The demand for digital business models has existed for a while but the pressure to change is even greater as COVID-19 has placed severe restrictions on how organizations can interact with their members. As live events remain canceled, many associations are being forced to embark on a digital transformation journey to stay connected with members and maintain revenue.
In this Q&Adage, we’ll explain why you should change your business model and where to focus your efforts.
Are you prepared to pivot your business model?
If there are still typewriters in your offices, you likely know there’s a manual process that should be updated. Transitioning physical to digital is the low hanging fruit for a digital transformation. If there are no glaring issues it can be more difficult to identify the need to transform.
A few questions to consider:
- When was the last time you evaluated your business model or service design?
- Has your business model evolved over time or been static?
- Have you reviewed your overall offering and reflected on its value to your audience?
Digital Capabilities Enable Digitally-modified Business
Frequently, we find that to enable business model transformation at associations requires updates “under the hood”. For associations, the underlying technology may be antiquated or missing business-critical integrations. Updating the Association Management Systems (AMS) for example may not be the member-visible project that is desired but it is foundational to enable business transformation. Especially, where the AMS is under-integrated or not integrated at all.
Systems Integrations Checklist
Systems that should be integrated include:
- Sales
- Marketing & Communications
- Customer relationship management systems (CRM)
- Finance
- Operations
- Ecommerce Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
- Business Analytics
- Digital platforms like marketing websites, Learning Management Systems (LMS)
Understand how data is shared:
- Are your systems sharing key member data?
- Do you have a single source of truth to understand member engagement, communications to members,
- Can you easily view and improve member journeys within your digital ecosystem of platforms?
Pushing business and IT integration with unified data and processes can be the hardest part of digital transformation. Once systems are fully integrated, organizations will be able to transform their business model, fulfilling a necessary requirement for digital transformation success.
Download our Digital Transformation Workbook
Our Digital Transformation Workbook simplifies what digital transformation means for your organization. You’ll be able to assess your organization’s preparedness for change with our readiness checklist. We have an overview of the ABCs of Digital Transformation. There’s also a set of questions to help you identify internal weaknesses and strengths as you face a Digital Transformation. Don’t wait to improve your digital presence and your audience’s online experience.
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