Digital rewards first movers

In the past, when companies witnessed rising levels of uncertainty and volatility in their industry, a perfectly rational strategic response was to observe for a little while, letting others incur the costs of experimentation and then moving as the dust settled. Such an approach represented a bet on the company’s ability to “outexecute” competitors. In digital scrums, though, it is first movers and very fast followers that gain a huge advantage over their competitors. The reward? Three-year revenue growth (of over 12 percent), twice that of companies playing it safe with average reactions to digital competition.

First movers and the fastest followers develop a learning advantage. They relentlessly test and learn, launch early prototypes, and refine results in real time—cutting down the development time in some sectors from several months to a few days. They also scale up platforms and generate information networks powered by artificial intelligence at a pace that far outstrips the capabilities of lower-pulsed organizations.

What does this mean for marketers and brands?

1ne: You can’t play it safe and “wait to see what happens”.  You need to be bold and experiment.

2wo: Have a company process set up to review and learn from missteps.  This is especially true in organizations that have a high turnover of emarketing people.

3hree: You can never “stand pat” with digital because it’s always evolving. You may be on top of current trends now, but in a couple of weeks you could be toast.

4our: Analytics should never just be about numbers, it should tell a story as well as identify opportunities.

About richmeyer

Rich is a passionate marketer who is able to quickly understand what turns a prospect into a customer. He challenges the status quo and always asks "what can we do better"? He knows how to take analytics and turn them into opportunities and he is a great communicator.

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