Today we live, work, and play in a world of change and transition. Newcastle and the Hunter Region has in its history transitioned from being a coal driven economy, to a steel & manufacturing driven economy, back to resources and logistics, and tourism & culture. At the same time, the information and communication technologies and their digital distribution are transforming our economies and our social lives at a rapid pace.

The rapid pace of change is opening up opportunities for whole industries to be transformed, for individual businesses to completely change their competitive focus and for new products and services to emerge. This is happening around us and it is happening with our region. These opportunities need to be harnessed as a region to ensure our economy and our community is enhanced by staying collectively competitive with other regions and engaged with the global digital economy.

The future economic success of the Hunter Region relies on our collective ability to attract and retain a talented workforce, new business investment, a sustainable environment and a connected and inclusive community. It is about jobs, financial security, maintaining our spectacular quality of life, and our sense of community.

How can digital technologies make a better region? By providing business with opportunities. Providing businesses with education and capabilities to excel with the talent of their staff, opportunities to share and develop new ideas and innovations, opportunities to create and find uncontested market space and disrupt established industries in order to improve the social, economic, and environmental well being of our community.

Recently Gordon Whitehead of the Lunatick Society of Newcastle took the initiative that I believe Local & Federal Governments should have played a lead role in our region. Gordon established Digital Newcastle was to seek opportunities to promote the digital businesses and economy of Newcastle & the Hunter and find opportunities to grow and nurture the digital economy of our region. I have myself been in the game of economic development for most of my working life helping businesses grow and contribute to the wider economy by growing their market and employing more staff. With my business I have been active in providing small to medium sized businesses with website development, technology consulting, and marketing services enabling the smaller sector to compete online on a level playing field. Over the last 12 years of this business i have seen the speed of technological change take place and opportunities that are brought with it come and go. The National Broadband Network is next and a reasonable amount of Newcastle, Lake Macquarie, and Maitland are on the nearer term roll out radar.

Dive into the Blue Ocean of opportunity in Newcastle - photo by Kim Vacy (@kimvacy)

Businesses need to be alert to the benefits of high capacity broadband and how to take advantage of the opportunities it will bring before their more digitally aware competitors leave them behind. I fear this technological latency will be prolific in Newcastle & the Hunter Region. So I thought I would share my views on the current environment of business and technologyand the future opportunities that businesses need to be thinking about.

These opportunities for the most part fall into three categories: e-marketing, e-operations, and e-services. For competitive advantage, business will now need to be looking to not only capitalise on the three ‘e-opportunities’ but to do so in a way that creates an uncontested market-space and disrupt their industry to form new markets, new business models, and new industries.

Your business will have a position on a line of digital adoption on the scale of improving your existing marketing, operations & services to transforming your marketing, operations, and services toward redefining your e-opportunties.

Hopefully most businesses are aware of their place in the improvement stage. The digital age provides opportunities to increase your marketing reach, exploit new sales channels, reduce costs of delivery, reduce the production cycle time, improve your customer service, increase speed of brand awareness, increase customisation of products and services, and enhance direct advertising opportunities.

These opportunities are available now with the current technology available in Newcastle & the Hunter Region, however with the coming of the NBN and super fast broadband, these opportunities will be accelerated, more available, and the ability to maintain any competitive advantage in any areas of e-opportunity will be diminished due to an increase in the speed of adoption to match.

In the transformation stage, we have seen the likes of Amazon, eBay, iTunes, transform the way products are accessed by digitalising previously physical products and providing global marketplaces for the exchange of goods & services creating a Consumer2Consumer marketplace. The digital age requires businesses to learn and adapt quickly to new technologies. This is already happening in NBN activated regions, it will be extremely important that Newcastle & Hunter businesses do not stand flat footed while their competitors in other regions take advantage of their markets using technology enabled supply chains. New products, new services, and new business models arise from this stage, the economic benefits to a region from having their businesses participate in this pre-disruptive stage are enormous, results are the creation of new jobs, an increase in income and local investment supporting the traditional business base as well as leveraging the new digital business base.

The last stage is redefining organisations, I am been reading Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne which is as relevant now to our region as it was when it was published 7 years ago! Where new and improved product capabilities, goods and services we can not yet imagine can be created when a business looks beyond competitive advantage and toward the creation of their own uncontested market where competition does not exist. What is physical that could be digital? What supply method can be improved by high capacity broadband, how can high definition video improve your service delivery, where are areas that can be sources of data analysis. Innovation is key here, as is a focus toward the increasing customer value and decreasing costs of production.

Entire industries will be transformed, think of the stock exchange where the industry of traditional human stock brokers has been disrupted by online trading. The increasing availability of information and the ability to directly distribute it will lead to new business models.

Here is the goal for your business in the digital age, to look within your business, to look to your competitors, and your industry to see what can be improved, transformed, and further created to create value to a particular market and decrease your operating costs. Innovation approached in this way leads to a sustainable disruption to an industry and long-term business growth.

If you are interested in the activities of Digital Newcastle, get in touch with Gordon. If you have a business who needs assistance in planning or strategy for the digital age, please contact me, Brendan Brooks, on 0414 362 557.

Originally published on the HyperWeb Communications website.

Well we have had the Budget from the Treasurer Wayne Swan and it has no surprises given the amount of detail leaked in the last 24 hours or so.

The 1% company tax cut being dropped is disappointing, the Government will have to work hard to explain to the business community why it was dropped. I don’ think it is off the agenda as it was a meagre cut of that recommended in the Henry Tax Review, and “The Business Tax Working Group has been asked to consider the longer‑term reform directions including reducing the corporate tax rate or other reforms”. This move saved the Gov $317M in 2012-13 and $4b over the forward estimates, so even if they kept it (and despite the knowledge that it wouldn’t get through parliament as the Greens & Oppositions were against it), it would not have affected the goal of returning to surplus, it would have made is a thinner ‘wafer thin’ surplus. It is only 7% of the total projected budget savings for 2012-13.

I have looked at it thus far only in regard to the things that are likely to effect my family and business, and it isn’t much. I was interested in what benefits there were to encourage business growth. The carry-back tax losses reform is a safety net that can encourage businesses to take expenditure or investment risks to generate growth, the tax made this financial year, can be drawn back to compensate for losses next year that might have occurred from employing staff, investing in new product development, large hardware costs. How does that affect me? It probably doesn’t, but I could look at how my business is accommodated, and possibly consider employing staff, it would depend on the tax liability I have as a safety net, so pretty unlikely to have an effect.

The instant asset right-off is an incentive to upgrade technology, or any hardware of doing business, it is $6,500 per asset, so it provides a small incentive for businesses needing to bring their equipment up to speed or purchase new equipment that the changing technological environment has necessitated.

There are a number of programs designed to assist small business and specific sectors that have knock on opportunities for service providers, if you are in a position to provide services to assist manufacturing businesses with innovation services, wine companies with marketing services, or if you are in the business of helping businesses reduce their carbon foot print, there will be a few opportunities for you with the continuation of existing small business advisory services being maintained, enterprise connect expanding into Tourism, & Commercialisation Australia with new programs to assist the manufacturing industry to innovate and remain competitive. The continued investment in the digital economy driven by the NBN will also provide increasing opportunities for service providers willing to get involved, with e-health in particular is to receive a significant investment in development and software.

On a personal and family level, there is very little. We do not receive Family Tax Benefit A, so nothing there. Our daughter is not yet school age (far from it) so the School kids bonus is not applicable at present.

The increase of tax free threshold will mean a dollar or two either $3 or $303, individuals earning under $65,000 will get a nice tax cut of $303. I am a variable wage earner as I am self-employed, but i wouldn’t be encouraged to pay myself less to get the $303, I would rather earn more and take the $3.

The effect the budget has on interest rates will be the most telling thing, and the banks have to pass the predicted rate cuts, this will be the most financially exposed opportunity for us.

So the budget contains is fairly neutral for my as far as I can see. There are disappointments in the ditching of the company tax cut, and the delaying of our Official Development Assistance. It is a welfare budget, with some great things for Australia, the NDIS, the transferring of the benefits of the mining boom to lower income families, dental health reforms, the maintenance of small business assistance and innovation, and business development programs.

The only fudging here is bringing the FAG spending into the current year form the budget year, conveniently it is $1.1b if it was left in the 12/13 budget, and if company tax was held on to, there would be a slight deficit.

Overall, I am happy to miss out, we live comfortably, and would prefer the benefits of bringing the budget to surplus go to those who need it most. Even in business, I’m not travelling too badly and won’t miss a 1% tax benefit on a smallish turnover. So in that regard, it think the budget has been well designed, I am not exposed to the cuts to the benefits higher income earners in super, ongoing capital gains & executive perks, and not exposed to any benefits that will be welcomed by lower income earners and welfare recipients. We are in the comfortable middle

There is no need to return to surplus. At least as far as the domestic economy is concerned. Sure, to be the first economy in the world to return to surplus after the GFC would be great kudos for the Government, it ‘should’ blunt the Opposition’s claims that the Government couldn’t achieve it, and more importantly, it will contribute to foreign investment confidence.

The thing is, despite the constant and never ending misleading slogans of the Opposition, Australia has one of the lowest debt levels as a % of GDP than any modern economy. Last count it is around 30%. This is just over half the world’s overall 50% debt to GDP ratio.  If you had a personal debt of 30% of your current earning capacity, you would be well chuffed given the aggregate credit card debt of Australians is approaching $4,000 per head of population (25% of GDP), therefore it is only 5% smaller than the National debt per head of population! Also that a reasonable mortgage is 400% of a $150,000 combined family income. Perspective please. Who is better off? Only Indonesia, Paraguay, & Hong Kong are in better debt positions in the entire world of modern economies. Japan is 208%, and Canada, who we are rightly most compared to is 83.5%. The top list is dominated (after Japan & Zimbabwe) by the Eurozone and the US itself is over 100%.

What concerns me is the cost of the surplus. What will be cut to allow it? Pre-budget announcements have paved the expectation that defence will be heavily cut. I can’t argue with that, don’t be scared, we are not under threat any time soon. I also can’t recall any demand from the Opposition for a cost/benefit analysis of the Joint Strike Fighter commitment to the well being of the nation given the current external environment. Though it does have micro impact on areas such as Port Stephens & Ipswich who are gearing to capitalise on the economic benefits of the new technology being housed in their communities. The submarine program in Adelaide is maintained with significant economic benefits to manufacturing and associated families in that area.

A return to surplus is unnecessary domestically. Our sovereign credit rating is AAA by all three major ratings agencies, that is more than enough to guarantee the quality of our borrowings, as shown above, we can afford more borrowings, and lenders will bend over backwards to accommodate. As prominent University of Newcastle Economics Professor Bill Mitchell has often claimed, there is no safer investment than Sovereign lendings. So who is missing out in the budget? What infrastructure? what accounting method needs to be glossed over (such as owning shares in NBNCo instead of it being a cost centre to the Department)? It isn’t necessary, finish the spending commitments, ensure health and education reform continues and abide a little more sovereign debt because we can afford it and no better country in the world is better placed to take the lead on modern reforms.

According to many, the GFC 2.0 is coming, and this is more reason to be investing in infrastructure and services. This has the duel effect of taking cash out of circulation, encouraging banks to lower interest rates at the same time it will be exposed to be global economic pressures. Interest rates of 3.5, or even 3% could well be expected before the end of 2013.

My concern is that cuts in the health and education space will be unnecessary casualties, but this remains to be seen. There is the education payment, which is unfortunately another hand out rather than a tax related benefit. There is also a 1% reduction in company tax and instant asset right-off increase to $6,500, well beyond a computer or two, you can get an entire office IT upgrade for that and instantly write it off.

Finally (pre-budget) the kicker for everyone is the increase of the tax free threshold to $18,200. This has been poorly sold by the Government. It means that the first $18,200 that you earn in a year will not be taxed, which has the subsequent effect of reducing your overall tax burden on your annual tax liability calculation. It reduces what tax is taken from your salary and increases what amount of your wage ends up in your pocket.

Sure there may be postponements to help the budget get to this unnecessary surplus, but I am in favour of postponements before cuts. Why can’t a government decide it can’t afford an expenditure in a current year because it needs to save money? The Opposition will call this fudging the budget, but if I can’t afford a boat this year, I will put off buying it until a later year where the purchasing decision can be assessed against the economic environment at that time.

The Coalition will also claim that the benefits are offsets to the introduction of a carbon price and MRRT. The Government has not made a secret that there will be compensatory measures to offset inevitable increases in energy costs. It is part of the package and part of the solution. The knock on effects of increases in some fixed production costs of the 500 organisations asked to pay the carbon price will (should) be filtered to a negligible increase to the basket of goods and services on the shopping list of everyday Australians.

Remember, this is a pre-budget announcement observation given current information, I hope I have time to follow up after tonight’s announcement.

Kokoda by Peter FitzSimons

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

An emotional read, I have never thought about death in the way this book made me, it wasn’t so much the loss of a brave soldier but the hurt in their loved ones that resonated and at times generated tears. Losses tragically mourned by the friends who fought along their fallen mates, by mothers & fathers helpless at home with an officious and brief telegram, and of wives and children with their lives forever changed.

I learned a lot about the Australian involvement in WWII, the partriotic leadership of Prime Minister Curtin, the vanity of MacArthur, and the extreme and utter bravery of the Diggers.

My only criticism of the book is the occasional over-jingoism, if I couldn’t here Peter Fitzsimon’s voice as I read though, I probably wouldn’t have noticed. Certainly this book is well written as it takes on a diverse set of personal stories which increases the emotional ride.

I thought this book might have compelled my to plan to walk the Kokoda Track as I had been wanting to do in the past. Sure it can stay on my bucket list, but this book didn’t hasten by desire to do so. It is a challenging place, physically and mentally, it is a sacred place, and I don’t feel as though I deserve walk in the foot steps of those eternally brave Diggers that did so much.

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In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Amazingly piercing work. I won’t forget a word of this for quite some time. Although the last chapter, once feels the treatment of the murderers was getting somewhat sympathetic, the journalistic style and fact of it being a true story kept the narrative pretty straight. A tragedy? The tragedy still, even after such in depth accounts of the plight of the damned, is the death, horrific deaths, of the innocent.



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Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age by Clay Shirky

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is an essential read for those studying the modern consumer and social movements in regard to the sharing of information. Cognitive Surplus is the increasing amount of spare capacity in regard to time and information that we have as we consume in the digital and information age. Knowledge is power and the ability and willingness to share it is a new currency of credibility and value. The last chapter provides some great insights into what is required to start a social media enterprise which is apt in the current environment of tech-social start-ups. There is also references for those interested in collaborative consumption and in the phenomenon of social media marketing.

Some very insightful take aways for modern business managers keen to take advantage of information driven consumption.



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Star Wars, A New Hope was released in 1977, I was 4 years old, it broke new ground in the use of cinematic and film technology. It blew my mind, the minds of my friends, and made George Lucas an innovator to be envied in the film industry. Beyond the prime-text of the boy Jedi that saves the universe, the groundbreaking character creativity, the demanding finale, was the advance it’s field it made at the time with the technology and talent George Lucas had available to him.

Think now about your business and your next product or service that differentiates you from your competitors.

Two films followed, The Empire Strikes Back in 1980, and The Return of the Jedi in 1983. We could have been forgiven (at the time) for believing that the saga of those characters was at its climax. Rumours abounded when I was young that something wasn’t quite over.

One thing about technology is that it has the capacity to deliver the unbelievable many years after the dream. The story goes that Lucas intentionally released what has become to be known as Star Wars IV, V, and VI as the first three, as the technology was not available for him to produce the scale of characters, the computer animations (CGI), the detail that he foresaw would be required in making Star Wars I, II, & III. Regardless of what you think of the prequels in terms of story & characters, they certainly demonstrated how an idea of 30 years previous could be enacted 30 years later.

Herein lies the potential offered by the speed of the technological advancement in today’s business environment.

Lucas planned for the future, planned for technology to offer opportunity, and technology delivered.

Exactly the same situation exists in the business environment of 2012 except for one difference. Unlike the 1970′s, it is now quite apparent what might be capable in 20 years time from today. A lot of business understand the speed of download and upload means the speed of conducting eBusiness transactions. Some businesses understand that cloud based applications can reduce hardware investment and increase mobility which relies on solid and fast connections. This is the Star Wars on 1977. This is what we know can be done to get a competitive advantage with what innovative software companies are providing us with now.

I believe we are in the eye of the cyclone of the next generation of digital business and consumers. For consumers, this generation will be streaming high definition video enabling remote health services, it will be connecting vehicular traffic information direct to cars, buses & trains enabling more efficient transport, it will be brining government and agency services into the home reducing the need for our elderly from having to line up in inefficient queues that impact on social well being and reduce productivity. It will deliver services and digital produces that we don’t know of yet, that most of us can’t image, of which we do not know the benefits yet.

For business it means technological innovation that can reduce supply costs, enhance market reach, product distribution, information management, with instant digital transactions. It is also a leading technology which opens up a blue ocean for innovative business looking to take the early ground.

High capacity broadband of the model represented by the National Broadband Network can make a difference to business wanted to differentiate, but as it is rolled out progressively and selectively across Australia, the competitive advantage comes to some before others. There is a great deal of advantage to the first mover in a market, therefore it flows, that the first innovator to take advantage of NBN-proposed transaction speeds has an advantage over competitors not connected. I state this on the basis of how the technology we know of today can be developed on connection.

The three-year rollout announced on Thursday, March 29, was a landmark occasion for the economies of many (and most) regions across the more populated areas of Australia. To be announced as a region in the 3 year rollout means that at the very least you are next in the queue (3 year queue) for NBN rollout. The polls are showing that the NBN is increasingly popular among voters therefore we can roundly assume that the areas announced in the 3 year rollout were somewhat happy (for the most part) about it.

I am a resident of a suburb of Newcastle, NSW, Australia. It was with great joy that I found that my area was in the three-year rollout. I had assumed (and hoped) this might be the case as the Hamilton Point Of Interconnect was earmarked to be brought online to the wholesale side in April 2012, with Mayfield & Maitland Points of Interconnect before the end of 2012. After the thrill of inclusion had passed I was interested in the regional picture, and it was interesting.

Local Government does need to be competitive. It needs to be attractive to residents to take up vacant residential space where it exists, and thus spend money at local businesses encouraging local business growth and local employment. Residential migration also contributes to local employment stock for larger business with wider labour force needs and better capacity to service them. Local Governments are also competitive on their points of difference as lifestyle & amenity factors play a role in distinguishing one LGA from another when it comes to a choice in the retention and attraction of businesses, visitors, and residents.

This diversity among the wider region increases the need for each LGA to think competitive on a business attraction and retention front. The Hunter Region has a number of major commercial/industrial development sites approved and waiting for investment and subsequent development and job creation.

Surely it must be attractive for businesses in highly constrained areas such as Western Sydney to think about breaking out to relocate to areas that provide lifestyle, convenience, efficiency, and productivity. 10 years ago, the prime location for a business to establish or relocated needed to have proximity to logistic routes, access to reliable quality utilities (electricity, gas, water), an available stock of ready layout, and a nice place for the boss to live and visiting prospects to enjoy.

Today, add high-capacity broadband to the utilities.

We are entering and traversing a digital economy, whether we want to identify it as such or not. Business in 2012 can no longer trade without incorporating digital means of transaction into their operations and supply & value chain. Businesses in 2012 who, like George Lucas 35 years ago, understand that they can position themselves to take advantage of technology driven innovation as it occurs. They need however to be in a location that has the utilities and infrastructure to enable it.

The competitive landscape of today positions Newcastle, Maitland and the eastern parts of Lake Macquarie in the prime position to attract new business and expanding business commitment. The announcement of the NBNCo three-year rollout allows businesses to plan with a range of certainty when it comes to those regions. Port Stephens & Cessnock LGAs have no such strategic advantage when it comes to holding businesses reliant on digital technology and attracting businesses of the same requirements. We know that there are not many businesses who are not now sufficiently exposed to the digital economy that are able to duck and let it ride past without a detrimental effect to their business.

So any business considering their potential in the Hunter Region, with the spirit of a New Hope, like Lucas, are now more likely to overlook Port Stephens & Cessnock LGAs, to seek locations where they will be able to succeed with their dream of their innovative competitive advantages. Even without a change in representation, it will be beyond 2018 that Port Stephens & Cessnock are connected to the NBN. If there is a change of Government, indications are that it may never happen.

Meanwhile the competing regions can now gear themselves but cannot themselves be complacent. Plans and strategies need to be developed to enable the existing businesses to take full advantage of what high-capacity broadband can do for their business.

Port Stephens has 3 huge development sites available for business to relocate or establish. Right now. However why would a business with the choice of locating in Beresfield (NBN 3yr announced), Cardiff (NBN 3yr announced), Charlestown (NBN 3yr announced), Thornton (NBN 3yr announced), decide to locate in Tomago without NBN forecast and hardly any sewerage, Heatherbrae without NBN forecast, or more dramatically, the Williamtown Aerospace Centre which is also not covered in the near NBN forecast. For any business that considers broadband an equal utility as electricity, water, or gas, would have to seriously think twice about such a decision.

Unlike other Government promises and programs, Newcastle, Maitland, & some of Lake Macquarie does have something to look forward to, something that can be considered in forward planning and something that does comparatively lift the value of commercial investment in these areas as opposed to Cessnock and Port Stephens who will, in comparison, seem a generation behind in the digital economy. When it will happen for the areas announced? only NBNCo knows, I feel it is soon, I am hopeful and excited, it means that Newcastle was not overlooked, or taken for granted. Now it is time for the business community and the community at large to show how it can take advantage of it. To forward a regional prosperity in a new age for a digital, connected Newcastle and the Hunter.

The rise of consumer-generated content facilitated by social media tools and feedback mechanisms has, and continues to, change the competitive landscape for small business. This landscape is now one where customers have become far more powerful. Coupled with this are environmental factors such as the economy, technological advances, and legal and social change which have become more volatile and unpredictable in their rate and direction of change.

Businesses need to be looking at the agility, their ability to respond quickly to challenges and opportunities that arise from this new dynamic environment. The pace of change, the louder, more frequent, and more numerous consumer voices, and the increase in uncertainty in the business environment means that business will be under the pump if they want to keep ahead of their competition. Staying in front today means producing more products (in quantity & diversity), with fewer resources and in less time to meet new or increased demand.

A Business Environment Impact Model is useful in demonstrating how the business environmental stimuli contributes to the impacts on the business in the form of pressures, problems, and opportunities. Together with the business missions, goals, strategies, and plans, the business environment impacts are dealt with using existing processes with core competencies via determined response activities. These response activities take the form of problem solving, risk assessment, managing constraints, and gearing the team to take advantage of opportunities.

An agile business that is able to mobilise their core competencies in response to particular impacts, is one that can produce measurable improvements in performance, solutions to problems toward a goal of competitive advantage. Learning from the experience will provide data that can be fed into the business mission, goals, and strategies, closing the loop.

The foundation of this capability, as seen in the above model, is eBusiness & IT infrastructure. The effective use of a mix of softwares and devices is required to effectively manage the maelstrom of stimuli and business objectives. The digital age is bringing to business a larger range of tools and technologies, and at a much lower cost than ever before.

The business that can utilise cloud based storage and eBusiness applications, increase the ability of their staff to operate from remote and mobile locations, and that can leverage media that enables direct conversations with the consumers, suppliers, competitors and peers, is one that is best positioned to respond quickly to business environmental impacts. The more agile the business the faster it can turn a pressure into an opportunity, and carve a clear path through the jungle to competitive advantage.

It is a good idea to invest in some assistance with eBusiness strategy and management, HyperWeb Communications is available to work with business through the steps of improving your eBusiness and IT infrastructure. Managing Director, Brendan Brooks, has a Master of Business & Technology and 11 years experience in the small to medium enterprise sector and can apply the knowledge and experience gained in the eBusiness sphere to help your business navigate the digital landscape and plot the most effective path for your business to achieve its goals.

Also posted on the HyperWeb Communications website - Click here

This is the year when small to medium enterprise finally realise that they need to take advantage of digital tools and platforms to increase their market reach and improve operational efficiencies. The media and business literature are now full talk about the tools: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, FourSquare, Dropbox, Google+, QR Codes, not to mention the generic categories of apps, social media, the cloud, and more. With all these tools at our fingertips and on our mobile devices, more than ever business need to plan what is the best tools for them and how they will use them.

Business also need to think about the delivery of content. This is an information age, and businesses need to position themselves as custodians and sharers of information around their field of expertise. Blogging will have to come in to play for every business, as part of what they do. Not only will businesses be focussed on producing widgets, they should also be active in producing and delivering content as both a service to their customers, and a service to themselves.

A Digital Strategy is required to manage the tools, their use and intentions so that it becomes integrated into the being of the business. Smart businesses are already aware of this and have been planning their eBusiness strategy each year, but the time has come when all businesses need to use a suite of digital tools to manage and market their business. One way of approaching developing a digital strategy for your business is to treat it as AGAME. AGAME is an acronym that I have come with for the following steps: Awareness, Goals, Action, Monitor, Evaluate.

Awareness requires an external and an internal view of the business. Have a fresh think about what you do, who is your team, what are your processes & systems, who are your customers, how do you communicate with your team and with your suppliers and customers. External awareness takes into account what is available to assist your business. These are being aware of the tools and techniques that are available that can improve your business. The may also be some major cost savings and improvements possible in finding out what’s new in terms of the tools of trade already in use for the production of your goods and services.

The Goal of your digital strategy should not be different from the goals of your business. a digital strategy will enhance your ability to achieve your business goals, business goals should not shift in regard to focus in response to integrating more digital tools into the business. Your business goal is likely to be something along the lines of either selling more or growing to increase your capacity to sell more. This stage of a digital strategy is not to develop a new goal but it is to look at your current goals and think about how the awareness in the previous step can lead to designing improvements in your business.

An Action Plan is the next step. You will have decided what to use, now plan to implement the tools of choice. The choices will have been made based on awareness and your business goals, so the chances of going wrong are now more slim. What can go wrong? If the tool takes too much time or doesn’t embed into your system. An action plan can be categorised into the following categories: customers, workflow, intelligence, people, and positioning.

• Customers: how do you get more? Marketing reach, implement the use of some social media tools to reach existing and new customers, better service to existing customers, encourage positive word of mouth, participate in the conversation already happening around your product or service.
• Workflow: how can we improve? what project management tools, time sheeting, rostering, data storage, backup, disaster recovery, business continuity plans, need to be put into place to improve workflow efficiencies.
• Intelligence: what data is available on the performance of the business. Google Analytics, productivity metrics.
• People: communication tools, social networking, HRware, voice & data accounts
• Positioning: content creation, blogging, SEO, sharing and networking.

Decide what tools and techniques fit into these areas and write an action plan detailing what you will implement, when and how. Seek advice about what tools integrate with others to further improve your system, e.g., your website should contain a blogging capability linked to social media channels for auto-posting of content.

Monitoring is very important. Tools should be used to achieve an efficiency, not to use for the tool’s sake. If it isn’t working, and you have given it enough time, stop or review your use. Time is also noteworthy though, some implementation and embedding can take a few years of continued use to pay off.

Evaluate the strategy and record improvements in your business, look again at your system and begin the process again by making AGAME of it.

It is a good idea to invest in some assistance with a digital strategy, HyperWeb Communications is available to work with business through the steps of developing a digital strategy. Managing Director, Brendan Brooks, has a Master of Business & Technology and 11 years experience in the small to medium enterprise sector and can apply the knowledge and experience gained in the eBusiness sphere to help your business navigate the digital landscape and plot the most effective path for your business to achieve its goals.

Also posted on the HyperWeb Communications website - Click here