How to create a digital roadmap

You know where you want your business to be digitally, but don’t quite know how to get there. You need a plan; a way of a defining your goals, anticipating challenges and how you’re going to overcome these to achieve those goals. You need a digital roadmap.

What is a digital roadmap?

A digital roadmap is a strategic document that outlines your business goals and aligns them with digital initiatives to get there. It should cover both short-term and long-term objectives with a breakdown of tasks and timescales to achieve these. Above all else, it should be an actionable document that allows for flexibility, but holds key stakeholders accountable to each goal.

In other words, it is a blueprint that provides a cohesive digital strategy. Offering clear, concise guidance on what initiatives need to be prioritised, your roadmap can – and should – be shared across the business to ensure everyone is working towards the same vision. Crucially, a comprehensive digital roadmap should turn that vision into a reality.

How to create a digital roadmap

The importance of having a strategic plan in the age of digital transformation cannot be understated. Taking time to assess where your business currently is and where you want it to be is always time well spent. A digital roadmap can help you do just that, but how do you go about creating one?

Define your digital strategy

Before you even consider building your roadmap, you need to have a clear vision of what you want your digital strategy to achieve. To begin, look at your business objectives holistically and highlight where digital is crucial. Do you want to amplify your brand? Would you like to increase sales? Do you want to improve customer experiences?

Take your goals and construct a decisive vision statement; a reference point you can always return to whenever you have doubts in the future or need to be reminded of what you are trying to achieve.

Decide on timeframe

Once you have clearly defined what you want to achieve with your digital strategy, the next step is to decide when you would like to achieve your goals. This will vary depending on the type of objectives you have set, as well as how digitally native you currently are.

Your digital roadmap should outline the overall timeframe for your project, as well as more granular deadlines for each task along the way. However, it is important to continually assess these. You may achieve some goals quicker than others and vice versa, so your roadmap should be a living document that changes as you do.

Identify stakeholders

For any strategy to be a success, you need to identify those who are responsible for driving it. Identify the key stakeholders for keeping the digital roadmap on track, as well as those accountable for the milestones along the way.

But, it is not simply about naming those responsible; it is about ensuring they are invested and engaged with the strategy throughout the entire process. Collaboration is the key to success, so stakeholders should avoid silos and work together to achieve the same goals. Of course, this is easier said than done, but your digital strategy should be prioritised and integrated throughout the business.

Set Key Performance Indicators

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are vital for assessing the success of your strategy and recognising when your roadmap needs to evolve. Take a good look back at your previous efforts to define KPIs and clearly outline these in your digital roadmap.

Data is the most powerful tool in your arsenal, so choose metrics that are measurable but more importantly, realistic. While setting ambitious targets is admirable, it can be demoralising if these are not achieved or provide a false indicator of the progress that has been made. Adversely, setting targets that are too easily achieved will inflate performance thus far; it’s about finding that sweet spot in the middle of the two.

Use a consultancy

It can be difficult to assess your own business objectively when trying to construct a digital roadmap, but thankfully there are consultancies skilled in doing just that. At Storm, we analyse your current state and propose a comprehensive digital strategy backed by commercial justification for putting it into effect.

We also audit your existing digital services, as well as take a look at what your competitors are doing, to benchmark where you are and where you need to be. Once we understand this, we can collaborate with you to build a digital roadmap that works for your business needs and objectives, and support you along the way to achieving them.

Get in touch to begin your journey

Building a digital roadmap will not transform your business overnight, but it is a key step along the way. It provides tangible checkpoints and timelines, as well as a means for evaluating the success of your digital strategy.

Without a detailed roadmap in place, you have no way of measuring whether your business is moving in the right direction or if it is even moving at all. Get in touch with our talented team to get your digital transformation started today.