UNRVLD Digital Leaders Series (c) 2024 UNRVLDUNRVLD has just launched the Digital Leaders Series, a ten-week program of content that is free of charge to participants. It is designed to help business and digital leaders improve their organisation’s digital capabilities. The course is supplemented with surveys, and concludes with a workshop for a select list of participants.

Enterprise Times had the opportunity to discuss this unique initiative with Steven Cassin, UNRVLD’s Chief Strategy Officer and the course creator.

Steven Cassin, UNRVLD's Chief Strategy Officer
Steven Cassin, UNRVLD’s Chief Strategy Officer

Cassin has been with the leading digital experience and technology company for over ten years. This year, he moved to the role of Chief Strategy Officer. It allows him to drive the strategic vision and growth of its digital services.

He explained, “My focus is on creating high-value engagements that partner with customers, ensuring UNRVLD is fully equipped and prepared to continue as the leader in this space.”

UNRVLD has a long list of well-known brands as customers, including DYWIDAG, YPO, Liv Golf, and Smeg. The company has built strong partnerships with leading digital experience and eCommerce vendors, including Optimizely, Shopify and Sitecore. It now hopes to share some of the lessons it has learned over the years with Digital Leaders across the industry.

Why launch the Digital Leaders Series

I asked Cassin how this new series came about.

“We love the energy when a business leader comes with a really clear strategic vision for what they want to achieve. We can help them put a multidisciplinary team around that vision and look to execute that. That’s a real challenge for a lot of great people within organisations. Ones that don’t have a digital leader designated for that.

“We believe that this programme can help people in those roles. Over a 10-week period, they learn to create a framework for their digital strategy, create a new vision for that, and then explore what we believe to be the 10 key areas of focus that will allow them to execute that effectively. So that’s the idea around this. It’s to allow individuals and organisations to bootstrap and accelerate the digital strategy framework. They also get closer to executing an effective strategy.”

This is not a completely altruistic initiative. UNRVLD hopes to build a relationship during the process that may lead to an engagement. That engagement is not about building a new website, digital experience or app. Cassin states, “We believe that our best work is done when a clear vision and strategy is implemented, not building an experience or technology for the sake of it. A new website is probably the last thing most organisations need.”

UNRVLD helps organisations build and execute the wider digital strategy. A new website might be just an operational goal within that strategy.

What is the Digital Leaders Strategy Course

What does it contain?

“We’ve created a 10-week series. We believe these bite-sized chunks will build up to a valuable framework. They explore a range of different topics from that vision setting to understanding where we are today, envisioning where we need to be in 1,3,5 years, and everything in between. That’s the experience, the data strategy, metrics that matter.

“Then bringing people towards some of those more ambitious transformation programmes within a business to deliver experimentation programmes, marketing automation that delivers personalization and a great customer experience. All of the key components that we believe build up a solid digital strategy foundation.”

At the end of the course, Cassin intends to bring people together for an on-site. UNRVLD will run workshops and seminars led by UNRVLD staff with potential participation from vendors and other customers. The intent is to share experiences.

Cassin said that when this has been done before, peer groups recognised their shared challenges, and often, the starting points to solve these are similar. The interaction will better explain how UNRVLD can help form and execute their digital strategy as they identify what that is.

According to Cassin, with the first elements of the course already available, the take-up has been good. Business leaders can join at any time. Halfway through the course, there may be a virtual collaborative event that people can join. There are also self-assessments throughout the course.

Cassin revealed that these are “designed purely to encourage self-reflection and develop a better understanding of where their strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities lie.”

What is the commitment?

Most leaders will want to understand any cost associated with this course, the time commitment required and whether they have missed the start date.

Cassin explained, “You can join at any time. The articles will be listed publicly. The website will also be promoted through social channels. We fully expect that people will pick this up and run with it. Maybe catch up at any point during the summer.

“The content itself shouldn’t take too long to consume, 10-15 minutes and a similar time to run through the survey. I hope that will trigger a deeper thinking about that subject. Then, it’s up to that individual how relevant this topic is for them.

“This isn’t a huge investment in time. And it’s not an investment in finances, because it’s a free programme that we’re welcoming people to come on board with.”

UNRVLD is not looking to charge for the final workshop, but attendance may be curated. The workshop is being held just outside London, and Cassin expects most attendees to be from the UK, which is where the program focuses.

The Smeg experience

UNRVLD does not just implement technology for customers. Looking at the case studies produced and, most recently, a video co-created with Smeg, UNRVLD does much more than just deliver a technological implementation service.

Cassin explained, “It isn’t about us coming in and educating and delivering digital strategy. It’s about developing the collaborative frameworks that allow us to execute that and allow organisations to build the capability within and continue to execute.

How UNRVLD helps on the journey

How should organisations start on their digital experience journey?

“The most important place to start is in the clarity of vision, what great looks like, and how do we get there? Why are we doing what we do, for what benefit and what’s the outcome we’re trying to achieve?”

At this stage, UNRVLD becomes involved and seeks to understand what its contribution will look like. Once that is understood, the question of achieving these outcomes is answered.

Where do organisations struggle?

“Often, organisations know they need to deliver something better in a digital channel. They may seek to invest a certain budget on certain outputs. We’re very much focused on understanding the outcomes we’re trying to achieve so that we can drive the outputs.

“In terms of digital execution, there’s a lot of understanding about what organisations need to deliver in terms of customer experience because we’re all digital users. We all understand that personalised, highly immersive experiences are valuable.

“They also have to create value for the customers that are provided to them. What organisations are not as well equipped on is how do we mobilise teams to deliver, and then allow them the space and time to think and create experiences that will create their real value.”

The future, with AI

AI is covered later in this series, and it’s very top of mind for many business leaders at the moment. How will AI impact the digital experience over the next five years? It’s changing rapidly at the moment. Can you look further ahead?

Cassin replied, “It is quite possibly the most disruptive force in the industry for about 25 years. A lot of this tech has matured very quickly over the last year or two. Still, it’s been in use for a number of years with technology vendors for things like marketing automation or recommendation engines and eCommerce sites.

“It’s now going to become deeply ingrained in how we work. Whether it’s ChatGPT or having copilots incorporated within Microsoft Office. The tech vendors will continue to innovate and build all the capabilities around intelligence, efficiency, and more impactful work.

“The biggest change will be how people and organisations incorporate it into their day-to-day. How they learn to collaborate more effectively with the AI and the people around them. Those people will have the biggest success in driving value from AI. It will show up in the digital experiences being delivered.”

The next step for digital leaders

If I’m a business leader, what’s the next step that I should be taking on a digital journey besides starting the Digital Leader Series?

“It depends where you are in that lifecycle. Every business is at a different stage. Every individual within that business will look at the current situation and the opportunity that lies ahead through a different lens whether they come from a technology experience, a customer or marketing, within the business.

“That’s why I think it’s so important to build alignment, clarity and shared focus on the outcome first and then assess where we are in great depth.

“The second part of the Digital Leader Series is called Experience Your Experience. That will encourage people to do that. To step back and look at the experience that they’re providing for their customers through the customer’s eyes. Then look for areas of improvement, blind spots they weren’t aware of, and problems they can solve.

“The tendency is to throw everything out and build something new. I don’t think that’s necessarily the right answer in most cases. Continuous optimization is a key focus.”

The Book Question

What’s the latest book you read?

“I have a busy workload, a new job, a wife, and two teenage daughters, so most of my reading is done on audio these days. I did go on a beach holiday a couple of weeks ago and bought, Steven Bartlett’s The 33 Laws of Business and Life (Amazon Aus, UK, US).

“It’s a really usable book, you scan read it. As an entrepreneur, he’s done an awful lot in this space. But a lot of the principles that he sets out now are really, really interesting and applicable to business.”

Any concepts you would share?

“He has three different sections in that book. The first one is a lot of self-reflection, which I thought was good and ties into what I’m talking about here. One of the laws is “You must out-fail the competition”. In it, Steven discusses the importance of experimentation and how he has used a comprehensive test-and-learn method across all of his businesses – and his hugely popular podcasts – to drive performance. This aligns very much with our efforts to support data-driven experimentation at UNRVLD and with our clients. Certainly, a key consideration for any modern digital growth strategy.”

“Hopefully, this series is slightly different in terms of how we’re trying to engage with customers and trying to pay it forward, create some value, create a really positive conversation and not blend into the wallpaper that tends to be the digital agency space.”

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