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Digital Guidance for Manufacturers, Brand Names & Retailers

Digitaler Beirat

In order to survive the digital shift, businesses are increasingly drawing on the efficient – and sometimes unconventional – expertise of external experts. These businesses establish digital advisory boards and found start-ups to challenge their own business models.

“Many of Germany’s businesses are lacking in digital expertise,” claims leading German-language business magazine WirtschaftsWoche. In a world that is changing so quickly and fundamentally, this can cause even the most established of businesses to suffer strategic crises and end up in danger from strategic threats. Whether tourism companies, medium-sized automotive suppliers or the independent retailer round the corner: those who fail to digitalize are risking their survival! “By 2017, hesitation to adjust to the digital era will have cost a quarter of businesses their ability to compete,” predicts technology research firm Gartner.  In a similar vein, the IfH Köln (Cologne Institute for Commercial Research) warns that, “Up to 70% of commercial business models will be under threat by 2020 if they have failed to undertake a digital transformation or have transformed themselves to an insufficient degree.”

Some businesses have recognized this issue early and established digital advisory committees – with great success!

At the beginning of 2013, Thomas Cook was the first of Great Britain’s major listed companies to establish a digital advisory board. Its task: to deliver new ideas, new perspectives and digital expertise to the much-maligned travel firm. The CEO at the time, Harriet Green, prescribed a ruthless economy drive and a forceful push towards digitalization. German electric utilities company RWE followed suit by establishing a digital advisory board in April 2014.

»Digital advisory boards afford companies access to world-class information!«

FOSTEC Commerce Consultants can staff your digital advisory board with e-commerce experts, start-up entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and big data experts. Get in touch with us for further information!

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