Transformation in Travel needs rethinking

If Digital transformation is all about the connected customer, then how can transport be truly transformational if it doesn't provide what the digital customer wants?

A customer doesn't want a fragmented mobility experience. They want a cohesive one that is consistent (but not necessarily exactly the same) across all digital channels. But how can transport deliver a truly mature digital experience when:

• Every train operating company (26 in the UK) is a difference franchise, most of them providing their own online account
• Many local bus services don’t have online self-service accounts and those that do have one for each operation / franchise (despite these services being run by the same parent company in a lot of cases)
• Public transport services have private competition which only allow their tickets to be accepted via their own mobile app

We therefore need a rethink of how every customer account for each transport provider integrates. And that this way of integrating is not locked to a particular operator or technology provider. To ensure that if I have 4 accounts with 4 different operators... I don't have to log in to each one to get a holistic / aggregated view of my entire transit purchases or trips.

What question are you really trying to answer?

Agile

Digital Transformation
Self-service technology
Faster delivery
<yawn>

Heard it all before? Yes, so have I... numerous times and across many different clients.
Each is craving to "move to become a digital organisation" or "reinvent their online proposition to embrace change" and other similar modern and (to be honest) pretty meaningless statements about themselves.

But I think they are approaching this the wrong way. 

On the basis that each company exists to provide a product or service to another (person or company)... why the heck are they not focusing on asking more questions about what their customers need? Or questioning what stops their valuable users buying/using/engaging more? And more fundamentally... why aren't more people tasked with trying to answer those questions with the creation of better products and services, increasingly delivered as software?

So rather than saying "we need to redevelop our website to improve our KPIs"...
You need to ask "why don't we make it easier for customers to convert?"

And rather than stating "we need to reduce the number of clicks in our online booking process".
You need to ask yourself "why do customers seem to have a problem getting past the 4th page?"

It is only then that you get to the creation of an insight-based hypothesis to change a process or product. 

API's with everything

If you work in and around any sort of company that is undergoing a digital transformation, you will almost certainly hear the term "API".

Short for Application Programming Interface, put simply it provides a way for one system to be used by another in an agreed way. In other words, you can run some specific functionality or process elsewhere (e.g. within you organisation or across the Internet) via a set of published instructions.

APIs aren't a particularly new idea (I've been working with them since the 1990s), but they have grown in prominence and usage as other technologies and approaches such as Digital and SaaS (software as a service) have become more popular. It is therefore very likely that at some point or another most large organisations will have built APIs for their customers, or for their internal use.

Some  might therefore possibly state that we have currently "reached peak API use"... were it not for the likelihood that API development and adoption is set to increase further as more companies look to standardise and expand their digital integration capabilities.

It is also one of the reason's I called our company "Ideal Interface".

Digital Transformation Isn't Going Away

"So, what is next after digital transformation?" I was asked the other day.

"Nothing" I replied. "Just more digital transformation"

What does it mean to be a digital strategist?

When people ask what I do, I usually give the reply "I am a Digital Strategist". 

(Although my 6 year old son says that "Daddy helps people with the Internet" - which is probably an even better response).

But explaining this role further really means you have to describe the current state of business and technology, which are now are merging closer than ever before. The digital and physical worlds are rapidly blurring, so that in many cases they are the same thing and nearly everything in business is now software). 

To keep pace this this change organisations are embarking upon transformation projects to help them stay relevant in a digital-first world and to be able to quickly adapt to constantly evolving customer needs and market demands. I therefore firmly believe it as the role of the digital strategist to help these companies onto and along this transformation journey.

So what does a digital strategist do day-to-day?

Consult:
This could mean you carry out market assessment, benchmark competitors, analyse existing business processes & capabilities (and provide suggestions for new ones) and help with the selection of other marketing and technology platforms & partners. In short, you provide senior level recommendations and clear actionable advice based upon real experience and first-hand knowledge of how digital can help businesses overcome their challenges, without creating new ones.

Bring about change:
From helping to provide the initial roadmap and requirements, facilitating the creation of more positive user experiences, through to actually delivering and managing the migration to new systems and ways-of-working, clients can need assistance at any point in the life-cycle of a change to more digital and customer-centric processes.

Have a passion for digital
Whether in your spare (spare??) time you attend tor get involved in technology meet-ups, build mobile apps, blog about the latest digital innovations or just read about online practices...  you tend to find that digital is not just a job or a role, but a way of life that you believe can make real improvements in a constantly changing landscape.

Stop thinking Digital Transformation is just a bolt-on

Enough!

The next person I hear who states that "we are using online as just another retail / communications channel" or something similar is:

1. either getting a piece of my mind

or

2. a clip around the ear

You don't "just do digital" by bolting it onto your tired and outdated business processes that your company probably inherited from the 1950s. 

Yes digital is set of technology driven  business changes that you either implement or you more than likely fall behind. But just hiring a decent technology team to add something to your current ways of working just isn't going to cut it!