Posts in English

« Digitizing » the business: what works? Part 1: Lessons from common experiences

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Summary: The strategic integration of the internet into a business inevitably involves—sooner or later—its « digitization. » The various approaches to this have included learning through experience, the creation of a digital directorate, setting up or buying out expertise, and establishing training programmes. These are neither intrinsically good nor bad in themselves, but are often insufficient, due … Lire la suite

Sustainable management: towards an optimization of human energy

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The notion of human energy as a resource to be managed in a sustainable way is a rich concept for management. Such energy can be both exhaustible and infinitely renewable—and the principal task of the manager is to minimize sources of energy drain, and maximize the production of positive energy, so that the energies of the individuals in the team combine, not cancel each other out. Five key areas are addressed in the article: the role of the manager, the organization and motivation of the team, meeting planning, mentoring individuals’ development, and the development of shared collective goals. The approach transcends the classical dualities of human resource management—of reason/emotion, competence/experience, and expertise/management—to achieve the optimization of the energy of both individuals and the team.

On Community Management: Current practice, possible futures

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For most businesses today, community management is only a cosmetic innovation, in both reputation and practice. Appearing to be a new function because the medium is new, it has reproduced the traditional organizational model of the business, which offers each category of consumer a single centralized point of contact with the business. The potential development of the role is nevertheless rich in possibility, from the integration of different departments of the business to an ongoing role as an intermediary between individual consumers and individual employees. A business that recognizes the potential for the individuation of its employees in the process of internal community management opens the royal road to true integration of « Web 2.0, » though inevitably this will require fundamental reorganization to obtain real benefits in customer loyalty and innovation.

How your digital communications can evolve and innovate

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Digital media is constantly evolving, and some trends are long-term while others are more short-lived. Keeping up with the times while making the right choice in terms of which trends to embrace for the brand and its customers is the communications balance that needs to be sought. To be proactive in this sense, all brands need to continually integrate monitoring and experimentation in their annual plans.

How to manage and measure a digital action plan: what are the right performance indicators?

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The two main problems relating to the strategic management of digital actions are linked: an excess of available data and the difficulty of aggregating them with actions carried out on other media. This is the starting viewpoint that distorts the situation: if we start focusing on operations and what is measurable, any additions or comparisons will be shortsighted and made at the wrong level. We need to start from strategic objectives and criteria for success and failure to define the right indicators, and to avoid confusing indicators relating to goals with tactical indicators.

How to turn a digital strategy into an action plan

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Turning a digital strategy into an action plan is something that should be done in phases to reflect the relative position of the Internet in the overall strategy of means. Using a customer journey and associating different brand goals to it is a way of organising all the content and actions and prioritising them before getting into the detail of the digital action plan. Defining how to steer the project will then be done retroactively.

How to design a digital strategy

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A digital strategy is not just the sum total of all the actions your company carries out on the Internet. It involves natively integrating the Internet prior to thinking about strategy even on a company-wide level, and identifying areas of presence and action within each function/job alongside other drivers and means. One way of approaching this is to evaluate the potential impact of the Internet on the business model of the company and leadership methods used by senior management, in order to define the right levels of goals, leadership and organisation relating to various cases. Only then can it be translated into action plans.

How to have a global vision of the Internet (3/3): Internet users, browsing and criteria for selection

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The Internet is a virtual space in which we find our way around in the same way as we do in the real physical space: using points of reference and paths that come from experience enabling us to build up a mental image of the space. Content is the tar of the web, the material that is used to build its roads: a strategy of content and a strategy of means are closely linked. Internet users continually pass judgement on the content they find until they reach their goal. Their criteria are often based on the quality of the source as much as on the quality of the content itself.

How to have a global vision of the Internet (2/3): Internet users, uses and motivations

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Today, almost everyone is on the Internet. Writing down the many uses in a list that gets longer each year is no longer of any use to brands looking to analyse the web. Instead, they need to step back and look at the main starting motivations of Internet users (searching for information, building relationships, consumption and production) to see where these cross over with the brand’s objectives and thus find the right place for the Internet compared to other media and channels. The Internet is basically a medium of utility, experience and relationships, far less than it is one of image and emotion. It is of far greater benefit for those who participate in it regularly instead of focusing on occasional, tactical use.

How to have a global vision of the Internet (1/3): Internet is a SPACE made up of places

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By considering the Internet as a virtual SPACE instead of a media or channel, the different places that make up the web, how they work and the way Internet users use them becomes clearer for companies and brands that have ventured into the web. The same geographical logic can be transposed to define the pillars of a digital strategy: places of presence, traffic, routes, places where audiences gather, accessibility… along with a sense of place and how to behave there.