Creating a unified digital ecosystem: 4 strategic approaches

Abby Fox

Creating a unified digital ecosystem: 4 strategic approaches

Bringing your digital properties into a seamless, cohesive digital ecosystem has many benefits—efficiencies of scale, enhanced customer experience, brand elevation, and value promotion, among others. But what does the path to get there look like?

The fact is, there’s more than one way forward, and you might even use a combination of approaches, depending on your individual business case. The right roadmap depends on your organization’s prioritization of several factors, including:

Improving customer experience
Connecting offerings (cross-sell/upsell abilities)
Simplifying processes and workflows
Reducing total cost of ownership
Stakeholder positioning

Once you have a clear understanding of why you’re embarking on this type of digital transformation project, what you want to get out of it, and the environment in which you’ll be working, you can determine the best path for your company.

Consolidation: A streamlined approach

This is the most straightforward approach: consolidating your websites onto a single digital platform, with all aspects (technology, data, experience, etc.) shared among them. It doesn’t require any additional steps or negotiation; you select one system to rule them all, bring all sites into the fold, and you’re done.

This ecosystem consolidation approach might be right for your organization if you have one large flagship site and want to merge several smaller sites or microsites into it. It’s likely to work best if the audiences, content, and offerings are similar and all stakeholders are fully onboard with the consolidation.

Unification without consolidation: Flexible paths to digital cohesion

If bringing everyone together under one roof isn’t a viable option, you can still achieve digital unification. What that looks like depends on your priorities, your business model, and your environment.

The idea behind unification without consolidation is to create simple pathways that allow users to seamlessly travel through your ecosystem, regardless of the underlying technologies involved. You can leave your sites on separate platforms while unifying them in various other ways.

Connectivity

Your websites share certain aspects that enable orchestrated experiences:

Cross-linked content that enables cross-selling and upselling
Federated search facilitated by a unified taxonomy
Content tagging systems for contextual relevance
Shared data and persona information to present personalized content

Hierarchy

Your customers are guided through a clear, recognizable information architecture:

Consistent navigation that provides a familiar structure no matter where the user is
Persistent placement and terminology that helps users find what they’re looking for
Umbrella feature or page that elevates and directs users to all your organization’s capabilities

Consistency

Drive synergies between your brands and create a seamless customer experience:

Library of components and templates to create similar interactions on different sites
One design system that serves as the source of truth for all your sites
Recognizable voice and tone with adaptations for specific audiences

The bottom line

If you’re looking to realize all the benefits of unifying your ecosystem but aren’t quite sure how to get started, Credera’s Experience Design team can help determine the right approach and the right plan. Schedule a call to learn how we can support your journey toward digital unification and enhanced customer experiences.