July 2016 – Excellent Soaps

navigating-omnichannel By next year, Forrester estimates that digital technology will play a part in almost 60% of all in-store transactions, which will equate to roughly US$1.8 trillion. While most brands have spent decades building their physical presence, many are losing out online because they simply aren’t holding any digital real estate.

In today’s quickly changing market landscape, missing out on a segment of your target because you aren’t selling through a channel they frequent could mean business failure.

While you may understand the business critical nature of selling to your market with an omnichannel approach, your CEO and the rest of the C-suite may not be there yet. The sooner you can begin the omnichannel conversation with your CEO, the better. Here are three arguments for an omnichannel strategy that have helped many of our clients bring their CEO on board.

Customers Expect Great Digital Experiences

Your CEO is desperately trying to imagine the future to please a board of directors who want the business to still exist 50 years from now. With so many competing stakeholder interests, it is guaranteed that your CEO is concerned about making the best decisions possible for business longevity and customer approval.

It is a no brainer that your CEO will want to jump on the digital experience bandwagon. Why? Because we are at a tipping point wherein companies will equip themselves with the technical skills to deliver innovative digital experiences, or they will not. Help your CEO understand that selling through multiple online channels will be a sink or swim differentiator for your organization. He or she needs to know that this is a time-sensitive decision that requires resources to develop talent that can build your online footprint, yesterday.

Customers Expect a Uniform Experience

CEOs are concerned about accelerating business activity—from product development through to customer response. To ensure customer response is positive, CEOs need to understand how important it is for the customer experience to be seamless throughout the entire customer lifecycle.
When beginning to build your online presence, it is vital that your strategy remains consistent with your brand. Millennials and their increasingly technology-savvy parents expect an integrated experience at every interaction with you. In fact, 68% of the trillion-dollar millennial demographic demand an integrated, seamless experience regardless of their touch point with your company.

An Omnichannel Strategy CAN Work Alongside Legacy Systems

Many organizations have invested heavily on IT systems that are becoming obsolete and will be incapable of supporting business goals moving forward. A key reason why organizations are purchasing technology today, is because former systems are inflexible and do not possess necessary reporting and analytic capabilities to track success.

With that being said, there are still large amounts of information tied into legacy systems that are imperative to business processes. Your CEO is going to care about how you can leverage your current investments in older systems while integrating in the new. We find that this is unique to every organization, so we recommend getting in touch with experts to find strategies that will work for you.

An omnichannel strategy reaches every department in your organization so buy-in needs to be greater than just your CEO. For tips on conversations to have with each member of your C-suite, download the complimentary eBook, The Future of Commerce: Critical Conversations to Have Today With your C-Suite.

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