WHAT IS IT AND WHY DOES YOUR BUSINESS NEED IT?

The Digital World is all around us.  It’s created by the convergence of the virtual and the physical and digital transformation is happening at a dizzying pace. Digital has become so intertwined with our everyday existence it touches almost every aspect of our lives.

Many of these digital touch points are so much a part of our lives now that we hardly give them a second thought anymore: sending an email instead of writing a letter, texting instead of writing a memo, getting cash at the ATMs instead of going in to the bank and being served by a teller, talking to friends and family on Skype and social media, using the Uber app on your phone instead of calling a cab by telephone.

Your customers are living in this brave new Digital World too and the opportunities for them to engage with this converged world are accelerating every day: picking up a Zip car when you need one for a few hours and ordering a dinner party table setting online and having it delivered to your home are just a couple of recent innovations that are disrupting established business models. Not to mention SMART home products like Amazon Alexa, Google Home and the Vivint home security system.

So what does this digital experience mean for your business, your career, your employees or your customers? Endless opportunities, if you can take advantage of these changes and rethink your customer experience in terms of the Digital World.If you want to be a game changer, or even stay in the game, you have to be able to know where your business is in the intersection of virtual and physical right now and then postulate or imagine how you want it to perform or operate in the converging Digital World of the future.

Without this, any business will struggle to define what their business model looks like in the converged Digital World.  Many businesses are learning that if you don’t confront this, you don’t stay relevant.Digital disruption is already affecting businesses in every sector: Uber/Taxi industry, Hulu & Netflix/Cable, cell phones/telephone service to name just a few. And it is going to affect every sector of business in the future.You, your customer and your business are in the middle of this digital disruption every moment of every day, making choices.

For a business, the optimum scenario is that your customer is engaged with your brand, company and product at the digital intersection point.  Your customers are beyond just rationally (product meets his needs) and emotionally (the product out performed itself just when he needed it) pleased.  They are fully engaged and creating content (PR and marketing) for your brand, which expands your product/services use in an integrated market place.  Your product/service becomes a digital experience in your customers’ lives.And, of course, the same holds true for your employees.  Your business needs to become a Digital Experience ecosystem – where everything and everyone connects.

"By defining your digital business model, one that achieves that immersive experience, you identify your company’s position in the Digital World," explains Anne Bruce, A Digital Experience Strategist based in Tampa FL. "It allows you to imagine how your company will operate in the future as the digital convergence accelerates. Once you imagine/define this you can begin to transform each of the individual disciplines on a realistic gradient (R&D, PR, Marketing, Finance, Operations etc.) and turn the disruption into an orderly business transformation that yields results."