For the first time in Asia, the great and the good of the Malaysian and APAC digital marketing community gathered in Kuala Lumpur recently for the inaugral Future Of Digital Marketing (FODM) Malaysia conference.
Attended by over 400 delegates, and organised in conjunction with the Association of Accredited Advertising Agents Malaysia and Multimedia Development Corp (MDeC), the event saw eight talks.
The talks echoed a key theme articulated by MDeC chief executive officer Datuk Badlisham Ghazali, that "the next wave of economic growth will come from the knowledge-based economy, with digital technology as a key driver of progress”.
Here are just some of the highlights from an excellent conference.
Digital technologies are having a transformational impact on the communications environment but whilst much analysis has been conducted into implications for client-side marketers, a relative paucity of research exists into how agencies are adapting their processes, offerings and capabilities.
Econsultancy's The Progression of Agency Value: Developing a Model for Agency Maturity in a Digital World report, conducted in partnership with Adobe, examines how agencies need to evolve across four key pillars of maturity: data, technology, skills and culture.
In new research conducted by Econsultancy, organisations identified a growing requirement for so-called 'T-shaped' people: staff who have a strong vertical digital skill, but are able to combine that with experience, understanding or empathy of other digital disciplines or traditional marketing practices.
Yet respondents to the research, conducted for the Digital Marketing: Organisational Structures and Resourcing Best Practice Guide, also noted that people with this type of experience are particularly hard to find.
In new research conducted by Econsultancy, one of the key barriers to growth was identified as finding staff with suitable digital skills.
For the Digital Marketing: Organisational Structures and Resourcing report, we also asked participants in the survey about
the specific skill areas that they perceived to be the most difficult to
Web analytics and data topped the list, followed by social
media, and content marketing, indicating that there is already a
potential skills shortage in these areas.
When respondents were asked
which digital marketing disciplines they anticipated would be the key
areas of growth in the coming year, the top answers were social media,
content marketing, and web analytics and data.
The fact that those areas
of predicted growth in resourcing were the same as those that are
already listed as being the most difficult to recruit for means one
thing: a looming talent time bomb.
I have a dislike for the word 'transition' when used in the context of describing the challenge of adapting organisational thinking, practice and output to be more aligned with the new networked, digital environment.
It suggests that there is a beginning, middle and end to the process of change that many organisations are undertaking right now. The reality, of course, is very different.
The requirement for businesses that play in the many markets that are being disrupted by new digital platforms and models is not just to innovate, but to continuously innovate. To adopt an approach to that is, I'd suggest, very different from that which is practiced in most organisations. Agile innovation.