What Is a Digital Strategy? A Level Business
Learn what a digital strategy means in A Level Business, how it supports wider business objectives, and why it involves more than social media or a website.
A digital strategy is a business’s long-term plan for using digital technology to achieve its objectives. It identifies what the business wants to achieve, which digital tools and channels will help, and how it will judge whether they are working.
How it works
A digital strategy might cover an online shop, social media, customer data, digital advertising or software that improves operations. The choices should fit the business’s wider strategy. For example, a business aiming to grow sales may invest in online ordering to reach more customers. One aiming to reduce costs may use software to manage stock more efficiently.
The business also needs to consider the resources required, such as money, staff skills and time. Digital tools can create opportunities, but they may bring costs or risks, including cybersecurity concerns. A strategy therefore involves making choices about where to invest, not simply adopting every available technology.
Managers should choose measures that match the objective. For sales growth, they could track online orders; for lower costs, they could check whether stock waste falls. Comparing results with the original target helps them decide whether to continue, adjust or stop an activity. This makes the strategy more useful than a vague intention to adopt new technology.
Example
Suppose a clothing retailer wants to increase sales beyond its local area. Its digital strategy could include launching an online shop, promoting products through targeted digital advertising and using sales data to identify popular items. The retailer could then compare online sales with its target to assess progress. The website, advertising and data all serve the same business objective.
Common mistake: Do not describe a digital strategy as just ‘using social media’ or ‘having a website’. Those may be parts of it, but the strategy is the coordinated plan linking digital activity to business objectives and deciding how success will be measured.
