Digital strategy is the process of specifying an organization’s vision, goals, opportunities and initiatives in order to maximize the business benefits of digital initiatives to the organization. (source: Wikipedia)
Establishing the value of design in today’s large-scale enterprises is a difficult challenge. Inflexible IT structures, a change-resistant organizational culture, or perceived cost might all be to blame. An external player with clout and authority is one way to get it done, and a new approach promoted by Deloitte is doing just that.
In this final part of a trilogy on how to successfully design digital services for government, we outline the systematic approach used by Informaat. Service designer Mark Fonds explains our approach in a Pecha Kucha format.
With roughly five times the population as the UK, the USA has a challenge cut out for itself when it attempts to rethink the way its government works. A recent push by the Obama administration has made digital services a priority; the challenge now lays in its implementation.
The global economic crisis has triggered significant cuts to government budgets, forcing public services to be delivered both more efficiently, and less expensively. Especially in the UK, service design has made great inroads in influencing the way that central (and local) government engages with its citizenry.
At the end of every year, analysts, thinkers and watchers provide their view on where we stand and what’s ahead of us in the coming year. These crystal ball readers predict our future with lots of statistical materials, like diagrams, charts and other nifty visualizations. Applied to various domains such as the internet, mobile or (social) media, they all agree on one thing: Digital disruption of society is getting stronger and stronger. So, what’s their lookout for 2013?
Many organizations struggle with complexity, externally as well as internally. Yet, focusing on tactics only has limited value. The value of strategy is long-lasting. Strategy involves human needs, characteristics and drivers that never change. It guides the creation of a plan to get from the existing situation to the desired one, shaped by goals and constraints. At the “NEXT Service Design” conference in Berlin, Alexander Baumgardt (“a practical buddhist who makes money” at Systemic Partners) outlined the value of strategy, design and human needs for business organizations dealing with massive change.
The digital revolution keeps accelerating, and shows no sign of slowing down. Staying abreast of the trend, business consulting firms have developed opinions on how digital is fundamentally changing business. At a recent conference, Gartner predicted that by 2015, about a quarter of all organizations will have created a new seat at the senior executive table: the Chief Digital Officer. But what does this new leadership role bring to the boardroom?
Its origins as a simple search engine long a dusty memory, Google now offers its products and services across just about any digital touchpoint you could name. So when it comes to research and recommendations on what today’s “multi-screen” world means for businesses, their findings make for interesting reading.
Branding… usability… look-and-feel… There are many tangible aspects that contribute to customer experience. However a critically-important factor is something that’s invisible to end-users, but makes itself known as soon as interactions go awry: Business processes.
Enterprise technology is a key competitive differentiator, and those organizations that don’t try to stay ahead of the curve risk a difficult game of catch-up. What trends should the forward-thinking company adopt? Dion Hinchcliffe has ten answers.
Competitive advantage in the world of products has historically been linked to differentiators such as features and functions, and metrics such as cost and performance. Break free of that mindset, and focus on experience instead, argue the authors of this compelling paper from the MIT Sloan School of Management.
In this post, I would like to talk about what has been on my mind for the last year or two: the relationship between user experience and customer experience and how user experience designers can extend their influence in businesses.
The ubiquity of social, mobile and traditional technology presents a real opportunity for those bold enough to innovate in the digital world. Many innovative businesses have built outposts on digital channels. However, with all this innovation the challenge remains: For many, each channel still operates independently. Enter the world of the omnichannel approach.
Recently, Informaat commissioned Forrester to research the maturity level of organizations regarding their customer experience capabilities. The results show none of them have (yet) a mature, systematic approach to digital customer experience (strategy). Many have an ad hoc approach to customer experience, while few have matured into more regular practices. Besides within the design disciplines, lots of variations were found in disciplines like governance, measurement and customer understanding.
Besides Design, there are several other organizational challenges regarding customer experience; two of which are Culture and Strategy. In his article with the thought-provoking title Culture Eats Strategy For Lunch, Shawn Parr explains the crucial role, value and relevance of an corporate culture and how customers directly experience this culture.