Omni- Channel Strategy is quite simple. Forget the highbrow and the organisational self-need to justify and turn something simple into something that appears to be more complex than it is.

# Stop talking about it.
# Stop meeting about it.
# Stop writing about it.
# “Start doing it”

Yes you need planning, yes you need road maps, yes you need project management. But all that is implementation stuff. Decide and resource first then the implementation team will do all that using input from functional teams.

Businesses need to execute on this one. It’s not rocket science. It first takes a commitment to resourcing with people who have implemented before together with funding to glue existing systems, people and processes together. The CEO needs to remove roadblocks and hammer home the importance of multi-functional “departmental” cooperation and then get out of the way to get the projects off the ground.

These are agile not waterfall projects.

Get them up, get them working, then let the committees get involved to fine tune and tweak. If the committees are involved too early then the projects don’t get off the ground, they don’t even make it to the runway as everyone is still milling around at the food bar in the airport lounge justifying their departments needs to keep silos intact.

I normally attempt to illustrate my thinking by curating articles from various sources and putting others’ learnings forward so that the thread of articles I regurgitate for my followers are in alignment with my thinking.

This opinion piece is a slight departure from the norm for me. The conversations I have had with corporates over the past 6 months on consulting projects to “play catchup” to competitors who have started or released their multichannel or omnichannel “strategies” have been VERY interesting.
The laggards think they need a “strategy”. The leaders know that in reality, Omni-channel is actually a series of interconnected projects involving different functions at different times driven by an a Leader with empathy, the ability to keep things simple, the ability drive organisational change where necessary whilst leading and developing a team of people focused on the objective rather than maintaining the status quo or being concerned about the future of their role in the organisation.
Digital or Omni-channel is not generally in need of a separate strategy, it’s role is be a part of the overall organisations strategy.
Get forward-thinking, experienced people involved early and just start the process.