Digital literacy is a core component of any successful business. A deficiency in these skills can hold back any organization from achieving its strategic goals, or even turn into a costly mistake.
Digital literacy as a term refers to the broad set of skills required to grow and protect a modern organization in the digital landscape. Every field requires some level of digital literacy. When you’re assessing your business’s digital literacy, these are the questions you need to ask yourself.
Do Your People Have A Strong Grasp For Cybersecurity?
One of the most essential digital literacy skills for any organization is understanding cybersecurity risks and how to mitigate them. Human error is one of the leading causes of cybersecurity breaches. Often human error can be linked back to issues such as:
• Failing to update key security software
• Using public Wi-Fi
• Giving up critical information in a phishing scam
• Accidentally downloading malware
These can all be addressed through digital literacy, but organizations need to take a proactive stance toward making sure all of their employees are on board. One weak link is all it takes to cause a breach.
An efficient cybersecurity plan is one that’s self-regulating and motivated. It requires a combination of buy-in and knowledge of best practices from every single employee in an organization, and it should be a core part of any training for new and old employees alike.
Can You Compete On Open Digital Marketplaces?
Increasingly, third-party platforms and digital marketplaces are setting the terms for competition. They attract consumers because they give consumers more power and information than they might otherwise receive dealing directly with businesses.
A great example is Nobul, an open digital marketplace where real estate agents compete for listings and homebuyers. The platform is quickly gaining popularity with home buyers, especially first-time buyers, who want more information about realtors before they sign up. Nobul gives them access to an agent’s transaction history and verified reviews, while agents compete based on fees and services provided.
These agents can work with any brokerage or agency, and many of the major brokerages are jumping onto the platform. As Founder and CEO Regan McGee explains:
“We created the world’s first open and digital marketplace where every real estate agent from every agency can compete against one another to represent buyers and sellers. So if you’re looking to buy or sell real estate, you could come on our platform, put in some basic information about yourself, and agents from all the different brokerages will compete against one another to represent you.”
As more third-party digital platforms seize market share in a number of industries, your business needs to know how to compete.
Can Your Organization Problem Solve With Technology?
As the business world enters the age of Big Data, it’s more important than ever that employees know how to identify the right datasets to resolve problems and target growth. With more information at business’s fingertips than ever before, it’s easy to get lost in the weeds. Businesses need to know that their people can correctly identify the data that’s most useful to their objectives.
