by Niall McKeown

A Step-by-Step Guide
to Digital
Transformation
GUIDE
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 Are You a Super Mario Leader Capable of
Delivering Digital Transformation?
Are you a Super Mario leader? Can you create a Transform in Stages and at a Pace That’s
high performance strategy in the digital age? Have Comfortable for You
you got what it takes to avoid the tumbling barrels The web presents businesses with an unlimited set
of distracting digital tactics, over hyped technology of opportunities. It also presents customers with an
or the belief that your market is immune to almost unlimited set of alternatives to choose from.
disruption? Have you allocated the right resources However, the major rewards go to the few that
to deliver a focused plan of transformation? If you dominate a marketplace.
have, you’ll reach the platform of transformation. If
not, watch out for those barrels! The most successful Digital Businesses redefine the
marketplace and displace entrenched competitors.
Leadership (Not Technology) Delivers Better still, they create new marketplaces. It’s the
Successful Digital Transformation role of senior managers to find the best play that
Most failed Digital Transformation projects start will create or redefine a marketplace, generating
with technology or digital tactics. It’s so easy to do. context for and resonance with the customer.
We look for systems to integrate, data centres to Regardless of the size of the business, these actions
use, website personas and wonderful designs. We require alignment of people, process, training,
seek out customers to engage with on social media innovation and, of course, technology.
and make lots of “content strategies”. Our plans are
often built on assumptions and an extension of our Mario gets the prize of Digital Transformation by
current business model. While these activities are skilfully traversing each layer. His starting point is
important, they rarely create digital success. More to move away from fire fighting, solving the
often, they are digital distractions. strategic layer first. No matter what he does, those
distracting barrels keep falling, trying to knock him
When we look at competitors we see their off balance. Like all games, there are techniques
technology, websites, proposition and teams. We that make play easier. This book is the Digital
believe that it is the sum of these assets that has Transformation cheat sheet.

given them competitive advantage. If you’ll permit
the Donkey Kong analogy once more, when viewing
competitors we can only see the top two layers as
we look in. That is, we see their innovation and
technology. Therefore it’s natural to assume that if
we, too, had wonderful technology we could create
marketplace disruption, or at the very least make a
dent in an emerging market. The reality is that the
journey that lead highly successful digital
businesses goes beyond tech and teams.

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 Index
Page

Digital Businesses Outperform Businesses that Do Digital. So What’s the Difference? 4

The Change Blocks That Affect Digital Transformation 5

Step 1: The 7 Principles of Digital Business Strategy 6

Step 2 & 3: Culture, People & Alignment 7

Step 4: Education 8

Step 5: Agile Innovation 9

Step 6: Tactical Excellence 11

Shameless Self-Promotion 13

Attribution-Non Commercial NoDerivatives 4.0 International Creative Commons

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 Digital Businesses Outperform 

Businesses that Do Digital. 

So What’s the Difference?

Vision, Strategy, Culture and Approach are the answer. Any business can be a Digital Business, whether
the transition is gradual or a leap. When referring to Digital Businesses the word ‘digital’ is an indication of
speed and adaptability, not technology. Becoming a Digital Business requires informed leaders who can
create a strategy using evidence, lead teams to work in different ways, educate themselves and their peers on
how to approach challenges using data driven decision making and create constant cycles of agile, focused
innovation.

Right now you’re thinking “we do some Digital Business activities on occasion”. True high performance Digital
Businesses continuously accept and practise all of the functions listed above, without compromise.

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 The Change Blocks That Affect 

Digital Transformation

To successfully execute Digital Transformation in any business or organisation, the 5 Change Blocks of Digital
Transformation must each be understood, addressed and embraced throughout the process and thereafter.
To avoid or skip a change block would be to the detriment of a Digital Transformation project. Let’s take a
closer look at the effects of each change block:

1. Strategy & Culture should not start with a focus on technology, it

Strategy is the starting point to creating a high should be assumed it will be there and understood
performance Digital Business. Without strategy the that competitive advantage is not created by
culture of the business becomes a reactive one, technology, but by leaders and the strategies they
rather than a proactive one, which leads to devise.
digitising services rather than total Digital
Transformation. Technology is the enabler, rarely the
differentiator.
2. Staff & Customer Engagement
Change is often met with resistance which can come 5. Data & Analytics
from those internal or external to the business. A vital component in becoming a high performance
Through better engagement, providing clarity Digital Business is being able to use the vast
around the reasons for change, how it will happen amounts of data and analytics available in decision
and each individual’s role, a business can counter- making, experimentation and advancing in the
act this resistance. digital age. Without this ability, businesses are met
with stagnation.
3. Process & Innovation
Defining and refining processes gives businesses the To begin the journey of Digital Transformation,
opportunity to become more efficient, and use this businesses and organisations must begin with their
time to innovate. Without continually evolving strategy. Ionology have developed the 7 Principles
processes and innovation, a business is left with of Digital Business Strategy framework to guide
incoherent action and cannot move forward. users through strategy development and review in a
structured fashion.


4. Technology 

Digital Businesses assume technology will permeate 

every aspect of operations. While transformation 


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 Step 1: The 7 Principles of 

Digital Business Strategy
Do you want a high performance, evidence based Digital Business Strategy? Of course you do. The
7PDBS has been through academic peer review and has been implemented by over 200 businesses.

1: Know Yourself: - A clear diagnosis of the situation,

an easily understood strategic ambition and well
articulated value proposition.

2: Customer: - An empirical value for customer

volume, the tasks they wish to complete and their
motivations.

3: Marketplace: - Who is the competition and what is

their momentum?

4: Resources: - Time, Talent & Cash can be dedicated

to fulfilling the strategic ambition. Micro Analysis

5: Current Position: - Use your current web

6. Members 8. Industry leader
analytics to find your starting position.

Hot (Passionate)

Authority Prime
6: Engine of Growth: - Once you know where you
mforted)

5. Omnipresence 7. Smooth are, you can make ‘a play’ and move your market
f
Warm (Comf

position.

Earned media All media

Exclusive
Nichhe or
limited audience Mainssstream
t Mass market 7: Tactics: - Create Mile Markers. Break them into
Projects. Break the Projects into Tasks.

Owned media Bought media

Advocacy - Slow but steady growth.


nfformed)

1. High 5 3. Over here

Authority - The preserve of a few focused and
Mild (Inf

dedicated innovators in any market sector.


Advocacy Attention
Cold (Rational)

Attention - The default choice for those who need

2. Handshake 4. Shout loudly quick wins and have yet to truly innovate or disrupt.

Prime - The largest, most well known dominant

Macro Analysis Using the Ionology 

Digital Strategy Quadrant player in your market (should one exist).

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 Step 2 & 3: Culture, People & Alignment
Nothing kills a good Finding the Right Internal
transformation project like FUL- Advocates
FILMENT

disenfranchised staff. They

PROGRESSION

resist change and kill the & DEVELOPMENT

Senior managers aren't
chances of effective MASTERY & EFFICACY
always the right advocates for
implementation. Similar to transformation. They are
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, VALUES & CULTURAL ALIGNMENT
often more susceptible to
a transformation project must resisting change because
ROLE, PROCESSES, ORDER & SAFETY

meet the individual team business realignment affects

members' hierarchy of needs. their departments, their teams
and their own sense of importance.
From the Digital Business Strategy must come the Many team members trust peers they believe to
right story, focal points and vision that change will have the same to lose and gain when it comes to
bring. Clarify with every individual their understanding how to handle change.
understanding of the strategy and the role they play
in creating the new vision. Explain how their input
ENTHUSIASTS AMBASSADORS
will be measured and validated. Give them the
tools, training and support they’ll need in order to
achieve their personal purpose and explain how
Emotional Commitment

they stand to progress in their careers by

transforming with the new opportunity. BYSTANDERS SKEPTICS

If your Digital Business

Strategy has been created
correctly there should be a
list of the major Mile
Intellectual Connection
Markers, projects and tasks
involved in creating the new
vision. Allocate every
Seek those with emotional commitment and an
individual one task each
intellectual connection to the project. The
week that is strategic, but
pragmatic supporter as opposed to the over-
not part of their normal job.
Focus on tactics enthusiastic doer. Nurture these ambassadors and
which solve Small, frequent but
diagnosed they will influence the bystanders, helping to adjust
important tasks allow the
business the overall temperament of an organisation in
challenges organisation to change at a
realignment.
continuous, comfortable
pace.
Finding the connected, influential Ambassador can
come from modelling internal social and email
traffic.






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 Step 4: Education
Important/Not Urgent

The smartest, most focused teams tend to industry and appreciate how business models are
outperform the hardest working teams. Those who evolving and changing because of digital disruption.
spend time preparing themselves and their teams
for change tend to have much more success in For examples and case studies of changing business
transforming the business than those who lead models and how digital is transforming industries,
from the front. read ABCDisrupted.

Steve Jobs famously said “People think focus means Individual team members should have a clear
saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But training agenda. The training requirements should
that's not what it means at all. It means saying no focus on filling in gaps to allow people to best
to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You complete the challenges laid out in the Digital
have to pick carefully. I'm actually as proud of the Business Strategy.
things we haven't done as the things I have done.
Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things.” Online learning platforms should be created to
resolve the educational skills gap.
The 7th Habit mentioned in the #1 best selling
book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Content can be:
Stephen Covey, states that we should sharpen the 1. Created: - Expensive, slow but very tailored.
saw. The book explains how important learning, 2. Curated: - Picking the best content from the
reading, writing and teaching are to a successful abundance of quality programmes that already
exist online.
3. Procured: - Buy in training for specific needs.
For example, digital tactics training courses can
be purchased online as needed.

Senior Managers don’t want to be tested. They shy

away from being scored.

Operatives see being scored as an addition to their

CV and therefore prefer a different kind of
educational regime.

person and team.

The book also describes how successful people put
first things first. They spend time on the
Important, Not Urgent tasks.
As well as personal betterment, a leader needs to
understand the latest thinking beyond their own
Why is Innovation so Damn Important?

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 Step 5: Agile Innovation
Shooting the Show Pony

People want new. They want different. They only that to happen, you must have something new
talk about stuff they find inspiring. to add to the conversation that will lead to
commercial success. You must innovate!

Innovations = New Ideas Commercialised

If new, ‘innovative’ ideas could be stacked on top of
each other, they would fill any company warehouse
within a week. The challenge isn’t getting new ideas.
It’s getting ideas that overcome diagnosed business
challenges extending from the Digital Business
Strategy.

Innovation is now a necessary component of any

business that wants to become an Authority within
its industry. To become an authority, a business
must gain earned media from other industry
authorities or influencers. That means your ideas
must be published and recognised as thought
leading. Your ideas must be shared online. Your
ideas must spread. Simply being good at what you
do does not make you a thought leader.
Advocacy driven businesses have 3 choices:

Not All Ideas Are Born Equal

1. Stay in Advocacy and accept the growth


potential as slow and in-line with changes in
(3 Year $ value) is the potential financial return over
customer behaviour. Advocacy works at the
3 years. (Strategic alignment) is scored between 1
speed of doing tenders, partnerships or the
and 5. Were 1 has low relevance to your strategy
sales force bringing in new customers.
and 5 is exactly what the strategy needs. (MVP Time
To Test) is the amount of time it would take test the
2. Seek out new customers by using paid methods
idea with a Minimal Viable Product. If maths isn’t
like Adwords (Attention). This only works while
the cost of acquiring a customer is less than the
margin being made. In many mature markets,
this is no longer the case.
3. Move to become an Authority or Prime. The
your thing, invest in Propulsion Ideas Management
Authority business gains many more customers
Software.
than Advocacy or Attention driven businesses.
We seek out the Authority. To become an
Giving innovation teams free reign to come up with
Authority, other authorities or peer review
wild and ambitious plans (or moonshots, as they're
publications must reference and quote you. For

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called at Google) is the preserve of the filthy rich inspire the team to apply the same passion toward
and inexperienced. Approaching innovations the next innovation.
should be focused on solving challenges diagnosed
in the Digital Business Strategy. Selecting the right
innovation to pursue should be mathematical and
easy to evaluate.

Using an evaluation model has great advantages:

1. Contributors know why their ideas were
rejected.
2. Contributors focus on what’s important to the Every Business Can Innovate
business if their idea is to become worthy. Good service isn’t an innovation, it’s an expectation.
3. Shooting show ponies becomes less of a team Being known for something positive that has a
killer. differentiating, tangible marketplace proposition is
essential in a digital world. Maybe your restaurant
Successful Leaders Shoot Show Ponies makes the world's best soufflé or you have the best
Once the latest innovation has been picked and the predictive modelling software on buying habits.
team brought together to make it a reality, it soon Whatever it is, focus all marketing on highlighting
becomes the lighthouse of change. The new idea is your innovation. If a customer is on your website
paraded around the organisation with they probably know what you do. They want to
accompanying whispers of “this is our future”. The know what you do differently.
new project has become an internal show pony. It
is loved, it is exciting and it contains the hopes and Three Types of Innovation
dreams of a prosperous future. 1. Closed: - Do it in-house (Old school)
2. Collaborative: - With selected partners
Then along comes a better opportunity. One the (Fashionable)
business could exploit faster, which has better 3. Open: - With customers and anyone that wants
alignment with the Digital Business Strategy, less to join in (All-the-rage)

risk and better opportunity for yielding more
revenue than the current innovation. It could open
a new market and propel the business toward being
the thought leader. But there are no resources to
take advantage of the new idea. That is, unless
someone shoots the much loved show pony.

The death of the pony results in mourning, but

everyone gets over it. The real challenge is
reassembling a team and inspiring them to do great
things when they know their next show pony could
face the same fate at any time.

Most leaders make excuses to finish out the current

project. Good leaders kill the pony. Brilliant leaders

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 Step 6: Tactical Excellence
Delivering The Strategy

How to Create a Tactical Plan of Action systems and buying ‘platforms’ to perform jobs

As Described in The Change Blocks:

- Take the innovations at hand
- The capabilities available
- Align the business resources
- Answer individual needs, create clarity and
inspire
- Review the diagnosed challenges defined in the
strategy.
- Select the appropriate course of action to solve
better.
the near term challenges.
Digital Businesses, however, look for the near term
challenges that need to be solved. While the
We all want to 'get stuff done’. It’s rare that a
solution to the challenge may be digital, it doesn’t
company focuses on the strategy as they favour
have to be. For example, wholesalers or
tactical ‘outputs’ over strategic ‘inputs’. The quality
manufacturers wanting to sell directly to consumers
of those tactical outputs depends very much on the
online and bypass their retail channel don’t solve
quality of the leadership and their ability to
the big issue of channel conflict using technology.
articulate their strategy.
That requires diplomacy. Whereas, logistics
companies wishing to solve their information flow
With a Clearly Defined Strategy, Trained
with customers do need technology to overcome
Marketing and Technical Professionals
their challenge.
Usually Deliver Superb Tactical Work

Tactical Excellence is achieved when the diagnosis is

UCLA Management Professor Richard Rumelt
accurate and the guiding policy is clearly
suggests in his highly acclaimed book, Good
articulated, creating coherent action.
Strategy/Bad Strategy, that a good strategy should
contain a strategy kernel.
Using the Ionology Digital Strategy Quadrant, a
‘play’ is typically selected where a company is
The Diagnosis defines the nature of the challenge,
challenged with creating brand warmth or
the Guiding Policy is the overall approach that can
increasing reach (or both).
be taken to overcome defined obstacles, and
Coherent Action is a set of coordinated actions and
resources which overcome the diagnosed challenge.

Most businesses in their haste to achieve tactical

outcomes start with Incoherent Action. Tweeting
and Facebooking, website designing, integrating

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 What We Do at Ionology

A typical play can have lots of major Mile Markers.

Creating clearly defined mile markers is the
responsibility of senior managers. The Mile
Markers are broken into projects and are handled
by Project Managers. The projects are broken into
tasks. The tasks become the coherent action. An
individual or team is allocated a task with guidance
on why they are embarking on that task and what
success looks like.

In small businesses, it’s not uncommon for the

senior manager to be the project manager, and
even the person taking on tasks.


In any project there are always assumptions. We assume that customers want to hear what we have to say.
We assume that customers want to buy what we are selling. We assume that bloggers want to publish our
content. We assume that we can depose a competitor and win a position in natural search. We assume that
once we have enough attention, our payment models will simply work. We assume a lot of things when
creating a strategy. We have to make assumptions in the early stages of strategy development.

It is imperative that the project manager seeks to resolve the assumptions as a priority of any tactical plan.

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 We work with businesses to help them become high performance Digital Businesses; to create cut-through
with their business models, delivering more sales and winning new customers in new markets.
We start with Digital Business Strategy, and use our Digital Strategy Planning Board and award-winning
software to create Digital Businesses.


Strategy Management Digital Process Management Digital Process Management

Features Include:
Features Include:
Features Include:

• On demand video support for • Create business processes that • On demand video support for
your digital strategy
 can be shared and accessed on your digital strategy

any device

• Create and track strategic goals
• Create and track strategic goals

• Record management sign-off

• Measure and map strategic • Measure and map strategic

actions to analytics • Track process usage actions to analytics

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 About Ionology
Since 1999 we have been involved in developing transformational programmes for some of the most
successful niche businesses on the web. Digital Business Strategy is a team effort, it decides whether a
business flourishes or wilts. It’s at the very beating heart of Digital Transformation.

Digital Transformation means different things to different people. Some view it as simply ‘remaining relevant’
in a changing environment. Others perceive it as a radical change of business model in order to win new
customers. Regardless of the interpretation of Digital Transformation, the one constant we know to be true is
that competitive advantage is won or lost in the boardroom. It is the leader's role to ensure their industry
knowledge is used to maintain competitive advantage and is not overshadowed by the pursuit of technology.
The company’s market position and ambition must be clearly articulated before technology is considered.
Technology is the enabler, not the differentiator.

Our framework, models and software ensure that your business can evolve over a manageable timeframe to
best exploit the new opportunities the world of digital brings.

Niall McKeown, Founder & CEO of Ionology

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