REPORT

China’s Brand New World

Working with Alimama, we’ve developed a model for brand building, adapted for market forces in China.

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Adopting the Brand-Building Model to Win

Brand building in China is at a crossroads. The long-term, equity-building playbook that once worked for Western companies is now less effective, as China’s increasingly tech-savvy and bargain-hungry consumers navigate a digital ecosystem that’s unlike any other. And the approach many local companies use – trying to quickly increase market share by focusing on speed to market, low prices and broad distribution, usually at the expense of branding – is also faltering.

But there is a new way forward. To help both multinational and local organizations build brand equity and drive growth, Prophet and Alimama developed the new Brand META Model, which stands for the Maintain, Evolve, Transform approach. It is an evolved model for brand building that is adapted for the unique market forces in China.

  • Maintain: Maintain the approach of positioning but localize it for different cultures.
  • Evolve: Evolve the way data is collected and activated to identify micro-targets of an audience and the planning process so it is more agile and omnichannel.
  • Transform: Transform consumer experiences to make them more proactive, experiential and hyper-personalized.

Prophet conducted interviews with more than 40 marketing executives who are thoroughly immersed in the Chinese market. The model blends insight about what makes China unique and finds new ways to develop profitable and lasting customer relationships.

To learn more about the Brand META Model, our collaboration with Alimama and how it applies to your business, contact us today.

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Building Relevant Brands in Healthcare

Make sure your healthcare brand is seen as modern, in touch and better than competitors.

It’s easy to assume that healthcare’s biggest challenges come from pressure to lower costs or growing consumer frustration. But Prophet has just published its fifth Brand Relevance Index, revealing a larger threat: Most people view the non-healthcare companies invading the industry as more relevant to their lives than traditional healthcare providers.

Our researchers ask thousands of consumers about hundreds of brands they’d consider using. Only one healthcare provider–Mayo Clinic (No. 24)–cracked the top 50 of our index. And the brands consumers say are most relevant? These include tech companies that are rapidly rolling out healthcare-related offers, like Apple (No. 1), Amazon (No. 7) and Google (No. 13).

While there’s no denying these brands dominate in other areas, many established healthcare organizations aren’t as worried as they should be. They see these outsiders as indirect threats, perhaps because they are less likely to provide direct care. But as these invaders create greater relevance in healthcare, their disruptive potential is growing. They can commoditize the delivery of care and marginalize providers.

Others see the tech threat as imminent. They believe that as people–doctors and patients alike–feel increasingly at home with tech, traditional healthcare models will get left in the dust. And because these invaders are powered by so much data, they can offer health innovations that are potentially faster, easier, cheaper and safer.

Here are few examples of tech companies disrupting the healthcare space:

  1. Amazon – It’s now adding skills to Alexa that are HIPAA-compliant, making it simpler for providers to use voice-recognition. Pillpack, its online pharmacy, is threatening giants in that field. It’s partnering with Berkshire Hathaway and JP Morgan Chase to form Haven, a still-vague initiative devoted to lowering cost and improving care. And it just launched a virtual clinic for employees, which many believe is a model for future offers.
  2. Apple – The tech giant has also announced plans for its own clinic, is winning with Apple Health Records, breaking down EMR silos and making data more portable.
  3. Alphabet – It is clear the company has a massive healthcare agenda, with efforts that include Google Health, Google Fit, Verily and Nest’s health-monitoring services. Last year, it hired David Feinberg, MD, who had been the CEO of Geisinger Health, to oversee these fragmented efforts. It’s also poached Toby Cosgrove, MD, a former CEO of the Cleveland Clinic, as an executive adviser to its Google Cloud healthcare and life sciences team.

Why isn’t healthcare more relevant?

Consumers are crazy about these tech brands, which have built relationships with people that are deep, immediate and intense. With average relevance scores in the 95 percent-plus range, they do well on all four core drivers–they are customer-obsessed, ruthlessly pragmatic, pervasively innovative and distinctively inspired. When asked about these brands, people often tell us, “I can’t imagine my life without it.”

Yet the scores for healthcare organizations are in the 70 percent range, on average, with some as low as 43 percent.

Frankly, we find this a little baffling. After all, healthcare is about life and death, feeling good instead of lousy. Shouldn’t we see healthcare organizations as more relevant to our lives than a two-hour grocery delivery or the new season of Stranger Things?

So we dug into the data, trying to discover why consumers are relatively indifferent to traditional healthcare organizations, even those that are undergoing impressive transformations.

“Shouldn’t we see healthcare organizations as more relevant to our lives than a two-hour grocery delivery or the new season of Stranger Things?”

After dissecting the relevance scores of 23 healthcare providers, we found inherent strengths. Almost all achieve very high scores on our measures of purpose, beliefs and values. And there are common weaknesses, especially in terms of access. Consumers give healthcare providers much lower scores for “Is available when and where I need it” than for other industries.

Along with Mayo Clinic, organizations like Northwestern Memorial Hospital, MD Anderson Cancer Center and the Cleveland Clinic rose to the top. When we compare the scores of the top three performers in the category with the bottom three, studying how they fare in each of our 20-plus attributes, we find three essential insights. They offer clues for organizations that are genuinely committed to driving a relevant brand.

The most relevant healthcare brands…

Consistently deliver on their promises

Healthcare is about flu shots and colonoscopies, not trips to Disney, so we’d expect these brands to score lower on measures like “Makes me happy.” But consumers want healthcare organizations to be practical, not joyful. They say the most relevant brands provide remarkably consistent experiences, and that they live up to their promises. They expect healthcare organizations to meet their most pragmatic needs. They are impressed when providers do so and well aware when they stumble.

Make sure they’re seen as modern, in touch and better than competitors

While it might seem obvious that communicating state-of-the-art offers is essential in healthcare, our survey shows it matters more than most organizations think. The top-performing brands typically score as much as 40 percentage points higher on questions like, “Has better products, services and experiences than its competitors” and “is always finding new ways to meet my needs.”

Aggressively cultivate trust

Trust is complex. It’s not something an organization does, but rather something it earns. Yet, being seen as trustworthy is an essential ingredient of success. Between 70 and 90 percent of consumers say they trust our top healthcare organizations. For the bottom three, those percentages barely make it past 40 percent. The best healthcare brands carefully track trust measures, including how people feel about data and privacy.

When consumers trust a provider, they’ll be more open to innovation. That engenders relevance, creating a positive cycle. In the case of Piedmont Healthcare, for example, more than 80 percent of consumers say that they would be willing to try anything new it offers them. For the lowest-scoring brands, that willingness hovers at around 30 percent.

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FINAL THOUGHTS

Facing disruption from invaders like Amazon, Apple, and others, the healthcare industry is on notice. Finding ways to deliver better experiences and to remain relevant with consumers should be top of mind for all healthcare executives. At Prophet, we characterize the organizations that are committed to consumer-centric transformation Evolved Healthcare Enterprises. Read more about the four attributes of healthcare organizations dedicated to driving uncommon growth in the digital age.

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REPORT

The State of Digital Transformation 2018

Without ROI data, organizational buy-in remains a top challenge for those leading digital transformation.

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Now in its fifth year, our annual “State of Digital Transformation” research continues to document the constantly evolving enterprise. As disruptive technologies and their impact on organizations and markets continue to progress, our research aims to capture the shifts and trends that are shaping modern digital transformation.

In 2019, strategic digital transformation is only becoming more pervasive moving beyond IT to impact competitiveness throughout the organization. Budgets are soaring. The list of disruptive technologies on the radar of stakeholders is expanding. Ownership is moving to the C-Suite and managed by cross-functional, collaborative groups. Customer experience (CX) continues to lead digital transformation investments, but as we observed in 2017, employee experience and organizational culture are also rising in importance to empower and accelerate change, growth, and innovation.

Digital Transformation as an Enterprise-Wide Movement

This year, it’s clear that digital transformation is maturing into an enterprise-wide movement. Digital transformation is modernizing how companies work and compete and helping them effectively adapt and grow in an evolving digital economy.

What’s also evident is that there is still much work to do as companies are, by and large, prioritizing technology over grasping the disruptive trends that are influencing markets and, more specifically, customer and employee behaviors and expectations.

The State of Digital Transformation: 5 Key Takeaways

  • A successful digital transformation is an enterprise-wide effort that is best served by a leader with broad organizational purview. For the second year in a row, CIOs are reported as most often owning or sponsoring digital transformation initiatives (28%), with CEOs increasingly playing a leadership role (23%).
  • Market pressures are the leading drivers of digital transformation as most efforts are spurred by growth opportunities (51%) and increased competitive pressure (41%). With high-profile data breach scandals making daily headlines, new regulatory standards like GDPR are also providing impetus for organizations to transform (38%).
  • While there is a growing acknowledgment of the importance of human factors in digital transformation – like employee experience and organizational culture – most transformation efforts continue to focus on modernizing customer touchpoints (54%) and enabling infrastructure (45%). But many organizations are not doing their due diligence when it comes to understanding their customers, with 41% of companies making investments in digital transformation without the guidance of thorough customer research.
  • Organizational buy-in remains a top challenge for those leading digital transformation. The companies we studied report digital transformation is still often perceived as a cost center (28%), and data to prove ROI is hard to come by (29%). Cultural issues also pose notable difficulty, with entrenched viewpoints, resistance to change (26%), and legal and compliance concerns (26%) stymieing progress.
  • Innovation is staking its claim within the organization. Nearly half of respondents report that they are building a culture of innovation, with in-house innovation teams becoming the norm

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3 Dimensions That Separate the Best B2B Brands from the Rest

Keeping your promises, building trust and commitment to innovation all fuel customer loyalty.

The recent release of the Prophet Brand Relevance Index® (BRI) uncovered three important ways B2B growth leaders can set their brands apart in their category.  The study of 225 brands by 13,500 U.S. respondents is important because relevance is so closely linked to profitable growth. In fact, our data reveals that the most relevant brands have outperformed the S&P 500 average revenue growth by 230 percent and EBIT growth by 1,040 percent over the past 10 years.

While B2B brands aren’t ranked in our Index, a large cohort of well-known brands with significant business-to-business (B2B) revenues such as GE, IBM, Adobe and Amazon were included.   The best performing B2B brands tripled the ratings of the remaining B2B brands in three dimensions – consistent promise-keeping, innovative differentiation and trust. Each dimension provides a guide to B2B brand relevance building.

  1. 1. Consistent Promise Keeping

Ruthless pragmatism, the brand’s ability to consistently make the user’s life easier, is a key driver of brand relevance.  Three attributes stood out for the best B2B brands: “Lives up to its promises,” “Delivers a Consistent Experience” and “I know I can depend on.” Users and buyers realize that the B2B world is filled with brand options and choices, but no single brand is right for every situation at any given time. Honesty about what a brand can deliver matters enormously, as it makes reasonable and achievable promises to its consumers.

“B2B brands that lose touch and trust are among the first to lose relevance.”

For example, Marriott consistently delivers on its promises to business travelers. They focus on the fundamentals—convenient locations, exceptional cleanliness, comfort without the frills—and they do it every day across thousands of locations, scores of staff members and a portfolio of brands.

  1. 2. Sustained Innovation

A hallmark of relevant brands is pervasive innovation – pushing the envelope and finding new ways to meet consumers’ needs. They find better ways to engage with customers and create superior experiences through service and product innovation.  The brands that excelled in B2B stood out in two key areas: “Is always finding ways to meet my needs” and “Has better products, services and experiences than competitors.” Pushing the envelope appears to be less of a differentiator than sustainable innovation that drives tangible benefits for consumers for top B2B performers.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) embodies the principle of sustained innovation and benefit delivery.  Amazon didn’t pioneer the shift to cloud computing, nor do its web-service innovations depend on cutting-edge tools and applications.  Instead, it relies on building an ever-expanding suite of web services that can be utilized at scale, by different types of businesses, with a wide range of applications with very different levels of data and platform maturity.

  1.  3. In-Touch & Trusted

Survey respondents agree that distinctive inspiration is an important driver of relevance.  In doing so, they are focusing on several different aspects of the brand including, “Makes me feel inspired,” “Has a set of beliefs and values that align with my own,” “Is modern” and “I trust.” Top B2B brands spike on trustworthiness and being modern and in touch.  Trust in the B2B context is far-reaching because it extends from personal relationships with the company’s representatives to confidence in the future behavior of the brand.

B2B brands that lose touch and trust are among the first to lose relevance as Union Carbide, International Harvester and Lehman Brothers can attest. Far more brands are building strategies focused on staying in touch and building trust. One example is Mayo Clinic, which is extending its relevance outside the hospital into the B2B world, offering services for executive health, which helps the brand build trust beyond its patients and into the top of the funnel of organizations.

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Relevance is earned day by day, one customer at a time.  Consistent promise-keeping, sustained innovation and being in touch and trusted neither require lucky breakthroughs nor depend on macro-economic conditions.  They are all within the control of company leaders.  The relevance and growth they generate are achievable with dedicated focus and leadership attention.

Interested in increasing relevance in your market? Prophet assists companies with developing strategies that drive brand relevance.

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Prophet Brand Relevance Index® 2019

Apple, Android, Spotify and other leaders offer lessons about how all brands can get closer to customers.

For over 100 years, brands have been built a certain way. But the modern world demands something new. Prophet has played a pivotal role in shaping brand strategy – it’s our heritage and our future. With the launch of the BRI, we set out to learn more about relevance and ultimately answer the question, “What does it take to build a relentlessly relevant brand?”

Here’s our answer. Relentlessly relevant brands engage, surprise and connect. They push themselves to earn and re-earn customers’ loyalty—and they continually redefine what’s possible.

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Which Brands Have a Purpose Customers Believe In?

Whatever their mission, brands like AARP, Fitbit, NPR and Peloton energize and evangelize audiences.

Many brands attempt to create a customer relationship by having a purpose that inspires and engenders respect.  Such a purpose can form a customer bond that goes way beyond functional benefits.  What brands have a purpose that is known, understood and admired? And which have disappointed?

The recently-launched 2019 U.S. Prophet Brand Relevance Index® (BRI) measures the strength of 225 top brands from over 27 categories among respondents that are active in the category and are familiar with the brand. One of the measures in the survey, which I will be evaluating in this post, was centered around brand purpose. Prophet talked to consumers about the brands they loved, inquiring whether they agree with the statement: “The brand has a purpose that I believed in.”

Observations on Brands With a Purpose We Believe In

Of the media brands, NPR (Ranked No. 1 for the dimension) and TED (7) were significantly above news outlets like CNN, The New York Times, and Fox – all of whom were near the middle of the sample.  This is likely because NPR and TED are not perceived as biased. Entertainment brands Disney (No. 6 in purpose rankings) and Pixar (25) did well probably in part because they are well-positioned as companies that use technology to produce entertainment experiences that bring happiness to others. Consumers believe in Disney and Pixar’s purpose because it is easy to understand and authentically integrated into their products and services. It is no surprise these same entertainment and informational media brands dominated the top ten brands on the “connects with me emotionally” scale.

Of the 18 insurance brands, two brands stood out with respect to purpose—USAA and AARP, both ranking in the top 12 brands on purpose metrics.  With USAA focused on military families and AARP on retired seniors, they have a clear and niche focus, which helps them understand their consumers to an intense degree. They can then evolve their purpose e to fit their needs, making it more meaningful to their customers.  Aflac also is in the top 20 percent on purpose— the top insurance brand (30) in the “connects with me emotionally” scale.

Two fitness brands, Fitbit (3) and Peloton (5) were in the top five brands. Both had brand purposes that resonated with their customer base.

Financial services firms did not score well against the dimension, with most of the brands surveying in the bottom half.   The exceptions were Vanguard (3), Fidelity (16), TurboTax (23) and Paypal (36). Vanguard is a customer-owned company that focuses on low-cost funds and Fidelity adds to a low-cost goal, a commitment to make financial expertise broadly accessible. Consumers who are attracted to these brands share the goal of finding low-cost financial options and so the brands’ purposes clearly align with their customer base.  (It is noteworthy that both brands were way ahead of Charles Schwab on this measure).

“The brand has a purpose that I believed in.”

Restaurant brands also didn’t do well with respect to purpose.  Of the 21 brands, eight (mostly fast-food brands) were in the bottom 10.  A notable exception was Chick-fil-A, whose purpose includes “to be a faithful steward of God and to have a positive influence on all who come in contact with the brand.” One manifestation of this purpose is their practice of not operating on Sundays – a day for rest, family and church services. It led to a place in the top 20 percent and was number 13 on the scale “aligned with customer beliefs and values.”  Even restaurants oriented to quality or health, like In-N-Out and Hello Fresh, did not make the top half, perhaps because their purposes were not differentiated enough.

Tesla was a winner among automobile brands with a top ten position undoubtedly driven by its passion to accelerate the movement to all-electric cars as a way to combat global warming but also for its features and driving experience.  Honda finished in the top 10 percent perhaps because of its history of technological innovation and Toyota in the top 25 percent because of the Prius and its associations with the fight against global warming.

Social media and Internet services did well, with most in the top 25 percent.  The top social media brands were Spotify (8), Pinterest (15), Roku (21), Waze (22) and Airbnb (26).  Facebook and Twitter were at the bottom of all the brands in the sample, likely because of the roles they play in controversial political and social discourse.

Which brands have a purpose you believe in? Leave a note in the comments.

For more information on the 2019 Prophet Brand Relevance Index, please visit the dedicated report microsite.

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FINAL THOUGHTS

Prophet’s ongoing relevance research proves that an authentic purpose is one of the surest ways to achieve relevance. Consumers–especially younger ones–want to do business with brands they admire.

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Prophet Brand Relevance Index® 2019 – China

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Webinar: Lessons on Leading Business Transformation

Knowing where to start transformations is important. So is knowing how and when to course-correct.

59 min

Culture is a key lever driving transformation and unlocking uncommon growth for organizations today.

Hear first-hand from Prophet’s Chief Transformation Officer, Paul Greenall, and Senior Strategic Advisor, Bill Margaritis, as they sit down with Tyler Durham to share how they have both successfully navigated the challenges faced during business transformations within Fortune 50 companies.

Thank you for your interest in our webinar.

If you’d like help identifying a clearer path to transformation and how to best use culture as a key lever to drive that change then please get in touch today.

For further reading, be sure to take a look at our latest global research report: Catalysts: Cultural Levers of Growth in the Digital Era – referenced in the webinar, it outlines the key fundamentals you need to prioritize now in order to drive impactful change from the inside out.

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Purpose Driven Brands are Relevant Brands

Why IKEA, DIsney and Lush resonate with consumers in the UK, because they know actions mean more than ads.

It is well reported that brands with purpose outperform their peers; often attracting and retaining the best talent, providing a real point of difference for consumers. Unilever announced strong results that support this notion with purpose-led brands in their portfolio growing 69% faster than the rest of the business and delivering 75% of the growth.

The results of our 2019 Prophet Brand Relevance Index® (BRI), which speaks to 12,200 consumers in the UK to understand the brands most indispensable to their lives, shows that many of the brands successfully soared up the rankings are the ones centered on clear, authentic purposes. Brands like Lush, Ikea and Disney have all seen their relevance with British consumers increase over the past 12 months and they were classified as purpose-driven brands in the U.K.

“It is well reported that brands with purpose outperform their peers; often attracting and retaining the best talent, providing a real point of difference for consumers.”

So, what do purpose-driven brands do to drive success? Purpose exists to differing degrees in organizations and even for those that are truly purposeful, there is an ongoing journey to maintain the conversation and engagement with consumers in order to stay responsive in an ever-changing world.

Here are three fundamentals to become a purpose driven brand:

1. Identify a purpose rooted in truth

A purpose cannot just be invented. It is not just a slogan or a campaign. A purpose-driven brand knows why it exists, and what it wants to achieve. It is at the core of what makes the brand relevant because it is in the DNA of the company. Ikea, for example, knows the importance of brand purpose and stays true to its guiding principle to ‘create a better every day for the many people.’ Even as Ikea continues to grow, its relentless focus on bringing design to the masses in a way that is authentic and transparent has manifested itself across the entire business model. This year, the brand jumped up 10 spots in our BRI, to sit comfortably at 18.

2. Articulate the ‘why’

A purpose should inspire its audience, acting as a rallying cry for its employees as well as a demonstrative signal to the outside world of the values and belief system behind the company. To drive impact, the purpose must resonate with hearts and minds.

A great example of this is Disney, which climbed to No. 14 in the Index with its simple and inspiring purpose: “make people happy.” Not only is this rooted in the organization’s DNA, but it inspires across all levels of the organisation and drives behaviours in the pursuit of constantly increasing happiness. This single unifying principle speaks to the heart. And when a purpose speaks to the heart it has the power to truly inspire change.

3. Activate with conviction

A purpose-driven brand doesn’t make empty, albeit appealing and cleverly executed, claims. It actually uses its brand purpose as a yardstick to measure what they do and how they do it. Brands that possess purpose have a clear conviction; they don’t just talk, they act too. Purpose drives relevance and perceptions, but to do so employees and customers need to know about it.

Lush has long been a proponent of cruelty-free and vegan products. And whilst much has been made of previous campaigns what constantly remains at the core of their actions is a real conviction. Lush doesn’t just talk about the environment, it acts on it. It is a big deal to put your conviction above profit but that’s precisely what the brand did on Friday 20th September when it closed its stores and website to lend its voice to the climate crisis. It is no wonder Lush powered into the top 10 this year, with British consumers scoring it highest on relevance measures such as ‘has a set of beliefs that align with my own’ and ‘lives up to its promise.’

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Brands need to learn that it’s actions and not ads that make the difference. To build a relentlessly relevant brand, and perhaps move through next year’s Index, you must identify your organisation’s true brand purpose, articulate it well to employees and customers, and activate it for the world to see.

If your brand is ready to become a purpose driven in order to unlock uncommon growth, let’s set up a time to discuss. Our team of strategic consultants is ready to help you chart the course.

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Digital Marketing Priorities in Financial Services for 2019

Our research shows that lead generation and customer experience top the list. And hiring is a major headache.

It’s clear that emerging Fintech and Insuretech entrants are shaking up financial services. Across the board – from large to small-scale companies – we’re observing an accelerated need for more digitally fluent marketing organizations to tackle new challenges in an evolving market.

To understand the challenges and priorities impacting the insurance and banking industries today, we turned to Prophet’s digital analyst group Altimeter surveyed 68 global financial services executives as part of their industry-wide 2019 State of Digital Marketing report that spoke to over 500 executives in North America, Europe and China.

“Altimeter surveyed 68 global financial services executives as part of their industry-wide 2019 State of Digital Marketing report.”

The report surfaced three primary digital marketing insights specific to where financial services executives are betting their marketing investments to address business challenges:

  1. Lead generation and customer experience are the
    top digital marketing priorities.
  2. Scaling marketing innovation, the right talent and proving impact
    are the greatest challenges.
  3. Data analysis, marketing automation and UX design are the
    most sought after skills.

Let’s dive into the results.

1. Lead generation and customer experience are the top digital marketing priorities.

Lead generation and customer experience came out on top (see Figure 1) – ranked higher than brand awareness and brand health – a top priority across other industries.

To measure digital marketing success, financial services companies are placing greater emphasis on customer loyalty/customer lifetime value (CLTV) – even before direct revenue (see Figure 2).

We see these forces working within financial services companies that are investing more to acquire customers through digital demand-building activities. Specifically, with the increases in the promotion of banking, investment and insurance products going more digitally direct-to-consumer. We also see loyalty as a rising metric to diagnose and resolve potential attrition challenges before being confronted.

2. Scaling marketing innovation, the right talent and proving impact are the greatest challenges.

Financial services marketing organizations are navigating several challenges with their focus on lead generation and CX development, particularly around scaling, hiring and proving business impact (see Figure 3).

In addition, we learn that compared to other industries, financial services companies are experiencing a much greater challenge in seeing a return on investment for their marketing technology spend with 32 percent saying that it took a long time before they saw any return. Consequently, it is now considered to be their top Martech challenge.

3. Data analysis, marketing automation and UX design are the most sought-after skills.

Financial services companies are now focused on building capabilities in data analysis, marketing automation, and user experience design (see Figure 4) to enable the scaling of marketing innovation across the full enterprise and ultimately to prove business impact.

Financial services companies as a consequence are finding the need for capabilities to apply digital marketing in new ways previously not considered.

These evolving digital marketing priorities are making way for the future

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What’s clear from the findings of Altimeter’s 2019 State of Digital Marketing report is that as financial services companies place greater emphasis on driving customer acquisition and shaping customer experiences, marketing must bring in new capabilities formally nascent within the organization, invest in the right marketing technology, and prove business impact on a small – yet scalable – way.

At Prophet, we help our clients drive uncommon growth through transformation. We work with leaders across the insurance and banking categories to understand where to play and how to win to unlock the full potential of the brand and customer relationships. Learn more with our guide to digital marketing excellence here or get in touch today. 

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REPORT

Smart Places: The Digital Transformation of Location

Hear about what’s working, with insights from early adopters, device makers, industry groups and vendors.

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The growing adoption of Internet of Things (IoT) consumer electronics — such as smart thermostats and digital assistants — has paved the way for brands to use connected devices in their physical spaces too. The same sophisticated technology that powers “smart home” devices is slowly finding its way into stores, hospitals, and other public spaces, creating “smart places.”

For this report, we outline how location-based brands can take the battle offline by investing in technology-rich locations that raise the bar for Customer Experience (CX).

We also examine the barriers brands will face, balancing the value of enhanced consumer insights, customer experience, and operational efficiencies against heightened risks around consumer privacy.

Key Findings:

  • Detailed use cases distilled from research into hundreds of different ‘smart place’ devices
  • Interviews with early adopters, device makers, industry groups, and vendors who focus on CX management in physical locations
  • Recommendations for incorporating these technologies into your business strategy, and the challenges therein

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The 2017 State of Digital Transformation

Change agents still face challenges in transformation efforts, led by a lack of digital talent and expertise.

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Are Companies Investing in Digital Strategies?

In the new report, “The 2017 State of Digital Transformation,” we surveyed more than 500 executives and digital strategists to understand the current challenges and opportunities they are facing as they undergo a digital transformation.

This is the third annual report on the topic from Altimeter principal analyst Brian Solis. This year builds on his 2016 research and reveals how, why, and to what extent businesses are investing in digital strategies, initiatives and operational models. The good news is a growing number of businesses are investing in innovation strategies to uncover new growth opportunities. The bad news is most companies surveyed are ignoring the pervasive changes happening to connected consumers’ buying behaviors.

Key Findings

  • While businesses cite “evolving customer behaviors and preferences” as the top driver of digital transformation, fewer than half invest in understanding digital customers.
  • Some executives are beginning to own digital transformation efforts, and the Chief Information Officer (CIO) is most often at the helm (28%). As all companies increasingly become “technology companies,” the roles of the CIO and IT department are more important than ever — but true success in digital transformation is an enterprise-wide, cross-functional endeavor.
  • Companies and their change agents still face big challenges in the pursuit of digital transformation, including a lack of digital talent and expertise (31.4%), the perception that digital transformation is a cost center and not an investment (31%), and general culture issues (31%).
  • While companies are making attempts to modernize employees’ skillsets for a digital economy with new training programs (62%), only about half are investing in new digital talent. The employee experience is a crucial, yet often overlooked element of a successful digital transformation.

Undergoing a Digital Transformation? Get a Digital Maturity Assessment

To help companies navigate the digital transformation journey, Altimeter and Prophet have developed a diagnostic that assesses a company’s digital maturity. The tool provides an objective look at the current digital state vs. ideal future state while identifying major perceived gaps and opportunities that can be pursued as part of the digital transformation journey. Contact us today to learn more.

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