Building a digital (smart) factory

The industrial revolution marked the automation of manufacturing—Ford began pumping out Model Ts on assembly lines and steam engines powered looms and locomotives to allow for rapid commerce and transportation.

Now, many are speculating that we’re in the midst of a fourth industrial revolution, powered by emerging technologies. As a result, modern companies are turning into digital factories: they’re creating hundreds—if not thousands—of digital assets, websites, apps, commerce transactions and Internet of Things (IoT) integrations, similar to how a traditional factory builds products on an assembly line.

But they’re up against an entirely new set of challenges. When Ford produced Model Ts, the assembly line solved the problem of the moment: manufacturing at scale. Today, companies are yearning for production of digital properties rather than physical products; with each digital “good” facing an ever-changing obstacle course of branding and compliance requirements.

Today’s digital era calls for a modern assembly line, one that’s tasked with not just production, but the management of digital properties spanning departments, countries and categories. In order to become a high-functioning digital factory with efficient multi-site management, organizations must overcome three major roadblocks: security, data isolation, and, of course, cost.

Security Vulnerabilities Hiding in Digital Factories

It’s never been more important to ensure the compliance and security of all your organization’s digital properties. What many people don’t realize is that the properties that you may have neglected (perhaps related to old campaign or an obsolete product) are lurking threats, that can leave you exposed to security breaches.

Massive enterprises manage thousands of these properties every single day, and it’s easy to let low priority items slip to the bottom of the totem pole. But whether it’s a website, app, chatbot or IoT integration, all digital properties need to be updated to keep hackers from getting through the cracks. Maintaining these properties across devices, each with its own unique security parameters and access to sensitive user data, is a massive undertaking.

Each added device or channel adds a unique layer of risk. With every password created or thumbprint scanned, your users’ digital footprint expands and becomes more difficult to manage. Companies need to invest in technologies and processes that make managing these security risks seamless, and minimize the number of out-of-date properties that leave the organization and its customers unguarded against threats.

Silos, silos and more silos - how do we break the perpetual trap?

For massive enterprises, the management of thousands of digital properties across dozens of channels and devices gives you access to mounds of customer data. However, if the data collected in disparate touchpoints is not integrated and shared across departments, each team has only one piece of the puzzle.

For example, when a marketing team collects campaign data from customers and prospects, it builds profiles based on consumer behavior. If those profiles are shared with other parts of the business, it can help create personalized recommendations across product websites, apps or connected devices, and in different languages or across regions.

With information-sharing embedded in the fabric of your business, rolling out personalized digital experiences across an entire company becomes effortless. Finding the right technology to make this a reality will bring companies one step closer to managing the growing digital burden hitting enterprises today.

Inefficient Digital Management and its compounding costs

He who understands it - earns it, he who doesn't - pays it! - Einstein

Not only is the mismanagement of digital assets posing security threats and masking opportunities for shared information, but it’s hitting companies where it hurts: their budgets. And what’s more, many don’t even realize it. This mismanagement is a passive time and money suck that’s lurking, and over time costing organizations big.

A company’s network of digital properties is like a web of pipes that runs through your house. If there’s a leak, you might not know about it. The water bill keeps racking up charges, and you’ll assume that the problem isn’t the pipes, but there’s just more water being used. The same issue comes alive in multi-site digital management—you rarely assume the infrastructure is the problem, you assume the user traffic or the number of digital properties is what’s demanding more resources.

Not only is it difficult to spot costly inefficiencies in a sea of thousands of digital properties, but in massive organizations there are so many teams working on different aspects of digital that it’s difficult to keep organized. Often times, because there isn’t clarity on what different teams are doing, there’s duplication of work. And companies are losing money on their most valuable asset: time.

Sailing in unknown territory

Modern companies are faced with a greater challenge than any enterprise to-date. Keeping up with today’s consumers means launching personalized websites, innovative app features and integrations with connected devices—all without losing touch with your brand identity, security or your team’s sanity.

Success in this uncharted territory means leaning on available tech infrastructure to keep your own digital factory from crumbling down.