Author: Arve Peder Øverland
Publisher: Gower Publishing Company Ltd
Reviewer: Rebecca Cullen, senior digital content manager, British Gas Business
Always On is a comprehensive introduction to the reasons for setting up a digital strategy, along with the big challenges in doing so. The reasons we all know: someone, somewhere will be interacting with your brand well outside office hours, so it’s only sensible to be proactive about owning that interaction and building on that relationship.
For the rest, Arve’s central tenet is that digital can’t and doesn’t happen in a silo. His approach, based on experience, is that going digital is an enterprise-wide strategy, demanding the creation of an ecosystem of owners and stakeholders throughout the business. Underpinning this is the need for good data, and the capability and willingness to engage thoroughly with that data. That’s absolutely right, but depending on the size of the business, going digital is a massive initiative that could seem unmanageable. It’s telling that ‘Getting Started’ is Part 5 of the book. Still, if you take a deep breath and dive in, then there’s plenty of gold to be mined here.
Fortunately, Øverland breaks it all down: discrete chapters cover every step of the journey, from an assessment of existing websites and social media channels through to implementation planning. There’s a lot of detail on what it takes to build a business case, get stakeholder buy in, define shared objectives, all of which is what sets an organisation up for digital success.
Øverland really spells out what a business needs to do to take digital seriously, and that’s valuable information to have to hand. It’s easy to dabble, but having a customer loyalty scheme doesn’t mean you’ve got loyal customers. This book might help you get them, but don’t come looking for quick wins.
Star Rating:
3/5
