Digital Innovation : Market Trend Assessment Answer

Introduction

The digital innovation market trend of Australia shows that there is a need to implement digital innovation strategies to survive and seek success in the present market scenario. It is important for AB Group to make proper decision regarding the implementation of digital technology in the operations of the company (Shaw, 2006). Currently, it can be seen that the company needs to make several serious changes in the digital innovation strategy. Along with that, the company does not have a lot of additional capital to invest on all recommended strategies.

This report has been developed to present the high priority technological changes that are required by AB Group to seek competitive advantage in the market.  The study will present the recommended technology adoption and integration that are required by the company on a priority basis and analyse the cost and benefits of the recommended strategies. Furthermore, the paper will present the requirement of structural changes and ways to build digital trust. Finally, the paper ends with recommendations that are required by the company to grow its market positioning using digital innovation.

Technology

Adoption and Integration

Adoption and integration of new digital innovation strategy leads to certain opportunities and challenges. It has been discussed in the earlier report that the company needs to re-design the website and implement digital marketing tactics (Mishra and Mukhopadhyay, 2014). Along with that, the company needs to employ new experts and train them to use the new technological changes. The adoption and integration process of the new digital innovation strategy has been discussed herein below:

E-commerce website: AB Group needs to re-design the website taking help of expert designers. Along with that, the company needs to invest more money on designing the new e-commerce website that will offer enhanced e-services (Phillips, 2010).

Digital Marketing: Digital marketing is the most essential need for the company to grow its business. The company will implement SEO, Webinars, Social Media Advertising, Direct Mail, Google AdWords and Telemarketing to increase its market reach (Sebastio, 2012). Furthermore, the company will shift from traditional marketing strategy to digital marketing strategy to seek higher number of customers.

Employ new experts: New experts and professionals will be employed capable of training the old staffs to use the new systems. Hence, the recurring cost of the company will increase due to addition of salary of the new expert professional.

Cost Benefit Analysis

The cost calculation for next three years to adopt and integrate the digital innovation strategy has been presented in the table given below

Digital Innovation Budget
Particulars	2017	2018	2019
New Recruitment and Training
Salaries	$30,000	$30,000	$30,000
Training	$5,000	$5,000	$5,000
STAFF SUBTOTAL	$35,000	$35,000	$35,000
WEBSITE
Hosting	$2,000	$2,000	$2,000
Design/Development	$15,000	$12,000	$10,000
Newsletter Distribution	$2,000	$1,000	$1,000
Search Engine Submission	$2,000	$1,000	$1,000
WEBSITE SUBTOTAL	$21,000	$16,000	$14,000
PROMOTIONS
Social media advertising	$30,000	$30,000	$30,000
Direct Mail (print and email)	$1,000	$1,000	$1,000
Webinar	$5,000	$5,000	$5,000
Telemarketing	$10,000	$10,000	$10,000
Google AdWords	$10,000	$10,000	$10,000
PROMOTIONS SUBTOTAL	$56,000	$56,000	$56,000
TOTAL	$112,000	$107,000	$105,000

It has been estimated that the company will spend around $21,000 in the first year on website re-designing. The re-design expenses will reduce in the coming two years. The company needs to spend around $35,000 to employ new experts and train the current workforce. In order to implement the digital marketing strategy, it has been estimated that the company will spend around $56,000 every year. A projected revenue and profit statement for the next three years have been presented herein below to show the benefits of the digital innovation.

Projected Revenue and profit
Particulars	2017	2018	2019
Revenue	$    500,000	$    600,000	$    720,000
Cost of Goods Sold	$     50,000	$     60,000	$      72,000
Gross Profit	$    450,000	$    540,000	$    648,000
Administrative expenses	$    100,000	$    120,000	$    144,000
E-marketing expenses	$     56,000	$     56,000	$      56,000
Other Expenses for digital Innovation	$     56,000	$     51,000	$      49,000
Total expenses	$    156,000	$    176,000	$    200,000
Net Profit	$    294,000	$    364,000	$    448,000

It has been estimated that the revenue will grow by 20 percent year with the help of the digital innovation. Hence, it is the primary benefit of implementing the digital innovation strategy (Maniam, 2012). The key performance indicators to analyse the efficiency and effectiveness of the new digital innovation plan has been presented below:

Growth of revenue: A 20 percent growth of revenue every year is the key performance indicator to judge the efficiency and effectiveness of the digital innovation plan.

Increase in market reach: With the help of digital innovation, the company will start getting orders from new markets that were out of reach of the company with the previous marketing plan.

Growth in market share: The Company will seek a growth in market share by 10 percent in the first year.

Organisational Structure

Structure

The organisational structure of AB Group must be altered based on the digital trust framework of the corporation. By focusing on the trust dynamics of the digital platform, the organisation must include suppliers, joint ventures, service providers, stakeholders and regulatory support system to underpin the technology-driven transformation. Latest trust dynamics of the organisation must be promoted within the organisational structure to create value proposition as well. Meanwhile, for better innovation opportunities at digital platform trust relationship must be build up with the online customers through different possible ways. In management operations, technical assistance will be highly prioritised to promote social media interactions, digital identity, hyper-connectivity, and digital communication techniques (Phillips, 2010). Such sufficient alteration in the management can help in data sharing in a more secure process.

The social media interactions will be productive to understand the latest trend among the customers related to digital technology. By engaging with the customers, the issues with latest cyber security threats can be informed to the target customers so that they can be secured (Wang et al., 2011). Furthermore, significant training and development programme must be arranged within the operational management to train the employees (Hatzakis, 2009). In this way, organisational subordinates can deliver products and services following digital trust framework of AB Group. Also, the data protection legislations and other issues of digital concepts must be verified to stay ahead of the market competitors.

Figure: Organisational Structure

Source: (Dugdale and Lyne, 2010)

Digital Trust

In the dynamic business platform, the digital trust will be identified as one of the instrumental resources for e-commerce business. By managing risks and building trust within the digital platform, AB Group can underpin the digital agenda of the central business process to impress the online customers (Capra, 2011). Meanwhile, in order to build digital trust among the target demographics, five primary areas of concerns must be promoted. First of all, the system security must protect data o the customers to reduce online privacy issues. Proactive digital security can drive convincingly bring more online customers to the corporate website (Mishra and Mukhopadhyay, 2014). Secondly, AB Group must identify the integrity of the data provided on the website to reveal the business concepts to the customers. Such methods can impress the customers as well (Burton, 2008). Furthermore, the organisation must show confidence in their system so that right controls can be ensured. In this way, online customers can use online payment gateway without any concerns about cyber fraud. Fourthly, by taking controllable risks, the digital e-commerce platform of AB Group must be maintained so that no major breakdown can be taken place (AlFahl, 2016). Lastly, effective digital transformation programme must be delivered to simplify the digital platform to the customers. Adequate accessibility of the digital platform can bring new users to the sites. Meanwhile, the digital framework of AB Group must identify the IT risks and resilience to protect the market opportunities (Fischer-Hübner, Katsikas and Quirchmayr, 2012). Herein, the digital trust framework has been recommended as the underlying figure.

Figure: Digital Trust Framework

Source: (Brownstein et al., 2016)

Recommendations

The recommendations to implement the digital innovations are presented herein below:

• AB Group needs good Website Development Company capable of re-designing an attractive website within the decided budget.
• There is a need to employ new experts capable of carrying on digital marketing activities (Lee, 2010).
• Proper training must be provided to current staffs of the company to increase their knowledge and skills to use digital marketing tactics.
• There is a need of enough funding at the beginning to implement the digital innovations.

Conclusion

Understandably, the Digital Trust Framework of AB Group must work accordingly to create uniformity in the dynamic digital market. The market competitors of AB Group has utilised advanced technology to protect the online security of their customers building digital trust among the target demographics. Hence, the adequate distance must be covered by the organisation to impress the current set of purchasers in the targeted segment. By following the mega trends in digital trust framework, AB Group can effectively manage their online customers. Meanwhile, the knowledge of latest technological innovation must be identified by the team members of the management section of AB Group to influence the purchasing behaviour of the customers. Also, the recommended fundamental changes in the management may see the proactive impact on the business environment sooner than later. Conclusively, the organisation has fallen behind the competitors in digital innovation. Hence, the alteration can deliver real effects to the current business scenario.

References

AlFahl, H. (2016). Mobile Commerce Adoption. International Journal of Innovation in the Digital Economy, 7(3), pp.26-52.

Brownstein, D., Dolev, S., Gilboa, N. and Hermoni, O. (2016). Digital arbitration for trusted communication. Journal of Trust Management, 3(1).

Burton, P. (2008). Information technology and organisational structure. AP, 40(3), pp.57-68.

Capra, G. (2011). Trading tools and tactics. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons.

Dugdale, D. and Lyne, S. (2010). Budgeting practice and organisational structure. Oxford: CIMA Pub.

Fischer-Hübner, S., Katsikas, S. and Quirchmayr, G. (2012). Trust, privacy and security in digital business. Heidelberg: Springer.

Hatzakis, T. (2009). Towards a Framework of Trust Attribution Styles. British Journal of Management, 20(4), pp.448-460.

Lee, Y. (2010). Identification of Technology transfer options based on technological characteristics.Asian Journal of Technology Innovation, 18(1), pp.1-21.

Maniam, B. (2012). E-Commerce Best Practices: How to Achieve an Environment of Trust and Security. International Journal of Innovation, Management and Technology, 3(4).

Mishra, D. and Mukhopadhyay, S. (2014). A privacy enabling content distribution framework for digital rights management. International Journal of Trust Management in Computing and Communications, 2(1), p.22.

Phillips, L. (2010). Organisational structure and decision technology. Acta Psychologica, 45(1-3), pp.247-264.

Sebastio, A. (2012). E-commerce – digital divide and digital native generation protection. IJIL, 11(4), p.436.

Shaw, M. (2006). E-commerce and the digital economy. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.

Wang, W., Zeng, G., Zhang, J. and Tang, D. (2011). Dynamic trust evaluation and scheduling framework for cloud computing. Security and Communication Networks, 5(3), pp.311-318.