Balancing digital opportunities and risks for a materials handling corporation

Challenge

Over the last several years, headquarters had worked diligently improve the corporate online presence and initiate some digital policy compliance.

However, the company wanted more compliance from its dealerships, which were often thinly staffed with an uneven level of digital expertise. The whole corporation, but particularly the dealerships, needed a realistic approach to digital policy that fit their resources and capabilities.

I partnered with the organization to get a clear view of their digital policy practices and any gaps in them, as well as to establish stewardship roles and authoring responsibilities.

Approach

In a two-week agile sprint, I worked with the marketing team, legal counsel, and distributor reps to find gaps in the existing policies and determine who should be accountable for policy governance. We collaborated closely to make sure polices would be actionable and support operations, not hinder them.

With limited resources and digital expertise at the franchises, I identified, prioritized, and socialized regulatory and legal requirements for the corporation’s North American online operations. I introduced industry best practices, weighing them against the organization’s capabilities and aligning them with long-term web development efforts. And, I explored ways that policies could be supported centrally to reduce the workload for dealerships.

Outcomes

With a framework that balanced opportunities and risks, everyone impacted by the new policies began to see them not as imposed requirements, but competitive advantages.The dealerships agreed to adopt and comply with up to three new policies each year. But, they also had the freedom to customize approved, fully-complaint content developed by headquarters around their local goals.