Implementing Mobile as part your company’s Digital DNA, beginning a Digital Evolution

Recently I presented at an event on using mobile in marketing. After the presentation some of the attendees asked what I meant by Digital DNA and how should mobile be a part of it.

Digital DNA is a much coined term on the internet and my use of the term is from way back in the late 90’s when I was at Microsoft & Bill Gates used the term to describe his vision for companies that utilised digital technologies for their infrastructure.

A company’s Digital DNA really is about how we can use technology in such a way that our business and the way we work is changed greatly. Using technology should make things easier, and more efficient. If it isn’t, then we need to quickly change the way we use it or our company will become extinct. This is Digital Evolution, or the process of survival of the fittest as Darwin prophesied it.

Digital DNA is more than using technology just by itself. Digital DNA is a strategy & a process that a company should be committed to changing & monitoring regularly to measure success. Today many businesses are well on their way to a maturely developed Digital DNA but there are still components that for many reasons cause companies to halt their evolutionary process.

Mobile & a company’s Digital DNA

Mobile is now a mature technology & should be utilised heavily both within our business IT infrastructure as well as how we communicate with customers & partners of our business.

Many businesses treat mobile today like they did in the past when first using internet websites.  Eventually companies learned that this was a crucial component of a business and company teams where retasked with accommodating this technology within their business. Many businesses are not around today that refused to utilise the technology or were late in implementing.  Bill Gates had a term for this too, “Roadkill on the super information highway”

Outsourcing a company’s digital infrastructure by removing the expertise & management to external sources, prevents the company from retaining this company memory & being able to change competitively.

Mobile needs to be part of both a company’s IT & business strategies. The more companies learn from how the devices are used within their business they will be able to more effective in communicating both internally & with customers.

A good start for implementing mobile is a sound corporate platform strategy. This should be designed with the ability for multiple screen formats to interact with information and corporate IT services. This platform should be designed with screen biased task optimisation that allows developers to easily implement screen task operations that staff & customers will interact with using the three core screens of business which are the desktop, mobile & tablet devices.

Implementing a company Digital DNA is not an overnight project, but it is started with a conversation and that conversation needs to start the process of a company’s Digital Evolution process so it will be the fittest to survive.

Posted by Shane Williamson