadmap for the next decade? By 2030, the most important digital trends will become part of everyday life: It will be the decade of artificial intelligence. The Internet of Things and the 5G mobile communications standard will bring a new dimension to mobile networking. And technologies like the blockchain will determine our everyday life as a matter of course.

In this article, you will learn which digital business innovations and digital business models should now be on your digital roadmap. Have you established an innovation culture that promotes innovation and digital change in companies? What does your digital innovation strategy look like? Do you have enough ideas and projects to shape and change your market in the new decade?

In this article, you will learn how your digitization strategy should look now and how you can systematically develop it with the help of innovation software. Would you like to find out more about the most important trends that will shape the new decade? Sign up for our free online innovation and digitization education program „Preparing your company for the new decade“ and you will receive weekly articles on innovation and digitization.

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The foundation of your Digital Roadmap: Digitization of processes and workflows

The digitization of internal workflows and processes brings fast results: Measurable savings and cost advantages. At the same time, you involve employees from all divisions of your company in the digitization process. Accordingly, the digitization of processes and workflows is the cornerstone of your digital roadmap. Formulate clear goals that you want to achieve in the various departments.

Here are some examples:

Administration: Digitization projects to increase efficiency with the aim of reducing administration costs by at least 10 percent within one year.

Production: Linking your production with suppliers, customers and logistics processes

HR: Establishment or expansion of a digital administration process for the selection and evaluation of incoming applications

The digitization of processes ensures that your company remains at the forefront of tomorrow’s markets with highly efficient processes.

Digital Roadmap as a driver of your product strategy: Make products smart!

In recent years, we have experienced impressively how seemingly simple products like a toothbrush have become smart products. State-of-the-art sensors and digital technologies have turned the toothbrush, for example, into a tool that today monitors your brushing behaviour and gives you information as to whether you have cleaned correctly. Smart products are based on a focus on true customer benefits: Nobody wants to own a toothbrush, but all customers want their teeth clean.

Smart products are the bridge between your innovation strategy, your innovation management and your digital roadmap. Answer questions like

What is the true customer benefit of your products?

What is the hidden customer need behind it?

How can state-of-the-art technologies better meet these needs?

How many projects for smart products do you currently have on your Digital Roadmap? What are the stages of these projects? So far, have discussions mainly focused on technical feasibility? Have you already developed concrete ideas and concepts? Are there prototypes? Or have you already developed market launch strategies?

A rule of thumb: For a successful smart product, you need at least 20 ideas, 10 of which are in the idea generation stage, five in the concept phase, three in prototyping and two in market testing. Innolytics^® Innovation Software gives you an overview of which projects are at which stage.

Your Digital Roadmap in Marketing and Sales

Inbound marketing, sales automation and individual customer approaches are the dominant trends in online marketing and sales. Have you taken them into account on your Digital Roadmap? Your digital innovation agenda should include projects like these:

• Development of a strategy for the acquisition of high-quality customer data. It should answer two essential questions: How do we want to address customers in the future? And what kind of customer data do we need?
• Development of creative content concepts for your website. Convince customers that it is worthwhile to get in touch with your company and provide information about interests.

In the years to come, you will continue to individualize the way you address your customers. The so-called “Customer Journey” – the individual experience of a customer – is becoming more and more important. With your Digital Roadmap, you can already create a basis for this by systematically and structurally creating a database of potential customer interests. Over the coming years, you will continue to refine these data. The aim is to achieve a matching between the interests of customers and the characteristics of your products on the basis of customer data.

Digital business models and digital services

An important part of your digital roadmap is the development of digital business models and digital service offerings for customers.

• Digital services include customer portals, apps, guided assistants, a video academy on how to use your products, or building a customer community. A digital Open Innovation platform is also such a service offering: It gives customers the opportunity to directly participate in the development of products and services.
• With digital business models you go one step further: you create an independent form of added value for which customers are willing to pay.

The transition between digital service offerings and digital business models is fluid. Suppose you’re a manufacturer of dishwashers. For example, a digital service offering is an app that allows you to provide your customers with interactive troubleshooting instructions, video training and a consumption meter. You can add a digital business model to your app, for example by offering a marketplace for freelance service technicians who can be booked via the app for a placement fee in the event of malfunctions.

Tool for the development and management of your Digital Roadmap

The Innolytics^® Innovation Software enables you to jointly develop ideas for digital processes and procedures, smart products, content campaigns, digital services and business models. You can involve employees from different departments and set up separate working groups for the different subject areas. Ideas can be evaluated and developed step by step into mature concepts.

With the help of the Innolytics^® software you can build your digital roadmap and see how many projects on which topics you currently have with just one click. You can see the progress of all your projects and have an overview of all activities. The Innolytics^® software creates the necessary basis for the development of a digital roadmap.