The Seven Principles of Digital Business Strategy

The greatest transformational challenge many senior managers face in making their business a digital business, is that they have no point of reference as to where they are now in the digital space. They are not aware of the options they have open to them and the decisions they must make in order to change both technology, culture and resources to becoming a high performance digital business. Almost all current reference materials focus upon digital tactics and implied understanding of digital product functions. Recent industry research from Ireland, UK and USA supports the view that at the level of today's practitioner / manager the value of technology-enablement, (for example, through new digital media), while recognized and appreciated is not fully understood and a competency gap exists around its effective deployment. Indeed, the studies suggest that managers are generally weak in understanding how to harness the opportunities inherent in digital and as a result technological applications are often deployed in non-marketing-oriented ways, (IBM, 2011; Marketing Week, 2012). Meeting this challenge, the book contains a framework comprising the 7 Principles of Digital Business Strategy. The framework lets senior management teams plot their current market position and investigate their preferred 'Engine of Growth' using digital techniques. The book will introduce senior managers to simple concepts on how to make data driven decisions as well as predict their likelihood of success online before they embark on the journey. The content will help the reader better understand and overcome current obstacles and will serve as a roadmap for opportunity-focused thought and action. This book argues that traditional marketing thinking does not transfer well to the digital context and that an entrepreneurial marketing perspective can better serve as a catalyst and enabler in today's digital marketing context. Today's marketing managers can better exploit the digital opportunity, and achieve long-term competitive advantage, by integrating entrepreneurial marketing and digital competencies. This book both challenges existing traditional marketing practice and offers new strategic thinking for engaging in opportunity identification and transformation for today's digital managers.

Professor Niall McKeown is the founder and CEO of ionology and visiting professor at Ulster University. He is an entrepreneur, YouTube enthusiast, aspiring troublemaker, and unconventional physics geek. He has experienced the nasty effects of disruption and is passionately committed to helping other business leaders avoid the same fate. The Seven Principles of Digital Business Strategy is the antidote he has been applying successfully to hundreds of organizations since 1999.

Professor Mark Durkin, PhD, is professor of marketing and executive dean of the Ulster University Business School based in Northern Ireland. Before joining Ulster University, Mark spent over a decade in sales and strategic marketing roles within the Bank of Ireland Group. He is a senior fellow of the United Kingdom's Higher Education Academy and has published more than 50 academic journal articles. An invited scholar to Babson College, Boston, he is also visiting professor to Philadelphia University.