7 Point Plan.

9 Oct

Written By Dana Teahan — CEO & Founder, DBZ

PART 5 — Before you invest, this plan will set you up for a successful Martech investment and utilisation.

Long term success comes from good solution selection, implementation, and resourcing, which can be achieved if you keep the following seven areas in mind, leading into your Martech decision.

Have a clear strategy.
Choose wisely, due diligence is king.
Have a long-term capability roadmap.
Invest properly in resources and training.
Be realistic.
Get value quickly, smartly.
Maximise utilisation and longevity.

Have a clear strategy.

Developing a strategy enables deep thinking on what you are trying to achieve. Committing that strategy to ‘paper’ then allows for refinement, aligning ideal technology capabilities to strategic outcomes and building consensus with everyone involved as to what the direction is.

For example, if your strategy is to stand up a loyalty program, if you know who is eligible for the program, what the mechanics are, and general sequencing of the features, then lining up the right technology is easier because the core requirements are clear.

If, on the other hand you’re not sure whether your program will be dollars or points-based, have personalised offers or not, and whether it will be omni-channel, you’re more likely to be led on a sales journey that offers tech that covers all bases, rather than just the tech you need.

While there is nothing wrong with looking at tech to help inform strategic ideation, it can be a problem when you look at tech to be your strategy. Part of your strategy must be to consider how you will measure utilisation and what general return on investment you are looking for.

Strategic clarity can also define whether multiple solutions make sense over one.

Which leads to our next point – strategy helps set you up for choosing your technology wisely.

Choose wisely, due diligence is king.

Rigour in selection is its own topic, but the core idea is to be very clear on requirements and use cases, engaging the right stakeholders across business for input before you set sail.

Choosing wisely means undertaking a structured and equitable evaluation, building a comprehensive business case, and investing in a deep due-diligence process to reduce as
much choice risk as possible.

Due diligence pays dividends – like all upfront work – the more you put in, the better the return.

Wise choice in technology leads to better utilisation because you end up buying something fit-for-purpose with the right resource profile – which is more likely to be successfully implemented and used.

We can’t stress enough that rigour in due diligence is crucial – right down to ensuring that the technology is going to do what it says on the box, which is often (sadly) not the case.

You simply can’t trust vendors – and whilst it’s a gross stereotype, oversell is one of the most common problems affecting utilisation. Remember, your internal technology team and closest consulting partners can provide a more realistic perspective on the tech and its suitability for your use cases than a sales-focused vendor necessarily can.

YOUR INTERNAL TECHNOLOGY TEAM AND CLOSEST CONSULTING PARTNERS CAN PROVIDE A MORE REALISTIC PERSPECTIVE ON THE TECH AND ITS SUITABILITY FOR YOUR USE CASES THAN A SALES-FOCUSED VENDOR NECESSARILY CAN

Have a long-term capability roadmap.

Typically, two critical mistakes happen when it comes to Martech utilisation:

Poor transition to BAU – in transitioning from project delivery to business as usual performance, features and functionality get frozen in time because there is a lack of funding or resources to support delivery. Implementation therefore stalls at 80% and users settle on small bits of functionality, desperately trying to eke out incremental improvements.At worst, the Martech starts life as ‘Minimum Viable’ or ‘Proof of Concept’ and stays that way – never really realising its full and intended ‘production’ status, leading often to a ‘let’s replace this’ cycle every 3 to 5 years.

Unmet feature dependencies – this occurs where features that were clear requirements turn out to be dependent on other capabilities that weren’t aligned to a plan and therefore never get delivered or are delayed.

Developing a long-term roadmap enables you to determine when capabilities are needed, when features can be used and if they are dependent on other areas that may impact timelines.

The roadmap doesn’t have to be super detailed – plans change – it simply needs to be sufficient to line up against overall platform capabilities with intent. It should also be undertaken as part of the selection and strategy, not tackled in implementation when key decisions have already been made. This approach bears the fruit of high and sustained utilisation, well into the later stages of your platform lifecycle.

Invest properly in resources and training.

It sounds like common sense – people and appropriate skills are critical to utilisation.

However, very often teams are under resourced or not sufficiently trained to maximise the use of their technology investment (or both).

Addressing this often starts with the business case design and thinking about the true total cost, or as CIOs often put it, Total Cost of Ownership, meaning not just the tech but everything around it.

The common issue is that the investment in people of the right skill set is often severely under-estimated, or many times not considered – particularly in contexts where a business thrives on capital expenditure and aims to minimise operational expense.

Often investment in people is accepted as part of a “project” but no one wants the “opex” hot potato once the project is over.

OFTEN INVESTMENT IN PEOPLE IS ACCEPTED AS PART OF A PROJECT BUT NO-ONE WANTS THE ‘OPEX’ HOT POTATO ONCE THE PROJECT IS OVER

Fixate on implementation and software costs alone and you miss a balanced view of the long-term people and training costs (or partner costs if you outsource this) to make the technology successful.

Also, considerations for resources in other areas are often overlooked (tech, data, support), slowing or hampering speed and/or scope of implementation.

A balanced business case may also force you to re-evaluate the actual technology selection when you add up all the costs – is Google Analytics with the right specialist support going to provide you a better outcome than all the bells and whistles Adobe Analytics can throw at you with one part time analyst? Which leads to our next point: Realism.

IS GOOGLE ANALYTICS WITH THE RIGHT SPECIALIST SUPPORT GOING TO PROVIDE A BETTER OUTCOME THAN ALL THE BELLS & WHISTLES ADOBE ANALYTICS CAN THROW AT YOU WITH ONE PART-TIME ANALYST?

Be realistic.

Here are a few sample questions to help you get real and move forward in your Martech journey with both eyes wide open:

Are you mature enough or will you mature fast enough to use the intended features?
Are you being “wowed” by capabilities that aren’t necessarily meaningful?
Is it better to buy a cheaper, less feature rich solution that enables you to resource and skill appropriately (the Mailchimp trope)?
Are you an early adopter, meaning you will be trying to hit a moving target of new features, bugs, issues, and poor skills breadth in the market?
To Scott Brinkers point – just because you can, should you?

Our experience has been it is better to grow out of technology than to try and grow into it.

Get value quickly, smartly.

Many vendors can propose justifying platform investment with two or three use cases to get going on the “journey” – without proper planning or due diligence wrapped around answering “what next?” or thinking of all the pieces required to deliver long term success.

This quick & dirty approach often lands people in the “we’re only using a fraction of it” bucket. Even more scarily, it can set up the perception that the solution has been implemented and therefore problem solved, when in fact it could just be beginning.

The fact is, whist proof of concept approaches have their place, they’re often flawed.

Value return is critical – as highlighted earlier, the faster a platform can be implemented and used, the better chance of maximising ROI – but not at the expense of strong foundations.

The secret to long term return and high utilisation is to ensure all key supporting aspects are in place – people, training, business support in key areas, proper funding envelope – and balancing that with demonstrating early wins.

THE FASTER A PLATFORM CAN BE IMPLEMENTED AND USED, THE BETTER CHANCE OF MAXIMISING ROI – BUT NOT AT THE EXPENSE OF STRONG FOUNDATION.

Maximise utilisation and longevity.

Follow the tips outlined above and you’ll likely improve the longevity of your technology investment – which is important because by the time you plan, identify, create the business case, select and implement, it’s easy to lose 6 months to a year (or more) of time.

It can also take another 6 to 12 months to really master a platform, iron out the niggles and get going on proper use cases and meaningful returns.

Unless the capability is a basket case (which happens) – swapping it out after 18 months or just a few years of useful life doesn’t make commercial sense. Years and years of use should be the goal.