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How the CEO at Curative Accelerates Growth by Meeting Consumers’ Needs

Unlock. Create. Execute: A conversation about uncovering growth by delivering better health outcomes.

Growth is rarely easy – specifically, growth driven by customer interest and market demand rather than the temporary variety driven by acquisition, cost takeout or organizational restructuring.

Because markets are moving faster than ever, we believe sustainable growth results from:

  • Unlocking compelling customer insights to inform growth strategies
  • Creating relevant, impactful growth moves
  • Executing faster and more efficiently

Through this series of interviews with healthcare leaders, we explore the driving insights, key actions and anticipated impact of their recent growth strategies.

In this edition, we sit down with Fred Turner, chief executive officer and co-founder of Curative, to learn more about his unique vision and approach to driving change in the insurance industry.

Curative is a groundbreaking healthcare services company that created and launched the first-of-its-kind employer-based health insurance plan. Founded in 2020, Curative reengineered health insurance by providing unmatched simplicity, enhanced engagement and cost transparency with a competitive monthly premium and zero additional costs. Curative is all about building the next generation of large employer health insurance – focused on preventative health and removing barriers to care.

Fred Turner is the CEO and co-founder of Curative. Under his leadership, Curative has shifted from the leading COVID-19 testing provider to an innovator in health insurance, offering plans with no copays, no deductibles and no cost-sharing for in-network care (with the completion of a baseline visit). This model has achieved a 94% member engagement rate, far surpassing industry standards. Turner’s vision is to create a healthcare system that supports holistic patient health.

What Is the Major Unlock That Informed Your Approach and Strategy for Curative?

When Curative was founded in January 2020, we initially focused on improving sepsis outcomes but quickly pivoted to supporting COVID diagnostic testing. That work exposed us to two key learnings: one, we touched every type of payer and health plan and saw cracks in the system, and two, we learned that consumers have serious fear and anxiety when it comes to healthcare expenses. That fear may prevent them from getting care, for example a COVID test, even when COVID tests are fully covered. We knew we wanted to do something that would move the needle on U.S. healthcare, something that could drive meaningful change in the system.

“Our experience during COVID made us say, the payer dynamic is a real problem with the U.S. healthcare system, and we could build a payer that can drive preventative care and better long-term outcomes.”

We saw the untapped space, where there hasn’t been innovation for decades, as the employer market, which is where 50% of Americans get their health insurance. The U.S. has run a natural experiment over the past 10 to 15 years with High Deductible Health Plans. Fifteen years ago, about 10% of plans met the American Care Act (ACA) definition of high deductible. Today, we’re closer to 60%. Did it work? The answer is a resounding no. Consumers aren’t great at price shopping, and people don’t make rational decisions, particularly when it comes to emotional subjects such as health and their finances.

“The other substantial effect when patient cost sharing goes up is the deferral of care.”

The National Bureau of Economic Research ran a study that followed a group who moved from a low deductible to a high deductible plan over three years. In the first year, you see about a 12% reduction in spending, which looks great – like we reduced healthcare spend. The problem is when you dig into what is happening, you see people putting off primary care visits, checkups and screening tests – even though in the plan design, certain preventative screening tests, like colonoscopies, were covered at $0 out-of-pocket cost. The care that gets put off is lower acuity preventative care.

“If you have a heart attack, you’re still going to go to the hospital, no matter what your deductible is. What the high deductible plan does do is prevent you from getting the checkup that might have avoided that hospitalization.”

How Did That Insight Help You to Create the Curative Platform in a Relevant, Differentiated Way?

We’re trying to approach preventative care differently in terms of the value that we assigned to it. The typical way that an insurance plan looks at loss, or medical loss right now, is every dollar spent as $1. Whether you spend $1 on preventive care or you spend $1 in the hospital, it’s still just $1. The way that we look at it is that dollar spent on a preventative visit could avoid inpatient stays, emergency room visits or specialty drug use.

“Preventative care that keeps people well is a dollar significantly better spent than a dollar on a preventable hospital stay.”

We’re committed to making an investment upfront, to getting people engaged in their care early and then seeing that payoff downstream with lower ER, hospital or specialty drug use. Most employers get stuck in this cycle of deferred care, where the population’s health is decreasing and costs continue to go up. Curative flips the script. We make it easy for people to engage upfront. The cost sharing is zero, so there are zero out-of-pocket costs, no copays and no deductibles to go and access care – as long as you engage in a preventative health visit within the first 120 days of signing up for the plan.

“If you want people to engage with care, you have to make it really simple.”

And the only way to make it simple enough that people really understand the cost to them is to make it zeros across the board. That’s the fear that any engagement in care is bad because I might get a bill for it – that’s what we have to fight. We think the only way to reset people to see a doctor if they’re sick or in a preventive manner to avoid becoming sick is to build trust that those actions won’t cost them a dime. Our philosophy, the long game, is that we will have a higher spend in the first year because people will get the care that they need. But in the second year, we’ll get back to baseline and, by the third year, we’ll actually be saving money because this population will be healthier.

How Are You Proving That Curative Can Execute Results That Employers Are Looking For?

We’re still in the process of building trust with members and employers, but the engagement piece via a preventative visit is key. We get an hour of the member’s time to do two things: one, we aim to educate them about accessing their care through a Care Navigator session. How do they make appointments? What is a deductible? What’s a copay? How do you figure out what doctors are in-network? When should you go to the ER?

“We’re demonstrating that we want them to access the care they need versus an adversarial relationship that members often have with their health plan that doesn’t want to cover what they need.”

That kicks off the relationship in a fundamentally different way and drives a higher degree of engagement. Two, members then meet with a clinician who is looking for gaps in care. If we see a pre-diabetic patient, we want to get them to a primary care physician who’s going to manage their pre-diabetes or even reverse it, rather than letting that continue to full-on type two diabetes, where, if unmanaged, could lead to major health complications that result in tremendous expense – that’s bad for the member and for the health plan. In the longer term, we expect to be able to keep rates closer to flat by managing this care over time, rather than the typical 10% increases you’re going to get from BUCA carrier every year. We’re new to the space and want to make sure that we’re here for the long term.

“It may sometimes seem like moving the boulder of the American healthcare system is impossible, but I think with a lot of dedicated, smart people chipping away at it, piece by piece, we really can make substantial change.”

FINAL THOUGHTS

Growth has become more challenging to generate and sustain driven by customer interest and market demand. Even top performers can no longer rely on their past strategies to achieve the next phase of growth. Beyond well-known barriers like tech-driven disruption and fickle customers, less tangible factors such as lack of executive clarity and short-term thinking pose significant threats. Sustainable growth now depends on unlocking compelling customer insights, identifying impactful growth moves and executing strategies quickly and efficiently. Ready to accelerate your growth? Schedule a workshop.

I’M INTERESTED IN A WORKSHOP

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How the CEO at Northwell Direct Accelerates Growth with a Clinician-First Approach

Unlock. Create. Execute: A conversation about uncovering growth by disrupting traditional models.

Growth is rarely easy – specifically, growth driven by customer interest and market demand rather than the temporary variety driven by acquisition, cost takeout or organizational restructuring.

Because markets are moving faster than ever, we believe sustainable growth results from:

  • Unlocking compelling customer insights to inform growth strategies
  • Creating relevant, impactful growth moves
  • Executing faster and more efficiently

Through this series of interviews with healthcare leaders, we explore the driving insights, key actions and anticipated impact of their recent growth strategies.

In this edition, we sit down with Nick Stefanizzi, chief executive officer at Northwell Direct, to learn more about the company’s origin and philosophy around growing its integrated care network.

Northwell Direct is a subsidiary of Northwell Health, one of the largest healthcare providers in New York. Established in 2020, Northwell Direct offers a direct-to-employer health care network of more than 31,000 providers and customized wellness programs to support employee health. This allows employers to offer high-quality healthcare to their employees without going through traditional insurance companies. Northwell Health utilizes Northwell Direct’s provider network for its own employee health benefits, ensuring comprehensive and cost-effective care for its workforce.

Nick Stefanizzi is the CEO of Northwell Direct, where he is responsible for the strategy, operations, growth and financial performance of Northwell Health’s direct-to-employer organization. Stefanizzi has been with Northwell Health for 16 years, serving in various roles, including assistant vice president for HR innovation and organization effectiveness as well as director of management services for Northwell’s ambulatory network.

What Is the Major Unlock That Informed Your Approach and Strategy for Northwell Direct?

Northwell Health had its own insurance company (Care Connect) that was incredibly successful – but we were not prepared for risk adjustment, so that business venture shuttered in 2018. While that was challenging, what wasn’t lost was our belief that playing in that space was the right approach. At the same time, our organization started to grow. We’re the largest private employer in the state of New York, in addition to being the largest healthcare provider. Organically, we started to get inbound inquiries from employers saying, we’re having these kinds of challenges in our employee plan – can you help us figure this out as both an employer and a provider? We saw that we had an opportunity to do something different for the communities we serve. That was really the genesis of Northwell Direct. We then built a business around that concept, not only to meet employer needs but to disrupt the payer space.

“It’s our belief that a more direct relationship between those who provide the care and those who pay for the care is beneficial, and that today, payers have inserted themselves between those two entities.”

There’s still a role for the major carriers to play, but they don’t need to sit between us, and in fact, by working together with the employers and their employees, it’s our belief that we can better manage care and drive improvements in quality and outcomes.

We only work with self-funded employers in their benefit design. In New York state, that means more than 100 employees, and we don’t carry any financial risk, as we do not offer an insurance product. We’re on the hook for performance. Our focus is on delivering value, savings, efficiency and outcomes for our employers. The other thing we didn’t do was invest in building an insurance company. There are third-party administrators that have the capabilities needed to support an employer-sponsored plan, so why not partner instead of building it ourselves and going at it alone?

“We saw a business model that was ripe for disruption and employers who were hungry for support, grappling with the challenges they’ve had with their employee population and desperate to arrest a trend that had been moving in the wrong direction for over a decade.”

We saw an opportunity to build the platform differently with partners.

In Addition to Opening a New Line of Business, What Impact Did Northwell Direct Create for Your Key Audiences?

We’ve made a concerted effort to remove the traditional denials and hurdles in this space that don’t add value or drive for the member or material savings for the employer. While we can accommodate any benefit design requirements, we have examples of clients for whom, if their employees receive care within our tier one network, there are zero prior authorizations needed. And it doesn’t lead to higher costs. There is no statistical difference in unnecessary utilization or unnecessary testing.

“We take a clinical-first approach – what does the doctor believe is necessary?”

We trust that we have providers who are going to do the right thing by the patient and by the plan, and then manage the care intensely to make sure it’s as efficient as possible. It’s about administering consistently with the benefits plan but providing clinically oriented insights into how that benefit design can be enhanced to drive the right patient behaviors and the right patient choice of the highest quality, lowest-cost providers, and then wrapping the member with support that is integrated with and endorsed by the clinician. By taking a provider-oriented approach, our engagement levels are much higher. We’re able to share the care management information back with the provider so they can take a more holistic view. And lastly, what we can do locally that the national carriers can’t is get on the ground. If we have a member who is admitted, we will send a nurse care manager to their bedside to coordinate their follow-up care, their appointments and make sure they’re clear on what happens post-discharge. You can’t do that from a contact center across the country.

“Clinical-first, integrated care management, boots on the ground and a structural approach that is different in terms of our philosophy around denials versus provider enablement – that’s what we’re doing, and it’s fundamentally different from how carriers think about this.”

How Challenging Was It to Get the Business Running, and How Will You Execute Your Growth Future Plans?

It’s hard for health systems to get into this business because it takes investment, and health systems are struggling financially. They are under enormous pressure, there are a lot of competing priorities, and it takes a lot to stand up a new venture like this.

“You cannot do this by having somebody do it off the side of their desk.”

You have to build competency and capabilities. For example, we brought in people with skill sets that traditionally don’t exist within the health system. We’re selling an incredibly complex product in the insurance space, even though we’re not an insurance company. I have licensed brokers that work for me – that skill set and those broker relationships don’t exist in health systems. You have to invest in building the appropriate infrastructure. You need talent that doesn’t necessarily exist from within the organization, and you have to build capabilities. But you don’t need to do it all. Just pick one thing that an employer might need or have a conversation with a major employer in your region and ask what they would want help with and start there. Yes, there are competing priorities, competing investments and a tremendous amount of pressure, but I believe this strategy in the long term will alleviate those pressures.

In the next five years, we will expand the field of play and be a major regional player. There’s an opportunity to grow our network and the geographic footprint of employers we serve. In addition to that growth, we’re diversifying the ways in which we partner with employers. That means new products and services. That means rolling out digital platforms to augment our clinical capabilities. That means partnering differently, even within the insurance space. We’re going to roll out our own bundles and centers of excellence.

“I believe, fundamentally, there is a national opportunity here for health systems to partner together and for us to take the work we’re doing here, to line it up with the work that Baylor is doing in Texas, what Orlando Health is doing in Florida, what Providence is doing up in Washington and California, and for us to figure out how to stitch something together that would allow us to scale nationally.”

That’s a very complicated proposition. I don’t know exactly yet how it will come together, but I believe there are enough health systems that see this as an interesting space and that there’s opportunity for us over time to figure out how to make that possible together.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Driven by customer interest and market demand, growth has become even more challenging to generate and sustain. Even top performers can no longer rely on their past strategies to achieve the next phase of growth. Beyond well-known barriers like tech-driven disruption and fickle customers, less tangible factors such as lack of executive clarity and short-term thinking pose significant threats. Sustainable growth now depends on unlocking compelling customer insights, identifying impactful growth moves and executing strategies quickly and efficiently.

Ready to accelerate your growth? Schedule a workshop.

I’M INTERESTED IN A WORKSHOP

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Beyond Boundaries: 5 Steps for Creating Iconic Destinations 

Discover how destinations can craft compelling brands and implement strategic approaches to attract global travelers, foster emotional connections and stand out in a competitive market.  


As we approach the end of the year, tourism has shown strong signs of a full recovery with today’s travelers relishing the freedom to explore. International visitors to the Middle East are especially eager: it’s the only region to have surpassed 2019 levels, up 22% last year, according to the United Nations’ World Tourism Barometer. Europe is close behind. And while that rising tide of tourism is generating record spending, it also presents a unique challenge for every country, city and region striving to attract visitors. What makes people pick Dubai over Denmark? A weekend in Istanbul instead of three days at a spa? The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix versus Monaco? 

Even the most established and well-known destinations must actively work to attract every visitor, while new and emerging locations need to go further to gain attention on the global stage. They must build compelling brands that not only resonate with consumers but are also grounded in consumer insights, strategic rigor, creative innovation and an unwavering commitment to a unified vision. In this fiercely competitive arena, cities and countries aren’t just vying for tourists. They’re looking to cultivate a tourism base that drives economic growth and leaves a lasting impression on visitors. Often, they’re competing against regions with far larger marketing budgets. Winning requires sharply defined target audiences, inspiring first-time visitors and turning them into lifelong advocates.  

To stand out, every city, region and country must craft a unique narrative that sets it apart. At Prophet, we believe there are five critical elements that every destination should consider when building and strengthening its brand.  

1. Tap Into Travelers’ Desires and Needs 

Successful destination branding begins with a deep, authentic understanding of today’s travelers, who care more about experiences, environmental responsibility and the positive impact on local citizens. Fresh consumer research acts as a guide for destination marketers, revealing traveler preferences, perceptions and untapped opportunities. This insight enables brands to make strategic choices about which traveler segments to target and how to best appeal to them in the race to relevance – whether with luxury shopping experiences or family-friendly excursions.  

For example, the enchanting city of Istanbul, consistently a Top 10 destination. Istanbul continues to feed this fascination through research, curating experiences catering to history buffs craving a glimpse into the city’s storied past and millennials seeking Instagram-worthy moments amidst its bustling streets.  

Consumer insights also shaped our recent collaboration with the Department of Culture and Tourism as we worked to develop the destination brand for Abu Dhabi. We realized that in a world that never stands still, Abu Dhabi reawakens curiosity, inviting visitors to experience the city at their own pace. While traditional destination branding focuses on landmarks and attractions, this visitor-centric approach is rooted in four vital human passions: Inspiration, excitement, restoration and prosperity. It appeals to a broad set of travelers and showcases the Emirate’s breadth, from the Louvre Abu Dhabi to star gazing at the Al Wathba fossil dunes. The global “Find Your Pace” campaign aimed at inspiring curiosity for every type of traveler, invites them to escape the hustle and bustle of everyday life and discover their ideal pace amidst the Emirate’s serene surroundings. It’s working. This traveler-focused strategy has driven impressive results, including an 82% boost in awareness and a 75% rise in consideration.   

2. Transform Perceptions and Challenge Old Ideas 

Tourism can be a significant driver of economic growth, generating revenue and creating jobs. By shaping positive perceptions, destinations can attract more visitors, strengthening local economies. For instance, Saudi Arabia’s “Visit Saudi” campaign has challenged global perceptions through stunning imagery and captivating storytelling, presenting the Kingdom’s diverse landscapes, cultural heritage and modern marvels. Through visually striking and compelling narratives, Saudi Arabia has successfully repositioned itself as a must-visit country, welcoming over 100 million tourists in 2023 – a milestone it initially didn’t expect to achieve until 2030.  

3. Personalize Experiences 

As today’s consumers increasingly seek tailored experiences, destinations must move beyond generic marketing. Oman has positioned itself as a haven for intrepid adventurers and luxury seekers, with rugged landscapes and tranquil oases that offer a sanctuary for discerning consumers looking for authentic encounters. While Jordan’s eco-tourism and Morocco’s culinary and scenic offerings attract diverse traveler types. By appealing directly to specific preferences, these brands create authentic, memorable experiences that resonate deeply with visitors. Cultural nuances add depth to these campaigns, helping destinations inspire one-of-a-kind vacations.  

4. Create Emotional Connections 

Emotion lies at the heart of every memorable brand, especially those offering transformative travel experiences. Destinations like Egypt understand they’re marketing emotions, not locations. By repositioning its ancient wonders as symbols of adventure and luxury, Egypt has redefined its appeal.   

The best brands use every sensory opportunity to stoke these emotions with powerful visuals and well-thought-out verbal expressions, evoking powerful feelings of relaxation, awe or excitement to make their destination unforgettable.  

5. Embrace and Respect Local Culture 

Sustainable destination branding must respect and preserve local culture, which is increasingly valued by conscientious travelers. This interest fuels demand for immersive experiences, from visiting local farmers to shopping with native designers. People want to see more than a hotel lobby or the view from a tour bus. They want to know who the local people are, so cultural immersion and local tours remain a top priority. 

To strike the right balance, destination brands need to avoid clichés, celebrate authentic local heritage and emphasize respectful, sensitive marketing. By focusing on authenticity, brands foster meaningful connections, cultivating understanding between visitors and local communities, creating a win-win for travelers and locals alike.  

FINAL THOUGHTS

A visitor-centric approach, creatively inspired and powered by consumer data, can unlock many opportunities. Destinations that stand the test of time and drive economic value creation understand their target audience and carve out a unique position in the market. Unlocking relevance, ensuring authenticity and building connections is the route to success.  

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How To Get Back on a Growth Track in 2025

As businesses across Germany face ongoing economic challenges, our latest blog explores five essential strategies to help your organization realign, strengthen from within and forge a resilient path back to growth in 2025.

As we approach 2025, global economic challenges persist, with growth projections remaining modest and some even predicting a third consecutive year of mild recession. Across Germany, businesses in core industries are feeling the pressure of high interest rates, waning consumer demand and market volatility. In response, many firms are turning inward, prioritizing operational efficiencies over expansion. Yet, a focus solely on cost-cutting and efficiency poses deeper challenges for business leaders: how to sustain employee motivation and engagement, preserve hard-won progress and lay a solid foundation for a return to or even new versions of growth.

To guide your organization back to a growth track in 2025, here are five essential strategies: 

1. Re-Set Your Narrative With an Updated Story of Value

Challenging times can send out mixed signals – both internally and externally. Now more than ever, organizations need a unifying narrative that resonates deeply with employees and offers customers a clear, differentiated value. Especially in today’s recessionary climate, as we’re currently seeing in Germany, articulating your value in a way that is authentic and optimistic is essential.  

“When top employees and valued customers feel a compelling sense of purpose, engagement rises.”

When top employees and valued customers feel a compelling sense of purpose, engagement rises. Prophet’s new leadership tool, The Story of Value, brings tangible and intangible business assets into a distinctive and inspiring narrative. It crystallizes the unique value the business offers to shareholders, customers and employees. It simplifies a complex business into a compelling statement of value, creating a common language that inspires executives and employees internally while resonating with the market externally. 

Companies using the Story of Value tool are integrating it across critical areas, such as: 

  • Enhancing marketing and sales effectiveness through sharpened value propositions. 
  • Aligning corporate communications around a distinctive market narrative focused on core value. 
  • Strengthening the employee value proposition and modernizing foundational corporate assets (e.g., purpose statements, values, brand positioning) for a more cohesive culture. 
  • Arming finance, corporate development and IR teams with stronger investor day and roadshow presentations. 

2. Unlock the Moves that Propel Impact 

Now is the time for pragmatic innovation. In any business, there are actionable moves that can drive significant, measurable impact – whether by challenging a competitor or seizing a gap in the market. Identify actionable strategies based on customer needs and market opportunities that can be measured, optimized and scaled. Here are some examples of growth-oriented moves:  

  • Vision: Formulate a clear and reachable north star that every team member can rally around. Articulate the positive impact for individuals, the organization and society.  
  • Portfolio: Optimize your product portfolio for efficiencies.  
  • Marketing: Tap into new segments or double-down on loyalty with your most profitable audiences. 
  • Distribution: Test new routes to market, like direct-to-consumer models.  
  • Operations: Streamline processes and refine operational models.  
  • Talent: Foster mentorship between experienced employees and new hires in key areas like generative AI. Mentors provide guidance, while mentees bring fresh perspectives, benefiting both parties and building motivation through shared growth. 

3. Nurture Your Leadership and Team Collaboration  

Leadership teams, much like individuals, are dynamic ecosystems that require constant nurturing. Our proven method surfaces hidden challenges and fears, enabling leaders to address these openly and build a strong foundation of trust. This trust is essential for cultivating a high-performing leadership team unified by shared goals. 

Our annual Catalysts research shows that successful transformations hinge on genuine collaboration, where enterprise and individual goals are seamlessly integrated. High-functioning teams that shift from a siloed mindset to a team-oriented approach foster mutual accountability and alignment while also benefiting customers and the bottom line. 

The basis for this work is Prophet’s Human-Centered Transformation Model (HCTM), a comprehensive, people-centered approach designed to fuel growth across the organization. It’s built on the premise that organizations, like people, consist of interconnected elements: DNA, mind, body and soul. 

For leadership teams to thrive, they should follow a similar model where trust, collaboration and a shared sense of purpose are cultivated to drive meaningful outcomes.  The Human-Centered Leadership Team Effectiveness Model emphasizes that addressing all dimensions of the human system is crucial to unlocking potential and achieving impactful, sustained outcomes. 

4. Invest in Your Brand – Inside and Out 

In challenging economies, the power of a strong brand becomes ever more evident, underscoring the critical need to invest in it for continued growth. Yet, this imperative often isn’t fully recognized across the executive team. Without broad leadership commitment to brand investment as a strategic priority, efforts to secure and sustain resources can encounter resistance, limiting the brand’s potential impact on overall business outcomes. Market experience and research consistently show that established brands tend to grow market share in down economies, as customers seek reliability and stability. For instance, brands that increased their share of voice during the 2008 recession grew market share 4.5 times faster than those that did not. Investing in your brand drives business value through three key lenses: 

  • Revenue and margin: A strong brand enhances customer choice, loyalty and price premium.  
  • Valuation: Brand equity bolsters enterprise value and shareholder return. 
  • Talent attraction: A reputable brand strengthens the talent pipeline and reduces talent acquisition costs. 

5. Implement an Agile Change Management Strategy  

Returning to growth demands a robust, people-centered change management strategy that addresses both the cognitive and emotional dimensions of the team. Leaders need to be equipped to guide teams through the complexities of change, dealing with underlying thoughts and feelings to build trust, resilience and alignment.   

To be effective, change management requires a holistic approach that considers multiple dimensions. Define clear actions within each area to maintain a comprehensive focus, rather than concentrating on just one or two aspects. Navigating transformation is complex and demands a balanced strategy that meets organizational needs while empowering the people driving them. Skillful coordination is essential. Bringing in an experienced partner like Prophet, who excels in orchestrating comprehensive change initiatives can be invaluable in helping your organization thrive in today’s challenging business environment. 

FINAL THOUGHTS

The path to growth is within reach through clear narratives, strategic moves, leadership focus, brand resilience and well-executed change management. Let’s talk about how Prophet can help get your business back on track in 2025. 

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Is Your Approach to Building Digital Strategy Holding You Back? 

In today’s hyper-competitive market, digital capabilities are no longer a “nice-to-have” but a necessity. 

Businesses are increasingly investing in digital solutions to meet rising customer expectations and drive growth. According to a study by McKinsey, over 65% of executives say their companies have increased spending on digital initiatives due to customer demand. Additionally, Gartner reports that 56% of CEOs view digital improvements as a top priority for driving revenue growth, underscoring the strategic importance of digital transformation. Yet, despite these investments, many organizations struggle to achieve the digital transformation they envision. Why? The problem often lies in the approach itself. Here are the most common pitfalls holding organizations back and how they impact the company’s ability to drive sustained growth—along with strategic shifts that can make a difference.

1. No Leadership-Level Vision, Product Ownership or Roadmap 

The lack of a clear vision and leadership buy-in can result in a reactive approach. Especially in sales-driven B2B companies, digital tools are often developed to address a single customer or account’s needs. Without a dedicated product owner or roadmap, development teams become consumed by short-term requests instead of working towards a strategic vision. This reactive approach leads to over-customization, technical debt and inflated budgets, which often produce low value for both the customer and the business. 

A digital strategy without a strong leadership vision can never become a catalyst for growth. To build and maintain buy-in, leadership must see digital transformation as integral to their overall growth agenda — not just an IT initiative but a central driver of efficiency, customer experience and new revenue streams. 

How this impedes growth: Without a clear digital vision, companies fail to differentiate themselves in the market, struggle with scalability and often miss out on new revenue opportunities. The result is stagnation in key growth metrics like customer acquisition, revenue and market penetration. 

Making the strategic shift: Successful digital transformations start at the top. It’s critical that leadership articulates a digital vision that aligns with the company’s overarching business strategy. This means moving beyond one-off digital projects to embedding digital as a core driver of the company’s growth. Clear product ownership is essential, ensuring that there is accountability for steering the digital direction and maintaining focus on long-term goals. A well-defined digital roadmap with a focus on scalability, innovation and customer value provides the necessary guidance to stay on course amidst competing priorities. 

2. Have a “Build It and They Will Come” Mentality 

There’s a persistent myth that launching a new digital tool or platform will instantly bring success. The truth is technology alone isn’t a silver bullet. Merely investing in a platform without understanding its role in your business strategy leads to wasted resources. Successful digital products require a deep understanding of customer needs and the flexibility to adapt as those needs evolve. They also need a strategy for driving adoption, both internally and with customers. 

When companies fail to integrate their digital efforts with their broader growth strategy, they miss opportunities to enhance customer engagement and increase market share. A poorly adopted tool becomes a sunk cost, diverting attention and resources away from other strategic growth initiatives. 

How this impedes growth: An underutilized digital product fails to generate the expected return on investment, resulting in lost revenue opportunities. It also undermines customer confidence, impacting long-term customer loyalty and retention. 

Making the strategic shift: Businesses must move beyond the “build it and they will come” mindset to a more holistic and customer-centric approach. This involves understanding not just what customers want, but how digital capabilities fit into the broader customer journey. Design thinking can play a pivotal role, driving companies to prototype, test and iterate digital solutions in close alignment with customer needs. Moreover, digital initiatives should be tied to measurable business outcomes. Aligning digital tools with KPIs such as customer acquisition, engagement rates or sales growth can ensure that investments are not just technically sound but also commercially viable. 

3. No Planned Funding Beyond Product Launch 

Launching a digital product is just the beginning, not the end. Yet, many businesses fail to plan for ongoing funding to support post-launch iterations, updates and user engagement. This lack of continuous investment can make even the best-designed product quickly obsolete. In fact, studies show that 70% of digital transformations fail, often due to short-sighted budgeting and underestimating the need for sustained investments post-launch (Boston Consulting Group, 2020). 

A lack of post-launch funding stifles innovation and prevents companies from responding to market changes. Digital platforms must evolve to keep pace with shifting customer expectations and technological advancements. Without a commitment to continuous investment, companies can’t capitalize on growth opportunities that arise from an agile and evolving digital strategy. 

How this impedes growth: A stagnant digital product reduces competitiveness and limits revenue expansion. Companies that don’t invest in product evolution will likely face declining engagement and lower profitability over time. 

Making the strategic shift: To truly leverage digital as a growth driver, companies must adopt a mindset of continuous evolution. Digital products should be viewed as living assets that require ongoing investment, iteration and optimization. Budgeting should reflect a commitment to long-term value creation, not just initial product launches. Agile methodologies, which emphasize iterative development and rapid response to change, can help companies adapt to evolving market demands. Measuring ROI should also be dynamic—regularly assess the impact of digital tools on customer behavior, market trends and competitive positioning to make informed decisions about future investments. 

4. Over-Customization of Tools vs. Keeping a Clean Core 

Customization can be a double-edged sword. Over-customizing platforms can create technical debt and complexity, making future updates costly and time-consuming. Instead, organizations should focus on maintaining a “Clean Core” — using standardized solutions for non-differentiating functions and investing in tailored solutions only for areas that offer a competitive edge. 

Customization may seem appealing in the short-term, especially to meet specific customer demands, but it often becomes a barrier to scalability. Over-customized solutions can bog down innovation and limit the agility needed to support a broader growth strategy. Companies need to prioritize their unique differentiators, focusing customization efforts on what will drive revenue and competitive advantage. 

How this impedes growth: Over-customization drains resources and makes scaling digital solutions difficult, hindering the ability to drive rapid growth. It leads to inefficiency, making it harder to adapt to market demands and ultimately reduces the speed at which a company can capitalize on new opportunities. 

Making the strategic shift: Businesses need to adopt a strategic approach to customization—focusing only on what truly sets them apart. A “Clean Core” philosophy means standardizing non-differentiating elements to minimize complexity while concentrating custom efforts where they matter most for strategic growth. This approach not only accelerates time-to-market but also allows for greater flexibility in adopting new technologies. Companies that embrace a modular architecture can scale faster, reduce technical debt and be more agile in responding to new opportunities, ultimately driving sustainable growth. 

5. Lack of Data Governance/Data Architecture That Fuels Strategy 

Data is the backbone of any digital initiative but without a solid data governance framework, it’s hard to turn data into actionable insights. Effective data architecture not only ensures data accuracy but also enables faster, more informed decisions. Lack of governance leads to data silos, poor data quality and an inability to fully leverage analytics and AI-driven insights. According to a Gartner report, 87% of organizations have low business intelligence and analytics maturity, largely due to weak data governance frameworks. 

Data-driven insights are crucial for identifying growth opportunities, optimizing operations and personalizing customer experiences. Without a clear strategy for managing and utilizing data, companies miss critical opportunities to refine their value propositions, improve customer targeting and drive revenue. 

How this impedes growth: Poor data governance leads to inaccurate analytics, inhibiting a company’s ability to make strategic decisions that drive growth. This can result in misaligned sales efforts, missed customer opportunities and suboptimal product development. 

Making the strategic shift: To truly harness the power of data for growth, companies need to invest in robust data governance and architecture. This means establishing a single source of truth for data, implementing governance policies that ensure data quality and creating frameworks that facilitate the integration of analytics across the business. Embracing AI and advanced analytics should be a priority, but it requires a solid data foundation. Organizations that can turn data into actionable insights will gain a competitive advantage, driving better customer experiences, operational efficiencies and new revenue streams. 

A Case in Best Practices 

A Prophet client in the parts manufacturing and distribution industry spent 15 weeks defining its digital strategy, roadmap and business case before launching a minimum viable product (MVP) to a subset of customers, with the CEO as the executive sponsor. The strategy focused on the desirability, viability and feasibility of the solution and included a three-year roadmap with stage-gate check-ins to ensure progress. 

Customer service representatives were trained to support new tools and traffic-driving tactics were embedded in the investment plan. As the platform expanded to different business areas, customizations were only adopted if they aligned with the broader strategy. A focus on streamlining data and reducing complexity minimized integration challenges. 

This thorough approach is paying off, with increasing adoption driving cost savings and new revenue growth in emerging market segments. 

FINAL THOUGHTS

In a landscape where digital capabilities define competitive advantage, businesses can no longer afford to treat digital transformation as a separate initiative or a one-time investment. Success hinges on a holistic, strategic approach that aligns digital efforts with broader business goals. This means moving beyond the pitfalls of a “build it and they will come” mentality, fragmented leadership, limited funding, over-customization and poor data governance. By embedding digital deeply into the fabric of your organization’s growth agenda, you create a foundation that is agile, scalable and truly customer-centric.  

Those who embrace this shift will not only survive in an increasingly digital world but thrive, setting the pace for innovation and unlocking new paths to revenue and market leadership.  

Digital isn’t just a strategy—it’s the strategy that will drive sustainable growth for the future. 

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How Verbal Brand Tactics Can Boost Business Resilience 

From AI to Gen Z, disruptive forces are challenging the delivery of your brand promise. Here’s how an innovative verbal strategy can protect it. 

Today, verbal branding has become a critical strategy that powers everything from the ethos and expression of a brand’s positioning to the defining characteristics of its personality and tone to its advertising, marketing, content, sales and experiences. 

But a confluence of fast-moving forces are disrupting how brands deliver on their promise. As behavioral and attitudinal trends evolve and accelerate, the role and impact of a brand’s verbal identity are evolving too.  

Growth-oriented brands looking to stay ahead will need to adapt their verbal strategies to navigate new — and sometimes seemingly competing — imperatives to maintain relevance, share of voice, ROI, growth and resilience.  

Tension #1: Showing Up Authentically in an Era of Skepticism 

Consumers increasingly want brands to be authentic, share their values, and communicate transparently. Indeed, 86% of consumers say authenticity is crucial when choosing brands to support. And 92% of marketers believe consumers perceive their content as authentic — yet 57% of consumers think less than half of brands actually are authentic. 

It may feel difficult to balance authenticity with credibility; you want to communicate expertise, leadership and your competitive differentiation, which might feel at odds with younger consumers’ preferences for less polished, imperfect and casual content, especially on platforms like TikTok and YouTube. 

At a time when 52% of consumers say they keep authentic brands in mind when considering future purchases, but 20% would unfollow a brand if it appeared inauthentic, getting the balance right is critical.  

Takeaway

It’s not always clear what being authentic means, looks like and requires across the organization at both the macro and the micro level. So, it’s important for stakeholders to work cross-functionally to unpack and define authenticity — is it being more transparent? More relatable? Is it a tonal shift? Operational? — for the brand and customers, along with how you might deliver. 

Macro authenticity might include instituting new ways to support transparency, like codifying a process to stay ahead of and communicate changes, such as price increases, to your audiences. It could mean taking a fresh look at your organization’s values and instituting new behaviors and metrics. Maybe it means operationalizing empathy, such as integrating new social listening and response tools. It could mean updating your marketing plan to include relevant niche micro-influencers instead of major influencers (or using influencers for the first time). 

On the micro level, authenticity might mean softening hard-sell language and hyperbole on your website, updating call center scripts, incorporating short-form video and behind-the-scenes moments, rewriting product descriptions so they read plainly, adding customer testimonials and using a more conversational, approachable or inclusive tone. This can build trust and a willingness to follow, driving engagement, affinity and loyalty.  

As brands strive to be more authentic and accessible through language and tone, it can be tempting to mirror popular slang. The problem is that language changes fluidly—and quickly, driven by social media and today’s digital instant feedback loop. That means it ages just as quickly; what worked two years ago can already feel incredibly out of date, or worse, out of touch. In fact, some reports show language changes happening within a year.  

The rate of linguistic change can make different cohorts feel like they’re speaking entirely different languages at times. For instance, in one report, 30% of Gen X workers said they struggle to understand millennial and Gen Z co-worker slang. Yet brands still need to connect in a way that’s modern and relatable.  

The answer isn’t to brush up on Gen Z or Gen Alpha slang. As Jessi Greiser, an assistant professor of English Linguistics at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, said in an interview, “One of the death knells for slang is when it shows up in corporate social media. When [brands like Wendy’s are] saying, ‘Come vibe with our Baconator’ — that’s it. It’s over.” 

So, if the solution isn’t to add a bank of slang to your brand book, what should brands do to authentically connect? 

Takeaway 

First, know there’s a difference between how your audiences speak and how they want to be spoken to. In some of our work across media and entertainment, for instance, we found Gen Z content creators want brands to speak to them, not like them, preferring a tone that sits between professional, conversational and encouraging.  

Second, dive into your customer data, social listening tools and key metrics, and/or conduct new research to find the sentiments, attitudes and behaviors behind your audiences’ communication styles. Do the same to surface their communication needs and preferences, then update your tone of voice principles to play in this sweet spot.  

And third, don’t look at your verbal identity as something fixed and static, but rather dynamic, kind of like the “middleware” between the brand strategy and in-market activation. Just like software, it needs regular updates. Create intentional processes and cadences for teams to check in on the verbal brand regularly, say every six months, surfacing insights from digital marketing metrics, A/B copy tests, social listening, customer feedback, focus groups and the like. 

Tension #3: Balancing Performance Strategies with Brand Storytelling 

For the last 20 years, brands have increased their investment in demand or performance marketing and, along with it, focused on metrics like clicks and conversions. While these tactics drive short-term sales and gains, the over-reliance of performance marketing can negatively impact your brand equity, fragmenting the brand, creating an inconsistent experience for consumers and worse, one they don’t necessarily remember when it’s time to make a future purchasing decision. 

As we found in our new research report, “Brand and Demand: Marketing’s Great Love Story,” brand and demand don’t have to compete; instead, growth-oriented brands are doubling down on brand-first performance. That simply means bringing the brand story to performance touchpoints—indeed, delivering a consistent, cohesive story and experience can increase revenue by up to 20%. 

That’s challenged by the afore-mentioned instant digital feedback loop, especially on social and vocal consumers who have increasing ability (and willingness) to shift perception—and profitability—of a brand. It makes consistency an imperative because consistency builds trust, right along with your brand. And for 60% of people, a brand’s most important traits are trustworthiness and transparency. 

Takeaway 

Look to build consistency in brand storytelling across channels and platforms. One of the smartest ways to do this is by creating and codifying a brand voice and messaging strategy that’s modular yet cohesive. This gives both brand and demand teams the structure to stay on-brand, on-voice, on-message and on-strategy, but also the flexibility to adapt the message, story or tone to meet the needs of the specific moment, audience, channel or touchpoint.  

Tension #4: Balancing AI Speed to Market With Differentiation in Market 

Brands want to pump out content at scale, which is why companies of all sizes are experimenting with generative AI. And for good reason: it’s an incredible time-saving resource, especially if used to get ideas going, skim off surface fluff, brainstorm various angles and play with expression.  

The issue is trying to use AI to generate drafts and final content without assiduously evaluating and revising for brand voice, on-strategy messaging and copywriting best practices, such as understanding linguistic psychological triggers and optimizing for conversion.  

What we’re beginning to see as a result of the latter is that large language models (LLMs) are challenging differentiation with generic content that’s threatening to create homogeny at scale. LLMs aren’t thinking or reasoning; they’re guessing which word comes next in a sequence, based on what they’ve been trained on. (And increasingly LLMs are having to train on content they’ve churned out already, leading to worries that it will all devolve into nonsense in a phenomenon called model collapse. But that’s a conversation for another day.)  

Takeaway 

Brands can combat the slide into homogenization by prioritizing specificity and precision in language to differentiate amid the flood of AI content. That means being intentional about surfacing strong and credible proof points, being specific about offers and differentiators, being precise with language to credibly demonstrate value and continually training your LLM on your brand voice. 

It also means balancing productivity with best practice and brand governance, such as retaining a copy director, content manager, managing editor, editorial director or brand creative director of copywriting to manage and evaluate generative AI output. Roles like these can make a significant impact on the quality and effectiveness of content assisted by AI; LLMs can help generate ideas, angles and different modes of expression and your editorial director can then spend their time on more impactful work, such as punching up creativity, elevating tone of voice, devising A/B tests or sharpening copy best practices. 

FINAL THOUGHTS

Words have never held so much power—and potential—as they do today. By intentionally focusing on unpacking and operationalizing authenticity, connecting a cohesive brand story across touchpoints, enabling modularity and flexibility, and staying close to customer data, brands can create a dynamic verbal identity that flexes with the market, shields against disruption, and fuels growth. Language drives belief, buy-in and behavior, after all; not just words for brands but for brand world-building. 

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Three Brand Building Imperatives in Leading Successful M&A Deals 

Learn the importance of a well-defined brand strategy with three M&A examples.

Many businesses in Asia have achieved exponential growth through mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in recent years. However, success hinges not just on immediate financial gains, but also on how the new organization (“NewCo”) integrates both operational and brand equities.  

A well-defined and executed brand strategy can significantly impact the overall business success during and post M&A by fostering cohesion, clarity and confidence among all stakeholders. This is especially true for B2B companies, where M&A deals often involve the evolution of not only organizational structures, but also offerings, processes, people and cultures. 

At Prophet, we have partnered with a diverse array of businesses across Asia and around the world to safeguard complex M&A deals, from which we’ve identified several common success factors. In this article, we share our perspectives with three distinctive case studies. 

Seatrium: Creating an “Atrium of People of the Sea” 

Keppel O&M and Sembcorp Marine, two leading global marine companies merged in 2023. As the industry strives towards cleaner and renewable energy, the two organizations came together to forge a new path forward. We identified an opportunity for the NewCo to differentiate with a stronger brand purpose – “We exist to ensure customers can thrive today while creating a greener and brighter tomorrow.​” The new visual identity was carefully crafted to highlight new waves of innovation in the marine environment. The name “Seatrium” created by the client also centered around this purpose.  

Vistra: Building a “Category of One” From the Inside out

EQT Private Capital Asia (formerly BPEA EQT) made significant investments to merge Vistra and Tricor, forming a powerhouse brand in the corporate and fund solutions industry. With its diversified business portfolio, Vistra embarked on a bold transformation journey, reimagining itself as a purpose-led brand. From beginning to end, Prophet worked closely with employees and stakeholders in the extensive brand, visual and culture development process to make sure that it resonates with those who embody the brand and culture.   

G7 Connect: Connecting all with a Human-Centric Brand Story 

Another powerful example is G7 Connect, born from a merger of two leading IoT SaaS companies in China’s road freight sector, G7 and E6 Technology. After a successful merger, G7 Connect had two key challenges – to clearly define its renewed vision and engage all stakeholders, while streamlining the currently complex portfolios inherited from two industry giants. Prophet partnered with the  NewCo to create an impactful and human-centric brand tagline, “Beautiful change happens now” to encapsulate G7 Connect’s commitment to continuously creating positive changes for all industry participants through digital technology.  

Three Brand Building Imperatives  

Through these examples, we can clearly see the common threads that empowered their successful transformations – a steadfast and consistent purpose and the unification of diverse stakeholders. The role of a compelling brand strategy cannot be understated, which unveils three imperatives: 

1. Adopt a Brand-Led Mindset in the Early Stages of M&A Deals 

Transformation across the culture and organization, business model and objectives are an integral component of any merger and acquisition. This must be led by a strong brand purpose anchored in business objectives as a guiding star for the organization throughout the M&A process.  

As the strategic foundation translating business objectives into resonating go-to-market solutions, this brand-led vision must be a CEO agenda adopted from the early set of M&A deals to instil energy and confidence throughout the organizations. Lack of a brand-led vision may lead to risk of misalignment across functions and hindered collaboration, ultimately causing suboptimal and inconsistent executions.  

In the case of G7 Connect, the leadership team had carefully considered brand implications at every step of the M&A journey, so that cross-functional leads were united under a common goal. Strategic priorities were thus clearly defined when it comes to creating a new brand for the NewCo. At launch, various business units from operational to talent teams had already reached clear alignment with the marketing and strategy teams, gaining a thorough understanding of the new brand and its purpose, thus empowered to plan and execute innovative marketing activations in an effective way. 

2. Unite Diverse Audience Groups with a Human-Centered Brand Story 

M&A deals often bring together multifaceted stakeholder groups with diverse priorities, values, and interests, spanning from investors, employees, partners, to customers, government entities and the public. With a clarified purpose, the NewCo must articulate their objectives and vision through a compelling brand story to unite all stakeholders behind a common goal. Human-centered storytelling is instrumental in resonating with different audiences within the stakeholder ecosystem who have distinctive perspectives and expectations. 

For example, while Seatrium’s vision was to forge a new way forward for the O&M and energy industry, it also aimed to create meaningful impact for employees, Singapore, and shareholders. By immersing ourselves in the cultures and perspectives of different stakeholders, we combined the strengths from both organizations to retain their unique DNA. At the core, Seatrium’s new brand purpose is centered around people, customers and its culture, while striving for engineering and execution excellence. This human-centered approach is the key enabler for the organization’s success after the M&A. 

Beyond establishing a strong brand identity externally, an impactful brand story also helps to harmonize organizational structures and foster a unified organizational culture. As organizational changes bring about uncertainties, incorporating the brand story to develop a comprehensive EVP (Employee Value Proposition) and employee engagement strategy is critical.  

3. Optimize Brand Architecture to Demonstrate Amplified Value 

The brand portfolios of the individual entities must not exist in isolation post M&A, as this could lead to confusion of the customers and the dilution of each brand’s equity. Guided by its new brand purpose and positioning, NewCo must clarify its brand portfolio and architecture strategy in order to identify new or redefined offers.  

Additionally, this will demonstrate the change and evolution in the business model and ambition, as well as the amplified value delivered to various stakeholders. 

With Vistra’s expansion through M&A, it was crucial to harmonize the sub-brands within the portfolio. Through competitor and industry analysis, we adopted a strategic, data-driven approach, creating a decision tree that gives management flexibility to organize all sub-brands effectively. This will help build a relevant, credible and differentiated brand portfolio. 

FINAL THOUGHTS

Embracing a brand-led mindset, uniting diverse audience groups with a human-centered brand story and optimizing brand architecture are indispensable imperatives for steering successful M&A deals. By creating a powerful and resonant brand for NewCo, organizations can achieve sustainable growth beyond short-term financial and operational returns.

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Transforming Healthcare: Advocate Health’s Shift to Platforms 

In Conversation: Exploring the Journey of Building Momentum and Implementing a Platform in a Health System

Jeff Gourdji, Senior Partner at Prophet, spoke with a number of healthcare leaders to learn more about the challenges and opportunities for platform thinking in healthcare. Here, he speaks with Jamey Shiels, SVP Consumer & Digital Experience at Advocate Health, on the process of driving momentum for and implementing a platform in a health system. 

Deploying a platform approach will be crucial for businesses to thrive going forward. As our colleagues Ted Moser, Charlotte Bloom, and Omar Akhtar observe in their book, “Winning Through Platforms: How to Succeed When Every Competitor Has One” platforms illuminate parts of the customer journey that have historically been dark by enabling companies to have a better, holistic understanding of how customers engage with the organization. In the last decade or so, health systems have begun to observe customers during the “choose” part of the journey, but platforms could enable health systems to understand the “use” part of the journey and how to personalize it to consumers.     

In this illuminating interview with Jamey Shiels of Advocate Health, he shares how he overcame the barriers to building a platform – from driving organizational buy-in to clearly defining a set of metrics to measure key experiences. He highlights how a clear connection between patient needs and business requirements was key to demonstrating potential impact and showcasing the value for a health system in adapting a platform approach. 

What enabled you to align the leadership that platforms were the right move for the business? 

First, our Chief Marketing Officer at the time, Kelly Jo Golson, made [the LiveWell platform] a priority for our brand marketing and experience teams. She determined we were going to be a consumer first organization and platforms were the way to get there. She was able to onboard senior leadership to that vision and align support across the enterprise. 

Second, we built a consumer-first executive committee that allowed us to bring [together] all the key stakeholders that knew we were going to need — Operations, Medical Group, Finance, HR were all in the room with us as we presented the strategy, got buy in and support, and achieved goal alignment.  

Third, we developed a set of metrics called ‘ease of use’ metrics that measure different encounters patients have on the platform and allow consumers to give feedback. We created a closed feedback loop [that allows us to] make improvements that both benefit the consumer as well as the operational people on the other side. We also built those metrics into our incentive plan, so anybody in the organization who was incentive eligible was very interested in embedding the platform into their day-to-day work.  

How did the business determine implementing a platform strategy was beneficial for the reputation of Advocate Health and its success? 

Our challenge was– especially in healthcare – ‘consume’ means ‘use’ and doesn’t mean ‘choose.’ The idea of a patient as a consumer was difficult for some to understand, so we had to go upstream and find a way to understand consumer choice.  

We first aligned consumer insights to our core business metrics of awareness and acquisition. We wanted to go into market with a brand and an experience that would encourage consumers to choose us before [they] use us. 

The second step was in the form of acquisition. Consumers are looking for their wants and needs [to be met when] finding a physician. Therefore, we looked into some of the metrics that the operations team was using in the onboarding experience and connected those to the clinical experience to demonstrate if we lift consumer metrics, we can lift business metrics. That connection between what matters most to consumers with what matters to the businesses was key.  

“I think that’s where platforms can really play a role, by making those connections and making them much easier than they historically have been.” 

Was there a specific leader whose support was crucial in getting marketing, compliance, and clinical leaders on board with this initiative? 

The key leader was our Chief Operating Officer, who had accountability for the medical group, operations, and P&L for the organization and knew the different parts of the business that we needed to align with.  

A big piece [of getting alignment] was saying: ‘We want to co-create this with your team.’ We emphasized how we’re solving consumer needs as well as the business problems.  

Can you talk about the capabilities you built in the platform as you started to build momentum? 

The core functionality that needs to be in a platform is your EHR and transactional HR data. We wrapped that EHR data with a fledgling platform. That gave us the infrastructure to start to add features that improved the patient and clinical experience – and extended into health and wellness.  

We’re also working on integrating third party products into the platform for care-at-home and digital therapeutics. We want to create a true multi-sided marketplace for healthcare that connects health and wellness creators to consumers.   

What was the role of the clinicians in all this? What role are they now playing in advocating for the platform? 

Whether it was governance or co-creation, [clinicians] needed to have a voice in the room. We designed a partnership with a clinical leadership team [to drive] co-creation across the board. We asked: ‘How does this improve your work and fit into your day?’ The benefit is that now, when you go into one of our physicians’ offices, you’ll hear them talk about LiveWell.  

“We’ve seen continued uptake with LiveWell; it is now fully embedded in the operations of our organization.” 

What operational challenges were you solving for with platforms? 

There are three problem areas that we’ve looked at over the last few years: 

  1. Online scheduling takes call volume out. When you can message your provider in a secure platform it reduces call volume at the front desk, but you have to ensure you can manage and service the messages on behalf of physicians. 
  2. We have a mail order pharmacy that in our Midwest region generates 7 million calls a year related to prescription refill. We think we can take half of that out through new systems automation feature functionality in the platform.  
  3. E-Check-In, self service capabilities built in the platform make the consumer’s life easier and helps the frontline staff.  

Where is the platform going in the future? 

“We think the idea of platforms as a business model [in healthcare] for the benefit of consumers and the business is where the future is.” 

The challenge we’re facing from a healthcare perspective is the battle for the soul of the platform. Is that going to be the EHR? Vendors? EPIC primarily? Or third parties? Or are the health systems going to try to step up? Do you want to differentiate within your market, and do you want to deliver an exceptional consumer experience?  

“We’re going to go big into the platform space because we think it is the right decision for our business, and the future of business.” 

About Jamey: As Senior Vice President, Consumer and Digital Experience at Advocate Health, Jamey Shiels leads enterprise activities focused on creating a personalized and seamless consumer experience that improves engagement and health outcomes as well as business value through growth and cost-savings.  

About Jeff: Jeff Gourdji is a Senior Partner at Prophet and is responsible for leading client engagements across the firm’s range of solutions. As a leader of Prophet’s healthcare industry practice, Jeff works with clients across the healthcare ecosystem, including provider systems, payers, healthcare technology and life sciences companies. 

FINAL THOUGHTS

Transformation in healthcare is not a new topic but rethinking how a health system organizes itself to better observe, engage with, and deliver value to consumers is. Health systems that are infusing platform thinking into their organizations are starting to see the immediate return on those efforts – as well as the path ahead to greater impact across the communities they serve. Now is the time to activate and advance platforms in health systems, reimagine how an organization is set up to deliver a full continuum of engagement, differentiate against competitors and elevate the value delivered to consumers  

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NEW RESEARCH

Brand & Demand:
Marketing’s Great Love Story

As marketers, we know that integrating brand and demand tactics drives the greatest ROI. When done right, it leads to better outcomes for both marketing and the business, in the short and long term. Our report offers six ways to help marketers swipe right on stronger relationships—because great connections lead to growth.

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Report Highlights

Turn your marketing relationship from ‘it’s complicated’ to ‘happily ever after.’  

  • Insights on how to instill brand-demand synergy across marketing budget and investment, strategic planning, marketing operations, culture and internal and external partnerships. 
  • A relationship guide with six ways to generate more value from brand and demand. 
  • Actionable advice and real-world examples from leading marketers.

Unleashing the full power of brand and demand is about more than how you spend your marketing dollars.

Ensure that brand and demand have shared business goals and incentives.

Let the brand and demand teams’ shared passion for customers help guide decisions on what is important.

Integration is not about compromise, but about “bothism,” being great at brand and demand. Harness the power of logic and creativity in a culture of respect and trust.

The journey will not be easy. Expect to fail sometimes. Take action to not only survive constant change but thrive in it.

What gets measured, gets managed. Think about short and long-term at the same time. Confidently manage immediate and sustained metrics and prove this value to stakeholders.

Marketers live inside of and are core drivers of complex organizational ecosystems. Be a connector and orchestrator, working with multiple departments and stakeholders.

Get all the insights on how to integrate brand and demand marketing in our new research report.

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“Marketing should always be focused on both brand and demand. Brand is the #1 asset that we will sell every day. If it’s unhealthy… there will be no demand.”

Alicia Tillman | DELTA AIR LINES
Chief Marketing Officer

“It’s hard to orchestrate in a coordinated way – how do you bring brand and demand together in the higher parts of the funnel?”

Dipti Kachru | BROADRIDGE
Chief Marketing Officer

Today’s marketers are under increasing pressure to deliver measurable value from their investments. We empower CMOs to build marketing organizations that not only meet these demands but also drive uncommon growth.

Our approach focuses on the real challenges marketing leaders face, emphasizing the importance of strategic marketing planning, agility, experimentation, flexibility and a steadfast commitment to accelerating growth.

Prophet’s team of brand and marketing experts helps you develop holistic marketing strategies that integrate sustained brand and demand investment to create and deliver value. 

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 Brand & Demand: Marketing’s Great Love Story

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The 5% Margin Growth You’re Missing by Overlooking Product Portfolio Strategy 

How to Maximize Profits and Reduce Costs by Prioritizing a Customer-Centric Product Portfolio Strategy.

In competitive business landscape, an inefficient product portfolio can significantly impact a company’s bottom line. Our experience shows that companies lacking a customer-centric product portfolio strategy and failing to manage their portfolios proactively can lose up to five percent in product margin. Moreover, these companies often incur 10-20% higher portfolio management costs than their peers who prioritize product portfolio management.  

The Foundation of an Efficient Product Portfolio: Understanding Your Customers 

A successful product portfolio strategy starts with a deep understanding of your customers. It’s crucial to know: 

  • What customer segments are there? What are their goals and needs? 
  • How do they choose products? What dimensions influence their decisions? 
  • What is important to them? Are we prioritizing features based on an “inside-out mindset” rather than actual customer preferences? 
  • What are the decision-making hierarchies? Which aspects come first, second, and third in their buying process? 

The answers to these questions should shape how you structure, build, and rationalize your product portfolio. They also guide how you allocate marketing budgets and internal resources, design packaging, organize store layouts, and structure your website. 

In this article, we share our thinking on how to create a customer-centric Portfolio strategy, using our Efficient Portfolio Model (Exhibit A.)   

Exhibit A

The Pitfalls of an “Inside-Out Mindset” 

Many companies falter by adopting an “inside-out mindset,” in which internal perceptions and engineering priorities drive product development. For instance, engineers might focus on technical features that seem crucial from a development standpoint but are not key factors in customer decisions. This approach often leads to overly complex portfolios that are hard for customers to navigate, potentially hampering sales and driving up management costs. And when the inevitable portfolio rationalization comes about, they rely on rough rules of thumb such as the 80/20 rule to remove the long-tail, rather than using customer-centric criteria.  

Aligning Product Development with Customer Needs 

Successful companies start with a thorough understanding of customer needs and behaviors, which inform the critical product dimensions. Customer research is essential to identify these “drivers of choice.” Effective methodologies we recommend include: Contextual Inquiry, in which participants are observed while they perform tasks and describe what they are doing; and Discrete Choice Modeling, in which the importance of different product dimensions, such as brand, price, size, and specific features, are quantified. 

By identifying choice dimensions and mapping them on a matrix, companies can analyze the market to identify key volume and value pockets, as well as growing or declining niches. Comparing the existing portfolio against these matrices allows companies to determine which products to keep and prioritize, which to potentially discontinue, and where new opportunities lie. This strategy provides long-term guidance and direction for R&D teams on where to focus future product development. 

Case Study: Streamlining for Success 

For one of our FMCG clients, a detailed analysis revealed that 80% of the sales volume and value in their category were concentrated in three product hotspots across most markets. Based on this insight, we developed a product portfolio strategy that emphasized a “core” portfolio focusing on these hotspots. Additionally, we suggested an “excite” range of propositions to complement the core products, driving customer engagement and creating a buzz (Exhibit B.)

Exhibit B

Portfolio deployment guidelines were then developed to help markets roll out the product portfolio in the most impactful and efficient ways, depending on their specific context (e.g. new vs established markets, competitive intensity, etc.) (Exhibit C.)

Exhibit C

Leveraging Multi-Brand Strategies for Efficiency 

For companies managing multiple brands, this analytical approach can also identify opportunities for efficiency. By defining clearer roles for each brand in terms of the product territories they cover, companies can streamline their portfolios, potentially migrating propositions to align better with brand strengths and market opportunities. 

FINAL THOUGHTS

In conclusion, managing a product portfolio efficiently is not just about cutting costs or maximizing current product margins. It’s about understanding your customers deeply, aligning your offerings with their needs, and making strategic decisions that drive long-term success. Don’t leave money on the table—invest in a well-managed product portfolio strategy and unlock significant margin improvements. 

Talk to us about the new world of growth. 

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Why Your Marketing Organization Isn’t Built to Support Growth 

Discover why optimizing your team’s alignment is key to achieving meaningful ROI and driving sustained success. 

CMOs have long talked about collapsing organizational silos, creating a single view of the customer, and fostering a genuinely holistic business approach. Many even fancy themselves as working toward that. But in today’s economic climate, where contributing to measurable, meaningful growth and aligning their goals to the business’ has become part of every CMOs charter, it will likely come as a surprise that others see marketing not as part of the solution but part of the problem: Recent research from Gartner finds that 55% of business collaborators say marketing inhibits the success of cross-functional initiatives. 

Too many marketing organizations are not built to support the needs of the business. Often, marketing isn’t contributing to growth in the way that it theoretically should, because it can’t. Misalignment between functions – frequently sales, marketing and product – has created a series of disintermediated metrics and key performance indicators. The result is that there is too little (and sometimes zero) alignment on business-level goals.  

The C-suite, especially CEOs and CFOs are losing patience and becoming more vocal about what matters: Return on investment. Revenue attribution. Pipeline progression. Intersection with sales. What they’re sick of hearing? More about marketing creative, Net Promoter Scores or metrics that are disconnected from financial performance. CMOs need to think in terms of business performance. 

As organizations integrate more demand generation capabilities into their strategy– this puts increased requirements on relevant content, integrated sales and marketing data, and the need for holistic customer experience understanding in too many ways, they are still a throwback to the decades-old approach of spraying, praying and pushing people along in the funnel.  

The entire marketing process must be optimized to support in-market demand generation use cases.  

We know it isn’t as sexy as spending on award-winning advertising campaigns. To find meaningful growth, CMOs need to focus on operating processes and lay the organization-wide groundwork for integrated brand-to-demand strategies. They need to think about GAAP performance measures in addition to Cannes, partnering closely across the C-suite to focus on business metrics.  

Is Your Organization Built for Growth? Answer These Three Questions 

CMOs have been sprinkling the right buzzwords into their strategy plans for years, and many talk a good game around the integration of brand and demand. However, the urgency is increasing: Sharper tech and increased focus on ROI make it increasingly futile for CMOs to hide outdated marketing processes. Growth-oriented CMOs should consider these three immediate-term steps and ask themselves:  

Are your brand and demand marketing teams truly integrated?

Think hard about the demand marketing processes already in place. Are they written into and coded within marketing automation? Is everyone clear about the brand governance touchpoints throughout the performance marketing process?  

What are we learning and where can we experiment to optimize our efforts?

Solution-focused CMOs are always looking for growth, which means establishing and piloting next-gen demand marketing use cases. This often starts with an evaluation of historical in-market performance against benchmarks to review areas for improvement and experimentation. These experiments must be ongoing, defining and pressure-testing updates to process and operating models. Those insights will help inform end-to-end campaigns that bring teams together, documenting and codifying the process from the very beginning, making it easier to replicate them. 

Does your team have the right mix of skills to deliver across both brand and demand requirements?

Customer-centric and growth-minded CMOs need to balance the right capabilities to deliver against expanded requirements of end-to-end brand and demand campaigns. This means having the ability to scale creative and content across channels and touchpoints AND supporting performance optimization with analytical rigor. 

FINAL THOUGHTS

Most marketers would agree that this kind of work – inspecting, strengthening and rebuilding the pipelines of connectivity within an organization to better reach customers – is challenging and requires different leadership skills and priorities. For CMOs who are more focused on customer acquisition and retention, building internal bridges isn’t always a top priority. But the right mechanics will eliminate harmful silos, moving the organization towards defining a single, unified view of the customer that works throughout the organization.

Ready to build your plan to win? Schedule a workshop with us.

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Growth Leadership: How Effective Leaders Drive Unstoppable Business Success 

To tackle today’s challenges and drive long-term success, leadership teams must continually evolve. Here, we outline how to shape effective leadership teams that can sustain momentum and navigate growth. 

This year, we’ve been focusing on uncommon growth – how to unlock, create and execute it. Our latest insights confirmed something we’ve always known: leadership is fundamental to successful, sustainable growth. But the wrong kind of leadership can be disastrous.

Take WeWork, for example. Poor governance and erratic leadership resulted in poor decision-making, ultimately costing the company $1.9 billion in revenue. At the Royal Bank of Scotland, a lack of banking experience and attention to risk led to a balance sheet that ballooned to £2.2 trillion (larger than the GDP of the UK) before collapsing.  

On the flip side, Adobe’s leadership transformation sparked innovation, doubling its stock performance between 2018 and 2021. Shantanu Narayen’s vision and the capabilities of his team led to continuous improvement and growth. Similarly, LEGO’s focus on culture and capabilities turned an $800 million debt into $600 million in profits. Even in sports, the All Blacks’ leadership has driven them to win 75% of their games. 

The takeaway? Leadership impacts an organization’s performance more than anything else. However, most are “teams of leaders” rather than true “leadership teams.” Our research shows that to drive sustainable growth, organizations need cohesive leadership teams, not just individual leaders. After years of working with teams at all levels, we’ve distilled key insights on how to shape effective leadership teams that can sustain growth.

1. Leadership Teams Need Continuous Nurturing and Development 

Leadership teams, like people, are living systems that require constant care. Our annual Catalyst Change research found that successful transformations are built on true collaboration, where enterprise and individual interests are integrated. Effective teams shift from an individual focus to a shared team mindset. Figure 1 illustrates this shift from a “team of leaders” to a “leadership team,” with shared goals and genuine collaboration at its core. 

Figure 1: Moving from a team of leaders to a leadership team 

In today’s rapidly changing business landscape, leadership teams must understand their needs and ensure their mindset, purpose and goals remain aligned with organizational and stakeholder needs. Our research reveals that leadership teams failing to champion collaboration and shared goals risk fragmentation and siloed operations, leading to a 3.5-fold increase in the time it takes for strategic decision-making compared to teams with integrated structures. Gallup research also found that leaders who focus on development and use their strengths effectively are 6x more likely to be engaged, 7.8% more productive and 3x more likely to report a good quality of life. It was with this understanding that we helped the executive team of a 2,000-strong leading agricultural vehicle manufacturer optimize performance by shifting from an “I” mentality to a “we” mentality, driving success through effective teamwork that bridged functional divides and fostering both internal and external growth.  

2. Address All Dimensions of the Human-Centered Leadership Team Effectiveness Model 

Prophet’s Human-Centered Transformation Model (HCTM) is a proven holistic and people-centered approach to driving growth across organizations. The model is built on the idea that organizations reflect the same makeup as a human including the DNA, mind, body and soul. Effective leadership teams need to follow a similar model that not only builds trust and effective ways of working but aligns individual members to a shared enterprise goal. The Human-Centered Leadership Team Effectiveness Model (Figure 2) shows that addressing all dimensions of the human system is essential for empowering effective outcomes.

Figure 2: Prophet’s Human-Centered Leadership Team Effectiveness Model 

Questions that should be asked include:

  • DNA: What is our focus and shared ambition that drives the work of our team?​
  • Mind: What new skills are required for the team to drive change?​
  • Body: What might need to change in our operating model to enable team performance?​  
  • Soul: How might we ignite belief in the change to foster trust and productive relationships?​  

As Figure 3 illustrates, if any of these elements from the model are missing, this has a knock-on effect on leadership teams, increasing the risk of falling short on goals due to a lack of commitment, poor focus and low-quality work. 

Figure 3: What happens when part of the leadership system is missing 

3. Sustain Leadership Team Effectiveness Through Actionable Development 

Continuing with the human system analogy, leadership team development requires establishing “healthy rhythms” of working and meeting. Figure 4 shows how these rhythms can propel an existing leadership team towards high performance and effectiveness. 

Figure 4: Actionable approach to leadership team development  

This approach combines both “art and science” to shape team dynamics, capabilities, identity and culture of the leadership team. It involves:  

  1. Conducting a leadership team diagnostic to help the team (and other stakeholders) identify opportunities for improvement based on how the team currently functions.   
  2. Early alignment of the team’s purpose, ambition and role within the wider organization, so it can provide both clear leadership and staff empowerment by knowing its distinct contribution to success.   
  3. Ensuring psychological safety through trust-building workshops. The team narrative and behavior workshops help teams build trust through sharing their whole selves, the meaning they derive from their work and committing to the behaviors to sustain trust.    
  4. Prioritizing trust, healthy conflict and accountability to align the team’s success over individual ego. To uncover this a team strengths and priorities workshop helps sets OKRs and leans into the strengths of the leadership team.   
  5. Systematically defining ways of working and decision-making processes. In a session around ways of working, the team can shape the purpose of leadership meetings, how decision-making works and define an effective cadence of meetings.   
  6. Focusing on both individual and team learning to sustain growth and development. This typically involves team check-ins (potentially with an observer to feedback on process), re-running of the team diagnostic, team and individual coaching and continuation of individual development.  

Leadership teams are the driving force behind an organization’s performance, especially in today’s rapidly changing world. The key challenge lies not just in the competence of individual leaders but in the collective effectiveness of the leadership team. Like individuals, leadership teams require nurturing and careful development. Breaking free from functional silos requires a rhythm that fuses a human-centered approach with both art and science, creating a sustainable and highly effective team.

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FINAL THOUGHTS

To start this journey in your organization, consider the following questions:   

  • Does your leadership team have a shared view of success?  
  • Does the team trust one another and actively collaborate to achieve this shared goal?  
  • What are the missing ingredients from the five components of Prophet’s Human-Centred Leadership Team Effectiveness Model?  

Reach out to our experts to explore our approach further and assess your leadership team’s effectiveness, starting with our team diagnostic. 

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