2 mins on... Digital leaders

What does a brand lack when it doesn't have a digital leader?

ICYMI: This is part of a series of posts focused on building the best leadership teams inside of brands, check out the rest of the series here.

New luxury brand’s need top class digital leaders, otherwise they won’t reach their potential. In this post we unpack, in a concise and easy to apply way, a critical function in your brand… Digital.

James Wintle shares what good looks like, inspired by his time leading Digital and Ecommerce in brands like Shoreditch Ski Club, Victoria Beckham, All Saints and more.

James answers four key questions to help senior leaders of brands without a dedicated digital leader understand what’s missing and decide if / when they need to fill the gap:

1. What does a brand lack when it doesn’t have an experienced or capable digital leader

2. What are the key accountabilities for a digital leader?

3. What are their primary and secondary KPIs?

4. What experience and skills does a digital leader need to be successful in a new luxury brand?

What does a brand lack when it doesn’t have an experienced or capable digital leader?

So many answers to this!

The biggest loss is that no one is exploring the 'art of the possible'. I have arrived at brands in my career that have a practiced apathy and they think that digital & ecommerce still isn't important enough to warrant a voice at the top table.

It’s usually a by-product of:

• CEO / Founder / Investors with a lack of experience in digital commerce who have a genuine fear of the complexity and lack knowledge on what good looks like.

• A tunnel vision on brand and business, without supplementing it with a balance on the digital strategies and tactics required to elevate things

Brands miss the pragmatic, digitally experienced problem-solver who will demystify and give confidence to business strategy questions. Having a digital/marketing/tech savvy CEO is still relatively rare (especially in Luxury / Fashion / Lifestyle) and is still a blind-spot. Mostly, they tend to lean towards fear of the unknown and fear of making a wrong decision without really knowing if the solution they're being given is right…

It often results in digital decisions being disconnected from the commercial growth plans.

What are the key accountabilities for a digital leader?

In my experience these are very broad and change often and there is not a template which fits every brand/business, as all of them define what sits with digital vs other departments differently. Often the digital director or CDO is the common thread that holds the customer facing senior team together

What are their primary KPIs?

1. Sales. Many forget they're there to deliver a number.

2. Customer. Lots of Digital directors are intrinsically linked to CS departments and if they don't own the management, they own the voice of the customer.

3. Strategy. The digital lens on how to achieve the overall brand/business goals.

4. Growth Initiatives. Many opportunities exist in big, cost-heavy activities (marketing campaigns, store openings or new product ranges etc) where focus from an experienced digital leader on a fully considered CRM programme could deliver (as an example) 2pts to the bottom line.

5. Data. A good digital leader has strong data skills and is accountable for the collection of, presentation and management of key data points.

6. Decision making. Steer the business away from BAD decisions on tech.

What experience and skills do they need to be successful in a new luxury brand?

Totally subjective, but in my view someone who has been an operator has the best chance of success because they understand the detail and act on it quickly. Day-to-day a leader needs to have fast response times, and these are honed through experience. They connec the technical and operational detail, and understand how it plays into the nuance of brand perception, customer and the sometimes intangible 'feeling' a brand should evoke.

But actually it's a reminder that ego takes a back seat, as ecommerce along with the other channels serves brand and customer at all cost!