Digital is changing the world.
How will it change your company?

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87%

87% of executives believe digital technologies will disrupt their industry.

44%

Only 44% feel adequately prepared for this disruption.

Do you feel ready?

ARTiCA helps you build a plan for digital success
and supports you in confidently executing it.

Where do you
start your digital
transformation?

You have or build a website or an app and customers will come, right? If only it were so easy. Sure, technology plays a central role in digital business (after all, digital is in the name), but there are many other factors at play. More likely, your digital business is costing you more than is it bringing in and meanwhile the big players like Amazon are capturing more and more of the market.

You’ve heard all the buzzwords that are supposed to get you ahead: Artificial Intelligence (AI), blockchain, big data, disruption, customer centricity, war on talent, sustainability... It can be overwhelming to keep track and to discern what will really impact your business and how it will do so. That also makes it difficult to know what you need and what you should do first.

The best approach is tailored to your specific challenge. ARTiCA can take the best practices from the field and fit them to your organization and situation.

A 5-step approach to building your digital blueprint

Through 20 years of experience, we’ve refined our 5-step approach, that gives you a structured foundation to create and execute your digital plan, while incorporating and building on your own strengths and heritage as an organization.

No matter where you are in your journey, ARTiCA can help you take the next step.

01Where could you go?
Understanding the market

The territory you are in, determines the paths you can take. Can you go fast? Are there a lot of obstacles? Are you one of the first to set foot into the territory?

With so many factors impacting your potential journey, we prefer to start by drawing a map of the market. We do this in 3 steps:

  1. Taking a snapshot of your market today: customers, products/services and distribution
  2. Looking back at the dynamics that made the market evolve this way
  3. Identifying trends that will continue to be relevant and keep an eye on disruption

By combining this information with our know-how on other sectors and countries, we can translate the situation today into a forecast for your market tomorrow. This gives you a clearer view on the threats and opportunities that lie ahead, allowing you to visualize what your customer, product or service and distribution of tomorrow could look like.

02Where are you heading?
Setting your goals

Before you can determine how to get anywhere, you have to be clear on where exactly you want to go. That’s why the second step is setting a measurable ambition, by combining your purpose as a company with the market landscape we mapped in step one. The result is a list of boxes to check at the end of your ambition horizon. If you can check all the boxes, you can say you were successful.

Shareholder or stakeholder?

In this stage you also set the overall strategy, i.e. the way you will get to achieve your ambition. A great strategy should fit on a single page and answers 5 questions:

  1. Who is your customer and who isn’t your customer? (customer selection)
  2. What do you offer and why would a customer choose you over our competitors? (value proposition)
  3. How do you get value out of your activities, financial or other? (value capture)
  4. What do you do yourself and what do you outsource? (scope of activities)
  5. How do you make sure you are future-proof? (strategic control)
03What do you need?
Creating your toolkit

The strategy is just the beginning. It gives you an eagle-eye view of how to get to your destination, but you’ll need to zoom in to see how this new strategy impacts all aspects of your business.

In the third step of the approach, the single page strategy is translated into concrete actions, features and processes for all the elements that are already in your organization’s toolkit like:

The goal is not to simply add a ‘digital appendix’ to these tools, but to really integrate digital ways of thinking and working in all aspects of your business, all to make sure you reach your goals. Depending on your specific situation, some tools will play a bigger role than others.

In addition to focussing on your strengths, it is also important to identify the weakest link. These are the points where customers may get a negative experience. If their disappointment is too high, the customer may never come back or even spread negativity around your brand. It’s imperative to get all the tools in the toolkit up to an acceptable level.

04What do you do when?
Designing your digital roadmap

To draw your digital roadmap, in addition to a goal, you’ll also need to know where you are starting from. By looking at how your company handles technology, data, digital innovation… and how much digital is ingrained in your organization, we determine your digital maturity.

Since you now have a starting point and an end goal, you have a view on the gap between the two. The toolkit with actions, features and processes you defined in the previous step will help you bridge that gap. Now all you need is to determine what you do when.

Facilitator vs differentiator

A good roadmap takes into account multiple levels of granularity:

  1. Digital maturity: evolving towards the right level of maturity in your entire organization, based on and in line with your purpose and ambition
  2. Business and operating model: step by step modification of your business model to include more digital aspects (e.g. moving from eCommerce to omnichannel)
  3. Toolkit: prioritization of individual toolkit elements, agile implementation.
05How to be successful?
Walking the talk

A great plan is the key to success, but in the end, executing it is what really matters. Too often, the strategic plan ends up in a drawer somewhere, only to be forgotten. The final step in the ARTiCA-approach is designed to make sure this won’t happen to your project and that, within the planned timeline, you will be checking off all the targets you set as your ambition.

We’ve identified two moments of truth in any digital project and the underlying factors that impact success:

1. Rallying of all your stakeholders behind the plan you just built

  • Taking an outside-in view. Market knowledge gives the plan more legitimacy and puts it in a realistic context.
  • Involving all the stakeholders in co-creating the plan. This includes customers, partners, investors, employees in direct contact with customers and sometimes even the local community. If done right, these people will become the ambassadors for your project.
  • Presenting a clear story, with a high-level overview for quick reference and detailed content for deeper understanding where necessary

2. Putting your plan into action

  • Implementing the toolkit and actually using it.
  • Weighing crucial decisions against the strategy and sticking to it as much as possible.
  • Hiring, training and keeping talented employees, that believe in your purpose.
  • Developing and maintaining an agile, insights-driven culture.

How ARTiCA can help with your digital transformation.

What do we offer?

Digital blueprint
Together with you and your team, we build the blueprint to integrate digital into your organization. We can build the whole plan or take a deep-dive into one of the parts.

Implement and coach
We bring your team on board, developing the necessary agile and data-driven mindset in all participants. We support you in implementing and organizing the project.

Weakest link
As an objective outsider, we check how your business is currently running, and identify the weakest link. We suggest quick win solutions to bring your performance in this area up to an acceptable level.

Inspiration
We spark the imagination and get your creative juices flowing with keynotes. Or join us around the world at key events like the World Retail Congres, Wired Retail, Advertising week New York, ...

Every project is different, so we’d love to see how we could best assist you. Want to grab a coffee with us?

Drop us a message

Why ARTiCA?

Hit the ground running by using our extensive resources

  • Detailed workshop playbooks
  • Hands-on templates (P&L, CAPEX request, RFP’s…)
  • Market data and relevant benchmarks
  • Partner network, allowing full-service deliveries

Get a made to measure plan

  • We translate best practices into a best fit for your specific situation
  • We leverage experience from 50+ real-life cases
  • We warn you against common pitfalls
  • We help you set realistic expectations


Peter van den Steen explains the ARTiCA approach to digital success at an Darwin event.

These elements convinced LVMH, Welkin & Meraki, Aldi, Veritas, Givenchy, Xella, Leen Bakker and Osudio among many others to work with ARTiCA on their digital transformation.

Because we always guarantee full confidentiality, we don’t present cases on our website. But we’d love to give you a glimpse of our most relevant stories in person.