Make great
digital decisions

We help you decide what to do with your digital channels, and how to get it done. Our process enables you to make confident decisions that save time, save money, build alignment, reduce risk, and increase customer engagement.

Get independent advice

You can trust our advice. We provide an external perspective and a second opinion. We don’t sell design, code or software, so our recommendations are based on what’s best for you.

Make confident decisions

It can be hard to know what to do and who to listen to. Our process starts with people, focusses on your customers and engages your entire team. You can be confident you’re doing the right things for the right reasons.

Reduce risk

Our process includes assessing different approaches and associated risks and opportunities. Because we’re independent, we can explore meaningfully different options so you can find the best way to deliver positive results.

Save money

It’s tempting to add more and do more with your digital products and services, but that won’t necessarily produce better results. We start by deeply understanding your organisation and customers before making recommendations. Sometimes we say ‘no’. For some clients we’ve saved them large amounts of time and money.

Save time

Once you’re clear on direction, we help you make a plan (or you can call it a roadmap) for when and what to do to improve your digital products and services. The plan ensures you, your team and your vendors all head in the right direction, saving time and delivering meaningful value sooner.

Build alignment

When it comes to digital channels there can be many different stakeholders. Nearly everyone is affected when you make significant changes. This makes it critical to build alignment behind your plan. Our process allows you to stray out of your lane and ensure everyone provides input.

Explore options quickly

Sometimes the best way to get traction and work out what to do is just to try things. We can help you quickly and cheaply explore options and propositions by testing them using low-fi prototypes and online research tools. This process can also save a lot of effort by quickly identifying what won’t work.

Get new ideas

Our creativity and experience working with a wide range of different organisations and technology companies means we can help you innovate and come up with new ideas.

Would you like an independent review?

If you’re not sure what to do, how about an independent review of your digital activities? Where could you improve? How are you delivering value to your customers? Where are your risks?

You can use our review in many ways: to help make critical decisions, to feed into your strategic process, as reassurance, to guide your team and/or vendors, or as part of a business case for significant change.

Would you like to create a new strategy?

If you’re considering developing a new digital product or service, or think you might be able to get better results from your existing channels, we can help.

We work with you to create and validate a strategy that defines your audiences, the experiences you need to provide, how the experiences might be delivered, and the risks and resources required.

Our clients

Our work

A platform to increase engagement and grow the business

Strategy, roadmap and helping steer a multi-year transformation project.

Read more

Innovating to find out how children get to school each day

Working with teachers and students to come up with a digital solution that doesn’t disrupt.

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A new approach, not a new website to improve sign ups

Research and reviewing the customer experience and product understanding to develop a new approach.

Read more

Building alignment and a roadmap for NZ Rugby websites

Helping decide who to focus on and why, to prioritise and reduce the number of websites being maintained.

Read more

Our process

We put your customers at the heart of strategy

See how our process revolves around customer value to deliver meaningful results.

Get the full Good Digital Strategy PDF with tips

Discover the difference between good digital strategy and bad, so you can create better strategy.

We can help
you answer:

We provide independent advice at the outset of your project to help you quickly explore options, define scope, build support and find the right direction.

  • It can be hard to choose between making your existing website better, or creating a new one. There are pros and cons for both. We help you define what matters to your organisation and your customers, then assess how your current website is performing. We first focus on ‘why’ you might need to change, not what that change might be. Our independence ensures our recommendations have your organisation's best interests at heart.

  • It’s tempting to add more digital products and services, but that doesn’t necessarily solve the real problems, or take advantage of the real opportunities. Often it creates confusion and overhead. Sometimes doing less is better. We start by deeply understanding your purpose and strategy, then looking at your digital channels. For some clients our recommendations to stop or change activities have saved them considerable time and effort, as well as reducing risk.

  • Understanding your audiences, how they engage with you, and what they value is at the heart of good digital strategy. We can help you gather research and insights to inform your digital decisions. A good experience is one that your customers value. The right experience is one that delivers value to both your customers and your organisation. Our strategies are based on this intersection between your audiences and your organisation.

  • Every organisation has limited resources. Being confident about where to invest in digital requires a strategy that sets out how your digital activities will support your organisation, as well as where the risks and opportunities are. The key is to invest with purpose: to seek proof that your investments will actually make a difference. We can help you develop the strategy, assess the risks and validate that the strategy will work.

  • AI-powered technologies and customer expectations are constantly changing, and more rapidly than ever. We can help you assess potential risks (and opportunities) for your current business model.

  • Successful digital projects start with people, not with technology. You will deliver better results if you develop an independent strategy that sets out why and what you are trying to achieve before you approach technology companies. It’s common for the strategy process to reveal a better direction than if you had started with a technology company – this is because it’s hard for technology companies to see options other than the ones they provide. We can help you with developing the strategy and procuring the appropriate partners when needed.

  • This is one of our favourite questions – what if digital enabled you to think differently about what you do, or to tackle a problem in a new way? What do changing technologies, customer expectations and markets mean for your business? We start by understanding your core purpose and the problem and opportunity spaces, we then help you explore a range of new customer experiences that create value for your organisation.

  • "Talking to Diagram at the outset of your project is a must. Their independence and expertise always guides our digital projects to success."

    – Ingrid Strange, Account Manager, mysuper, ACC

  • "Diagram’s advice has been invaluable in terms of building alignment behind what we're trying to achieve, and in helping us approach the market to find the right partner for our digital project."

    – Steve Doughty, Marketing and Communications Manager, Fish and Game New Zealand

  • "Diagram’s process helps us be good clients - we design the strategy, and the vendor can focus on delivering against it instead of trying to figure out what we want!"

    – Liam Sutton, Commercialisation Manager, Wellington UniVentures

  • "Thank you for all your help, support, smoothing of waters and brilliance – we truly could not have got to where we are without you."

    – Tracey Kai, General Manager Communications, New Zealand Rugby

  • "We needed to understand whether to redesign a new website from scratch, or refine the existing one. It made sense to engage Diagram to help us answer this because they provide neutral and trusted advice."

    – Elaina Hamilton, Creative Lead, Powershop

“In addition to being super skilled at what you do, you also make it fun which I totally appreciate.”

— Sebastian Grodd, Life Flight

Tom Hovey –
experience and independence

Diagram is led by Tom Hovey. Tom has been helping clients in New Zealand and the United Kingdom get great results from digital for over 25 years.
tom@diagram.co.nz