The Reality Gap- Where We Think We Are With Digital, and Where We Really Are

About five years ago I was at a networking meeting. I was sat next to a fairly sharp chap and we were having a good conversation about business, the economy, sausages - the usual breakfast networking fare.

We get onto technology and the web, and the guy comes out with a question that surprised me: “So what is a ‘blog’?”

I nearly choked on my bacon. How could this smart, business-savvy chap not know what a blog was? In 2007?

What I know now is that far from being unusually backwards, this bloke represented the majority. Ten years after the term ‘blog’ had been coined, still the bulk of the UK population - certainly those in business - didn’t really know what it meant.

I have learned a few other things since too. Running a digital agency, I found out just how little web-savviness there was, even in large companies. I experienced major corporations running systems held together with digital duct-tape. Free, off-the-shelf plugins being thrust untested into mission-critical applications. And a whole raft of snake-oil salesman seizing on the opportunity to sell their wares to the unwary.

At the heart of many organisations I found that there were manual processes where you would expect automation. Creaking CRM systems many years past their useful lifespan. Unstructured, unmanaged arrays of campaign tools, websites, landing pages and social media accounts proliferating across the business.

**And I learned that this is not going to change. **

The reality is that the complexity and cost of properly restructuring the whole shebang is simply beyond the means of most marketing and IT departments. Securing the capital for a new CRM system/CMS/campaign platform on top of the headcount and campaign expenditure you simply can’t do without in order to hit the numbers, is just unrealistic.

All of this learning is taken into account in the way that we have designed and built CANDDi, and now in the way that we sell it.

CANDDi is an organic enhancement to what is usually a fairly organically grown network of sales and marketing campaign tools. It adds value to everything it touches, but doesn’t force companies into colossal and costly engineering exercises. It displaces little - if anything extending the life and value of existing investments.

You pay for CANDDi as you go and grow. There’s no big up front cost to swallow. No army of engineers required to make it work.

I’m sure there are companies out there with a perfectly ordered set of digital marketing systems. An immaculate CRM system packed with perfect data. No proliferation of tools, accounts and communications channels. And entirely automated processes. They probably have cash to spare and a board willing to spend it in great chunks.

For everybody else, there is CANDDi.