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Digital business
transformation
Significant changes to
organisational processes,
structures and system
implemented to
improve organisational
performance through
increasing the use
of digital media and
technology platforms.
Change
management
Managing process,
structural, technical, staff
and culture change within
an organisation.
Mini Case Study 10.1
McLaughlin (2010) has reviewed a case study of a project where, after significant financial investment
(approximately US$300m) and three years of development, a digital transformation project was deemed
a failure. The initiative was designed to link the sales, marketing, fulfilment, manufacturing and distribu-
tion systems together in order to reduce supply chain stock levels, increase responsiveness to customer
demands and increase profit margins by providing a direct link to customers (circumventing business part-
ners for some product lines).
The project was managed centrally from the North American headquarters, with input sought from
the other geographies (Europe/Middle East/Africa, Asia Pacific, and Latin America). The geographies had
responsibility to respond to the central team on local aspects of the e-CRM project. The central team had
responsibility for the overall scope of the project and the back office, or the e-CRM ‘engine’, while the geog-
raphies had responsibility to ensure that the system, once deployed, considered local and cultural aspects
of how the organisation interacted with customers and business partners.
In this study, McLaughlin surveyed the level of employee awareness of the e-CRM system; employee
buy-in; employee confidence in an e-CRM system; and employee awareness of barriers to successful imple-
mentation. Although most employees had heard of the e-CRM project, the depth of awareness was not con-
sistent across the organisation. From the surveyed population, 24% had heard of e-CRM but were unaware
of what the project would deliver; 28% understood the deliverables and received regular communications
on the project’s progress. But 48% of the surveyed workforce, while understanding what e-CRM was about
and what it was trying to achieve, did not receive any communications on a regular basis updating them on
the project’s progress. In effect, 72% of the workforce was not aware of how e-CRM was progressing, and
how the objectives and deliverables were changing.
The reasons behind a failed digital business project
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Part 3 Implementation
Note that this is one example behind project failure in digital business where lack of edu‑
cation and buy‑in from staff was a major issue. Examples from the end of Chapter 2, such as
that for Ecomum, show that failure can also commonly occur when accounting fundamen‑
tals are forgotten.
We start this chapter by reviewing some of the challenges of implementing and manag‑
ing e‑commerce. We then go on to consider different aspects of change management and
the chapter is structured around the different aspects of change we need to plan for; these
include:
●
Scheduling – what are the suitable stages for introducing change?
●
Budgeting – how do we cost investment in digital business systems and projects?
●
Resources needed – what type of resources do we need, what are their responsibilities and
where do we obtain them?
●
Organisational structures – do we need to revise organisational structure?
●
Managing the human impact of change – what is the best way to introduce large‑ scale digi‑
tal business change to employees?
●
Technologies to support digital business change – the roles of knowledge management,
groupware and intranets are explored.
●
Risk management – approaches to managing risk in digital business projects.
The Smart Insights interview below shows that many companies who have made a
transformation to digital marketing are continuing to change, but continuously through
optimisation.
Real-world Digital Business
The Smart Insights interview
Ben Jesson and Karl Blanks of agency Conversion Rate Expert on
conversion rate optimisation
The interview
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