Very few marketing executives have the depth of experience of Julie Roehm in the area of digital transformations. In fact, she thrives on taking the big risks that other executives avoid like the plague.
“I like broken toys,” she said in a recent interview. “I’m a transformation turnaround, sub-optimization sort of girl. That’s just where I thrive.”
Roehm graduated from the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business (now known as Booth) in the early stages of the internet, and she’s spent most of her career developing and implementing digital-first strategies for brands like Ford, Chrysler, SAP, and Party City.
On a recent episode of Ben Thompson’s Strategy for Breakfast podcast, Roehm opened up about the challenges of implementing digital strategies and how to recognize when a transformative shift is likely to succeed.
Recognizing Fertile Ground for a Transformation
Most executives agree that digital-first strategies are essential to growth in today’s business world. But there’s a reason why more than 10% of companies have yet to adopt one.
“If a company is booking along and having record profits and there’s seemingly nothing but blue skies ahead, it’s really hard to make a transformation work because there’s no momentum,” Julie Roehm said. “The company has to be feeling some level of pain.”
Unfortunately, this means that many companies implement digital strategies too late. One example is Walmart. The major retailer resisted going digital until the 2010s due to its dominance in the market. But if the brand had shifted earlier, it may have been able to counter the rise of its digital-first competitor Amazon.
Walmart didn’t decide to act until it felt pain—a fear of stagnation, lost revenues, and lost relevance in a digital world. According to Roehm, even if a company should implement a transformation, it likely will not work without the impetus provided by pain.
Unified Leadership around Transformative Goals
Executing a digital transformation might seem like a job for the CIO and IT department, but according to Roehm, it’s much bigger than that. A digital shift affects the way an entire company operates internally and with its customers, and for that reason, everyone in a leadership position must be on board with the changes. This includes C-suite positions, senior management, and even lower-level managers like individual store managers.
“You’ve got to have a lot of fortitude, and that means the team, especially the executive team, has to be in lockstep,” Roehm said. “They have to be aligned because the best-laid plans are bound to be disrupted…and you’ve got to be able to adapt.”
This can be seriously challenging, as not everyone may be feeling the same level of pain within the organization. Some managers may be averse to digital changes for other reasons, such as a lack of tech savviness.
When inevitable disruptions to the plan occur (such as a pandemic), divisions within leadership can cause a transformative plan to fracture and fall apart. If the executive team is aligned around a common goal, they’ll be more likely to pivot together and stay the course.
Constant Communication is Key
According to Julie Roehm, communication may be the most important part of achieving a digital strategy shift. Transformations take years to execute at large organizations. Even if managers and employees are in lockstep at the start, poor communication can cause a transformation to unravel quickly.
“Constant communication—I would say over-communication—is how you perform a successful transformation,” Roehm said. She recommends communicating about “wins, losses, and adjustments as well as lifting up the organization and making sure [employees] understand the reasons for what is happening.”
Executives must have a constant and clear understanding of the progress of their departments. And they must be open to communicating about their successes and failures with other executives—something that many are reluctant to do, in Roehm’s experience.
Poor communication can fracture the unity of management and cause employees to feel alienated and lost. This, in turn, leads to a loss in productivity and higher turnover. High turnover, according to Roehm, is one of the biggest risks to a company in the midst of a transformation.
Digital Transformation is Challenging—But Essential
Julie Roehm has served in executive roles at some of the world’s most prestigious organizations. Throughout her career, she’s orchestrated numerous digital transformations. Regardless of the industry, one thing has become clear: moving to digital might be painful, but it’s essential for the survival of modern companies.
“I’ve been doing this for over 25 years, I probably have executed about half a dozen transformations,” she said. “I would say that we were moving in a digital direction in every instance.”
Roehm’s transformational career is still in full swing. She’s currently consulting as she seeks new opportunities at firms that she considers in need of a digital overhaul.
To hear more from Roehm on digital, professional, and personal transformations, tune into her podcast, The Conversational, or find her at julieroehm.com. Award-Winning Marketer Julie Roehm Shares What it Takes to Execute a Digital Transformation
