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3 

Major disintermediation (Chapter 2) occurs in our industry.

4 

B2B marketplaces do or do not become dominant in our industry.

5 

New online entrants or substitute products change our industry.

Through performing this type of analysis, better understanding of the drivers for different 

views of the future will result, new strategies can be generated and strategic risks can be 

assessed.

Simons (2000a) illustrates the change in thinking required for digital business vision. He 

reports that to execute Barclays Bank’s vision, ‘a high tolerance of uncertainty’ must be intro-

duced. The group CEO of Barclays (Matt Barrett) at the time said:

our objective is to use technology to develop entirely new business models . . . while 

transforming our internal structure to make us more efficient and effective. Any strategy 

that does not achieve both is fundamentally flawed.

In time, it became clear that wholesale changes in business model were often not required. 

Instead, success in digital business required strategic agility to provide improved proposi-

tions through new platforms which could be quickly optimised to make them competitive 

and maximise customer conversion and customer satisfaction. Speaking at E-metrics 2008, 

Julian Brewer, Head of Online Sales and Content, Barclays UK Retail Banking, explained 

how Barclays Bank was using digital technology to make its e-commerce more efficient and 

effective, including:

● 

using predictive web analytics (see Chapter 12) which connects online data to effective 

action by drawing reliable conclusions about current conditions and future events;

● 

advanced attribution tracking and adoption of different online media across customer 

touchpoints, in particular paid search such as Google AdWords which accounts for 60% 

of Barclays’ spend on digital media;

● 

conversion rate optimisation using techniques such as AB and multivariate testing 

(described in Chapter 12) to boost sales efficiencies.

Benefits in 2006 were a 5% improvement in paid search costs, worth £400k in saved costs 

(showing that around £8 million annually was spent on paid search and the importance of