The Top Digital Business Skills to Acquire in 2021
This year has caused a huge and unprecedented shift in the landscape for businesses and business leaders. With most employees working remotely for the majority of the year, digital skills became imperative for companies to survive in a struggling economy.
The use of trendy automation tools like ASA automation, voice-activated automation, hyper-automation, robotics, and AI have become less of a “trend” and more like must-have tools in the workplace. These technologies have resulted in a new set of digital business skills required for leaders to see success.
Being a great leader in the workplace has always been an acquired skill itself; however, with the digital marketplace overtaking businesses, being an effective leader now requires an updated and unconventional skillset to manage teams, remote work, digital marketing, and software development.
Investing in and promoting digital leadership within the workforce can breed success for the industry, organization, and team as a whole. We’ve compiled a list of five skills that we feel are the most important for business leaders to acquire in the upcoming year.
Be innovative — think outside the box and be ready to adapt to change
If 2020 has taught us anything, it’s to not get too comfortable and always remain flexible in your mentality, direction, and planning strategies. Software and digital technologies are continually advancing and offering new services to simplify our business processes. Trends are ever-changing, information is being absorbed and turned over more rapidly, and competition is fiercer than ever.
A successful business leader must remain innovative in their approach to business planning, execution, and trends. Being a thought leader in your industry is more critical now than ever before. The competition can quickly get ten steps ahead just by being a little bit more forward-thinking.
How do you stay innovative? Never stop learning and don’t avoid calculated risks.
Read everything you can, from different perspectives, about your industry. Get a hold of the latest research, and don’t shy away from learning new skills. Education is key to developing new ideas and strategies that breed success.
One of the most significant mistakes a leader can make in today’s business landscape is to avoid risks or seek comfort. There’s value in breaking the mold and using discomfort as a marketing strategy — as long as your risks are calculated (and you have a back-up plan if they don’t pan out). Taking risks will help you stand out as a leader in the market and stay one step ahead of your competition.
Adopt agile practices
Agile practices are taking over the workplace for one good reason: they create more efficient teams than many other forms of project management.
“Agile practices” refer to a type of project management strategy done in small intervals or sprints. Each sprint uses the previous sprint and an adaptable mentality to make changes for future processes.
Agile practices work best in a smaller team structure (but can be adopted for larger teams as well) that values customer-based feedback and focuses heavily on human connection and interaction. This project management strategy consists of four values:
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Individuals and interaction over processes and tools
Responding to change over following a plan
Where automation is becoming more acceptable in the workplace, agile leadership practices bring humanity back into the staff/customer interaction. It allows businesses to pivot appropriately and to better serve their customer base and build rapport with existing and new clients. Becoming agile allows for a more efficient and productive work environment.
Become an expert communicator
Effective communication skills are more vital than ever before.
With sales, and interactions with employees and customers, now taking place almost entirely online, customers are craving a human connection.
Business leaders have to find ways to digitally communicate openly with their target demographic and build a healthy rapport with their audience and employees. Without healthy communication, a company will likely falter.
Where business leaders may have been able to take a step back from communication previously, the digital age has required leaders to step into the spotlight, addressing timely issues and being the face and voice of their brand. This interaction is necessary to build sales, teams, and strengthen the brand voice.
To be a successful business leader, you must be comfortable communicating with your staff, team, and customers to create a secure and safe environment for all of the supporters of your brand. This empowers the business both internally and externally, which drives success.
Communication skills are especially important when managing remote and distributed teams. With COVID-19 demanding that more people work remotely, you need to be able to effectively communicate with every member of your team to ensure that no one feels left behind or unnoticed.
Increase your digital literacy
Leaders are now required to understand not only their business, but also content marketing platforms, social media, different software, internet tools, and online trends in order to even begin to develop a successful business plan.
Though this may seem overwhelming or intimidating, the good news is that there are countless online courses and resources that can teach you everything you need to know. We recommend investing time and money into high-level courses that will teach you how to be comfortable behind the computer.
Make sure to do regular research on different software that is used in your industry, and stay up-to-date on trends that your company may want to follow. Remaining digitally literate will help with your professional development and will make you fiercer competition.
It’s important to note that online tools, apps, and trends are constantly changing. This is a work in progress! Stay diligent in reading about up-and-coming trends and statistics. It’s important to understand future digital trends and cultural trends that are digitally relevant to your business.
Use directional planning
Directional planning is a way to create a strategy for your company that is flexible and general. This is ideal in dynamic environments where flexibility is required in order to respond to unexpected changes. If there is one thing that 2020 has taught us, it’s the need to be flexible.
This planning style involves identifying and communicating your mission, vision, and brand story, both internally and externally. While the way you do business may shift throughout the year, these concepts will not, and in order to build trust with your audience, you need to convey the things that they can trust to remain the same.
As a successful business leader in 2021, you’ll never want to lose sight of what the story behind the brand is. That will be the ticket to separating your brand from your competitors.
Conclusion
Well there is no doubt that 2021 will continue to bring unexpected changes to the business world, one this is for sure — learning these skills will allow you to make better decisions, become a more well-rounded leader, and be ready to adapt to anything that comes your way!
About the Author
Celina Dawdy is a freelance writer in Edmonton, Alberta. When she isn’t writing, she’s volunteering and spending time with her three dogs.
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