Q&A: Salesforce Cloud Specialist Craig Newns-Smith on Digital Transformation

Competing in the new digital media requires many media companies to transform by designing, piloting and rapidly adopting new technologies, services and offerings to enrich audience experiences. This ultimately means having a clear vision for their digital future.

As digital transformation of the media industry places greater power in the consumer’s hands, media companies must look towards scalable, cloud-based solutions to help them adapt accordingly.

We spoke with Craig Newns-Smith from Decipher Digital, an ADvendio implementation and consulting partner, who specialize in driving media performance for advertisers, agencies & publishers in the APAC region. Decipher Digital is working with ADvendio’s ad management footprint in countries such as Australia and New Zealand to assist clients in the implementation and onboarding of ADvendio’s software. Their mission is to help clients with all aspects of utilising Salesforce technologies across their business by listening to their specific needs, deciphering the best solutions and delivering measurable results.

Craig Newns-Smith Salesforce Expertise

Craig has a wealth of both Salesforce and media expertise as he has been active in the industry for more than a decade. A 6x Salesforce Certified Consultant with more than 10 years of Salesforce experience specialising in Sales & Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud and Pardot, Craig founded Decipher Digital in 2016 where his focus is to help clients with their Salesforce-based business transformations ranging from large multinational corporations to SMB’s including local media owners and publishers.

How would you define digital transformation?

We define digital transformation as making improvements through the implementation and ongoing use of technology. We believe that digital transformation doesn’t necessarily need to be a major undertaking which entails a large amount of time or investment. Quite often a collection of small yet impactful changes can result in significant improvements and a genuine transformation can be achieved.

Why do you think digital transformation is so important for companies in today’s market?

Whilst establishing and maintaining a robust platform upon which a business runs is crucial, it’s just as important to keep evolving and improving your systems and processes. Technology solutions are constantly evolving and in turn, this creates credible opportunities to constantly improve the way things are currently done.

In your opinion, what are the most important elements of digital transformation?

Simplicity with a clear understanding of ‘why’ is by far the most important element and is how we approach digital transformation at Decipher Digital.

We believe it’s imperative that a business has clarity on not only what changes are required but also why they are necessary. This helps to ensure the expected outcomes can be measured and enables the business to gain an understanding as to whether they have had the desired effect or not.

The measurement of success relies squarely on whether or not you can accurately assess impact, both positive and negative, and are relying on the right metrics to base your findings upon.

How do organisations benefit in digitally transforming their business?

The most immediate effects tend to be an increase in revenue, streamlining of processes and saving of time due to automating repetitive manual tasks that tend to be time-intensive.

What are the barriers that usually block the path to digital transformation?

A lack of communication between internal teams can prove to be a major obstacle. Each team tends to have their own set of challenges and issues and unless they all communicate openly, honestly and consistently with each other, it can become apparent that they’re actually quite badly misaligned. Therefore defining common issues that the digital transformation is to address can be challenging but is fundamental to success.

How can businesses measure the effectiveness of their digital transformation process?

Establishing benchmarks is crucial in giving the business a point from which they can then compare future results against. The two most common benchmarks tend to be revenue and time-related. These form the basis of most measurement metrics and KPI’s. Their common goals are increased revenue and decreased time required to complete tasks. Once the impact of these metrics are realised this can result in increases in effectiveness and efficiency.

In your opinion, does the APAC region remain a hotbed for digital transformation?

Absolutely. We find that businesses in the APAC region are constantly looking for ways to improve and drive growth through innovation. Digital transformation presents a way to achieve significant results quickly and realise a positive return on investment in a multitude of different ways. Decipher Digital assists businesses in the APAC region with their digital transformation journey by collaboratively establishing a path that is specific to their unique needs and objectives and guiding them every step of the way.

Have advertiser-creative-agency relationships changed with digital transformation?

The media landscape is constantly changing with digital transformation simply acting as an enabler. It must not be forgotten that there are always people involved on every side of a transaction and the personal relationship aspect is as important as any. The roles and responsibilities of various parties may evolve as the market continues to grow with technology constantly pushing the boundaries and uncovering new capabilities and opportunities however the human element should never be overlooked.

What are your predictions for the industry over the next five years?

We believe the media landscape will continue to evolve over the coming years however simplicity and ease of use of technology will always be a top priority for customers regardless of fancy new features and functionality. Programmatic trading and self-serve solutions will forge into currently uncharted areas and will provide opportunities that simply don’t exist today with data and artificial intelligence underpinning the rise in their growth. Even as these new opportunities arise, businesses will continue to gain value from specialist service providers such as Decipher Digital in order to successfully navigate the right path for continued growth and success.

What is your plan for Decipher Digital to keep up?

At Decipher Digital we have a focus on continual learning. This takes many forms — from working with customers to help them overcome their challenges through to keeping abreast of industry best practices. We consider curiosity as a valuable attribute as you never know where the next great idea or solution may come from. Collaboration with team members and others in the broader industry is highly encouraged, it’s amazing where conversations can lead when you approach them with creativity and an open mind. The customer is central to everything we do and so long as we’re helping them overcome their issues and challenges, then we are confident we’ll be able to continually provide value in a meaningful way.

Originally published at www.advendio.com on June 11, 2020