“Agile marketing” and “digital transformation” have been in the marketing vocabulary for years. The COVID-19 pandemic brought these concepts to the forefront as marketers struggled to stay on top of rapidly changing information. How quickly a brand can scale digital solutions contributes greatly to its success in digital marketing. 

A recent study from Boston Consulting Group (BCG) found that companies with the most success in agile marketing and digital transformation had leaders with three common traits. These traits belonged to almost one-third of the digital leaders – companies that were able to generate substantial value from their digital efforts – identified by the study. The three traits are:

• C-suite alignment. BCG’s research found that almost three-fourths (72%) of digital leaders found consistent upper leadership collaboration to be essential and 82% said their company’s C-suite was in alignment on digital vision, investment and other necessary resources.
  
  Agility is the hallmark of success. Silos cannot be tolerated – there must coordination among all involved groups. It takes involvement of the entire C-suite to ensure this coordination.
• Providing essential capabilities. Taking advantage of first-party data from customers, both internal and external, enables digital leaders to gain the necessary insight to provide an agile working environment. The BCG study found that 90% of digital leaders use APIs and microservices to connect digital solutions to their tech stacks.
• Always-on mindset. Digital transformation is not a “one and done” proposition. It must be a constant factor in digital strategy. Successful digital leaders know that technology, markets and consumer behavior are continually evolving and changing, and they must be agile in their approach to their digital strategy.

Does the C-suite leadership at your organization embrace these characteristics?