To remain in business, organisations need to adapt to the digital environment that is shaping our world.

Digital is no longer an optional activity to improve productivity and impress customers or peers. Instead, it has become a holistic approach to business that rival organisations are rapidly taking advantage of in order to gain a competitive advantage.

Here, we’ve collected the seven digital imperatives that businesses who are yet to fully embrace the digital world need to consider.

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In brief, we consider the seven digital imperatives to be:

1. Changing customer behaviours: customer needs and expectations are evolving, so businesses have to evolve and adapt to meet them and remain relevant to their customers.
2. Digital channels to market: customers use new channels of informing and executing purchases, so businesses need to compete on these channels in order to successfully reach, engage and acquire them.
3. Data a missed opportunity: organisations amass data that can improve and inform decisions, but is often ignored because no one knows how to use it. Accessing and understanding this data is paramount in order to remain competitive with businesses who use their data to its full extent.
4. Agility and innovation: as consumer expectations change quickly, competitors have positioned themselves to react to these evolving expectations with speed and innovation. Matching this is now a bare minimum to remain competitive.
5. Disruption: The digital revolution has levelled the playing field in terms of accessibility of technology – even a one-person team can be a competitor. New and existing businesses who understand the technology and tools available to them are constantly seeking to use that knowledge to gain competitive advantage. To avoid disruption, established businesses need to act first. Disrupt yourself, or be disrupted.
6. Emerging technology trends: new and maturing technology continues to push slow-to-evolve businesses to the sidelines. The only method of competing with this is to thoroughly assess the implications of current and accelerated rates of adoption.
7. Digital in all we do: in order to compete with other organisations that have grown up with, or fully adapted to the digital present and future, businesses need to fully embrace digital. Everything from staff ability through to internal processes now need to be digital first.

If you’ve read this far, then this post has likely given you something new to consider. Join our newsletter list to get more insight on the world of digital transformation (you can enter your email address in the top right corner of this page).

The ADBL (Academy of Digital Business Leaders) exists to offer training, education and support to executives and organisations that need help with digital transformation. Our courses develop the talent and mindset that is required to innovate and succeed in the digital age.