Webcast

WEBCAST

Webinar Replay – Jumpstart Your Marketing Planning: Doing More With Less

As marketers look to close the year strong and head into 2024 planning, we’ve identified seven critical steps marketing organizations should take to inform next year’s planning.

55 min

Summary

Drawing from insights found in Prophet’s recent report, “Marketers’ 2023 and 2024 Planning Do-More-With-Bootcamp”, hosts Kate Price and Mat Zucker along with panelists Chris Rector, Chief Marketing Officer at GAF Roofing, Lisa Bialecki, Vice President of Marketing & Demand at Rust-Oleum and Leigh Huther, Vice President of Marketing at Trane Technologies share how they effectively balance brand and demand marketing agendas with constrained resources.

Listen to the webinar replay for the seven steps marketing organizations should apply to your 2024 marketing planning and for actionable ideas you can take back to your team.

WEBCAST

On-Demand Webinar: Innovating Your Way to Business Resilience

You cannot predict when or from what direction disruption will come, but you can use innovation to build a resilient business. 

55 min

Given the turbulent global economy and widespread cutbacks, Prophet’s innovation team had some burning questions. What makes a business resilient–not just able to survive tough times but thrive?  

We intuitively believed there was a connection between innovation and resilience. But we wanted to know if others thought that, too. So, we talked to 300 senior global business leaders across 30+ industries. We learned that innovation and resilience are connected, and organizations that are both innovative and resilient are 2X more likely to exceed their financial targets and 3X more likely to create more shareholder value than their competitors.  

Download our latest research, Building Business Resilience Through Innovation, to learn how the most financially successful organizations innovate their way to business resilience.  

As we continue to unpack our findings, we’ve got plenty of new questions, which is why we recently invited a few innovation experts to join us for an on-demand webinar. Professor Jan-Erik Baars, who teaches industrial design at the Lucerne School of Business in Switzerland, and Chris Reinke, vice president of design and product development at Masonite, an industrial manufacturer. 

Below are a few key highlights from that discussion.  

Defining Innovation 

Innovation is “about solving the problems people care about,” says Reinke, who formerly directed design at Bose. “Innovation needs to be uniquely relevant, hard to copy and something your customers want to pay for.”  

But in his experience, many companies rely too much on their history and current knowledge. They’re reluctant to look far enough into the future to understand what might happen next. As a result, these companies tend to be slow to pivot and capture the next growth opportunity.  

“The viewpoint of the organization has a huge influence on its ability to be innovative and resilient,” says Baars. He spent nearly two decades in design at Philips. During his time there, he noticed that future casting was specifically assigned to the inventors of the organization, while business managers were limited to a much shorter horizon. 

“If you don’t allow an organization to open for larger and longer horizons, you will not have enough time and stamina to understand customer needs and respond accordingly to develop something truly meaningful,” Baars says. “You can’t sketch something out on a napkin and expect to have it ready next quarter.” 

Our research confirms that the most innovative companies are explicitly organized to innovate on multiple time horizons, simultaneously. They work hard to advance organizational capabilities. “They’re like successful musicians,” Baar says. “They’re dedicated, disciplined and committed. They stick to the plan, grow, learn and improve. “Layla Keramet, partner and EMEA head of Prophet’s Experience and Innovation practice, believes there are three tiers to innovation opportunity:  

  1. We are not using the existing technology, product or solution in a way that can improve our human condition, and there is an opportunity to optimize and make it better. 
  2. People are making a significant shift to a new type of product and service, therefore driving the demand for innovation. 
  3. The technology, product or solution doesn’t have use cases for today, but we think it will in a plausible future. 

Financially Thriving Companies Invest in a Diverse Range of Innovation Techniques

No matter which path companies are on, they can benefit from increasing the number of innovation tactics they use. Our research asked business leaders to identify which best-practice innovation techniques their organizations consistently rely on. Those that describe themselves as innovative and resilient use between five and six of these innovation techniques, on average. Companies that were neither innovative nor resilient used only 3.5. 

That surprised us, especially since these tactics are widely known in the innovation community and general business world. Baars, on the other hand, wasn’t shocked at all. 

“Most companies are dominated by management thinking,” he says. “They are very focused on output and time to market, even though that makes no difference to the consumer.” Yet that type of thinking tends to limit the variety and scope of innovation techniques. 

Becoming more innovative requires “a change in the culture so that these techniques can be introduced, accepted and deployed.”  

Innovation must be more than just a function. Building an innovation lab and detaching that group isn’t useful. “It’s like having a satellite with nothing to satellite around,” Baars says. “Innovation has to be a part of the core business.” 

Companies that aren’t sure where to begin should start small and build from there, advises Reinke. Look at products that have proven successful and ask, “How can we make them better? What does the future look like?” 

Masonite recently completed an activity with Prophet that looked to 2030. “We created a vision that enables us to walk back to the current day and understand where we are going with our product line,” says Reinke. “Now, we have a roadmap.” 

The C-Suite Must Have Skin in the Game

Through our research, we discovered that only 11% of senior leaders set and are accountable for their organization’s innovation agenda. That didn’t surprise Baars, “Most companies are dominated by people with MBAs. They’re not trained in the company’s primary activity, which is creating impact for customers. Very few have degrees such as a Master of Business Design, which trains people to understand the inherent uncertainties of design thinking and set innovation agendas.” 

“In many organizations, there is an over-representation of traditional business managers and an under-representation of designers and engineers,” Baars says. “So, they focus on driving operational excellence and efficiency, and not on creating an impact for customers.”  

Final thoughts 

Our recent research and conversations with innovation leaders demonstrate that an organization’s innovative strengths correlate with its resilience, the kind of bounce-back flexibility all companies need to prosper in changing markets. As innovation leaders make their case for corporate support, they should enlist the involvement of the C-suite to spark new cultural thinking and organizational strategies. 

Get in touch with our innovation experts. 

WEBCAST

Enabling Transformational Growth in Asia Through Effective Collaboration

Learn how companies in Asia can drive innovation and accelerate outcomes through better collaboration.

52 min

Summary

In Asia, effective collaboration is paramount to unite a diverse set of countries and strive towards a common goal.  

Our latest global research report, “Catalysts: The Collaborative Advantage,” unveiled that companies in Asia value collaboration more than other regions, but lag in execution. How can the region work to close the gap? 

In this webinar replay, leaders from Prophet’s Organization and Culture practice and the APAC team share insights from our latest global study, introducing clear pathways for leaders to prioritize and accelerate the efforts to build their collaborative muscle. 

Learn how effective cross-organizational collaboration can help your business unlock transformational growth through a holistic, human-centered approach.  

Key Takeaways

  • How Prophet’s Collaboration Flywheel helps deliver better, more impactful outcomes faster over time through a 3-phase approach.
  • Characteristics unique to the APAC region, and why effective collaboration is paramount to unite a diverse set of countries and strive towards a common goal. 
  • Actionable tactics and case studies to unlock collaboration in today’s ever-evolving organizations with remote, hybrid and face-to-face workplaces and the future opportunities for improvement.   
Download the presentation PDF.

WEBCAST

Under the Covers of Brand and Demand: A Love Story

Learn how marketing leaders can break down silos and turn their departments into growth machines. 

58 min

Summary

Marketers are under intense pressure to make every dollar count, prove return and drive impact. That pressure can create competition between brand marketing and demand generation efforts for prioritization and funding, undercutting growth and harming performance.     

This led us to wonder: How can companies rewrite that rivalry and turn it into a love story where everyone wins?     

Prophet’s Marketing and Sales Practice leaders join executives from T. Rowe Price, Trane Commercial Americas, and Salesforce to discuss the results of our latest global research report, Brand and Demand Marketing: A Love Story.   

We asked 500+ global marketing and advertising leaders how they are breaking down silos and balancing brand and demand marketing within their organizations. Watch the webinar to learn how to build agile marketing organizations that are customer-centric, aligned to business objectives and how to balance brand and demand marketing. 

Key Takeaways

Marketers are under intense pressure to make every dollar count, prove return and drive impact. That pressure can create competition between brand marketing and demand generation efforts for prioritization and funding, undercutting growth and harming performance.  

Through our research we learned the most effective marketers follow four common principles: 

  • Anchor Marketing Investment in Business Objectives 
  • Experiment to Win 
  • Build a Modern Marketing Organization 
  • Put the Customer at the Center 

Hosts and Panelists

  • David Novak, Senior Partner, Prophet   
  • Mat Zucker, Senior Partner, Prophet
  • Theresa McLaughlin, Head of Global Marketing & Digital Solutions, T. Rowe Price  
  • Portia Mount, VP of Marketing at Trane Commercial Americas  
  • Paul Stoddart, Chief Marketing Officer Customer Success, Salesforce  

Contact us to learn how Prophet can help you overcome common challenges while integrating brand and demand marketing capabilities.   

WEBCAST

How Collaboration Can Unlock Business Resilience 

Learn about the power of collaboration and how it can fuel resilience across your organization.  

55 min

Summary

Collaborative initiatives are becoming even more critical. Mounting evidence shows organizations that demonstrate effective collaboration across their business also benefit from having a greater resilience – particularly essential in these challenging times. Mastering it allows businesses to act nimbly, anticipate, adapt and respond to incremental and sudden changes – benefiting customers, employees and the bottom line. The trouble is executing it effectively.   

As hybrid and remote working proliferate and disruption becomes the norm, it’s never been more important to ask: Are we collaborating effectively?  

In this webinar replay, leaders from Prophet’s Organization and Culture practice discuss the results of their latest global research report, “Catalysts: The Collaborative Advantage.” 

 Learn how to unlock the power of collaboration across all working environments through a holistic, human-centered approach and how to structure collaboration to ensure resilience is achieved.  

Key Takeaways

  • Why collaboration is a muscle that can unlock the potential of a more human-centered and resilient organization.
  • Actionable tactics to unlock collaboration in today’s ever-evolving organizations with remote, hybrid and face-to-face workplaces and the future opportunities for improvement.   
  • The enhanced business outcomes and benefits of effective cross-organizational collaboration.

Contact us to learn how Prophet can help you unlock resilience with the power of collaboration.  

WEBCAST

Webinar Recap: Getting to Customer-Centricity in Financial Services

61 min

Prophet recently hosted a webinar on customer-centricity in financial services – what it means today, what firms across the industry are doing to achieve it and how they measure success. We were joined by several senior leaders who graciously shared their insights and experiences:

  • Beth Wood, Chief Marketing Officer, Principal Financial Group
  • Andrea Schultz, Head of Workplace Retirement Marketing, Equitable
  • Kai Sakstrup, Chief Strategy Officer, US Bank

The questions and inputs from attendees made for a lively session, and we wanted to share some follow-on thoughts based on the big ideas that emerged during the discussion.

The State of Customer-Centricity in Financial Services

For years, customer-centricity has been a hot topic for banks, insurers, investment firms, credit agencies and other industry players. Tech-driven disruption, increased competition and rising consumer expectations have kept it near the top of the strategic agenda for marketing, sales and service executives, but indeed all types of business leaders and throughout the C-suite.

As we highlight in a recent report, the business case for customer-centricity – which is based on revenue growth, increased share of wallet, stronger loyalty and higher Net Promoter Scores (NPS) – remains as clear and compelling as ever. But many organizations still face longstanding challenges to achieve true customer-centricity. The most common barriers include:

  • Complex organizational structures
  • Post-M&A integration difficulties
  • Heterogeneous customers with diverse needs
  • Rigid legacy systems and fragmented data
  • Regulatory constraints

Collectively, these challenges lead many customers to feel as if they’re dealing with different companies when they engage with more than one business unit or product from the same organization. As Kai put it, “customers should not see our org chart.” But legacy operational models with siloed product lines and busines units make it challenging to offer seamlessly integrated customer experiences. Andrea commented that she was “jealous of FInTechs” because they don’t have to contend with all the outdated tech and can execute around a clear customer-centric vision.

Customer-Centricity in the Big Picture

Beth spoke on the need to “empathize with customers and to identify what each touchpoint really means to them.” This could emphasize tactical actions, such as data cleansing and harmonization to ensure all business units have access to complete and timely customer data.

There are unique elements of the customer experience – which Beth called the “visible edge of the brand” – that should be owned by business units. But it’s critical for marketing leaders to “build bridges and open doors and windows” between all parts of the organization so that experience is unified and as seamless as possible for individual consumers. After all, marketing leaders are often the most passionate advocates for satisfying customers.

Collaboration between business units is how customer experience and human-centered design can be truly embedded within and throughout the business, rather than being bolted on. Beth added that “customers are the avenue to scale transformative change.” Advanced technology can help operationalize such change, as well as promoting consistency in the customer experience, though it takes more than just the latest to be truly customer-centric. Indeed, chasing the newest tech can even distract some organizations from delivering what customers want. To become customer-centric, organizations need to align strategically on holistic transformation.

How to Drive Customer-Centric Transformation: Actions and Advice from Senior Financial Services Leaders

Seek Ongoing Feedback to Enhance Customer Knowledge
Success starts with deep knowledge and understanding of consumer needs and wants. While most companies would say they know their customers, the reality is that it’s much harder than it looks. And simply having lots of data doesn’t equate to customer knowledge.

Detailed journey mapping and segmentation exercises can help convert huge volumes of raw data into actionable insight. These efforts must also be supported by active and ongoing feedback mechanisms to track the effectiveness of every touchpoint.

Principal conducted a global study to learn what was going on in the hearts and minds of all of its consumers, across age and socioeconomic bands. “Do your homework on who you are, what you want to be, and then talk to your customers about what’s important to them,” added Beth.

Prioritize Diversity

The need for insight has only increased with the spotlight on diversity, as one participant question highlighted. Some consumers perceive that the financial services sector has historically focused on wealthy white males, a perception that true customer-centricity can powerfully counteract.

According to Kai, deep research on all customer segments helps prevent marketers from “assuming that we are the person that we’re serving, which can lead to bad outcomes.”

Champion the Promise Amongst the C-Suite
There was consensus among the panelists that buy-in and leadership from the top of the organization (including from product and business unit executives) are critical to realizing the promise of customer-centricity. Shifting the mentality of the organization involves getting more people thinking about the business from the perspective of the customer and talking about customer needs.

Marketers are often responsible to ensure that customers are represented in such discussions. Kai spoke of taking inspiration from senior-level advocacy and engaging “the people within the organization that actually do the work day to day.” Making customer-centric change sustainable requires incenting and rewarding the right behaviors. It also requires ensuring that the business case for change is clearly explained; you don’t want to imply that people have been doing things wrong.

Find the Right Talent

Talent is another key variable in the equation for success. All of our panelists are looking for more data science and analytics talent, as well as targeted expertise in engagement strategy, social media and other areas.

There is increasing interest in bringing in talent from other industries, with the goal of challenging conventional wisdom and energizing marketing teams. Fresh thinking is more valuable than knowing about financial services regulation, for instance. After all, new hires from consumer packaged goods and retail can always learn the industry. Our panelists agreed that such talent is critical to generating strong returns on their large-scale investments in technology and data.

Track and Celebrate Incremental Progress

NPS and customer sentiment are among the top metrics for tracking customer-centricity. But it’s also important to track the small nuances of consumer behavior that can serve as leading indicators. Andrea believes the key is to know how customers feel about individual interactions and their willingness to go through them again. “Those are universal metrics that drive change, because everyone can understand them,” she said. Plus they provide more detail about what’s behind NPS.

Though firms should adopt an agile approach to upgrading elements of the customer experience, customer-centricity is more like a marathon than a sprint. “You want to say ‘within two quarters, we’re going to transform this business,’ but I think that’s the wrong approach,” said Kai. “You have to realize there’ll be milestones along the way and identify how to incrementally keep moving forward.”

Andrea agreed. “When it comes to customer-centricity, you have to play the long game, because the wins you’re going to see won’t show up on the balance sheet in a year.” That’s why leading marketers orient their customer-centric change efforts – including strategies, budgets, resources and their teams – around the target customer behaviors and business outcomes that matter most.

Final Thoughts

Our recent webinar, along with our ongoing client experience, shows the intense interest senior marketing leaders have in instilling customer-centricity in their organizations. Their passion will serve them well in advocating for richer and more personalized experiences and creating momentum for the long-term journey.

Watch the full replay here or get in touch with our financial services team at Prophet.

WEBCAST

Webinar Replay: The 2022 Prophet Brand Relevance Index

Our research uncovers a new pattern of relevance, with brands appealing directly to the head and the heart

51 min

Prophet’s brand experts join executives from Sony and Teladoc Health to share the results of and discuss the most relevant brands in the seventh annual Prophet Brand Relevance Index® (BRI).

In this year’s Index, we asked more than 13,500 U.S. consumers about what brands are most relevant to their lives. Watch the webinar for insights on more than 293 brands across 27 categories.

Key Takeaways

  • A new pattern of relevance emerged. Brands are finding new and unforgettable ways to deliver experiences in the new normal by connecting to us as humans – appealing directly to the head and the heart.
  • Brand relevance = growth. The top 50 brands saw 133% more growth than the S&P 500.
  • How are top-ranked brands are winning with consumers? See which trends – from tapping into authentic expression to enabling self-care – consumers say they can’t imagine living without.

Panelists

The Prophet BRI serves as a roadmap for building relevance with consumers, the type of relevance that leads to business growth. Contact our team to learn how to apply the insights from the 2022 Index to your organization.

WEBCAST

Webinar Replay: Executing on Customer-Centricity in Financial Services

The secret to becoming genuinely customer centric? Start with holistic, human-centered cultural change.

61 min

Prophet’s financial services team leaders moderate a discussion with executives from Principal Financial Group, Equitable and US Bank on the ways financial services organizations can overcome barriers to growth by transforming their cultures to be more customer-centric.

Watch to learn: 

  • The skills, capabilities and processes needed to advance customer-centric transformation
  • The challenges leaders are facing as they change their cultures to operationalize customer-centricity
  • The top priorities of senior leaders advancing transformation agendas of their own

Panelists:

  • Beth Wood, Chief Marketing Officer, Principal Financial Group
  • Andrea Shultz, Head of Workplace Retirement Marketing, Equitable
  • Kai Sakstrup, Chief Strategy Offer, US Bank

WEBCAST

Webinar Replay: The 2021 State of Digital Transformation (Asia Edition)

Some firms just want to become more digital at what they do. Others want to transform their entire business.

57 min

Omar Akhtar, Senior Analyst and Research Director at Altimeter, Chan Suh, Chief Growth Officer at Prophet, and Jacqueline Alexis Thng, Partner and ASEAN Lead at Prophet, present key takeaways from Altimeter, a Prophet company’s flagship report, The State of Digital Transformation – which surveyed nearly 600 executives from the U.S., Europe and China.

Our expert speakers discuss key trends in transformation, as well as how companies in China approach digital transformation differently compared to other countries, providing important insights for businesses in Asia.

If you’d like to learn more about Prophet’s approach to digital transformation, get in touch today.

WEBCAST

Webinar Replay: The 2021 State of Digital Transformation

Average companies start transformations to “catch up.” The most successful firms? They want innovation.

56 min

Omar Akhtar, Senior Analyst and Research Director at Altimeter, and Chan Suh, Chief Growth Officer at Prophet, present the biggest takeaways from Altimeter, a Prophet company’s flagship report, The State of Digital Transformation – which surveyed nearly 600 executives from the U.S., Europe and China. They discuss key trends in transformation, including where leading companies are expanding their digital capabilities, what investments they are making and common roadblocks they encounter along the way.

If you’d like to learn more about Prophet’s approach to digital transformation, get in touch today.

WEBCAST

Is Asia Ready for the Future of Work?

Top-line results and corporate culture haven’t yet been the main driver of transformation in Asia. That’s changing.

57 min

Introducing a Human-Centered Model for Change

Pulling on insights from their latest global research study, “Fit for Change: Driving Growth & Transformation for the Future of Work,” the speakers propose a way forward for leaders of transformation to accommodate change while getting your organization fit for the future of work in Asia.

Thank you for your interest in our webinar. You can also download the presentation deck here. If you’d like to learn more about increasing your organization’s change fitness to support long-term growth and resilience then get in touch with us today.

WEBCAST

The Future of Work is Here

Cultural transformations come from understanding that organizations, like people, have a mind, body and soul.

59 min

Get Your Organization Fit for the Future of Work

Pulling on insights from their latest global research study, “Fit for Change: Driving Growth & Transformation for the Future of Work,” the speakers set out a way forward for leaders of transformation by sharing the primary areas to invest now to build the critical capacity to accommodate change while getting your organization fit for the future of work.

Thank you for your interest in our webinar. If you’d like to learn more about increasing your organization’s change fitness to support long-term growth and resilience then get in touch with us today.

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