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Four Healthcare Trends to Watch in 2021

Why healthcare companies may never be the same.

Because 2020 torched so many assumptions in the healthcare and life sciences universe, making predictions about the year ahead feels a little like tempting fate. And while the odds are good (at least one would hope) that ’21 will be less tumultuous, four trends are likely to continue their rapid acceleration. 

Each of these changes was well underway before anyone had heard of COVID-19. But as the pandemic sparked massive shifts in regulations, priorities, technology and consumer expectations, they took off–and will continue to do so in the coming months. 

“We need to build out a digital continuum with the use of automation to seamlessly escalate someone from an asynchronous e-visit, to a video virtual visit, to an in-person visit.”

Diagnostics and Services Go Home 

After years of building vast multidiscipline medical campuses, systems are looking to decentralize, with more lab tests moving from provider offices to people’s homes. Brands like Cologuard pioneered home testing.

And such companies as Abbott Laboratories and Ellume Health are getting into the game with kits that detect the COVID-19 virus and antibodies. Others include Let’s Get Checked, which detects kidney disease, and Tyto, a device that makes it easy for parents to diagnose ear infections and sore throats while CVS is conducting clinical trials to offer dialysis to patients at home.  

This healthcare trend will continue to go mainstream, only as a matter of convenience. Once people are aware that they can get reliable test results without having to brave the doctor’s office, they’ll expect more. 

Redefining the Care Continuum

Telemedicine exploded last year, and that will continue. But the best care comes not from thinking about whether care is delivered digitally or in-person but how it’s all sewn together into a single experience. “We need to build out a digital continuum with the use of automation to seamlessly escalate someone from an asynchronous e-visit, to a video virtual visit, to an in-person visit,” says Nick Patel, MD, Chief Digital Officer of Prisma Health.

Look for providers to back away from the approach of handing patients off from one care point to another. Instead, they will seek newer, better ways to link and unify the complete care experience. As the multichannel experience goes from drawing board to reality, there will be a growing realization that high-quality patient experiences are either made or broken in the cracks of this digital healthcare consumerism continuum. 

Digital Selling Becomes More Human—and More Effective

Over the years, sales teams have resigned themselves to ever-decreasing direct contact with healthcare systems. And they’ve been investing heavily in digital selling tools to compensate. So, when COVID-19 triggered a drastic decline in in-person sales, they wanted to believe they were ready. But too often–digital tools aside–they were relying on outdated processes, thinking and talent. Yes, they have the technology to deliver targeted emails instantly. But that doesn’t matter if it still takes months to get internal approvals for their messages. 

It’s clear that virtual sales calls are here to stay, with SERMO reporting that 84 percent of physicians are expecting more remote interactions. Smart companies are focusing on what they must do better. Remote calls, for example, are 20 percent shorter than in-person visits. And what providers want more than anything – at 55 percent–is information about new products. 

The most modern selling organizations are changing the way they microsegment audiences, creating targeted digital content for every audience’s customer journey. Of course, this stepped-up content approach is technology-driven (and often requires hiring a new type of sales professional.) But the real change enabling it is at the human level, with an appreciation of speed and an increase in empathy. 

Reinventing the Employee Relationship

The basic “deal” between employers and employees–what each expects to get out of the relationship–is undergoing a rapid shift. The ability to work remotely is part of the equation. While many providers have to be on-site, others–administrators, procurement specialists and even hands-off providers, like radiologists–can work from the comfort and safety of their homes. 

And that’s changing recruiting and retention because it means, at least potentially, that someone could take a job hundreds of miles away without having to leave their home. 

And all that is occurring at a time when awareness of the importance and perils of healthcare peaks. Even as doctors and nurses are leaving the field in record numbers,  medical schools are fielding more applications than ever in a trend they’re calling “The Fauci effect.” Many fields are regaining luster they haven’t seen since the days of Jonas Salk. 

Organizations are redefining the employee value propositions, looking for ways to build and improve their cultures, providing engagement opportunities that are as meaningful for remote employees as they are for those who work in person.  

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Even with cases rising and the cost implications of the pandemic building, expect the most agile healthcare companies to find new ways to enrich the patient and customer experience, meeting changing demands and expectations. While 2020 was chaotic in many ways, the months ahead offer many opportunities for innovation and growth. 

Contact our healthcare team today to learn more about driving consumer-led transformation for your organization. 

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Make Purpose Work Harder: Lessons from Business Leaders

Our research finds that companies struggle to carve out a purpose that’s both authentic and actionable.

Businesses have been using purpose-driven strategies for years, but recent events are testing those missions like never before. Between the pandemic, political polarization and all-new virtual connections, organizations see that just having a purpose is not enough. They need one that is durable, flexible and completely human. And they realize that leading with purpose, an all-important North Star, is their best chance to stay relevant to customers and employees.

Prophet’s Purpose Diagnostic enables companies to assess the strength of their purpose in four critical dimensions, measuring whether it is…

  • Authentic (how does it tie to what you do?)
  • Inspiring (how does it connect with employees and customers emotionally?)
  • Shared (how does it create connection and build community?)
  • Actionable (how do you live your purpose every day?)

We analyzed the diagnostic results, which now include responses from over 150 leaders in more than 20 countries, and discovered common pain points where companies are falling behind. These insights also highlight the best ways to close gaps, so companies can focus on strengthening purpose in ways that engage stakeholders, build relevance and unlock uncommon growth.

The Biggest Challenge? Putting Purpose to Work

The toughest element to get right is making purpose actionable–bringing it to life in steady, meaningful ways. Overall, 28 percent of leaders reported this as the most problematic. But authenticity and the ability to share purpose are close behind.

Action is critical. If organizations can’t deliver on purpose, it doesn’t matter how inspiring, authentic or shared it is. It just becomes another empty promise. When companies fail to act, organizations lose the trust of customers and employees looking to brands to play a critical role in addressing social challenges. Purpose must be integrated into all aspects of how companies do business. It’s the way they show up in the world. This was especially true at the director, vice president and managerial level, and lower rungs in the organization. That makes sense: Those with the most accountability for how well their purpose is put into action, within a specific business area, are most likely to acknowledge weaknesses.

“If organizations can’t deliver on purpose, it doesn’t matter how inspiring, authentic or shared it is. It just becomes another empty promise.”

But developing an authentic purpose, one that feels uniquely it’s own rather than generic, is also daunting. That is particularly true in the C-suite. These executives are most likely to say their purpose lacks authenticity. They believe purpose feels less connected to their business and isn’t specific enough to their company.

And those in manager-level positions and below are most likely to say their purpose isn’t shared, likely because they have the closest understanding of how the broader organization experiences the purpose. To them, this inability to communicate purpose is as problematic as making it actionable.

C-Suite execs worry most about authenticity

Directors and VPs struggle to put purpose in action

For the rank-and-file, it’s hardest to share purpose, and put it into action

Overcoming Stumbling Blocks

There are no short cuts to strengthen and deepen an enterprise’s purpose. To function as a true North Star, a beacon that rallies all stakeholders and sparks exceptional growth, companies must continually nurture and manage their purpose. But our findings do point to specific steps to bolster each dimension.

If a company’s purpose needs to be more…

Actionable

Companies must act on purpose and measure the impact of those actions. The biggest failing among our respondents is the lack of metrics. They say they don’t have direct, or even indirect, ways to measure whether they deliver. Without such a measurement, it’s difficult to assess progress.

  • To improve:
    • Develop performance metrics aligned to the purpose to hold leaders accountable
    • Lead by example, using purpose to guide decision-making and taking action in the market
    • Tie purpose to employee behaviors and competencies, and make sure they are visible to all

Authentic

When purpose lacks authenticity, the biggest challenge leaders face is differentiating themselves from competitors. “Our purpose is unique to our company” received the lowest score of all authenticity measures. Leaders need to drive greater relevance with their customers and employees: What does this brand do that others don’t? How does it add value to peoples’ lives? The more specific the purpose, the more relevant and authentic it is to the company.

  • To improve:
    • Determine what sets the company apart and creates a unique value. Make sure those differences anchor the purpose
    • Make the company’s purpose reflect cultural strengths

Shared

When a purpose is genuinely shared, it’s easier to build bridges and start conversations. Whether it’s with shareholders, employees or customers, the right purpose forges a common bond. It fosters connection and demonstrates a clear understanding of what employees and customers need. Our research uncovered two fundamental weaknesses in this domain, with “Employees at all levels are familiar with the purpose” and “Our purpose cultivates a community and creates a dialogue” earning the lowest scores.

  • To improve:
    • Listen to what customers are saying and deliver value in ways that align
    • Weave purpose into rituals and communications with employees
    • Link it to employee’s day-to-day experiences
    • Make sure messages to shareholders and community partners reflect purpose-related efforts

Inspiring

Purpose-led businesses aim to make a difference in the world.  And they need to elevate the stories that demonstrate how they help society. Without consistent reinforcements of a company’s impact, employees and customers can forget what it stands for and why it matters. While just 20% of respondents said this was the most problematic area, all brands need to question whether their purpose is bold enough. Otherwise, it can’t inspire the storytelling required to spread the word. In our research, the ability to mobilize stories to demonstrate a lived purpose was identified as a key challenge.

  • To improve:
    • Tell signature stories that bring purpose to life, and share them regularly with employees and customers
    • Link environmental, social, and corporate efforts directly to purpose

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How strong is your purpose? Take the diagnostic today to understand where your organization may be faltering. The right purpose, used in the most effective ways, can increase loyalty and drive revenue gains. But most importantly, it leads to the future. Purpose doesn’t just help businesses decide what to do. It guides them in the best ways to do it.

Interested in strengthening your purpose and overall brand strategy? Let’s connect to see how you can unlock growth.

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Vanishing Hierarchy: The Unspoken Upside to Zoom

Remote work lets more voices be heard and more ideas to surface, increasing organizational health.

Flatter, less top-down and more innovative. How working virtually might increase your organizational health in important ways and the actions to take to preserve it.

The pandemic sent most workers into the world of working from home in mid-March of 2020. Within weeks, countless articles had already been written about the shift to working life “on camera” and about managing “Zoom fatigue”. We quickly learned that countless neuropsychological issues, including the inability to look at someone’s eyes and listen, to create physical synchrony and the mirror image presented of ourselves all contribute to this phenomenon. Seen through a different lens, however, it’s also possible that working through the medium of video conferencing might have an unexpected and positive outcome on some aspects of organizational culture.

An Unexpected Insight From Our Fall Executive Roundtable

In October, Helen Rosethorn, my Organization & Culture practice co-lead, and I convened an Executive Roundtable to review an early draft of The Slingshot Effect, our point of view on how leaders might use the concurrent crises of social justice and pandemic to accelerate necessary change in their organizations.

We brought together senior leaders from across industries, including entertainment, financial services, pharmaceuticals, retail, technology, transportation and manufacturing, and from roles spanning R&D, commercialization, product, operations, information technology and human resources. Our conversation was full of heartfelt sharing of insights where we found many commonalities across industries, geographies and organizational functions.

One executive observed something that we had not considered before. That in this moment where knowledge workers are uniformly working from home, they were observing a radical reduction in hierarchical behaviors and ways of working.

Flatter Structures Create Space For More Voices and New Ideas

In a physical office, we have many ways of signaling hierarchy, for instance, whether one is afforded an office. And, if one does have an office, its location and furniture typically provide further clues about organizational hierarchy. In our current situation, however, things are starkly different. Because even if someone is clearly working from a nicely furnished home office in a swanky suburb, the size of their box in a Zoom or Teams screen is the same as everyone else. There’s also no such thing as privileged seating in video conferencing. It’s a constant game of virtual musical chairs. When you arrive determines screen placement and each person’s view of participant sequence is individualized based on arrival time. Moreover, the host does not have the opportunity to display privilege by inviting you into an elite space like a private conference room or executive dining room. Your CEO’s Zoom meeting is the exact same Zoom experience as that of your summer intern.

“Your CEO’s Zoom meeting is the exact same Zoom experience as that of your summer intern.”

Furthermore, video conferencing tends to highlight, and possibly deter, certain behaviors of the organizationally privileged. For instance, it’s hard to take control of a conversation on Zoom without it being glaringly obvious. In person, people may be more likely to let behaviors such as talking over someone or cutting them off pass without comment. Speaking over or cutting someone off is highly magnified on Zoom and more people seem to feel obliged to stop and apologize. This can create more room for contribution from anyone who might have felt it too hard or dangerous to contribute, e.g., because of their rank, neurotype, gender or race.

Additionally, an oft-quoted study suggests that hierarchical structures are useful for decision making but quell idea generation. And indeed, a number of our roundtable attendees reported that they observed great creativity emerge from their organizations during the crises of 2020, not least because working virtually tends to thwart the efforts of those who might prefer to micromanage their direct reports.

Finally, for many senior clients, we interact with there is a fresh enthusiasm to use these technologies to be more available to their teams. The challenge of being “seen” as a senior executive, apart from once a year at a sales conference, for example, has quickly been surpassed by all being present to address questions on Zoom in a far more regular and, in the best cases, more authentic fashion.

Taking Action to Preserve the Gains

Of course, in the immediate face of the pandemic back at the start of the year, many organizations unleashed a sense of empowerment and pushed decision-making rights downward to manage how they adapted and survived. That too created a belief for many that hierarchy was being dismantled. But was it?

The natural question for firms that are now finding themselves less hierarchical thanks to the pandemic, is how might they preserve whatever advantages that they may be discovering right now? At Prophet, we use our Human-Centered Transformation Model as a tool for diagnosing and resolving organizational issues holistically. In this instance, what is being observed is a change primarily in the Soul – the ways of working within the company. In other words, remote work is changing the behaviors and mindsets of employees. And hopefully, at least this one aspect of our current situation is impacting employee engagement in a positive way.

In the transition out of 100 percent remote work, leaders should examine what might need to change to maintain any positive gains. Obviously, many will focus on being more digital-first in their workplace. But what else might you wish to consider? Here are four key questions to ask yourself, using our framework:

  1. Body: Are there elements of your operating model or the organizational design itself which bear reconsideration? Might an organizational flattening effort be overdue?
  2. Mind: Thinking about the skills and competencies of your staff – what might need to change to ensure success in a flatter organization? Do your managers need different skills, for instance, to enable them to push decision rights downwards and coach more effectively?
  3. Soul: What methods might you use to create belief in your organization that your ways of working are consciously changing as it relates to hierarchy and inclusion? What new rituals or symbols would best reinforce those signals?
  4. DNA: Finally, is it possible that there’s something in your organizational DNA, perhaps your organizational Values, that has unintentionally reinforced unnecessary elements of hierarchy? Is there something about your employee value proposition that might be improved by explicitly removing it

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Asking these simple questions will point towards immediate opportunities to lock in the cultural gains you have made over the course of 2020. And, if you’re looking for even more opportunities to increase organizational health based on your experiences this year, we’ve identified 12 specific shifts to make with immediate and specific actions in The Slingshot Effect report.

If you’d like to discuss your organizational structure and transformation planning, then our expert team can help. Contact us today. 

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The Path to Transformational Leadership in 2021

It takes a human-centered approach, tailored to your organization and culture, to lead effectively in this era.

59 min

Leaders are leading in a very different world, one for which they were not typically prepared. Watch this webinar replay to discover the moves to make now to lead and deliver lasting transformational change.

Our speakers outline how to lead effectively in this new era, taking a human-centered approach to make transformation happen and how to tailor a leadership system for your organization and culture.

Slides from the webinar are available here. The research report – “Catalysts in Action: Applying the Cultural Levers of Transformation” – that informed this webinar session can be downloaded here.

If you’d like to learn more about how leaders can chart a clear way forward in uncertain times then get in touch with us today.

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Examples of Brand Purpose in Action: When It’s Needed Most

How companies like Grab, Airbnb, Super Monkey and Glossier are turning purpose into brand success.

Crisis like COVID-19 is a touchstone for companies. Customers and employees are looking to their favorite brands to help solve problems, creating an enormous opportunity for companies who are purpose-driven.

But while purpose is essential for any brand today, just having one is not enough: Brands are on trial. Stakeholders are calling brands out on hypocrisy, mixed messages and failed initiatives. Even companies that thought they had a clear purpose need to prove they are investing in substantial change and not just “woke washing.”

“Customers and employees are looking to their favorite brands to help solve problems.”

Defining and living your organization’s purpose is hard. It’s messy. And it’s never-ending. But the most successful companies in these trying times will derive their purpose from shared human values, stay true to what they do and relevant to what their stakeholders need. And they’ll act on it every day.

These four companies are using purpose in powerful ways, and working hard to live it in challenging times:

Grab: Empowering communities with technology

Grab’s purpose started with a question – how can we empower individuals and better people’s lives and local communities through technology? This aspiration became more important than ever as the economic impact of the pandemic shook its employees, customers and neighborhoods.

Facing the crisis, Grab stepped up. On top of financial contributions to various COVID-19 community funds and meal schemes, Grab introduced over 100 initiatives that leverage its technology, ride-hailing and food delivery networks to support and safeguard its users, partners, communities and frontliners. For example, GrabCare is an around-the-clock, on-demand service enabling healthcare professionals to travel to and from medical facilities seamlessly.

Committed to empowering local communities, Grab accelerated its merchant-partner onboarding processes to help over 78 thousand small traditional businesses go online. The company also encouraged the community to help each other. Through its new “Meal for your driver” feature, Grab users purchased more than 700 thousand meals for its delivery partners and drivers. “Only when we come together and support one another, can we then overcome this challenging time together,” said Yee Wee Tang, Managing Director of Grab Singapore.

Airbnb: Deepening authenticity

When a company’s purpose ties directly to what it does, brands feel more authentic. This becomes even more important during times of change. Airbnb exists to “create a world where you can belong anywhere.” With sweeping travel restrictions and lockdowns, the company had to pivot quickly to find new ways to express hospitality. Open Homes for COVID-19 frontline workers gave hosts an immediate way to help. And it began creating online experiences that allow guests to learn new activities and meet people from around the world. By enabling people to connect, even while stuck at home, Airbnb is finding new ways to stay relevant.

Glossier: Listening builds a shared community

Shared purposes are not just relevant to one audience, they are felt deeply by each–employees, customers and communities. That calls for genuine listening to make sure that actions, products and services align with the values and beliefs of those stakeholders. Glossier’s purpose is “to give voice through beauty” by “leveraging the power of the personal narrative.” Throughout the COVID-19 crisis, Glossier’s most frequent request was for a product to help with increased irritated skin from repeated handwashing. Inspired by stories and comments, Glossier quickly developed a hand cream, donating thousands of units to first responders.

The company is also recognizing that obsession with that external community has a downside, leading it to prioritize the needs of customers over that of its own workers, especially people of color. When shoppers engage in racist behavior, for example, the company’s “the customer is always right” stance gets toxic. Glossier isn’t running away from that dissonance but trying to learn. The lesson? Make sure your purpose is grounded in shared human values–including employees–and take responsibility when things go wrong.

Super Monkey: Energizing your life with fitness

The final dimension emerges when companies demonstrate that purpose is not just an empty promise. If companies can’t deliver, it doesn’t matter how inspiring or authentic they are.

Chinese fitness chain Super Monkey is known for its exceptional community-based experiences as well as a near-perfect retention rate of coaches. The company became an industry disruptor with its innovative business models known as “Urban Spot in Motion” and drop-in classes that can be booked directly via WeChat. All of its initiatives are rooted in Super Monkey’s brand purpose of “integrating sports into life,” or making fitness accessible for everyone.

COVID-19 has put Super Monkey’s purpose to the test. The company first offered a 10,000 yuan interest-free loan to every coach, in order to protect the normalcy of their life. Two days later, Super Monkey quickly launched free live-streamed fitness classes, dubbed “Super Monkey At-Home Squats,” in an effort to deepen connection with members and encourage them to stay active. More than 170,000 people joined its first session. To go a step further, Super Monkey continued to create more innovative fitness routines so that members could encourage their family members, no matter old or young, to exercise together – integrating sports into everyone’s life.

Despite the crisis, Super Monkey has reinforced its brand purpose with action, outshining the competition. During its recent Singles’ Day sales event, Super Monkey sold store credits worth over 100 million yuan in 24 hours, a testament that Super Monkey is becoming a synonym for a fit and energetic lifestyle in China.

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Just as people look to friends, family, and government during hard times, they are holding a magnifying glass up to businesses. Customers expect companies to treat people well, engage the community and evolve to meet a changing world. Workers are questioning employee value propositions. They want businesses to put people over profit. Words and actions matter.

Companies need to ask hard questions and revisit them often. Does your purpose…

  • Make the world better? Even companies with a pragmatic purpose can inspire others.
  • Create believers? When businesses connect purpose to the way they earn money, it’s authentic and makes perfect sense.
  • Apply to all audiences? The right purpose resonates with employees, customers, communities and investors.
  • Translate into action? If an organization can’t deliver on promises, everything else is pointless. Enabled by leaders, companies constantly need to bring their purpose to life.

At Prophet, we help brands unlock growth– beginning with the “DNA” and purpose of their businesses. Let’s connect to learn more about how we can strengthen yours.

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Five Reasons Why the CMO is Becoming the Best Salesperson

As sales and marketing become more aligned, some CMOs are cultivating traits to get closer to customers.

Today, marketing plays an outsized role in shaping the experiences of customers and prospects. Chief marketing officers are increasingly responsible for delivering on company growth objectives, which means playing a larger part in the selling process. And this trend is intensifying as more customers demand highly-personalized interactions, requiring much deeper marketing and sales alignment.

These shifting dynamics position a CMO as the best tool, ally and salesperson the company may have. Let’s uncover five traits of great salespeople, where many CMOs already excel.

1. They’re hungry.

The best salespeople are eager to take on new accounts— aggressively delivering for the company.

With more digital marketing and measurement in place for most firms, the C-suite now expects marketing to not only contribute to growth objectives but also lead and deliver in a measured way. Increasingly, CEOs expect marketing to drive the bottom-of-funnel demand generation. With availability 24 hours a day, the modern marketing engine is constantly targeting advertising to attract new customers. More targeted marketing leads to more targeted customer-segment success. Both, marketing and sales teams are eager, hungry and incentivized to take on business outcomes by delivering an insightful view into how best to attract, convert, and serve the most desirable customers.

Many marketers are already there. Our Altimeter 2020 State of Digital Marketing report finds that the top objectives for digital marketing are to acquire new customers (40%) and increasing revenue from current customers (39%) are the top objectives for digital marketers.

2. They’re empathic listeners.

Top sellers have to be great listeners. They must understand the customer’s needs and how best to position the company, its products and services to suit them.

Listening to customer needs and delivering insights isn’t a new marketing function or capability. What has changed is the breadth and depth of that involvement for marketing. Marketing is much more involved, using insights to drive segmentation strategies leveraged by many different channels to sense and differentiate experiences based on segment needs.

Emerging self-service and “always-on” digital channels that can initiate interaction and carry it through to a sale are becoming more common, even in complex B2B selling scenarios. As marketing plays a critical role in developing customer experiences, the need for more personalized content, driven by marketing and sales, is also growing. As before, marketing must play a key role in listening to customers in all channels to generate meaningful insights. Marketing is also best positioned to enable more and better interactions, playing back sufficient empathy for customer needs in real-time.

Our research found that 95 percent of companies can personalize messaging and experiences based on customer data, with almost one-fifth using AI-driven predictive analytics to do so. (Altimeter 2020 State of Digital Marketing)

3. They build trust.

Effective selling requires strong relationships built on trust. That includes internal relationships. 

There has been a notable increase in collaboration with sales, with 75 percent of companies in our research said they have stepped up the way the marketing and sales functions work together in the last two years. And 60 percent have increased collaboration between marketing and customer service.

As prospects enter a firm’s funnel, marketing plays a critical role in capturing, quantifying, measuring and reporting more data on behaviors exhibited by different prospect groups. As marketing’s personalized interactions drive interest and affinity, the coordination of sales and marketing efforts highlights opportunities to build trust and loyal relationships with customers.

Just like a good salesperson remembers birthdays and children’s names to build familiarity, marketing is now capturing important details to reinforce important and tailored messages. Marketing can also scale this level of intimacy with existing customers to improve repeat purchases, cross-sell, up-sell and grow advocacy to gain new customer referrals.

There has been a notable increase in collaboration with sales, with 75% of companies increasing collaboration between marketing and sales in the last two years, and a 60% increase in collaboration between marketing and customer service. (Altimeter 2020 State of Digital Marketing)

4. They are prepared to optimize efficiencies.

The best salespeople are always well prepared. For full closed-loop reporting and deep customer insight to be achieved, marketing and sales are linking their data to back-office data.

Stitching together this back-office account information to customer behavior is the next big play for companies. It’s how they can deliver better experiences, improve operating models to focus on business outcomes and enrich overall decision-making.

It’s not surprising that the most desired skills for digital marketing new hires were data analysis (42%) and marketing automation expertise (39%).

Much of this work starts with more alignment of sales and marketing incentives and integration of their processes. This complete view allows the organization to coordinate marketing and sales efforts for greater efficiency. Marketing can then leverage AI/machine learning to automate many processes, delivering both marketing and sales interactions. Marketing can now sense the next customer need. When marketing is fully prepared, sales can show up ready for anything, armed with the right insight and offer at just the right time.

It’s not surprising that the most desired skills for digital marketing new hires were data analysis (42%) and marketing automation expertise (39%). (Altimeter 2020 State of Digital Marketing)

5. They’re polished.

Even the most likable salespeople underperform when they aren’t professional and organized.

While it’s wonderful that so many sales departments are rebuilding Customer Relationship Management systems, Content Management Systems and Campaign Automation technologies, these silos need to be linked together effectively. Whether they are from Microsoft, Adobe, Salesforce or others, they can become vast repositories of disconnected data.

“When marketing is fully prepared, sales can show up ready for anything, armed with the right insight and offer at just the right time.”

Companies can and are stitching these technologies together to drive integrated workflows for both sales and marketing. One central area that highlights this collaboration is demand generation, where marketing and sales integrate information for identifying, scoring and routing marketing leads. This streamlining and automating joint sales and marketing processes drive speed and efficiency, allowing both marketing and sales to show up as thoughtfully coordinated. They can deliver a polished customer experience.

But it isn’t easy. Fifty-two percent of our respondents say that integrating technology in this manner is their top digital marketing challenge. (Altimeter 2020 State of Digital Marketing)

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Is your CEO pounding the table and demanding more results? Marketing is increasingly becoming the sales department’s strongest ally. And in many ways, we’re finding that CMOs can (and should be) the sales teams’ biggest champions.

To learn more about enabling CMOs and their marketing departments to super-charge sales, contact Hanif or David.

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REPORT

The State of Digital Selling 2020

Selling has always been a team sport. But as digital excellence builds, boundaries are even blurrier.

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Insights for Driving Sales Productivity & Resilience

Digital has long been a key ingredient in sales teams’ success, even before disruptive technologies made digital transformation a business-wide imperative. Now, in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, digital selling is more important than ever.

In our 2020 State of Digital Selling research, we sought to understand the capabilities and key success factors enabling the digital transformation of selling among B2B businesses.

Based on a survey of 506 sales professionals across North America, Europe, and China, this report offers a comprehensive view of how B2B sales teams are leveraging digital in their sales processes.

Key Learnings From the Report

  1. Now, more than ever, selling is a team sport.
  2. Sales teams need to make the digital mindset shift.
  3. High-touch, high-value cross-functional selling outperforms automated high-volume selling.
  4. Top performers focus on the customer through customer-focused metrics, cross-functional teaming, and selling by vertical industry.
  5. As teams build digital excellence, boundaries are likely to blur between sales and marketing teams.
  6. Digitally mature sellers are outperforming less mature teams through the global COVID-19 pandemic.

For all the data and insights, download the full report below.

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Back to the Office: Reimagining the Workplace

Modern workplaces need some places that promote collaboration, and others that enable concentration.

After months of working from home, some businesses are eager to return to the office–and many remote employees can’t wait to get out of the house.

But as case numbers continue to surge, employers are moving deeper into pre-emptive planning. When will it be safe to go back to work, and when it is, what should offices look like? How should they function, especially with millions of people planning to continue to work remotely?

Workplaces used to be default destinations–a place we went just because we had a job. Now, as 42 percent of Americans continue to work at home, we have learned we don’t need to be in an office building to be productive. But the truth is, we all seek human connections, and many companies are aware that while the work is still getting done, leaders worry that employees are not as engaged or collaborative as they used to be – the jury is still out.

“The truth is, we all seek human connections, and many companies are aware that while the work is still getting done, leaders worry that employees are not as engaged or collaborative as they used to be

The design questions keep multiplying. First, there’s safety. How many people in an elevator? Are HVAC systems adequate? What about contact tracing? Fairness is also an issue: Can workspaces integrate and support digital workers and those who are physically in the building? And perhaps most importantly, there are concerns about adaptability, how do we design offices for a hybrid workforce that will use spaces in ways that continue to evolve and change?

As Prophet reconfigures our own workspaces, we’re taking into account a need- and desire- to be physically together, at least some of the time. And we’re using service design to zero in on the four major “use cases” that our new offices will need to support: connection, collaboration, concentration and culture. While these principles have always been a big part of our work lives and office design, they will be enabled in the workplace in different proportions now.

A more intentional design inverts the current allocation of space from productivity to collaboration. Besides potentially reducing square footage by 20 to 30 percent, it also requires that the office become a place that supports the work of both physically present and remote team members.

[Figure 1a & 1b:] A more intentional design would invert the current allocation of space from a “productivity” orientation to be more “collaboration” focused.

Flexibility is key to these plans. The question for all businesses isn’t so much who will work remotely and who won’t, but rather, when do team members need to be in an office and when will they be working from other locations.  The share of working days spent at home is expected to climb from 5 percent, pre-COVID, to 20 percent. Experts say employers should envision a world where people work remotely from one to three days per week. How can they work better when they are remote? And what “jobs to be done” should be supported on days when they choose to work from an office?

While offices must accommodate the activities of some specialists, the new space configuration must primarily work for an interdisciplinary workforce and support a wide variety of activities. Multi-functionality and flexibility will be important to feasibly and practically accommodate these four use cases.

Connection: Co-workers need each other

The need to connect goes beyond the transactional aspect of production and knowledge sharing – even the most intense introverts need to know they are part of a larger whole. We’re envisioning this space as informal, with cafes, kitchens and casual spots to catch up, as well as digital, with places to check-in and gather daily information.

[Figure 2:] Connection includes digital check-in capabilities, casual touch base areas and kitchen amenities.

Collaboration: Building better ideas

For many companies, the biggest emerging challenge in remote working has been in encouraging innovation. Like Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, some call working from home “a pure negative” when it comes to ideas and creativity. We have been employing effective ways to be creative with a more distributed workforce, but after canvassing our team we recognized a need for providing ways to work together in our offices.

We see the need for at least three types of space: traditional–but teleconference enabled–conference and teaming spaces, more fixed “studio” areas with workstations and equipment that doesn’t travel easily and work that benefits from collective interactions, and flexibly outfitted areas that can accommodate medium to large groups in easily re-staged, digitally supported environments with moveable equipment, furniture and fixtures.

[Figure 3a & 3b:] Collaboration spaces include digitally-enabled conference and team rooms, flexibly outfitted spaces for medium to large groups and more fixed studio areas with workstations that enable collective teamwork.

Concentration: Alone together

Perhaps one of the pandemic’s biggest take-aways is that not everyone can focus while at home, with working parents especially struggling. And even those in more collaborative roles still need a quiet space to write a memo or a phone booth for a conference call.

Quiet rooms for more individual “deep work” like copywriting or product design and development, are becoming a destination for those jobs requiring more solo work, more mental focus and concentration. But they still want to be close to others, creating more of an “alone together” feeling.

[Figure 4:] Concentration supports workstations and furnishings and lighting to enable deep thinking for solo practitioners.

Culture: This is who we are

Finally, shared spaces need to do something less easily defined. They should express what an organization stands for, accommodate its rituals and project its values. Again, flexibility is critical–how can these spaces make occasional large group interactions and events possible? How can they bring teams together–both in-person and virtual–in new ways to reflect a new way of working?

Ultimately, this piece of the puzzle may be the most important. The pandemic has taught us that “work is not a place;” and that the workplace can be so much more than a lobby, a desk and a conference room.

The spaces and functions of the workplace need to come together for a purpose–and with a purpose; representing and enabling what an organization stands for and believes.

[Figure 5:] Culture space includes flexible but well-equipped environments with fixed and movable equipment and furnishings that support external meetings and internal gatherings.

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Organizations must continue to envision their future by balancing the threat of rising case levels, the hope for vaccines and the genuine costs of remote worker burnout. But designing offices for a return to “normal” is not enough; we must challenge our default assumptions and build on what we’ve learned to reimagine the workspace. We believe that the best designs will accommodate hybrid office-based/distributed workforces–and they will also say something about who we are.

Is your organization thinking about how to return to the office and what that might look like for its employees? Reach out today to our team of innovation strategists and experienced designers.

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REPORT

Report: Benchmarking Digital Maturity in B2B Companies

Discover the main drivers of digital transformation investments and initiatives for B2B companies, based on 170 interviews.

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B2B organizations have made drastic changes in response to COVID-19 – shifting to remote work, digitizing customer offerings and moving commerce online. Digitization planned to take years happened in months.

Based on conversations with 170 senior B2B transformation leaders and C-suite executives, this report reveals the main drivers of digital transformation investments and initiatives for B2B companies in 2020.

Here’s what you can expect to learn:

  • Substantial Operational Shifts Due to COVID-19
  • COVID-19 Exposed Significant Gaps in Digital Selling Capabilities
  • Marketing Transformation Continues Despite and Because of the Pandemic
  • Five Stages of Digital Transformation Maturity
  • Most Companies Continue Transformation Initiatives – Digitally Mature Are Accelerating
  • Application of Digital Tools Varies by Maturity Stage
  • Technology Priorities Reflect Level of Digital Transformation Maturity
  • Digital Transformation Sponsored Primarily by CIO/CTOs and CEOs

Download the full study to explore additional findings and examine detailed charts for each of the headlines provided above.

About the Authors

Fred Geyer and Joerg Niessing are co-authors of The Definitive Guide to B2B Digital Transformation, curators of B2BDigitalTransformation.com – an online resource center for B2B transformation leaders and facilitators of a monthly webinar series featuring senior B2B executives discussing the challenges of B2B digital transformation. For more information about the guide, the webinar series or to gain access to the online resources go to B2BDT.com. Fred is a Strategic Advisor at Prophet, a leading growth and transformation consultancy and Joerg is Senior Affiliate Professor of Marketing at INSEAD and director of INSEAD’s “B2B Marketing Strategies” and “Leading Digital Marketing” programs.

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A Model for Driving Organizational Transformation in Today’s Business Landscape

It’s time to look deeper into your organization’s DNA, mind, body and soul.

Everyone acknowledges that orchestrating organizational change is a crucial component of successful business transformations, so why is it always the Achilles heel?

Business Transformation

Many organizations have struggled to meet the challenges of the modern business landscape, where stakeholder and customer needs and demands continue to change dramatically and new market entrants threaten disruption. Companies need to ask themselves the following:

  • “What would our organization look like if it had been designed in the last 10 or 20 years?”
  • “In what different ways might an organization like that create value?”
  • “What customers would it serve and how?”
  • “How might you work backwards from that vision to build a roadmap for bringing your digitally transformed organization to life, properly leveraging the assets and value they already have in hand?”

Customer-led Transformation

No matter how digital organizations become, it will still be humans who ultimately run the organization. Many organizations – some digitally native and some not – understand and treat their humans well. But we’ve also observed that some of those companies have lost track of some equally important humans outside of their organization: their customers! The products, services and experiences they are offering are frustrating the very people who will ultimately determine the survival of the business.

These organizations need to change dramatically to continue to have relevance in the marketplace. They need to inculcate a customer-centric mindset and identify if skills gaps are preventing them from creating more relevant products and experiences. They need to understand where and how their operating model might need to change to support the kinds of pivots and adaptations needed to reconnect with customers and other important stakeholders.

Prophet’s Human-Centered Transformation Model

We view all organizations as a macrocosm of the individual: having a collective DNA, Body, Mind and a Soul. An organization’s culture needs to be understood as a holistic ecosystem and successful transformation today requires leaders to think about every aspect of this ecosystem.

DNA

The DNA is comprised of things that provide direction and tend to change infrequently. The elements that define the destination and direction of travel such as the corporate purpose, values, brand, strategy and employee value proposition.

Soul

It is the elements of the Soul which motivate employees to believe in the DNA. Those are the mindsets and the daily behaviors and ways of working those mindsets motivate; and it’s the stories and symbols that are used to signpost what an organization will and will not embrace.

Mind

The skills and capabilities of an organization’s talent are the Mind of the organization and when properly cared for and nurtured, enable goals to be achieved.

Body

The Body is how collective efforts can be directed. It’s the operating model and organizational design, and the governance, processes, systems, and tools which enable it to cohere.

“An organization’s culture needs to be understood as a holistic ecosystem and successful transformation today requires leaders to think about every aspect of this ecosystem.”

Why We Use the Model

Transformations frequently stumble on cultural roadblocks, which is best expressed in the time-honored truism attributed to legendary business theorist Peter Drucker: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”

We apply our Human-Centered Transformation Model as a lens for unpacking and refocusing the complexities of organizational and cultural dynamics into specific components that can be more easily digested, explored and understood.

We believe that our model’s holistic nature enables us to look clearly at all the interrelated elements that ultimately manifest in the experience of an organization’s culture. It ensures that our understanding is appropriately layered, helping us to make connections between the explicit and implicit elements that sometimes go undiscussed. Most importantly, it supports nuanced diagnoses of organizational challenges and helps us to design a clear roadmap for change, against which progress can be measured.

If you’d like to discuss taking a human-centred approach to your transformation, then our expert team can help. Contact us today. 

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The Human-Centered Transformation Model helps us think comprehensively about the vision for a digitally transformed organization, the skills and competencies it requires and how to design an operating model that will bring it to life. It helps us think comprehensively about increasing customer centricity, identifying the capabilities needed to create more relevant products and services and how to design an operating model that will enable increased focus on the marketplace. And our experience is that by failing to address the elements of the model holistically, the transformation will not be sustained, nor deliver the value anticipated.

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What Amazon Pharmacy Means for Organizations Looking for Post-COVID Growth Moves

This latest disruption is potentially enormous. It also exposes plenty of behavioral white spaces.

Amazon just announced its online pharmacy, news the healthcare world has long expected. And while much will be said about what Amazon Pharmacy means for the $1.2 trillion prescription drug business, we believe there’s something even bigger going on here. And it offers lessons to every company seeking growth in the post-COVID-19 world.

Amazon is proving once again that digital transformation isn’t just about technology. It’s about moving at “the speed of digital” and giving customers what they need. The e-commerce giant is merely acting on a template for growth that works in every industry and for every brand: When people begin to start moving through their lives differently, it creates upheaval, revealing new pockets of need. And the space between these changed behaviors offers abundant growth opportunities for every business willing to study them closely and act. We call these pockets of new opportunity behavioral white spaces.

Amazon’s timing offers an important lesson. This move has been brewing for years, even before its acquisition of PillPack in 2018. The company’s value proposition–getting people what they need, fast–made pharmacy an obvious extension. Who wouldn’t like to get routine prescriptions filled online, as quickly and seamlessly as every other Amazon Prime purchase?

But while it had been laying the groundwork for years, COVID-19 changed the way the world views healthcare. Consumers have always been eager for digital solutions to staying healthy and making their lives more convenient. The pandemic is clarifying, crystallizing and augmenting these new preferences, creating the perfect moment for Amazon’s launch.

Assessing the new playing field

Growth strategists should look beyond the inevitable “Amazon set to crush yet another industry” headlines. First, we are not sure it will prove to be true. Secondly, the news is more significant than that, highlighting an equal-opportunity growth moment. While there are multiple moves available, the best choices will differ depending on each company’s purpose and value proposition. Amazon is just following the universal rules of innovation and customer-centricity: What are the new customer needs, and how can we meet them in new and better ways?

There are many ways to win within today’s environment. Other companies have capitalized on the need for home care and the benefits and convenience of home delivery. Take Express Scripts Pharmacy as an example which relaunched its enhanced digital experience and consumer-centric brand earlier this summer. Unlike Amazon or new entrants in the pharmacy space, they’re building upon their deep clinical expertise, legacy in practicing pharmacy, ease and convenience of home delivery, coupled with 24/7 access to specially trained pharmacists.

“The space between these changed behaviors offers abundant growth opportunities for every business willing to study them closely and act.”

Express Scripts Pharmacy used key insights to understand that for many consumers, particularly those with multiple chronic conditions, pharmacist expertise matters more than convenience. And it’s worth pointing out that Americans have enormous trust and respect for their pharmacists, with Gallup reporting they are just behind nurses and doctors.

That’s just two players attacking the space from two different angles. There are certainly many other moves still available.

One way to analyze potential growth moves is to think about three different roles organizations can play as consumers continue to speed through these rapid changes in both needs and expectations. We like to use the “transformers, creators and invaders” framework when thinking about industry disruption. Healthcare provides some stellar examples.

Express Scripts Pharmacy is a transformer. It’s an example of a company reinventing itself and its offerings, using experience-first initiatives to reach its customers in new–and better–ways. Companies, like Teladoc, Oscar and Higi, are creators. And then there are invaders, like Amazon, moving from one category to another.

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Whether one’s ambition is to be a transformer, creator or invader, the lesson is the same: For enterprises prepared to meet the moment, dive into these behavioral white spaces and listen to consumers, the opportunities for uncommon growth are there for the taking.

Wondering what behavioral white spaces are opening up for your organization and how to map out the best growth opportunities in the post-pandemic world? Contact us today.

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5 Leadership Traits Needed to Reignite & Reimagine Your Business

This latest disruption is potentially enormous. It also exposes plenty of behavioral white spaces.

Between the global pandemic and widespread protests demanding racial justice, organizational transformation feels more important than ever. But true change requires a new leadership mindset. Building the resilience to navigate these world-altering shifts takes a ge­nuinely human-centered approach.

“While our research validates that these individual leadership traits are important, those who have them are keenly aware that for transformation, individuals matter less than the collective.”

In our 2020 research study, “Catalysts in Action: Applying the Cultural Levers of Transformation,” we spoke to 500 transformation leaders across four regions – the U.S., the U.K., Germany and China – and uncovered that the leaders best prepared to drive transformation share five traits. We also found that the leaders who feel most optimistic about the future are those who cultivate these traits and understand that they are required to build organizations that are human-centered.

Based on our research, here are the five leadership traits needed to reignite and reimagine your business this year:

1. Harnessing Many Voices

Executives tend to see themselves as the primary drivers of change. But in reality, transformation can’t work that way. One of the most crucial leadership behaviors we found across each of the four regions in our study is the ability to harness the “employee voice” of an organization. This leadership trait was revealed when leaders enabled and elevated the ideas, opinions and feedback of everyone at every level of the organization to allow for deep cross-functional collaboration and engagement. The leaders who do this recognize that often, middle managers–not the C-suite–are the key change agents. Encouraging ideas and fueling co-creation has become a key element to enable organizational transformation.

2. Embracing Empathy

Empathy per se is not a new concept – it is about understanding how people deal with uncertainty through change. But in times of constant change, transformation leaders must understand their employees’ sentiments towards it and help them cope with it accordingly. In the current context, this means physically protecting people, encouraging remote work, staggering shifts and massive disinfectant efforts. But more important, it means protecting people emotionally, understanding employee feelings and acknowledging the uncertain transition to the other side. Leaders need to bring leadership traits rooted in empathy, certainty and change readiness together to help employees feel confident that they can safely navigate the change, even when change continues to be the new norm.

Demonstrating empathy for employees was particularly heightened among leaders in the U.K., as well as in Germany.

3. Allowing Agility and Curiosity

On its own, agility helps companies pivot in new directions and create value in different ways. But what actually generates the ideas for these new directions requires curiosity. Curiosity is what directs leaders to explore and try new things. While agility allows them to adapt to those new ways of doing things quickly. Taken together, they form a powerful combination.

We expected agility to emerge as especially important in China. COVID-19 was fully present there as we fielded our survey, and it was clear to leaders that they had to find entirely new ways to respond to the devastating illness and frightened, grieving workers. But it appeared as essential in all regions, closely linked to leaders’ self-assessed ability to steer companies through a global crisis.

4. Fostering the Development of Others

Leaders today need to integrate a dedicated approach to agile development across the board, equipping the workforce for the Digital Age, and not leaving anyone behind. This commitment to developing organizational talent came through as one of the top-rated characteristics overall  – notably in China and the U.S. Based on the recognition that transformation requires a high degree of personal growth, leaders should look to foster the development of others. They should encourage a “fail-fast & learn” mentality, where experimentation and failure are permitted, as a key leadership trait. Only this will allow employees individually and the organization as a whole to move forward – more meaningful individual contributions will help achieve the company’s ambition better and faster.

5. Staying the Course

The most optimistic leaders have made an impressive commitment to personal growth, with many closely identifying with the “growth mindset” first researched by American educator Carol Dweck. They think they can develop their own talents and abilities through effort, persistence and education–continually improving upon their leadership traits. This is especially pronounced in the U.S. and the U.K. Even in the context of COVID-19, those leaders that acknowledge the interplay between personal growth and optimism in the face of adversity – using the surrounding disruption as a learning opportunity – will emerge from this crisis stronger and better able to find a path forward.

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While our research validates that these individual leadership traits are important, those who have them are keenly aware that for transformation, individuals matter less than the collective. These leaders see themselves as well prepared to build the cross-functional collaboration and engagement required for genuine change.

In the post-pandemic world, it’s even more complex–right now, nothing is guaranteed. So, there is a two-speed transformation going on that puts even more pressure on leaders. They are trying to transition to the immediate needs amid disruption and transform for the future at the same time. One would be hard enough–managing two speeds of change is particularly challenging.

That’s why a modern leadership “A” game matters so much now. We believe these leadership traits will only become more relevant in the challenging times ahead.

If you would like to learn more about how leaders can chart a clear way forward in uncertain times then get in contact today.

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