Enabling Transformational Growth in Asia Through Effective Collaboration
Learn how companies in Asia can drive innovation and accelerate outcomes through better collaboration.
52 min
Summary
In Asia, effective collaboration is paramount to unite a diverse set of countries and strive towards a common goal.
Our latest global research report, “Catalysts: The Collaborative Advantage,” unveiled that companies in Asia value collaboration more than other regions, but lag in execution. How can the region work to close the gap?
In this webinar replay, leaders from Prophet’s Organization and Culture practice and the APAC team share insights from our latest global study, introducing clear pathways for leaders to prioritize and accelerate the efforts to build their collaborative muscle.
Learn how effective cross-organizational collaboration can help your business unlock transformational growth through a holistic, human-centered approach.
Key Takeaways
How Prophet’s Collaboration Flywheel helps deliver better, more impactful outcomes faster over time through a 3-phase approach.
Characteristics unique to the APAC region, and why effective collaboration is paramount to unite a diverse set of countries and strive towards a common goal.
Actionable tactics and case studies to unlock collaboration in today’s ever-evolving organizations with remote, hybrid and face-to-face workplaces and the future opportunities for improvement.
Winners in the future will embrace social program leadership … or fade into irrelevance with customers, investors and employees. It’s not enough for companies to commit to reducing energy or have an ad hoc budget for grants and volunteering. The world needs the resources and agility of large businesses to address existential threats in society with imaginative and impactful programs.
In his book, “The Future of Purpose-Driven Branding,” branding expert David Aaker shows a pathway to business social leadership that include four strategies:
Employ resources to address the most pressing societal challenges – like climate change and identity inequalities
Create impactful, inspiring, and mission-driven signature social programs that will help business leaders build brands that are more relevant and purpose-driven as well as impact important social challenges
Integrate the signature social programs into the business to bolster the organization’s brand as a mission-driven enterprise that is “doing good”
Create and manage a portfolio of signature social brands that inspire, engage and communicate with passion and clarity by using the five branding “must-dos”
Highlights
A thorough case for why social programs are the secret weapon to helping business leaders build stronger brands and more connected work cultures while supporting important social causes
Powerful case studies from organizations leading with exemplary social programs
Tools and insights for integrating social programs into the organization and business
Five branding “must-dos” when building signature social brands
“David Aaker, the branding guru, shows how to leverage signature social programs using vivid case studies. Integrating the social program into the business creates a win-win infinity loop. ‘The Future of Purpose-Driven Branding’is a must-read book for the purpose era.”
Joe Tripodi Former CMO at Coca-Cola, Allstate and MasterCard
“Every company should adopt a social cause beyond profit-making. Aaker has written the perfect book to help you find that cause and build a unique program and brand that makes a difference.”
Phil Kotler The Father of Modern Marketing
“This is a roadmap for nonprofits who want to build an inspiring brand and attract active business partners. The five branding “must dos” are game-changing.”
Eve Birge Exec Director, White Pony Express, “All of Us Taking Care of All of Us”
About the Author
David Aaker is the author of more than one hundred articles and 18 books on marketing, business strategy and branding that have sold over one million copies. A recognized global authority on branding, he has developed concepts and methods of brand building that are used by organizations around the world.
Connect
Want to interview David Aaker or feature him on your next podcast? Please connect with us or David directly. Reach out to learn how David and Prophet can help your business create signature social programs that capture the hearts of leadership, customers, employees and brand followers.
A Human-Centered Approach to Digital Transformation
The point of digital transformation is not to become more digital; it is to become a better company.
2 min
Summary
Chan Suh, chief digital officer at Prophet, says that technology-led digital transformations often fall short of the intended impact. Instead, it should be steered by a purpose-led mission. At Prophet, we pull together our range of capabilities and expertise to help our clients transform from within. Learn more about Prophet’s approach to digital transformation in this blog.
Digital Transformation at Prophet
Prophet is a convergence accelerator and purpose-led transformation consultancy that will help you reimagine your firm, integrate and scale digital investments and drive real, defensible growth. We believe that to accelerate convergence we take your existing assets – such as data, brand, culture, business models – reimagine them for today’s customers and employees and look for new ways to integrate capabilities and talent with a reimagined sense of purpose. Then, we drive towards scale.
Get in touch today if you’d like to learn how to bring digital convergence moves to grow your organization.
How to create a change-ready organization through a culture of play.
The past few years have felt like anything but a game – unless that game is Monopoly and you’re losing to your older sibling after landing on Park Place for the eighth time. In this case, the taunting sibling has more teeth: global pandemics, social reckonings and war.
All of these factors have shaken people’s sense of safety, identity and trust. And these challenges have required companies in every industry to accelerate transformation—something that’s difficult in an environment where people are exhausted, frustrated and, at times, scared.
Fortunately, many companies are heeding the call to take care of their people with 90% of employers reporting an increase in investment in mental health programs (come on, the other 10%!) according to Wellable Labs’ “2022 Employee Wellness Industry Trends Report.”
And while holistic well-being is incredibly important, work itself still lacks the humanity (the human beings in “well-being”) needed to sustain change. But that’s where play comes in. Forgive the pun, but it plays a part in the transformation.
What is Play and How Does it Tie Into Transformation?
Prophet’s Change Fitness Model reflects the different starting points for how companies see and address change, ranging from the transactional belief that “change is an obstacle to overcome” to the transformational state of play where transformation can be a sport to be enjoyed.
You can think of play as “batteries not included.” Because, given the constant nature of change, those who have achieved play can spend less energy overcoming each effort and more time being fueled by it.
So how do you get to the state of play? Exactly—you play!
Scientists Meredith Van Vleet and Brooke Feeney define play as: A behavior or activity carried out with the goal of amusement and fun that involves an enthusiastic and in-the-moment attitude or approach, and is highly interactive among play partners or with the activity itself.
Applying this lens to work clarifies the opportunity–making work that people enjoy, that brings out enthusiasm and deepens connections.
The skeptic will say, “We don’t have time for play – we have work to do!” But those ahead of the curve see the intrinsic need to link the two. Better play means better work. In fact, in a 2019 study by Brigham Young University, teams that played video games together were 20% more productive than others.
That’s because play unlocks creativity, helping people tap into new sources of inspiration and ways of thinking—which creates better solutions.
And, especially at a time when the universe is playing chess with humanity, play creates sustainability and safety, encouraging people to enjoy what they’re doing, so they’ll want to do it more. And it deepens skill building, encouraging trial and growth in new ways. Checkmate.
Of course, play is easier said than done and toxic environments will reject it. People can’t experiment if they believe their job or reputation is at risk. They won’t be themselves if they don’t like the people they’re working with. And they won’t prioritize play if they’re getting mixed or conflicting signals from leadership.
Play shouldn’t be isolated to an innovation team, a single brainstorm, an occasional company outing nor the funniest person in the room. Play needs to take place across all levels and contexts – across a company’s culture, teams and individuals. Each reinforces the other with a company’s culture making it easier for teams to be able to play, and individuals bringing their whole selves to both innovation and the everyday.
How to Create a Culture of Play Within Your Organization
So how might you best implement a culture of play? We couldn’t not use the SMILE acronym, could we?
Safe
No one wants to play “the floor is lava” with actual lava. People need to feel safe in their environment. That means feeling confident that they can make mistakes and learn from them, not be punished by them.
According to Peter Temes, founder and president of the Institute for Innovation in Large Organizations (ILO), “that hasn’t changed since we began this work 15 years ago, and probably hasn’t changed from decades prior to that—this idea of lowering the cost of failure.”
Leaders can create safety by modeling and being transparent about failures and growth opportunities. Most importantly, leaders’ actions must speak louder than words – when individuals fail, they need to celebrate those learnings, not focus on the implications.
Leaders can also help create a sense of safety through joy and levity in the workplace. Jennifer Aaker and Naomi Bagdonas, authors of “Humor, Seriously,” have shown that companies that embedded humor in their culture had employees who were 16% more likely to stay at their jobs feel engaged and experience satisfaction.
Meaningful
By nature, games have stakes and meaning – it’s what makes them exciting and, as defined above, creates the enthusiasm that creates play. Giving meaning to play can take many forms.
One way is through reinforcing an organization’s purpose, helping people see why their work matters. Some companies create meaning through competition – whether individual incentives, team challenges or by focusing on external competition.
One company created an internal fantasy league, resulting in an 18% increase in outbound calls and an increase in morale. Making play meaningful like this can be a great cause for celebration and recognition as well—reminding people about why they need to be invested in what they’re doing. Of course, “meaningful” must be rooted in safety – if people fear the stakes are too high, that fear can hold them back.
Individual
Everyone’s favorite radio station is WiiFM – “What’s in it for me.” Ask someone about a project they’re working on, and they might smile. But ask them what they did this weekend, and they’ll light up—even more so if they get to talk about personal hobbies or passions.
Create more ways for people to light up, and you’ll create more ways to unlock that joy and translate it into their work and relationships. At a systemic level, consider how you’re fostering individuals’ passions and making them feel heard and represented. And at a team and day-to-day level, find ways to share them.
Linked
On the other side of the “individual” see-saw is the need to bring people together. Often, people have more fun working with other people, and collaboration creates those all-important feelings of togetherness and belonging. Prophet’s 2022 Catalysts research: The Collaborative Advantage finds that employees achieve better outcomes personally and professionally when they collaborate – 65% of respondents cited higher levels of productivity as a result.
In hybrid environments, it becomes more challenging, where it may seem like people are working together on endless transactional Zoom calls. In reality, there is a shrinking emphasis on true connections which require smaller group interactions and a mix of both work-related and non-work-related focuses.
Exploratory
People need new inputs to get to new outputs. Trying a new dish can be more fun and exciting than eating the same meal for the fifth time this week. Consider how to fuel people’s joy and creativity by putting them in new situations, hearing from new voices or thinking about things in new ways. Then, use that space to give people a chance to get their hands dirty, safely.
Build in the flexibility for exploration. A global airline used the power of play to teach the organization its seating pricing strategy. Leaders used a game of “The Flight is Right,” taking the principles of “The Price is Right” and applying it to the complex principles that airlines face. By approaching the learning in a new way, and allowing people to play and participate, the message stuck.
LEGO’s serious play methodology is another great example of encouraging exploration to envision challenges in new ways while tapping into the joy of being a child.
The creativity expert, Edward De Bono, describes “Rivers of Thinking” – the building nature of experiences that help us to unlock new solutions. When we fill our rivers with the same water, it becomes difficult to explore new ones.
Play isn’t a moment in time or something you do outside of work. Organizations can use the power of play to create a sense of safety in the workplace, give employees a purpose, and build trust– all factors needed to accelerate transformational change in an organization.
How Does an Economic Downturn Impact Your Transformation?
When recession fears increase, companies usually pull back. However, the smart ones know that navigating turbulence builds resilience and exposes growth opportunities.
News that global markets are either in or inching toward a recession is creating uncertainty, causing many companies to consider pausing or reducing transformation initiatives. However, history has shown that challenging economic times can often lead to the urgency that stimulates profound innovation.
For decades, recessions have accelerated change and given birth to giants. Some examples include Hewlett Packard and Hilton in the 1950s; Microsoft in the ‘70s; and new economy brands like Uber, WhatsApp, Venmo, Instagram, Airbnb, Slack and Dropbox all roared into life during the Great Recession, which began in 2008.
New platforms and operating models–from the sharing economy to subscription models to crypto–rise in times of uncertainty. And legacy companies may have a competitive advantage if they have the right components in place. These unpredictable markets offer unexpected opportunities for established companies. Consumers develop new needs and behaviors causing competitors to change tactics and reveal new white space opportunities.
We’re not saying it’s easy to shift course to address these changes, but those ready to step up to the challenge often find exceptional growth, even when competitors struggle.
Incumbents can significantly capitalize on this advantage if they start to act more nimbly, leveraging their strengths and leaning into risk. In many cases, consumer trust in their brand proves invaluable, giving legacy companies permission to capitalize on new consumer behavior with new business models.
Organizations that have already started transformation efforts have a clear advantage. Many that were proactive during the pandemic have positioned themselves in a way that increases their chances in achieving new growth. This is especially true as they emerge from the downturn. But these organizations will need to address the scope and renewed urgency of change within this market by meeting it head-on and accelerating their transformation. Recessions alone are transformational – altering the economy, consumers and the competitive landscape. Just as the pandemic required adapting to new ways of shopping, working and doing business, this new terrain will undoubtedly bring its own paradigm shifts.
While accelerating is crucial, the environment transformation leaders currently face is rife with risk. Leaders need to unlock ways to confidently readjust their transformation strategy and approach.
The challenge to not only transform, but to do so at an accelerated pace in a down economy, requires a new approach. Mike Leiser, Prophet’s chief transformation officer, recommends leaders take a uniquely human view through the lens of our Human-Centered Transformation Model. This model requires a shift in thinking that will help organizations unlock and accelerate transformation.
“Businesses don’t change,” he tells us. “People change, and people change businesses.”
This is particularly true for legacy companies. They often have the capacity to fund transformation but need to overcome significant obstacles, including older operating models and antiquated talent incentives. We suggest starting with some hard questions about each interrelated dimension.
Organizational DNA Focus on Core Transformation Strategies and Driving Near-Term Value
Consumer needs and behaviors are dramatically different than those pre-pandemic, and it’s unclear how today’s inflation and rising interest rates will affect them over the next down cycle. These fundamental shifts will require leaders to evaluate their transformation priorities and roadmaps. However, with all areas of corporate spending increasingly under the microscope, transformation leaders will be called to show immediate impact and results. Very few companies will have the luxury of thinking in long-term “moon shots”, prevalent in stronger economies.
To get a better sense of potential changes, Prophet reached out to several experienced transformation leaders who have weathered the storm of a past recession. One such veteran is Stephen Crowley, former SVP of ATM technology & operations at Bank of America, who found himself in the eye of the financial crisis in 2008.
Crowley explained that, at the time, ATM and check depositing was still a modest business. But when it transformed toward digitizing 25% of all checking deposits, the effort became a massive, yet pivotal play to differentiate itself from other banks. The company radically accelerated its timeline, moving up goals and pouring support into an entirely new way of operating ATMs and check processing centers.
He shared his key lessons in connection with successfully doubling down on the vision:
If you want to focus on the business case around transformation in this economy, concentrate on customer experience–people can defect quickly in a downturn. For Crowley, that required standing in front of a thousand ATMs to watch customers make deposits.
Think about what kind of paradigm shift is happening and what’s transformational about the process itself. From a timing perspective, Bank of America was positioned to succeed where others had previously failed because smartphone technology had caught up to facilitate the transformation.
Questions to Help Clarify Transformation Strategy:
How are customer and employee behaviors shifting? Spending habits? Lifestyle changes? Priorities?
Are competitors creating new growth opportunities that fall under our North Star? Are there opportunities to divest non-core businesses?
Is there a compelling business case, measurement and governance model for the transformation strategy as costs are being cut? Will this transformation help drive growth during a recession? And beyond?
Given market changes, are the transformation vision and roadmap still relevant? Can it be executed faster?
Organizational Mind and Body: Manage the Skillsets and Muscles Required for Change
Within this environment of unknowns, it’s critical to understand how organizations will continue to drive momentum on transformational initiatives. That’s where the mind–the skillsets–and body–the operating model to support transformation–come in. In doing so, it’s essential for leaders to go beyond just thinking about processes for transformation.
Leaders must understand their organization’s aptitude for change, which requires addressing past successes, underlying culture and the values that are going to introduce agility – particularly as leaders seek to accelerate transformation in this down market.
Many organizations are already on this path, thanks to the pandemic. In a matter of months, they provided their workforces with new flexibility and upskilled them with digital collaboration tools, maintaining and even increasing productivity. Many organizations also expanded digital and online capacities to strengthen customer relationships and reconfigure supply chains. They did this by leaning into change and building organizational muscle. These organizations now know–as do their employees–that they can get through the storm and thrive. It gives them the confidence to do more in this environment, although the demands for organizational change will continue to evolve.
In an uncertain, cost-sensitive market, leaders need to encourage unexpected, rapid solutions. Therefore cross-organizational collaboration is essential fuel for accelerated transformation, allowing leaders and teams to break down silos to creatively build new solutions for value – giving them the ability to do (exponentially) more with less.
While this is still a challenge for most companies, our recent research finds that the more organizations promote this cross-functional work, the more successful they are. Employees see themselves as more productive and value the personal and professional growth that collaboration brings.
Secondly, the organizational mind needs to be primed to succeed amid risk, especially in a recession. “When you reward employees for healthy risk-taking, there’s a willingness to try new things,” says Matthew Perry, former vice president of foodservice sales at Kellogg Company. This pro-risk perspective allowed Perry to establish notable food product innovations during the Great Recession – many of which developed from rapid ideation and experimentation.
Perry believes succeeding in a down market requires empowering the workforce with new skillsets and growth opportunities. There are some clear actionable “mind” focused areas organizations can address to ensure employees are able to weather a down market environment:
Reward employees with healthy risk-taking and willingness to try new ways of solving problems. This will be a stretch for some who might not be suited to this environment, but, with the right support, many will be more willing to try.
Empower your workforce with new skillsets and personal growth opportunities that directly relate to the transformation at hand, making their role more relevant and connected to it. Additionally, make it clear that these skills encourage personal growth no matter what the ultimate outcome is. This is especially meaningful in tough times.
Encourage employees to lean into collaborative and cross-disciplinary teamwork. This speaks to the “body” and allows teams to action and accelerate transformation. When the environment demands that all leaders do more with less, encouraging employees to lean into collaborative, cross-disciplinary teamwork is a win-win.
Questions to Build the Organizational Mind and Body:
Do structures support transformation in an uncertain and fast-changing environment?
What skills do we need to get where we need to be?
Are teams and employees empowered to collaborate quickly to produce unexpected solutions in the face of market challenges?
Where can more agility, integration and experimentation be encouraged? How are hybrid work policies helping or hindering collaboration?
How are employees rewarded for actively stretching skillsets? For taking risks?
Organizational Soul: Design Communication for Intentional Motivation, Connection and Comprehension
Employees are every organization’s greatest resource. Teams who embrace and thrive during tumultuous times are key to transformational momentum. That’s why tracking and managing morale around transformation efforts is essential–the entire workforce is paying attention to what leaders say and what they do.
The past several years of change have often left employees too cynical to believe in transformational efforts. Couple this with informal information, and rumor mills go into overdrive, often based on real fears. “Will there be layoffs? Am I safe here?” It creates a significant barrier to realizing transformational goals.
Communication is the best tool to emotionally manage change and build morale. We’ve found it’s essential to provide clear, consistent communication about the strategy, and it’s also important to honestly and transparently report how the transformation is going. Most of all, leaders must acknowledge all the people impacted by the change. Employees should feel connected and a part of it all. Taken together, this builds a culture of resiliency.
Prophet’s recent research reveals a common trend: Accelerating transformation requires a motivated workforce with democratized decision-making. Leaders need to lean on mid-level and junior-level employees more heavily, meaning morale needs to be nurtured more carefully.
Deepak Agarwal chief information officer at the School District of Palm Beach County, Florida, shares that leading the digital transformation of a 27 thousand employee school district wouldn’t have been possible without an emphasis on strong communication. From 2008 to 2012, thousands of employees needed to adopt an entirely new set of operational and educational tools. He believes that the COVID-19 era has created a greater need for communication.
“Leaders need to ask how they can make employees’ work and lives better as they support and adopt transformation initiatives,” he says.
Agarwal sees three interrelated ways he successfully motivates colleagues and teams:
Leaders must provide strong communication systems and clear messaging about what changes are happening and when. Doing so will help employees engage during transformation.
Create better knowledge management systems to educate employees and train them.
Give employees better feedback tools so leaders can monitor how employees are feeling about the change.
This approach allows employees to feel valued, valuable and motivated to drive transformation forward.
Questions to Inspire Morale:
How well are transformation messages getting through? How thoroughly do all employees understand progress reports?
What is the process for making shifts in messaging when required?
What can leaders do differently to strengthen the purposeful connection between employees and the transformation?
Learn how to turn up your business in a downturn economy with Prophet’s Transformation Training.
Over the course of a one-day session, our team of Transformation professionals will evaluate your organization’s readiness for innovation and uncover near-term opportunities to accelerate your growth.
Please contact Kristen Groh, senior transformation partner, to host a Transformation Training with your team today!
As leaders look ahead to the next year, they will need to acknowledge that the latitude for risk is narrowing. Although nothing is certain, applying a Human-Centered Transformation Model allows leaders, particularly incumbents, to be more precise about their transformation. Transformations do pose risks, but there’s also a cost to failing to transform. Changing markets and customers require organizations that change, too. And those that transform effectively will achieve new growth and win against the competition.
Branding in the digital age requires rethinking and innovating experiences.
2 min
Summary
Chan Suh, chief digital officer at Prophet, shares how the firm’s heritage in branding has positioned our teams to tackle digital transformation challenges in today’s dynamic market. We blend science and art; technology and human understanding. Learn more about Prophet’s holistic and human-centered approach to transformation. For more on digital convergence, check out this blog.
Digital Transformation at Prophet
Prophet is a convergence accelerator and purpose-led transformation consultancy that will help you reimagine your firm, integrate and scale digital investments, and drive real, defensible growth. We believe that to accelerate convergence we take your existing assets – such as data, brand, culture, business models – reimagine them for today’s customers and employees and look for new ways to integrate capabilities and talent with a reimagined sense of purpose. Then, we drive towards scale.
Get in touch today if you’d like to learn how to bring digital convergence moves to grow your organization.
The Equation for Growth in Healthcare: Customer-Centricity, New Skills and Balancing Brand and Demand
Prophet recently hosted a healthcare leadership roundtable, moderated by John Ellett, focused on driving uncommon growth in healthcare today. Read the takeaways.
These were the takeaways from Prophet Healthcare’s leadership roundtable, moderated by John Ellett, which focused on driving uncommon growth in healthcare today.
We convene for these discussions a few times a year so leaders from different subsectors and functions can compare notes and share insights. The latest session was all about growth – where it is coming from today, how senior marketers can make it happen and who needs to be on the team.
Key Takeaways for CMOs and Growth Leaders Across the Healthcare Ecosystem
Play the Long Game of Innovation
In healthcare, innovation takes many forms – from new product launches and optimized experiences, to M&A and business model innovation. But no matter the approach, and whether we’re talking about startups or large enterprises, innovation requires both a long-term perspective and a sense of timing. It can take years to develop, say, breakthrough technology, but if the market’s not ready for it, new offerings might not take off.
Relative to growth, innovation must be viewed in the context of core value propositions, as well as future impacts. That means knowing what really moves the business and understanding what innovation will deliver (e.g., future revenue gains, increased profitability, brand differentiation). The support of senior leadership is key to keeping the organization’s eyes on the prize across long time horizons.
Solve for Talent
Executives agree that talent is as important as ever, even as marketing becomes more tech-driven. A few firms were looking for more skilled strategists to set the direction for marketing. But more are looking for tactical and functional expertise to execute growth strategies. There was consensus that “even the best strategy needs worker bees.” Ideally, workers will be self-starters who understand big-picture objectives, think analytically and measure results. As with growth itself, there seems to be no such thing as too much talent.
Focus on The Perennial Value of Customer-Centricity
As much as marketing has changed, customers remain the perennial focus. Everyone agrees that customer insights should be the core of all growth strategies. But participants also noted that it’s easier to say “we’re customer-centric” than to integrate the voice of the customer throughout all brand and marketing efforts, especially when targeting new segments. Many felt CMOs are uniquely positioned to maintain the powerful link between such customer-centricity and growth, including building stronger customer communities. In fact, being a “customer advocate” might be the most important responsibility CMOs have.
Recognize it Takes a Network
As healthcare leaders face an ever-expanding range of growth possibilities, the importance of internal and external networks grows more important. Asking the right questions of mentors, peers and external advisors is key to staying ahead of important industry developments. Socializing and testing your own vision is just as important. A strong network can certainly provide tips and insights relative to engaging customers in new channels. On a larger scale, they can shed light on how new technologies, ecosystems and partnerships, as well as business models, will impact growth strategies over the longer term.
Balance Brand and Demand
Senior marketers and other growth-oriented leaders across industries are trying to balance brand-building and demand generation investments and activities. (Check out Prophet’s blog series on this very hot topic). Demand strategies are easier to measure, a huge advantage in the multi-channel digital world. However, because of the unique nature of healthcare where relationships are at a premium, brands remain critical to building trust with consumers and patients.
One participant mentioned the classic formula of “40% demand and 60% brand,” but the optimal balance will vary based on an organization’s customer base, growth strategy and market position, among other factors. Because both “brand builder” and “performance marketer” are inherent parts of their job descriptions, CMOs must continue seeking the right balance, and recognize that it will evolve continually along with market conditions.
From the most effective channels and platforms to new media that might emerge, to new rules for customer engagement, the only thing that seems certain about the future is that CMOs and growth leaders in healthcare will keep watching developments closely and comparing notes with peers and colleagues.
If you’d like to participate in future healthcare roundtables, please reach out to Paul Schrimpf or John Ellett.
People aren’t robots. In a changing environment, companies shouldn’t be robotic, either.
It’s a truth older than Darwin: The ability to adapt grows more valuable whenever uncertainty in the environment increases. With the world’s markets tiptoeing toward recession, companies have the opportunity to make their next evolutionary leap–the chance to become more human.
We know –”more human” doesn’t exactly sound like how we’ve traditionally been taught to think about organizations. Businesses have spent the last two decades pursuing digital transformation and embracing artificial intelligence and advanced robotics–technologies that generally assume tasks previously reserved for humans. Additionally, business leaders have spent the last two centuries absorbing the Industrial Age organization theory, painting organizations as machines.
However, enterprises are not machines and people can no longer pretend that they are. Organizations are living organisms with behaviors and abilities like the humans who staff them.
The last few years have made that clear. Profits, while essential, aren’t all that matter. The market’s definition of success has shifted, and while people still expect organizations to make money, they increasingly value environmental sustainability, social equity and inclusion as well as efficiency. They expect human behavior–that means ethical, compassionate and transparent–from the companies they do business with.
Organizations can’t behave like single-minded robots to thrive in this new era, marching mindlessly toward the next quarter’s financial results. They need to evolve and become more complex, adaptive and creative organisms.
Three Ways You Can Build an Adaptable Operating Model
Adaptability is an acquired skill, and enterprises can take inspiration from our own human biology. We see three critical ways companies can evolve their operating model to become more adaptable and flexible, using the human body as a starting point.
1. Distributed Intelligence
People’s bodies can react quickly without involving the brain. Think about knee-jerk reflexes or yanking a hand away from a hot fire.
Organizations do the same thing when they empower people to take action throughout the company instead of having all decisions centrally controlled by a handful of leaders.
In a pharmaceutical company, for instance, engineers and planners can be embedded into production teams so they can deal with any issues locally, continually improving performance. The production quality gets improved locally and immediately, without involving the company’s central leadership.
This pivot to decentralization is evident in flexible manufacturing. For the pharmaceutical industry, for example, this concept is increasingly important when using cell and gene therapies to make advanced biologics. Often, these drugs are aimed at small patient populations, especially in oncology. Manufacturing cells need to reconfigure quickly to respond to market needs and be first to market.
It shouldn’t be local intelligence and action versus global intelligence and action. It’s about both. The human body has neurons in muscles, gut and extremities as well as the brain–and so do organizations.
2. Learning Through Data
Our brains learn through external stimuli, and people’s knowledge and capabilities represent everything they’ve individually learned or experienced. In other words, they are built by the data available to them through the senses. That’s why neural networks, modeled on the structures of human brains, can only be as smart as the training data available to the model.
For organizations to be more nimble, they need better and more frequent access to data of all types. They need to develop robust “sensory organs”–mechanisms to ensure they intimately understand customers’ needs, wants and desires. And they need to feed that data (as real-time as possible) into organizational decision-making.
That’s especially true for design functions, so that customer and employee experiences adapt to the needs of 21st-century consumers. Many companies believe they already do this, of course. But in adaptive enterprises, it is as natural as the human eye adapting to bright sunlight.
Samsung has built regional design studios around the world, which leverage design thinking and market knowledge to rapidly innovate. With its main hub in San Francisco, its multidisciplinary designers help it tap into the entrepreneurial spirit of Silicon Valley. That enables it to reign as Apple’s most formidable competitor.
3. Embrace the Ecosystem
Humans are exquisitely social animals. Most of us cannot exist independently from one another. Societies are complex ecosystems, with people mutually dependent upon one another for survival. And as environments have changed, new civilizations have grown up in response to new human needs.
In organizations, this spurs ever-expanding ideas about partnering and collaborating with other organizations. Technology incubation centers have spawned new developments–enabled by these networks and connections in ways that didn’t exist even a decade ago. It’s driven by sharing platforms– companies like Uber and Airbnb–and the subscription economy, led by companies like Salesforce and Apple.
Thriving in a VUCA World
There’s no escaping the VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity) world we live in today. Organizations are still scrambling to embrace the changes wrought by the pandemic, including shifting customer values and hybrid workforces. And while the recession is by no means certain, rising inflation, energy costs and interest rates are pressuring consumer and B2B customers.
But organizations are by no means helpless. These sweeping changes offer opportunities for evolution and adaptation. For some, it may even be the right time for organizational transformation, including a new approach to human-centric operating model design. And no matter what, this uncertainty requires an entirely new approach to collaboration, a holistic view of the organization that takes in a company’s eyes, ears, heart and soul–as well as its brain.
Transform Your Financial Services Retail Experiences with These 9 Levers
9 key levers across 3 development stages, each enabling financial institutions to transform their retail experience towards the future.
In many Asian markets, financial services companies used to grow alongside the macro economy and compete heavily on products. But things are changing. Product innovation within established incumbents is becoming more difficult under a slowing economy and tighter regulations. Fintech companies are disrupting legacy brands – with offers across saving, credit, insurance and more. The new generation of consumers is increasingly looking for more than short-term returns. These macro shifts indicate that in the future of financial services, reimagining the customer experience and offering benefits beyond transactions will be critical in driving sustainable, ownable growth.
Study1 shows that nearly 70% of Asian financial services companies understand the importance of “customer-centricity,” and are investing heavily to improve digitally enabled customer experiences (CX). Yet surprisingly, only 20% of customers consider FS companies providers of truly “customer-centric” experiences2. This gap is not a favorable truth but indicates a great opportunity for a company to take action and lead the future. We have identified nine key levers across three development stages that will enable financial institutions to transform their retail experiences for the future.
Fix the Basics: Become a Financial Services Company that Meets Customer Needs
1. From “Experience” to “Branded Experience”
Speed and convenience have become critical for customers in the modern digital world. But focusing efforts solely on “ease”also tends to create very similar sets of experiences and/or functions. So how can a company cut through the clutter?
The answer is simple: brand. A solid brand strategy clearly defines what promise a company makes to its customers and how it uniquely delivers on the promise. Next, this will be translated into a brand identity system that closely aligns with the strategy and guides the development of truly ownable experiences.
For many financial services companies, brand has not been considered and managed as a strategic asset. Therefore, before aspiring to create any signature experiences, companies need to build a solid foundation first by carefully looking into their brand strategy and identity to define their own experience principles.
2. From “Product Distribution” to “Omni-Channel Experience”
Internet companies and FinTech pioneers have disrupted and transformed the retail side of financial services (e.g. Ant Finance and Ascend Money). Many companies now rely heavily on these platforms to broaden their reach to retail customers. But platforms can be restricting, and the company could face constraints in building distinct experiences and owning customer relationships.
As a solution, some leading companies have started to invest in their own digital ecosystem. For example, Fidelity created SmartRetire, a one-stop retirement solution platform. By building their own digital experience, companies can not only design and own the customer experience, but also collect data to enable targeted, more relevant engagements, that in turn can improve the customer journey in the long term.
If creating owned ecosystem is not feasible in the short term, companies should at least build a holistic plan across touchpoints and identify opportunities to maximize owned experience and relationships.
3. From “Experience as External Resources” to ‘Experience as Internal Center of Excellence”
Many financial service providers leverage third-party vendors to deliver service and experience at lower costs. However, service quality could be at risk under this outsourcing model and differentiation could be harder to sustain if the vendor relationship is not exclusive.
Companies should prioritize experiences that are most desirable to customers, viable to businesses and feasible to execute, building an internal “center” that breaks the silos, connect the dots and assures quality. A strong center of excellence enables great experience from within, bringing higher efficiency and sustainable competitive advantage in the long term.
Excite with Experiences: Become a Financial Services Company that is Loved by Customers
4. From ”Fill the Pits” to ”Elevate the Peaks”
There could be a huge perception gap on “excellent customer experience.” Research3 shows that 80% of financial services companies believe they deliver excellent customer experiences, while only 8% of customers agree. One of the reasons behind this is that most companies focus only on fixing the pits upon functional pain points, but not on creating any peaks that delight and excite customers in memorable moments.
Customer lifetime could be quite long in financial services. To become a company that customers choose, trust and love, companies must build a holistic view of the customer lifetime journey, by identifying and prioritizing moments that matter and creating signature experiences that customers truly desire.
5. From ”Transactional Moment” to “Real Life Relationship”
Many financial services companies are facing infrequent interactions and transactional relationships with customers. Research4 shows that 60% of Asian customers have had zero engagement with their financial service provider in the past 18 months.
To go beyond the transactional moments, companies should look to expand their role and presence in other areas of customers’ everyday lives through partnerships and co-branded experiences. For example, Neo Bank MOX in Hong Kong partners with merchants favored by its customers and provides exclusive cash back. Another example is insurance company Beam, which partnered with a smart toothbrush brand and launched an oral health solution, offering premium incentives based on customers’ usage and behavioral data.
Companies should take a broader view of the customer journey, identify opportunities to meet people where they are in life and enable their lifestyle beyond financial needs. With expanded partnership and engagement, companies could also build an enriched understanding of customers on top of transactional data and enable future products and service innovations.
6. From “Data Enabled Personalization” to “Human Enabled Personalization”
Research5 shows that 80% of financial service customers desire more personalized experiences. In Asia, customers are 1.5 times more willing than customers in Europe to share personal data in exchange for personalized experiences. Yet it takes time to build data and analytics capabilities that enable meaningful personalization at digital touchpoints. Customers in Asia also still desire a certain level of in-person engagement – even in younger customers, research6 shows more than half believe financial services are not human enough.
So, while building data capabilities, companies should invest in empowering their front employees (e.g. RMs, agents) to deliver better, more relevant experiences with smarter tools and insights (e.g., need analysis, claim tracking). These tools should be designed not only to enable higher quality engagement but also to capture customer insights/data into the centralized database – to maintain customer understanding and relationships at risk of potential people turnover.
Lead the Future: Go Beyond the Frame of Reference as a Traditional Player
7. From “Proactiveness” to “Intelligence”
Customers are increasingly sophisticated and their expectations will rapidly evolve. Being “proactive” will become a table-stake part of the experience and companies could aim to lead by creating “intelligent” experiences that are three steps ahead with AI technology. In 2021, HSBC HK saw 10 times higher engagement between relationship managers and customers when it leveraged AI to offer 22 thousand different sets of wealth management solution advice to individual retail customers7.
Deep learning and hyper-personalization are among the top strategic priorities for CX leaders in 20228. Leading financial service companies should not only identify close-in use cases, such as product innovations or credit risk assessment but also stretch-out use cases that help the company go further into customers’ lives.
8. From ”Valued Customers” to “Empowered Customers”
Being “customer-centric” has been the center of gravity when creating experiences, but it still treats customers as “buyers,” in the position of receiving. As we move into the future, this relationship will be disrupted, and we will see customers as active stakeholders in deciding what type of experiences are created for them.
Creating better experiences requires data, but customers are increasingly conscious of their privacy and the power of data ownership. Research9 shows that although Asian customers are more willing to share data in exchange for better service, 90% of them are concerned about data privacy and 84% of them desire more control over how their information is used.
Leading companies should see this more as an opportunity than a challenge. Financial service brands should look at customers as empowered individuals, transform data collection into a “value exchange”, enhance data transparency with a sense of “co-ownership” and develop solutions and experiences through customer “co-creation.”
9. From ”Boundaries” to ”Boundless”
In the future world of Web 3.0, traditional boundaries will be blurred – online versus offline, virtual versus physical, consumers versus owners, etc. This boundless space will change how financial service companies organize and deliver value to customers throughout the lifecycle.
The entire model of “financial services” might change in the context of this – the role of a company could transform from a “service provider” or a “transaction middleman”, to an ecosystem or a community that enables peer-to-peer connections and better decisions among employees, partners, and customers.
The fast disruptions of fintech will never stop. Financial service companies should be open and embrace the changes to experiment with new ways of delivering value in the future, starting from small use cases.
Data source:
Harvard business review, Taking the Financial Services Customer Experience to the Next Level
Salesforce, Trends in the financial service industry
Bain, How to achieve true customer-led growth and close the delivery gap
Genesys, The era of 4.0 experience in Asia financial service industry
Mckinsey, Future of Asia financial services
Capgemini, The customer engagement imperative for financial services
South China news portal, HSBC leverages smart analytics to develop new tools that enhance the personalized customer experience
Genesys, the state of customer experience in financial services
Warc, APAC consumers increasingly concerned about data privacy
With advancement in customers, technology and society, experience will become a critical driver of sustainable and transformational growth in the future. Financial services companies should take actions early and carefully assess which stage they are currently at, what levers they could invest in building towards the next stage and start with smaller test and learn today to lead the future.
Under the Covers of Brand and Demand: A Love Story
Learn how marketing leaders can break down silos and turn their departments into growth machines.
58 min
Summary
Marketers are under intense pressure to make every dollar count, prove return and drive impact. That pressure can create competition between brand marketing and demand generation efforts for prioritization and funding, undercutting growth and harming performance.
This led us to wonder: How can companies rewrite that rivalry and turn it into a love story where everyone wins?
Prophet’s Marketing and Sales Practice leaders join executives from T. Rowe Price, Trane Commercial Americas, and Salesforce to discuss the results of our latest global research report, Brand and Demand Marketing: A Love Story.
We asked 500+ global marketing and advertising leaders how they are breaking down silos and balancing brand and demand marketing within their organizations. Watch the webinar to learn how to build agile marketing organizations that are customer-centric, aligned to business objectives and how to balance brand and demand marketing.
Key Takeaways
Marketers are under intense pressure to make every dollar count, prove return and drive impact. That pressure can create competition between brand marketing and demand generation efforts for prioritization and funding, undercutting growth and harming performance.
Through our research we learned the most effective marketers follow four common principles:
Anchor Marketing Investment in Business Objectives
Experiment to Win
Build a Modern Marketing Organization
Put the Customer at the Center
Hosts and Panelists
David Novak, Former Senior Partner, Prophet
Mat Zucker, Senior Partner, Prophet
Theresa McLaughlin, Head of Global Marketing & Digital Solutions, T. Rowe Price
Portia Mount, VP of Marketing at Trane Commercial Americas
Paul Stoddart, Chief Marketing Officer Customer Success, Salesforce
Contact us to learn how Prophet can help you overcome common challenges while integrating brand and demand marketing capabilities.
Learn about the power of collaboration and how it can fuel resilience across your organization.
55 min
Summary
Collaborative initiatives are becoming even more critical. Mounting evidence shows organizations that demonstrate effective collaboration across their business also benefit from having a greater resilience – particularly essential in these challenging times. Mastering it allows businesses to act nimbly, anticipate, adapt and respond to incremental and sudden changes – benefiting customers, employees and the bottom line. The trouble is executing it effectively.
As hybrid and remote working proliferate and disruption becomes the norm, it’s never been more important to ask: Are we collaborating effectively?
In this webinar replay, leaders from Prophet’s Organization and Culture practice discuss the results of their latest global research report, “Catalysts: The Collaborative Advantage.”
Learn how to unlock the power of collaboration across all working environments through a holistic, human-centered approach and how to structure collaboration to ensure resilience is achieved.
Key Takeaways
Why collaboration is a muscle that can unlock the potential of a more human-centered and resilient organization.
Actionable tactics to unlock collaboration in today’s ever-evolving organizations with remote, hybrid and face-to-face workplaces and the future opportunities for improvement.
The enhanced business outcomes and benefits of effective cross-organizational collaboration.
Digital transformation isn’t about technology. It’s about driving growth through digital convergence.
7 min
Summary
Chan Suh, chief digital officer at Prophet, explains how technology has enabled businesses to grow better. However, the businesses that grow best are those that embrace the concept of digital convergence – the approach of orchestrating digital transformation efforts around a singular purpose that has been reimagined for today’s customers and employees. Watch this video to find out what digital convergence looks and – even sounds – like. For more, read this blog post.
