Book Review: DIGITAL ADAPTATION by PAUL BOAG

How to help senior management understand the Web and adapt the business, culture, teams and workflows accordingly?

No fluff, no theory — just techniques and strategies that worked in practice, and showed results.  This is the brilliance of Boag’s book.

I normally find myself skimming business and marketing books, gleaning what I need. But I couldn't just glance at this one. Paul’s book  comes at a great time for me. I am staggered by the number of times I come across extremely obvious cases where a better digital adaptation would bring about superior customer satisfaction and brand loyalty. You see companies still battle with Omni-channel, in-store wi-fi, personalized product information, poor mobile presence, etc. One can think of these issues as just technical inefficiencies that will soon or later be overcome. Here is where Paul hits hard.

He argues, that the Digital is fundamentally a cultural change. The hierarchical structure of (large) organisations doesn't sit comfortably with close collaboration, flexibility, innovation, and safe environment to experiment new ideas. These are indeed typical of a friendly digital organization.  This is the moot point. Yes, you can ‘fix’ some of your digital problems by bringing in a techie but this is a very short-sighted strategy. A digital company doesn't fix—it fails forward at a pace you cannot imagine.

The core problem with digital, faced by many large organizations, is that they were formed before the web existed. Their systems, processes, and (in many cases) people, are not configured to support it. This starts at the top of the organization, with senior management failing to understand digital.

I have enjoyed the pages where Paul astutely points out to how the traditional way of organizing teams, managing projects, collaboration among departments, etc. are no longer fit for purposes in the digital era. Digital, in his opinion, is a completely new way of thinking and working that challenges traditional practices (e.g. project roll-outs, office environment, organizational charts, etc.) He argues that this is true given that the digital shift has empowered customers with more freedom in gathering relevant information about you, your products, and your competitors. 

Two friendly remarks. The book is mainly focused on the web and how to enable corporations to plant the seed of change. Don’t expect any conversations on SEO, Marketing, mobile etc. Secondly, in more than a circumstance I had the feeling that what he was actually endorsing was not a consequence of being digital. For example, the responsibility assignment matrix (pp. 47-49)  is something that I have seen in a good number of non-digital friendly organizations.

Paul’s book is more a testament than a prophecy. If you  work in a traditional organization and you think you are an agent of change, by no means this book is for you. It will help you disseminate the good novel. Truth to be told, I don’t fall in that category though, but I fully enjoyed it. It is easy to read, informative, articulate, and fun.

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