With so much focus on digital ROI and digital performance, an important issue is often forgotten: digital capability.

This concept refers to an organization’s ability to take advantage of the promise of digital, whether it be social media, marketing automation, CRM, or even just the web. Too often, the limiting factor for digital performance is not what is being done, but rather what cannot be done.

Removing the digital glass ceiling means looking at five key areas:

• Integrated blog and website, using a WordPress platform: The days of a separate blog no longer make sense. And the days of websites that no longer have integrated social features (commenting, liking, sharing, syndication) are also long gone.
• A mobile and tablet strategy: With more users interacting when they are away from their desk than sitting at it, a made-in-2003 mobile strategy makes no sense. The initiative should be both location-aware and socially-connected: most are not.
• Enlightened access attitudes: “Protecting” users within an organization from interacting with prospects, clients, and suppliers using digital tools is as silly as removing telephone access. Yes, employees should be held to account for their responsibilities, but firewall restrictions for Facebook, YouTube, and other social sites is dysfunctional. Even more so when users can easily access these sites on their smartphones.
• Training for employees and other stakeholders: Developing capability means not just training on policy, but also demonstrating how to use digital tools to advance the organization’s strategic goals – without wasting their time. Having everyone appropriately interacting externally is far more powerful than just having one person do it.
• Integration, not tack-on: Are digital principles embedded throughout the organization, or are they tacked on to a marketing department’s responsibilities as an add-on? Staff in HR, Operations, Procurement, IT, Legal, (and others) really should be up to speed on how digital tools – including external Social Media – can be used within their jobs: segregating digital to one or two “experts” limits capability, not builds it.

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