Simple solutions for digital complexities

Naturally, each option has its own advantages and disadvantages. For example, your clients may prefer surfing the web on their smartphones, but is your website optimised for viewing on phones? Do you really need a Facebook page, which is fabulous for engaging in a two-way conversation with your audience - but may present enormous reputational (and thus financial) risks by giving negative voices a platform to air their views, fair or not? Your company may use various social media options, but are you able to integrate them seamlessly - and can you manage them on your own?

This is where a specialist digital agency can be vital to the success of a business. Getting one's head around digital solutions can be a mind-bending exercise for non-technical people, who don't necessarily even want to understand Web 2.0 or Web 3.0 (loosely, the next online evolution in which the convergence of the virtual and physical worlds open up even more innovation and monetisation possibilities), but they definitely want to benefit from it.

It's a minefield out there, and making a wrong move based on bad advice can be disastrous.

Simplicity is key

In this ever more complex world, digital agencies should be offering up one fundamental solution: simplicity.

Companies, aware of the enormous potential of digital to increase revenues, reduce costs and improve efficiencies, not to mention the opportunity to engage audiences more directly and personally than ever before, are sprinting to catch up with technological innovation.

But while their motive for doing so - doing better business - is a good one, execution can be nightmarish. Part of the problem, I think, stems from digital envy: such-and-such a competitor has so many thousands of Twitter followers, or an app for the iPad, or its video went viral - and I want the same thing, is what some clients demand. If they've got it, we've got to have it, too, they argue; but very few ask why or whether or not it's viable for them.

Another, related part of the problem is ignorance. Many companies, bamboozled by the dazzling array of options and not having a solid working knowledge of them, ask for solutions that don't suit them or would require restructuring their business to be effective.

For an unscrupulous digital agency, this is fertile ground for big billing. Client companies invariably cough up top dollar for a complicated suite of solutions that they don't need, don't suit their business objectives, are expensive to maintain and possibly don't integrate very well.

The upshot is that the client can brag about its digital capabilities, even if they don't work well and cost a small fortune, but will likely take its business to another digital agency that will have to disentangle its predecessor's mess; for a further fee, of course. The client, bruised and out of pocket, will still desire digital solutions but has developed a low opinion (and justified suspicion) of digital agencies.

Cutting edge vs bleeding edge

This is the difference between cutting-edge and what we call bleeding-edge: the former speaks for itself, and promises great outcomes; the latter causes more pain and cost than anything else.

But companies can only shoulder so much of the blame through their ignorance and desperate need to be like everyone else, and digital agencies through their desire to make lots of money by providing clients with all the digital bells and whistles they want, but don't need.

The way both agencies and their clients approach the task is also problematic, as it tends to put the cart before the horse.

All too often, agencies and clients identify the solutions before the needs. Quite simply, this makes no sense, and ends up with clients having inappropriate and unnecessary digital offerings foisted on them. So I like to approach things from the opposite - and, in my view, correct - direction.

To present a digital strategy to a client, it is first necessary to understand what exactly the client needs. Sometimes not even the client knows and so the process of discovery can be a two-way education. One needs to understand a client's business objectives, and one needs to sit down with all of the key players to help them fully comprehend what digital can and cannot do for them.

Digital workshops

Digital opportunity workshops work for new clients, determining exactly what the client really needs (as opposed to wants - these two concepts rarely dovetail perfectly) and what the projected costs will be. The client, in turn, better understands how it can harness digital solutions to best effect; this has the added benefit establishing bona fides in the minds of the client.

Such workshops also give the opportunity to determine whether or not structural changes are necessary within the client organisation. In other words, do they need to change the way they do something, in order to effectively incorporate a digital strategy into their day-to-day business? This is a consideration that is frequently overlooked in the haste to obtain digital solutions, yet it has the potential to derail a digital strategy and cause great financial and reputational pain.

By arriving at these findings, service providers are in a position to develop the best possible strategy for that client. Clearly, no two companies are the same, even in the same industry, and a one-size-fits-all solution will never be the most effective option.

The watchword is simplicity. The job is to take a complex challenge and deliver the most useable, user-friendly solution for the client - in short, help them arrive at a point where digital is part of the solution, not the problem. This aids the client's bottom line, drives efficiencies and reduces costs; and builds a sustainable working relationship, founded on trust and understanding, with the client.

In our time-starved reality, in which we are constantly pushed to do more, more quickly, simplicity in digital is critical for business success. There is no alternative, unless you consider a tangled mess to be a viable option.