ATAWADAC, the battle cry of Digital transformation!

Marketing & IT may find it difficult to collaborate but they do have one thing in common: their love for acronyms. These are usually in English and above all, great sounding. With Digital, these two vastly difference business functions come together and join forces to increase their creativity to invent new terms. In this post, we will focus on more than just a concept: it can be the guide to your strategy and digital initiatives.

What is ATAWADAC ?

Literally speaking, ATAWADAC stands for “Any Time, Any Where, Any Device, Any Content”.

The goal is to make your content and services available anytime, anywhere and across all digital platforms (including mobile).

In proper French, the preference to ATAWADAC was the word “Mobiquité” (fusion of Mobilité and d’Ubiquité). In good Internet Marketing terms, I still want to propose yet another acronym… Why not TPTT for “Tout, Partout, Tout le Temps”?

Going beyond the concept, many services are already ATAWADAC and increasingly showing us how cannot do without them! Of course, Internet giants such as GAFA (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple) are naturally (or natively) ATAWADAC. But apart from these services, there are other great examples already in place.

These include Spotify, which offers which offers access to its entire music catalog (Any Content) streaming and download (Any Time and AnyWhere – even in tunnels…), across all platforms (Any Device) : PC/MAC, web, iPhone/Android applications etc.. Even better, the transition from one medium or platform to another is ‘seamless’, (so one can start listening to a song on a PC and continue on his/her phone).

Another example is Chronodrive. The company (The Auchan Group) offers the ability to shop online and pick up in-store specially designed for drive through service. Their product catalog (Any Content) is accessible 24/7 (Any Time) from Anywhere.  One can even start shopping on the website and complete the order on a mobile phone (Any Device).

There are a lot more examples such as Dropbox (which gives you access to your files anywhere), models such as “click-and-collect” (services allowing customers to order online and pick up in-store), or the many initiatives of the l’administration fiscale (aimed at making tax information and procedures online and on mobile platforms).

How to be ATAWADAC ?

Normally, ATAWADAC features advanced technological components such as:

• Infrastructure to facilitate access to internet services and data. The Cloud is becoming the most viable and obvious solution for this purpose.
• Information Security Strategy: Many scandals of lost or stolen data have surfaced in recent times (most recently, the leaking of the list of users of the Ashley Madison dating site that facilitates extra marital affairs). Such threats warrant organizations to be proactive and deploy robust security measures.
• Centralization of users and customer data : Those organizations with MDM (Master Data Management) repository technologies and DQM (Data Quality Management) readily respond to this challenge when data is spread across multiple sites.
• Web Sites and Mobile Applications: ATAWADAC development seeks to achieve adaptability across all types of terminals through a technology known as Responsive Design. In addition, the creation of mobile applications are centered around the user experience. Hence it seems imperative that we make use of mobile devices and the components that come with it such as GPS and other onboard sensors.
• Innovate with connected objects : Far from being limited to the web and mobile platforms, ATAWADAC is also required for connected objects. The advantage of this is to create a digital relay in “real life”. This creates a personal connection with users and makes ATAWADAC even more necessary and useful on these platforms.
• Use data extensively: Uses of data includes data to trace and monitor users in order to improve services offered in ATAWADAC. In addition to this, digital services that use this data allow useful information to be extracted based on the application in question. For all this, Big Data is the best solution to provide this functionality.

ATAWADAC should be your battle cry for Digital Transformation

In the end, my advice is to build your strategy and all your digital initiatives around the concept of ATAWADAC. Share it with your employees as it should become an ultimate goal of all of your projects!

Thus for every new service launched, one must ask the question: “Is this being made available across all digital media platforms, including mobile?”. This is also an opportunity to re-visit existing services only accessible physically and via telephone. Enabling services on digital media and building them on the ATAWADAC model are the keys to success.