Create a Digital Culture

In order to facilitate the coordination of people, processes, and technology within an organization in a way that underpins efficiency and effectiveness, fostering a digital culture is essential. A digital culture instills adaptability, enabling the organization to respond quickly to evolving market dynamics and technology trends. And that, in turn, creates competitive advantage. Indeed, in today’s ever-changing landscape, where digital transformation is often synonymous with success, embracing a digital culture is a strategic imperative, and involves answering questions such as:

• How can we align our organizational capabilities to both achieve our digital objectives and meet ever-changing customer expectations?
• Which platforms and processes are being utilized for fostering knowledge sharing and cross-functional collaboration, and how can they be refined for better efficiency?
• How can we transition from traditional decision-making to data-driven decision-making?
• What is the current level of digital proficiency across our organization, and which specific skills need to be developed/enhanced? How will the organization provide digital training and upskilling opportunities for our employees? How can we garner leadership support and staff buy-in to fully embrace the organization’s digital future?

• Create a digital operating model that defines how a company’s people, processes, and technologies should be organized and governed to achieve its broader business goals and create value
• Take a structured approach to creating streamlined workflows and foster a culture of innovation through digital elements (e.g., cross-functional collaboration, knowledge-sharing, continuous improvement)
• Improve an organization’s ability to respond to dynamic circumstances with agile working methods, enabling enhanced efficiencies and further innovation through iterative development/feedback loops, customer centricity, and more

Through L.E.K.’s assistance with building a digital culture, companies have the potential to:

• Improve the efficiency and productivity of employees and processes across borders
• Attract high-quality talent and drive competitiveness/brand positioning in the market
• Increase the cross-functional collaboration of global teams to drive results
• Improve the agility of their business model

To learn more about how we help clients create a digital culture, please refer to these insights and case examples: 

• A client needed guidance for how to define the future of its digital customer experience. L.E.K. created a series of agile working sessions to define priority customer personas, opportunities, and pain points, then developed a set of omnichannel tactics and required capabilities. We implemented personalization pods in which we tested omnichannel tactics in an agile, controlled test-and-learn environment. We defined a robust operating model to deliver omnichannel execution as the normal course of business. And we reimagined the organization and structure of people, processes, and technology to include personalization and channel integration in the customer, brand, and product experiences. The result was an omnichannel digital strategy and a robust integrated operating model that the client could successfully execute on for its current and future product offerings.
• A global footwear brand engaged L.E.K. to create a digital acceleration team to focus on e-commerce growth. We collaborated with stakeholders to establish the strategic imperative for change and define the digital vision and initial strawman for the future organization. We outlined people, process, and technology changes necessary to achieving the stated vision and identified capability gaps, then prioritized and sequenced the initiatives based on expected effort and benefit in a clearly defined roadmap to transition the ways of working. We moreover designed the future-state organization with the requisite digital expertise and created an implementation timeline with expected timing, key initiative activities, and organizational structure changes for each phase. The client received a digital roadmap to hire for key positions and frameworks that it could use to win executive leadership support and alignment.
• A leading manufacturer in the premium automotive segment sought to implement a large-scale agile software development organization and related working model. L.E.K. led an in-depth assessment of key challenges and learnings related to the adoption of scaled agile frameworks by observing specific pilots and analyzing what works or can work vs. what needs to be modified in light of industry and organizational constraints. Our work not only resulted in a step-by-step guide for how to set up an agile initiative to align different existing agile and non-agile working models into a division-wide working model; it introduced a set of cultural changes that decentralized power, added efficiencies, and enabled flexible resource allocation.
• A leading global manufacturer of mattresses and mattress components wanted to radically transform its operating model and organizational structure to capitalize on a new high-growth "digitally native” customer base and become “customer-led” rather than “factory-led.” L.E.K. aligned the commercial goals and required capabilities necessary to achieve success and established the governance and working models for execution and managing for results. We prepared the client for transformation by getting in the details of every role, layer, and function as well as the financial implications of change. And we worked closely with the client to re-imagine and construct a new "hybrid" centralized/de-centralized Data & Analytics function. The client quickly became a market leader within the digitally native customer segment, which was growing approximately 3x the overall market rate and now represents 50%-55% of market volume.