Digital Transformation in Marketing

The Guest

Shamir Duverseau is the Managing Director, Chief Strategist & Co-founder of Smart Panda Labs, a digital experience agency that helps B2C enterprise marketers navigate digital transformation to create the experiences their customer’s demand.

Shamir is responsible for business management, marketing, and strategic development. He has a passion for making minorities part of the business conversation and an interest in promoting diversity across his field.

He’s worked across several industries, from travel to entertainment to technology, with brands like Southwest Airlines, The Walt Disney Company, and NBC Universal and today he’s here to talk about digital transformation in marketing.

The Interview

Everyone in marketing and business hears about digital transformation often, but rarely is the definition clear. Having worked in digital transformation for years, Shamir agrees that definitions can be all over the map, but the impetus behind digital transformation has to come from one place; the customers.

“For me it’s about the fact that customers expect an experience, and ultimately digital transformation is about how you make that experience happen; across strategy, staff, and processes,” says Shamir.

“When it comes to digital transformation in regards to marketing, it comes down to the component of digital experience and communication. ‘How do I leverage technology to deliver experience?’ can be a challenge due to the disconnect between tech and strategy. Marketers end up buying into tools and ‘one-button’ approaches to achieve digital transformation, and that’s rarely, if ever, the answer.”

In regards to analytics, Shamir is of the mind that simply capturing data because you can doesn’t result in better results, but may lead to confusion, rather than clarity. “With data, it really comes down to deciding what is actionable,” says Shamir. 

“Delineating between what you can capture, versus what you should capture, is essential. The best way to achieve this is to pair metrics with conversations and data points from your customers. You have to take a step back from strategy and tactics and gather information directly from consumers to help build out the understanding of your direction and trajectory. Strategy is the overlap between customer desires and business desires; where those things meet is where strategy starts.”

The conversation then pivots from data to diversity, an issue close to Shamir’s heart. “Diversity is really about perspective,” explains Shamir. “Marketers are communicating with a diverse world and so if your team isn’t diverse enough, your messaging and efforts are never gonna align.”

For Shamir’s full take on diversity, advice on how digital transformation can be understood across an organization, and a few horror stories on digital transformation gone awry, listen to the full episode by clicking the links provided, and follow Shamir and his company on LinkedIn. 

The Links

Smart Panda Labs
Shamir on LinkedIn

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