KPIs Not APIs

Among the issues we cover in the Digital Strategy Sessions I run are the changing roles and responsibilities required to meet the new demands of digital and networked media. These can be some of the thorniest challenges involving the nitty-gritty of who is going to be responsible for what, and crucially, what level of investment will be required for new functions. We look at how to approach this tricky area using planning frameworks that focus on bringing digital marketing in line with traditional business planning. This means moving beyond the view of digital marketing as a box-ticking exercise - or specialist technical silo - and understanding how different techniques genuinely contribute to the business and its bottom-line. It’s an exercise that often raises as many questions as answers but is helpful in moving executives teams away from shiny technology and the latest gizmos. The shorthand I use for this, ‘KPIs Not APIs’. While APIs, or application programming interfaces to give them their proper title, are a core aspect of the modern web’s plumbing, unless they have context within a company’s business plan they are fairly meaningless. Only when that context is shared and understood in an organisation through a planning framework - that can be returned to and improved - can roles and responsibilities be clarified.