Data is everywhere. The rate at which information is created every minute is jaw-dropping. Every day, 306.4 billion emails are sent, and 500 million Tweets are made. Approximately 90% of data in the world today was created in the last two years. Technology plays a big role in the lives of sports fans to create, manage & consume this information efficiently. This is the digital world we live in. According to a report on SeedScientific, by 2030, nine out of every ten people aged six and above would be digitally active, constantly interacting and sharing information about themselves on the internet. These interactions leave digital breadcrumbs that can be stored, analyzed and leveraged. Unlocking value from this at the organizational level means embedding digital in every aspect of business & operations. The new competitive advantage for sports organizations will be digital ubiquity, which means a workforce & leadership that has digital acumen.
What does digital acumen mean?
Digital acumen is not just about adopting new technologies, even if this is a step towards becoming a digital organization. It is about having a deep understanding of how digital, data and technology trends can strengthen the business today and future-proof it. We have reached a digital tipping point, with leaders who ignore it risking their organizations’ future. The pace of technology improvement has accelerated, meaning that a lack of digital acumen can quickly make your organization outdated.
According to Forbes, 55% of companies without a digital transformation believe they have less than a year before they start to lose market share and 56% of CEOs say digital improvements have led to increased revenue.
Digital acumen at all levels of the organization, especially at the leadership level, is critical for sports organizations to respond to the rapidly changing landscape.
Digital acumen for your organization means:
- Being updated on the digital trends
- Streamlining & leveraging digital initiatives
- Being able to leverage new technologies
- Taking quick data-driven decisions
Being updated on the digital trends
Sports organizations are rapidly learning and changing to adapt to the volatile digital world. Social media giants like Facebook, Twitter & YouTube have all entered the sports media landscape realizing the potential it holds for their online advertising models. This has accelerated the introduction of new technological solutions across sports events. This has challenged sports organizations on how to value and make decisions around their traditional properties and operations. Sponsorship packages must be digitally enabled, operations internally must be digitally driven through complex enterprise management tools. Leaders and managers must continue to be updated on digital trends to ensure they are able to maximize the opportunities and protect their business & operations.
Increasing one’s digital acumen through being updated on these trends, means being committed to a continuous learning process. Budgets and time must be set aside to proactively gather knowledge, attend courses, get certified in new digital & data topics, or to participate in relevant conferences. Market research reports, technology company product blogs, and newsletters help understand the use cases of digital & data technologies and solutions. These are specifically important for technical teams, and middle management in charge of implementing new programs and initiatives.
To encourage employees to continue learning about digital trends, it is important for leaders to invest in employee-centric learning experiences. Hosting an annual retreat that focuses solely on the latest digital trends of the industry, or inviting experts & innovators on a monthly basis for a lunch & learn, or launching an initiative to upskill employees on new initiatives or concepts in digital are all ideas for investing in their ongoing capacity building.
Streamlining & leveraging digital initiatives
According to MIT, organizations that invest in the right experience for their people, on average deliver 19% more growth in revenue than their competitors. Forbes also reported that 70% of digital transformations fail, often due to resistance from employees. This goes to show the impact of employee knowledge and experience on the implementation of digital transformation projects.
What new technology skills need to be acquired to perform daily tasks? How are the employees adjusting to new roles during digital disruption? What is the mental toll on this immediate shift of roles? Answering these questions beforehand will allow organizations to smoothly transit into a new direction. Implementation should not only happen at the top of an organization’s pyramid, but should aim to involve all relevant stakeholders from the marketing & communication department to the technical coaching team, by providing the necessary knowledge and tools to build skills and problem-solving techniques. Failure to do that will result in an unbalanced organization where digital initiatives are flourishing in some parts of the organization, but not others.
Lopsided digital growth in the organization can lead to isolation by different units, and risks initiatives being undermined because they don’t follow traditional ways of operating. It is important, where relevant, to encourage cross-departmental digital initiatives. The importance of data at all levels of decision making means that the silos of data that used to exist in the past within organizations cannot continue to do so.
Operating in an environment with high digital acumen encourages the organization to collaborate and break down silos. That is because they recognize the interconnectedness and interdependence of different operations, especially when considering the end users, such as fans, athletes or members. The stakeholder-minded approach, where each department protected their stakeholder at the expense of other stakeholders, limits the opportunities available for organizations that work in concert, leveraging and streamlining their digital initiatives to grow the overall value.
Being able to leverage new technologies
Organizations can start their journey of transformation by taking external advice and being guided by the providers of technologies they adopt. Over time, it must develop the capability to launch and moderate internal discussions between users, business decision makers, and end-users (such as fans, players, or sponsors). An organization with high digital acumen will be able to facilitate these conversations more effectively, without launching internal turf wars or a race to own specific technological solutions.
A well-thought-out digital strategy is a useful step in this process. By outlining the medium- and long-term objectives of digital, the workforce can align their initiatives and actions with objectives. This transforms the question of “How can AI help me?” to “How can I use AI to help me do X?”. This subtle difference distinguishes the digital leaders from the digital laggards.
Reference documents and internal case studies around how certain partnerships or technologies were used, must be shared across the organization. Monthly or quarterly workshops around these topics, will normalize innovation and increase adoption of new technologies. The sharing of data & insights from campaigns or processes helps show how technology adoption achieves specific KPIs or improves transparency.
Taking quick data-driven decisions
An organization with high digital acumen is able to make decisions more quickly and effectively thanks to data. Thanks to the digital breadcrumbs that are created by any digital interaction whether it be on the front-end with external stakeholders or internally at the organization, decision makers can quickly identify ways to improve certain processes or solutions.
New analytics, dashboards and visualization tools are common within organizations that have digital acumen. This helps create a meritocratic decision making process where the best ideas flourish. In such an environment, a cultural shift happens with the workforce, helping them push ideas forward or stop projects based on evidence that is driven by data.
Sports organizations can set metrics in advance to learn and adjust early in the process. Every quarter, or in the case of specific campaigns, every day, a check could be done to look for areas of improvement. Other data-driven KPIs, such as the time it takes to launch a new digital product in a specific market, help ensure a continuous process of improvement. Even though data drives many decisions in the corporate world, it is a recent trend in sports organizations.
However, examples are increasing very quickly. Recognizing that its fanbase requires personalization to improve their experience and engagement with the brand, Real Madrid partnered with Adobe to utilize its Digital Experience Platform. This will help it create deeper engagement with their fans through its customer data platform, which helps provide real-time data-centric customer profiles. From demographics, we are moving now into the age of digital transactions and behavior tracking. By tracking this data, sports organizations can make decisions in anticipation of behavioral changes, and give their partners better opportunities to engage with their fanbase.
According to our recently published Digital Transformation in the Olympic Movement report, leaders will need to adapt and learn in a digital world. Finding the right balance between adopting technology and the skills needed to use that technology to bring decisions forward is the key. This is why digital acumen is critical for sports organizations in today’s digital age.
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