Script
Brand Discovery video course.
Introductory video v2.2.
Hi.
I’m Phil Darby and I’m here to tell you about my new series of on-line lectures designed to help senior executives steer their organisations towards the opportunities of the digital marketplace.
I’ve worked with management teams around the world, helping them overcome the barriers their businesses encounter as they seek new growth in an ever more competitive digital world.
In recent years this has involved change, business re-engineering and digital transformation – a whole new world for most management teams, but one where the opportunities outweigh the challenges, if you know the rules.
In this series of lectures I will share with you some of the key lessons I have learned in the course of my engagements and introduce you to the process I call “brand–led business transformation” that increases the chances of success for any business transformation.
Most business by now realise they have to transform to survive, but currently 70% of business transformation programmes fail, which is a massive waste of resource that’s only going to contribute to the demise of the businesses concerned. It’s widely predicted that 40% of the brands we know today will have disappeared only a few years from now because they failed to transform.
Failure is understandable. Pretty much everything to do with business transformation and especially digital transformation is unfamiliar to most management teams. In the digital paradigm, things move at a far faster pace than most managers will be used to. We need to take an approach to problem solving and project management that will be new and often uncomfortable.
The good news is, in principle, transformation is not rocket science and when you look into it, the reason for most of the failures is a lack of focus. That’s where my approach differs from that taken by many businesses. I’ll show you how I set about creating the focus every transformation needs.
The critical determinant of business success or failure is efficiency. It always has been. Most organisations are inefficient to some degree, but, so far, we’ve been able to get away with this, mostly because our competitors haven’t been any better. However, digital technology has changed everything and the businesses that have transformed have set a higher bar. The inefficiencies we have lived with for generations are now exposed because digital competitors are, by definition, far more efficient than a non-digital business could ever be.
However, the process of digital transformation is long and expensive. It can also be pretty painful. So, before you leap into a transformation programme you want to be sure that the odds on your success are the best you can get.
So, here is the good news. The first step in any transformation can itself facilitate a significant leap in efficiency that, even if you aren’t planning an immediate full-on transformation of your business, may at least buy you some time.
The key to business efficiency is, as I have said, focus and there is only one way a business can achieve real focus – by defining its brand. Brand, of course, is not just about logos and visual identity. Brands are the communities that drive today’s most successful businesses and usually determine the value of the organisation. Defining your brand will give you focus and focus drives the efficiency you need to succeed.
I have been taking this initial step towards business transformation with business around the world for decades and the outcomes speak for themselves. I’ve helped organisations revive ailing brands, worked with some to expand internationally and worked with others to get them to IPO. In very recent times I took a business that was struggling to achieve 5% awareness in its key target audience to the point where The London Stock Exchange proclaimed them “… a business to inspire Britain!” – and all in less than eighteen months.
What I am going to do in this project is walk you through the four key stages of brand-led business transformation with four series of videos. In the first series I’ll introduce you to the brand modelling programme I have run with most of my clients over that past thirty years. I call it “Brand Discovery”. This is the essential first step in any business transformation. It will give you focus, speed up your transformation process, eliminate wasted time and resource and ensure you end up with a business that’s fit for the digital era.
To manage expectations I should say that this is not a step-by-step instruction manual. You are unlikely to emerge from this course able to single-handedly create your brand, but you will understand the process, appreciate who you’ll need on your team and it will equip you to steer your organisation through the process of self-discovery every brand needs, smoothly and – that all-important word again – efficiently.
Throughout the course I’ll be referring to the independent specialists and speciality firms who work with me to deliver my clients programmes – researchers, designers, communications experts, developers and the like who have the specialist skills and experience you’ll need to complete your brand development. As a subscriber to the course, you’ll also have access to a developing database of firms like them, who I have personal experience of and who will be able to help you. At the end of this series you should know enough to be able to create a brand model with a set of coordinates that define your brand - and that is the key to your future success.
When you fully understand what a brand is and how to build yours you’ll hold the key to greater efficiency. You’ll be more positive as an individual, more decisive as an organisation and therefore more responsive to the opportunities of the digital economy.
As I said Brand Discovery isn’t an alternative to transformation. We all have to go through that, but it is the essential first step in any successful transformation programme and, even on its own, it will give your organisation a big advantage over less pro-active competitors, putting you ahead of your sector when the race for places in the new digital marketplace kicks off.
As an executive the understanding you personally will get from having completed this series of videos will enable you to play a leading role in the success of your organisation and give prospective employers plenty of compelling reasons to hire you. To seal the deal, once you have completed the course, I’ll give you a certificate to confirm your attendance.
So thanks for listening. Click the link to find out more about this course and, hopefully, sign up and join us. I hope at the very least this has given you food for thought and look forward to welcoming to our executive community. Goodbye for now.
