As disruptive technologies shake up whole industries and consumers of digital services develop ever greater expectations of the digital channels they use in every aspect of their lives, making sure each employee’s digital workplace rises to the occasion is both a practical and strategic necessity.

Many organisations aspire to a more dynamic, engaging and modern model for their workplace, however for a large organisation setting out and managing a coherent strategy for the Digital Workplace is no mean feat. Gartner has devised what it calls “The recipe for digital Workplace success”, boiling down its extensive research to 7 Key Ingredients that all of the most successful Digital Workplace projects have in common, namely:

1. Understand the needs of your Employees

2. Add urgency, find a change catalyst

3. Reach beyond IT for coalition

4. Deliver best-in-class

5. Capture quick and highly visible wins

6. Communicate the vision


And the 7th and final ingredient in a fully-baked strategy? According to Gartner, it’s to Make your strategy stick by keeping those employees interested and engaged. This is my key takeaway from Gartner’s recipe, and it translated to giving employees what they need (even if they don’t ask for it), and focussing on the utilisation of consumer-orientated practices and devices such as touch-friendly mobile experiences that raise employee engagement.

Coach, Inc is one organisation that’s turned a flailing intranet around, from a collection of outdated systems to a digital channel its global employees choose to engage with. The world-renowned luxury fashion brand is known for its iconic handbags and accessories that Selena Gomez and Eva Longoria are seen with. With its rapid expansion to more than 1,000 stores worldwide, COACH had ever more employees with more diverse needs, and it urgently needed to replace its flailing intranet with something that was easier to use, easier to manage and more flexible.

Source: Instagram

The challenges were numerous, with three separate systems that contained outdated content and prevented the introduction of new features and a website that was failing to meet employee’s expectations, from finding content to providing mobile access – a must for in-store employees.

It was no shortcut for Dante Ragazzo, Director of Enterprise Portal at Coach and it bore startling parallels with Gartner’s recipe, resulting in a fully baked digital platform upon which the business can now adapt to meet its broader digital workplace needs. Dante will share “COACH’s Journey From Flailing Intranet into the Employee’s ‘Must Have’” at Gartner Digital Workplace Summit on the 18th of September - if you are attending the Summit you can add to your agenda here (login required).

We’ve had a look at what it takes to create an engaging digital workplace today, but what lies ahead for “Coachweb” and broader digital workplace strategies? In his Technologies & Architecture Q&A leading up to the Summit, Research Director Michael Woodbridge emphasized the role of platform technologies: “ultimately a technical foundation for a digital workplace needs to be one that promotes agility and responsiveness… implementing solutions which support digital transformation in a timely and cost effective manner”.

We are looking forward to participating at another enlightening Digital Workplace Summit this year and chewing the cud with industry experts such as Michael Woodbridge. From hearing the experiences of L’Oreal’s Digital Workplace Transformation to hearing Dante Ragazzo’s experiences at COACH you can have your cake and eat it with valuable insights, meetings and mixing opportunities.

See you there. You can find Liferay in the Solutions Showcase, and there’s even the chance to win one of COACH’s much-coveted handbags and join us for a beer and cheese tasting experience (no baked goods or puns in sight).