How Do You Bridge The Digital Divide Within Organisations?

The Divide

 
Where should digital and social sit within an organisation? It’s a question I’ve seen asked a lot over the past five years. There is a strong argument for marketing, IT, PR or even HR? Some say that it shouldn’t sit in any one team and should touch every part of the organisation.

The Hybrid Approach

 
My personal opinion is a hybrid approach, where digital and social sits should be dependent on what the organisations outcomes are coupled with leveraging the expertise of the digital team. This is on top of the digital role or team having access to all parts of the business which I think is crucial for the success of the strategy.
One of the strategies that I implemented was before sitting down with each head of department I would aim to identify what was the biggest risk and opportunity that digital created for that person and their team. This provided me the chance to give some insight and learnings to each of the departments whilst also providing them the opportunity to work on a digital project in collaboration with me.
What I’ll be talking about at ATC15 will be how I bridged the potential digital divide organisations can find themselves in during my time with Ramsay Health Care. I was tasked with setting up digital and social for the organisation initially and have since grown the role as their Global Digital Strategy Manager. I’ll also share some learnings as well as success stories from my time sitting between the HR and Marketing teams. I hope you will join me.