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6 Ways To Build A Customer-Centric Culture

Article previously posted Harvard Business Review.

Companies have been trying to adopt customer centricity for nearly 20 years now. But the CMO Council reports that “only 14 percent of marketers say that customer centricity is a hallmark of their companies, and only 11 percent believe their customers would agree with that characterization.”

Why do so many companies struggle to get customer centricity right? The volume, velocity, and variety of customer data that now exists overwhelm many organizations. Some companies don’t have the systems and technology to segment and profile customers. Others lack the processes and operational capabilities to target them with personalized communications and experiences.

But the most common, and perhaps the greatest, barrier to customer centricity is the lack of a customer-centric organizational culture. At most companies, the culture remains product-focused or sales-driven, or customer centricity is considered a priority only for certain functions such as marketing. To successfully implement a customer-centric strategy and operating model, a company must have a culture that aligns with them — and leaders who deliberately cultivate the necessary mindset and values in their employees.

To build a customer-centric culture, business leaders should take six actions:

Operationalize customer empathy. Empathy is one of those buzzwords that sound really good, but very few companies actually understand what it means, much less practices it. Essentially, customer empathy is the ability to identify a customer’s emotional need, understand the reasons behind that need, and respond to it effectively and appropriately. And it’s pretty rare. According to PwC, only 38% of U.S. consumers say the employees they interact with understand their needs.

To instill empathy as a universal value, one that informs everything their organization does, leaders must do more than giving it lip service. Slack, the business communication software company operationalizes empathy. Employees spend a lot of time reading customer messages and observing customers to try to intuit what they want and need. Customer support specialists are encouraged to research the people they’re helping and create mini personas for them to better understand how the customers are using Slack. The company screens to support people who know how to express empathy through the written word, and the company doesn’t allow them to cut and paste canned responses. And for partners who build apps on the Slack platform, the company promotes nine best practices to help them practice empathy, including “outline your use cases” and “storyboard each interaction.”

Hire for customer orientation. From the very first interaction with prospective employees, organizations should make thinking about customers and their needs a clear priority. At Hootsuite, the social media management platform, marketing and human resources executives collaborate to do this.

During the interview process, hiring managers are required to ask every candidate, regardless of role, a question to gauge their customer orientation. Kirsty Traill, the company’s VP Customer, explains that this practice not only assesses candidates and ensures that every new employee is aligned to customer-centric thinking, but also sends a clear message to everyone — recruits and hiring managers alike — about the importance of customer experience at the company.

Democratize customer insights. For every employee to adopt a customer-centric mindset, every employee must understand the organization’s customers. Adobe Systems has opened up access to customer insights for all employees. It doesn’t store up customer understanding in the sales and marketing groups and then expects other departments to focus solely on their functions.

The company created a new department, a combined customer and employee experience team, to facilitate customer understanding. It set up listening stations where employees can go, either online or in an Adobe office, to listen to customer calls. And at every all-employee meeting, leaders give an update on the company’s customer experience delivery.

Facilitate direct interaction with customers. Companies need to develop ways for employees to interact with customers directly, even in “back office” functions. After all, every employee impacts the customer experience in some way, even if indirectly, so every employee can benefit from interacting with customers to better understand them and learn about their successes and challenges.

Airbnb considers hosts, the people who rent out their homes, to be customers, so it facilitates employee-host interactions by requiring employees to stay in Airbnb rentals whenever they travel for business. The company also asks employees to let hosts stay with them when they attend meetings at the Airbnb offices. What’s more, employees participate in an annual event alongside hosts so that together they discuss learnings from the past year and plans for the next.

Most organizations’ business models probably don’t allow for direct employee-customer contact as organically as Airbnb’s does, but leaders can still facilitate interactions by letting employees observe focus group, sales, and support calls, customer visits and ride-alongs, and co-creation labs, and participate in customer events like advisory board meetings and industry conferences.

Link employee culture to customer outcomes. The adage “You can’t manage what you don’t measure” applies to customer centricity, too. Managers will be motivated and equipped to cultivate a customer-centric culture if they know if and how it impacts results, so organizations should ensure they establish and track the link between culture and customer impact. According to Diane Gherson, head of HR at IBM, employee engagement drives two-thirds of her company’s client experience scores. That proves what Gherson and her team knew intuitively: If employees feel good about IBM, clients do, too.

Temkin Group, a customer experience consulting firm, has developed a model that estimates the impact of customer experience improvements on revenue in different industries. On average, Temkin calculates, a typical $1 billion company can gain $775 million over three years through modest improvements such as reducing customer wait times or making a transaction easier for the customer.

Tie compensation to the customer. Organizations should reinforce a customer-centric culture through their compensation program. Donna Morris at Adobe calls this “giving every employee skin in the game.” She says that for employees to know that customer-oriented attitudes and behaviors are expected from them, there has to be “an element of risk” to it.

So Adobe implemented a compensation program tying every employee to the customer. The short-term cash incentive plan reflects the company’s revenue performance as well as customer success measures such as retention. The program not only makes tangible the contributions to the customer that every employee makes but also produces organization-wide alignment because everyone is working toward the same goals.

Company leaders are starting to recognize that culture and strategy go hand in hand. Only when customer-centric strategies are supported and advanced by culture will a company realize its customer-centric vision.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Denise Lee Yohn is a leading authority on positioning great brands and building exceptional organizations and has 25 years of experience working with world-class brands including Sony and Frito-Lay. Denise is a consultant, speaker, and author of What Great Brands Do: The Seven Brand-Building Principles that Separate the Best from the Rest and the new book FUSION: How Integrating Brand and Culture Powers the World’s Greatest Companies

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“It is crucial for the company to understand their role and ownership of security.” Interview with Michael Coates, Former CISO at Twitter

With Transformational CISO only a month away, Digital Diary had the opportunity to sit down with Michael Coates, CEO and Co-Founder of Altitude Networks (and former CISO at Twitter!) leading up to our highly anticipated event in Miami.

Thanks, Michael, for sharing your expertise with us and our readers!

In your recently published article on LinkedIn, you note that the security community should bring the security conversation to a more practical level for average users and companies. That being said, in your opinion, how should executives in cybersecurity shift their mindset to meet the needs of their users?

There are two areas that need to be given much more attention – threat modeling and usability of security, both consumer and enterprise facing. The natural approach of many security professionals is to design the most secure solution against all potential threats leaving elements such as usability as an afterthought. As a result, we end up with solutions such as PGP and complex password requirements. Both of these may “provide academically correct security” but from a practical perspective, they are failures. They are just not usable. Instead, it is critical that we define the threat model we are designing for and provide controls that are intuitive, enabled by default, and ideally seamless from the user’s perspective. Security is not a one size fits all field and consequently, it is crucial that we consider the threat model of our users. The amount of friction and impact to usability in the name of security is quite different for a journalist with anonymous sources, versus a bank employee, versus an everyday users looking to share photos. We also must realize that the “user” is not just the individual consumer purchasing a product. It is also the enterprise employee beholden to security policies and systems or the security professional attempting to understand and use security tools. We must realize that security is not what users want to think about, it’s what they expect, and ideally, they want it to be seamless. Until we adopt the priorities and mindset of our users we’ll keep creating security that works in theory, but not in practice.

You led Twitter’s security program across all elements of information security for 3 years. Reflecting back on your time there, how were you as a CISO able to change the way the company defended itself against modern application attacks?

The field of security is clouded by newspaper headlines, misinformation, and far too many ‘the sky is falling’ security individuals. One of the best activities we can drive as CISOs is a return to an ordered and logical evaluation of security as a function of risk management. The details, controls, and technologies will for sure be technical and require deep security expertise, but what elements are prioritized is very much a risk management decision. Along these lines, one of my main focus areas was bringing visibility to the highest risks facing the company and ensuring that senior leadership understood that action, or inaction, was a business risk decision owned by leadership. This distinction of ‘ownership by leadership’ may seem subtle, but it is an important evolution for security programs to establish that a security team alone can’t be responsible for all risks. The security team spans all activities of a company, but we do not write every line of code or maintain every system. Therefore it is crucial for the company to understand their role and ownership of security.

This way of thinking enabled the security team to tackle security while working closely with the expert engineers that did build and own the technology. In the end, the creation of security controls and processes that were appropriate for the massive user base and real-time nature of Twitter was an exciting challenge. It certainly instilled a respect for solving security problems with scale and speed.

During my time at Twitter, I also strove to break down the outdated thinking that strongly delineated internal and external attackers. This false sense of security implies that internal systems face less attacks by nature of only being accessible to those inside the company. This thinking fails for two reasons. One, the enterprises of today are filled with BYOD, cloud service connections, contractors, wireless networks, acquisitions and more. There is no notion of a general protected internal network. Second, an external attacker becomes an internal attacker the moment they breach a single public facing machine. Therefore, if the internal network is not treated as a hostile environment it won’t be long before external attackers gain access to crucial systems and data within the company.

You left Twitter this year to start your own security company, Altitude Networks. What expertise did you find most helpful in your transition from an established global platform to the startup culture?

Scrappiness and grit. At the end of the day, you just have to get it done. Tackling large and complex challenges on a global platform drives home the reality that you will be in new and uncomfortable realities on a regular basis. The key is the principles you believe in, the team you have around you, and the shared vision to drive through the challenges.

What are the biggest mistakes a company can make when preparing for the inevitable security attack?

The biggest mistake would be to assume that you aren’t a target or it won’t happen. Every company has information that is valuable, can be monetized, or is a target for someone looking to make a statement. In addition, opportunistic automated attacks are rampant. It is irresponsible to not realize that every company is a target.

Second, is to not prepare for what will happen when an attack or breach occurs. “War games” or “tabletop security exercises” are fantastic activities that quickly highlight breakdowns in expectations or capabilities. I highly recommend companies hold these activities on a regular basis, even quarterly. In a “war game” the company creates a mock breach scenario and brings together stakeholders to role-play what would happen. An attacker just pasted usernames and passwords on Pastebin claiming they are from your web app. The New York Times is asking your press team for comment. The story will run in 2 hours. What happens next? Who does press notify? What teams are involved? What tools and runbooks exist to investigate the issue? Is there a plan?

I lead an exercise such as this early in my time at Twitter. We even created a fake scenario and didn’t inform many people ahead of time to see how the situation would play out. This was a fantastic learning opportunity that enabled us to identify procedures and technologies we could bolster – all before a real attack occurred.

What are some helpful resources for companies that want to improve web security?

Basic application security knowledge for all developers is crucial. Fundamentally, most web security issues are a breakdown in the expectations held by the developer about trust boundaries. Many of these issues are simply due to a lack of education on the underlying technology and the practical knowledge of what information can be accessed and edited by an attacker. Fundamental application security knowledge, such as what is covered in OWASP Top 10 trainings, can dramatically help level the playing field for developers.

Next, it’s crucial for security teams to abstract away as much application security from engineers as possible. The secure path should be the easiest path. Time spent strengthening the web framework and developer design patterns to adopt security by default is great. Don’t require developers to remember security, do it for them.

After developer education and securing the development process, look towards security validation tools such as static/dynamic analysis or automated security testing. After the security program has stabilized and matured then consider an external security bug bounty program. When done correctly and at the right time, a bug bounty program is a great part of an overall web security program.

What advice would you offer to CISOs as more and more people, especially attackers, become more connected and digitally fluent?

Remember that all elements are on the table for an attacker and the technology footprint of a company is dramatically increased in today’s distributed environment. For example, what is the risk to the company with non-managed personal technology? How could the compromise of an executive’s personal email account impact corporate data security? Should an employee be able to travel to any part of the world with their company laptop and have full access to corporate systems? Single sign-on may simplify access to the growing wealth of third-party web applications, but how do you off-board the collaborators of shared documents? These types of scenarios all present risks to the organization and must be considered within the security program.

As a well-known leader in the cyberspace, you are aware of all the ins-and-outs of trends impacting cybersecurity. What trends are you keeping your eye on?

The future of enterprise security is autonomous defense systems. Humans are simply too slow and inefficient to be relied upon to be in the critical path for defending technology. Humans must use our expertise, creativity, and skills to build, connect, and tune enterprise security defenses. But the age of security tools generating thousands of alerts for humans to parse through amongst a massive log dump are coming to a close. We see these trends beginning in areas such as security orchestration, behavioral analytics (UEBA) and, of course, machine learning. However, I believe many of these areas are in their infancy and will serve as a stepping stone to more effective autonomous defense systems in the future.

We are very excited you are attending and keynoting our Transformational CISO Assembly this November in Miami. Can you give us a sneak preview as to what you will be speaking on?

I thoroughly enjoy the opportunity to chat with other CISOs. We have a very unique role and as technology becomes even more ingrained in our lives the importance of security will only increase. Throughout my security career, I’ve had the opportunity to work at several large technology companies with hundreds of millions of users. These experiences have forced me to think differently about tackling security challenges. From these experiences, there are three things I’d like to talk about at the Transformational CISO Assembly. First, usability is the new priority for security and a shift in our thinking is required. Second, the future of security defense is operating at massive scale and speed. How does this change our tools and techniques? And third, with competing priorities and budgets how does security influence change within an organization?

What do you think are the benefits are for a C-Level executive in attending a small, intimate assembly such as ours?

The main reason to attend an event is to be presented with new ideas to challenge and inspire your thinking and to make connections to other brilliant individuals in your field that can foster new relationships. The small gathering of the top minds at the Transformational CISO Assembly is the perfect space to accomplish this goal.

ABOUT THE TRANSFORMATIONAL CISO ASSEMBLY

In a new digital world, driven by data, businesses of all sizes are working tirelessly to secure their networks, devices, and of course, their data. CISOs need to plan for worst-case scenarios, stay ahead of latest IT Security transformation technology, and maintain their company’s information assets without losing sight of the corporate culture.

This November, the 6^thedition of our Transformational CISO Assembly will bring together industry leaders to discuss the latest strategies and innovations in cybersecurity in Miami. Join us today, the assembly is now open for application!

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Reimagining Your Tech Workforce In The AI Age

Have you heard? Artificial intelligence is significantly changing organizations. This has been repeated many times before, as you may be aware. However, IT leaders must act now to ensure their teams can handle this digital transformation since AI can be an intimidating shake-up.

There is no denying the disruption that technologies like cloud and mobile have made in the recent past. But, AI is a completely different ball game. AI is bringing changes to organizations and society that are on a whole new level since it has the ability to free up your time and provide accurate completion of routine skills, to name a few. Reimagining your tech workforce with AI may seem like a daunting task, but it is the one technology that is expected to heat up and hit desks faster.

Human + Machine = Teamwork

One of the biggest challenges facing IT executives in the AI transformation is the need to recognize and fill skills gaps quickly and effectively to keep pace with the scale, speed, and scope of technology change. The first step in filling skills gaps is identifying them. However, in the era of human and machine collaboration, pinpointing skills gaps is becoming increasingly complex as we move forward. But, there is much to be learned in this new form of collaboration.

“We have really seen that there is this early-stage shift from a automation focused with artificial intelligence to an imagination and re-imagination focus. And we’re seeing that companies that focus on imagination and re-imagination are able to do a lot more and to do things differently than the companies that are just focusing on automating the old ways of doing things.” James Wilson, Senior Technology Leader at Accenture writes.

Human-centered skills such as problem-solving, judgment, and communication will be critical for businesses to succeed at the human-machine collaboration.

Lowering The Barrier To Use AI

The most major step in reimaging the tech workforce is that executives need to start to think about really lowering the barrier to using AI. IT leaders should develop relationships that help broaden their network so that they have a bigger talent pool from which to source scarce talent. Academic partnerships, apprenticeship programs — and even gaming conventions, which draw individuals with unique technology skills — can be rich sources for lowering the barrier.

AI has set a new standard for technology change that will only accelerate as the year’s progress. The key for IT leaders is to have a strategy that optimizes the right kind of work to the right kind of talent sources at the right scale in order to tackle transformation. This will not only maximize the business value that companies receive from AI and other technologies, but it will empower IT functions to continue to lead the charge on disruption.

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Blockchain Goes Off Budget: Financial Services Increases Blockchain Spending

We have heard about it for a very long time, and now, the financial services are taking blockchain to the next level. Currently, the industry spends about $1.7 billion annually on the distributed ledgers that are best known for being the base of digital currencies.

The budgets that have been spent on blockchain increased more than 50 percent last year, with statistics showing that 1 in 10 banks and other firms are spending in excess of $10 million on blockchain technology. Complimenting these statistics, the number of employees working on blockchain initiatives doubled last year, demonstrating that finance is taking the technology more seriously in business operations.

Blockchain Innovation in Financial Services

So, what does this increase in spending mean for the financial services? There are benefits of finance taking the plunge into the world of blockchain, since the potentiality for it to serve the industry appears to be limitless and ultimately have a solution for numerous problems the financial and banking sectors encounter regularly.

“Billions of individuals and businesses are served and trillions of dollars are moved around the antiquated global financial system each day. Still heavily reliant on paper, albeit dressed up with a digital façade, there are many issues with this system that cause added expense and delays as well as make it easier for crime and fraud to cripple it. Despite the financial industry’s resistance to change, blockchain and its expected benefits make it worthwhile.” – Forbes reports.

Even though blockchain is still a relatively new technology, it is transforming finance and banking as we know it. For example, blockchain is paving the way for innovation in the financial services because of its potential to reduce fraud. In the financial world, this is getting a lot of attention since most financial intermediaries such as stock exchanges and money transfer services suffer from economic crime every year. With cost reduction emerging as the biggest driver of blockchain investment and development for financial service firms, implementing blockchain technology into business strategy is getting easier and easier for institutions across North America.

Overcoming the Hurdles of Blockchain in Finance

Before the finance industry, or any industry, can realize all the extraordinary opportunities blockchain technology offers in the banking and financial services landscapes, there are still hurdles that need to be overcome.

“Before blockchain can change the world of financial services – from remittance, trade finance, securities trading and insurance – it will have to overcome six key challenges: Complexity and scale, regulation, interoperability, resources, culture, and lock-in.” – CTMfile reports.

The blockchains that would be used by financial institutions would need to comply with privacy laws of today and the future and need to ensure the safety of the data it collects when implemented. There are still many questions regarding regulatory oversight for this new technology that needs to be sorted out before banks and other firms successfully deploy it. With the typical top-tier bank now having around 15 full-time employees working on the technology, any form of blockchain used in this sector would need to handle an extraordinarily large data set, therefore scalability is important in overcoming hurdles preventing successful deployment.

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Join us at FSI Transformation Assembly in November for updates on the latest digital technologies and strategies.

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What Are The Most Popular Items Consumers Shop For Online?

Online shopping has made the shopping experience more convenient for customers, changing the dynamic of the retail industry. Since you can now purchase items at the drop of a hat (or the click of a link) consumers tend to prefer online shopping over traditional in-store experiences.

“During an April 2017 survey, 40 percent of internet users in the United States stated that they purchased items online at several times per month, and 20 percent said they bought items or services online on a weekly basis.” Statisa reports.

Online Vs. In-store: A Debate

The other day, I found myself in a conversation with someone discussing what items we prefer to shop for online versus in store. The idea that some items were more appealing to shop for online as opposed to shopping in stores, made me wonder if this is a common debate among consumers.

I’m sure if you were to think on the top of your head what items you prefer to shop for online, you could come up with a few things. Better yet, figuring out what items you feel that you must shop for in-store, may be an easy task.

For example, if you know you need to try on a certain item for your own personal comfort level, like shoes, or sports equipment. Maybe the color of the item online looks a little off, or you are unsure about the material. There are tons of reasons you may prefer in-store shopping to online.

From a retailer standpoint, knowing how customers are shopping online can put you in a unique position to target these audiences accordingly. Not only will answering this question provide you with insight that reveals what customers are shopping for, it answers the question of where they are spending their money and gives you a firsthand look into if your competition is sweeping their interests away.

What Customers Are Shopping For Online

PwC conducted a report that focuses on where customers are shopping for online, revealing top buying patterns of consumers. The categories that are found in the report include books, clothing and footwear, electronics, home improvement, furniture grocery, health and beauty, household appliances, jewelry, sports equipment, and toys. All items are vastly available online, and the majority of consumers take advantage of this fact.

Through this report, I discovered that consumers prefer shopping online for books, clothing and consumer electronics online the most. PwC reports:

“In the purchase journey for this product category, global shoppers looking at books, music, movies and video games are the most likely of all categories to research and purchase via an online channel, 68% and 60% respectively.”

“For clothing and footwear, 52% of global shoppers prefer to research purchases online…”

“For consumer electronics and computers, 62% of global shoppers prefer researching these purchases online…”

The rest of the categories still have a significant impact on consumers when it comes to online shopping, like health and beauty and household appliances. The fact that the three above categories were most popular, comes as little surprise, considering they are most commonly needed items in the sector.

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C-Level experts from across North America’s retail industry are coming together in Dallas in February 2019 to anticipate the highly complex digital retail environment that will develop over the next few years.

Through a cutting-edge program designed by the industry, for the industry, we will provide a fresh and up-to-date insight to help move your organization to the next level of digital leadership. A series of executive education roundtables, keynote presentations, collaborative think tanks, educational workshops, and networking sessions will offer industry-specific topics and trends to ensure your company sustains its competitive advantage.

Advertising Week 2018 Is Here – Here Is What To Expect

If you are walking the streets of NYC, more specifically near AMC Loews Lincoln Square, and you notice an abundance professionals around, don’t be alarmed. It’s officially Advertising Week in NYC.

In case you are not familiar with Ad Week, fear not. I am here to provide you with some of the trends that will be discussed during this week.

The Jist Of It All

Ad Week is one week of the year where advertising professionals come together to talk about the latest trends in the complex world of marketing and advertising, offering unique perspectives and expertise through a series of different seminars, workshops and such.

Just like The Millennium Alliance, one umbrella of AD week focuses on technology and leadership, something we happen to specialize in. Among tech and leadership, AD Week also touches and surrounds itself with the different trends in marketing.

Among this week of informative banter, there will be a few trends to look out for. Hint, hint, these trends may also be reflected in the entire marketing industry for the upcoming year. So, this will give you a little preview of what to expect.

Authenticity Is The Goal

According to Mediapost, authenticity is what will count for CMOs in the coming years. This isn’t very surprising since the world is turning against the norm, and supporting credibility when it comes to ads.

This came forward even more so during some famous controversies like the Coca-Cola ad featuring Kendall Jenner solving political issues with the brand last year with “buying the world a coke.” Anyone remember that? Well, this year, marketers are determined to eliminate the risk of controversy.

“Today’s consumers want advertisers to be authentic, added Rajamannar. “They expect brands to take a stance and do something about it and not just put out ads,” Mediapost reports.

Moving forward, advertisers and marketers need to keep in mind the consumers are interested in being authentic and real, as opposed to being exposed to a lack of transparency within brands.

Engage Customers With Personalization

It’s a tale as old as time. Customers need to be engaged. That seems like a no-brainer, right? You may be correct, and I would even agree. However, it all comes down to how you engage your customers. The answer is not as simple as the goal. One world that will help you reach that goal is: Personalization.

“Verdone believes customers would embrace extreme personalization such as receiving an online follow-up immediately after a person ends a call center phone conservation with the same brand.” Mediapost reports.

During Ad Week will be talking about how to engage customers in the financial industry and many more. With engagement, comes privacy and data security risks that professionals must be aware of moving forward.

All in all, Ad Week is a fantastic week that provides all types of professionals key tools to move forward when it comes to instigating necessary tactics involving the marketing scope. Marketing is everywhere on the day of the digital age, and it’s important to embrace it.

ABOUT DIGITAL MARKETING TRANSFORMATION ASSEMBLY

With 53% of Marketers planning on adopting Artificial Intelligence in the next 2 years, the digital marketing revolution is just getting started. CMOs and CDOs alike are seeking new ways to maximize their digital reach to attract new business to, as well as deliver enrich, personalized experiences to existing customers.

The Digital Marketing Transformation Assembly will bring together North America’s most prominent digital marketing technology and business leaders from all major consumer-driven industries to discuss the latest technology, innovations, and strategies driving digital marketing in 2019 and beyond.

Are you a CMO interested in attending this event? Enquire here today to find out if you qualify for Millennium Membership >>

The Future Of Business Lies Within The Role Of The CIO

Digital transformation has the ability to bring forward more than just technology at the forefront of business, it also has the ability to turn CIO’s into CEO’s, according to a new report.

Let’s face it, digital transformation is what we are all about. We see it in major industries every day, throughout a variety of different resources. It is growing to become more than a trend, but a necessary way to do business. As technology continues to grow and conquer business as we know it, it changes more than just the way we conduct everyday tasks.

CIOs Turn To CEOs

A new report found on CIO Dive suggests that as digital transformation continues to grow, innovation also grows when it comes to the flexibility of the workplace. This simply means that digital transformation brings forward a new way of thinking, which will make old corporate structures instinct and outdated.

So, if you are adopting digital transformation, it’s time to throw out your old way of thinking. It won’t do you or your organization any good moving forward.

Digital Transformation Creates New Roles

Since digital transformation has emerged on the business scene, new roles in the corporate structure have been creating. Anywhere from CIOs to CDOs are now not just important, but necessary.

“Inspired by the digital economy and keen to quickly evolve, in recent years organizations began acquiring chief digital officers to help spur transformation. To some, renovating the business and integrating technology throughout an organization required an outsider.” CIO Dive reports.

…And Bridges The Separation Among Old Ones

With the new roles in the workplace evolving, it also calls for a mindset that does not permit or promote separation among the roles. Before digital transformation took the business world by storm, there was a divide between CEOs, CIOs and everything in between.

Experts nowadays are suggesting that this creates a divide in the corporation and beyond, which can hinder and influence successful business.

“But companies are starting to realize that the separation of the CIO and the CDO doesn’t scale well. Whether businesses call digital leaders a CIO, CDO or CTO, organizations need to bring digital and IT operations together.” CIO Dive reports.

The future lies in the CIO. The CIO is the future of business, simply because CIOs are knowledgeable on the skill sets that businesses need in order to survive the technology-driven world we live in. As technology becomes more advanced, businesses must adapt. Especially the structure that underlines all practices.

In order to truly succeed in business, one must possess an attitude that allows for these changes to happen. An open mind that does not separate the CIO from the rest of the company, but instead, allows the company to adapt to the innovative role.

ABOUT TRANSFORMATIONAL CISO ASSEMBLY

As more and more businesses look to digital technology and strategies to transform their business, CIOs know that data and information technology have never been more important. Understanding the convergence of mobile, social, and cloud is the first critical step for organizations looking to create opportunities and stay ahead of the competition.

The Millennium Alliance is thrilled to present our bi-annual Digital Enterprise Transformation Assembly, put together by the industry, for the industry. Join us on June 21-22, 2018 at The Mandarin Oriental in Miami, FL. for a series of executive education roundtables, keynote presentations, collaborative think tanks, educational workshops, and networking sessions will offer industry-specific topics and trends to ensure your company maintains its competitive advantage.

Download your copy of the sponsorship prospectus here for more information>

Rebranding Your Brand? Remember These Key Factors

Last week, Dunkin’ Donuts unveiled new branding for 2019, with an official name change to Dunkin’. The change will go into effect in January 2019 and appear on the brand’s packaging, advertising, website, and social media channels to emphasize the company’s focus on coffee.

Over the course of the year, several companies have taken their shot at rebranding themselves. But, why? Rebranding can breathe new life into your business or product, but it has to be done with a focus on strategy, a clearly understood process, creative vision & thought, and most of all for the right reasons.

So, if you are looking to rebrand your business, it is best to remember these essential components to set your new brand up for success.

1. Ask yourself, should you rebrand?

The honest truth about rebranding is that many companies will do it at some point. Your brand is the face and voice of your business. If you no longer think it is a good fit, you should consider rebranding your company. Typically, when the needs of your customers change or you do not stand out in comparison to your competitors, this is when companies revamp their image.

2. Manage your plan.

What are the key projects? What are the challenges? What are the things that are most likely to mess things up? These are vital questions you must ask yourself when forging your rebranding strategy.

With a quick and responsible team, frequent check-ins can surface issues long before they affect timelines and they can bring up issues that might not have been considered before.

3. Consider what your customers think.

Remember IHOb? Even though it turned out to be an elaborate “scam” to generate awareness to promote their new burgers (it worked, kind of), IHOP’s rebranding effort as IHOb caused mixed reactions from their customers.

So, keep in mind, a great rebrand is exciting to your customers as well as your internal team. Plan your strategy with their needs at the top of your mind.

4. Stay true to yourself and be prepared.

Rebranding can be exciting, but very exhausting. You should be aware, it can be tempting to pick elements from other successful brands and try to squeeze them into your rebrand. However, you shouldn’t.

5. Launch it!

Launch day is only the first step in fulfilling your brand vision. The rebrand you adopt needs to guide how you conduct business from that day forward. While you have likely lived and breathed this identity for months, the same does not go for the rest of the world. With the right launch, not only will you be excited about your brand’s future, but your audience will be too.

ABOUT TRANSFORMATIONAL CMO

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“Get out of your chair, put away the report, and live the world a bit.” Interview With Dipanjan Chatterjee, VP & Principal Analyst At Forrester

Transformational CMO is less than a month away! Before we go #MillenniumLive in late October in Denver, Digital Diary had the opportunity to sit down with Dipanjan Chatterjee, VP & Principal Analyst at Forrester to gain insight into what is impacting CMOs and how we can stay ahead of this year’s digital transformation as we charge into 2019.

Thanks, Dipanjan, for your expertise!

As a VP & Principal Analyst, you help CMOs thrive in the age of the customer. From your experience, what can a brand do to develop and manage themselves as a “world-class brand”?

Have an unyielding obsession with customer primacy. Leverage, but don’t get distracted by the tech and the toys, the data and the analytics. Don’t let your laser vision of your customer and how you can motivate them to get obscured by anything else.

At Forrester, you challenge thinking and lead change. By working with business and technology leaders to develop “customer-obsessed strategies that drive growth”, what have you seen as being the best practices in achieving that growth for a business?

This goes along with what I said previously. Leverage, but do not get distracted by what’s around you.

Since we are currently in the age of the customer, it is important that CMOs understand that building a powerful brand lies in the hands of those customers. How can CMOs shift from a company-centric approach to one that is focused on the customer?

Embed and demand empathy, fold it into the fabric of your organization. Hire for it. Train for it. Reward it. Then boost the human force of empathy with the analytic force of technology to create relevant and compelling brand experiences.

You recently released your report, “Give Your Brand A Voice — Literally”. Why do you think that voice will flourish and what does the shift to this paradigm mean for a modern brand?

Voice is the most natural form of communication. Human are there already. Machines are not. But the pace at which they have advanced is phenomenal, and we are likely not more than a few years away from a few pioneer brands implementing meaningful voice interfaces at scale. Add to this the growth of screen fewer devices, and any brand, modern or not, must be getting ready now to navigate and interact in the near-future world of voice.

(Check out Dipanjan’s report, Give Your Brand A Voice – Literally here.)

As the marketing industry continues to evolve, the way people develop solutions and strategies has drastically changed when compared to the past. How have influential technologies like AI or Blockchain impacted the way brands develop breakthrough solutions that resonate in the industry?

The capacity for machines to generate, gather, and analyze data with tremendous
processing power and the virtuous cycle of artificial intelligence has brought unprecedented power to brands. Now it is up to them the use them appropriately, use them well, and have the foresight to know when to supplement with context and intuition.

Is there a certain experience that you reflect upon or bring up when you create and scale solutions for global brands?

The world can be remarkably similar. And remarkably different. There’s a version of 5 the Avenue and a Rodeo Drive, and people that shop there, in most countries. Chocolate and vanilla are the preferred ice creams flavors just about anywhere. Yet Land Rover evokes very different emotions in China than it does in the US. And I can never forget the flabbergasted expressions of a team of Italian consumer durables executives as I walked them through kitchens in every corner of India. Get out of your chair, put away the report, and live the world a bit.

What advice do you have for CMOs looking to stay ahead of this year’s digital transformation?

Try and stay five years ahead in your understanding of market dynamics. And seed all kinds of pilot and tests targeting what’s coming two years down the road. Then you might be ready for the “next year” every year.

We are very excited that you are attending our Transformational CMO Assembly in Denver. As our Analyst Partner. What are you looking forward to most at our event?

To share my ideas and seek feedback to refine and sharpen them, and to learn from all around me.

What do you think are the benefits for a C-Level executive in attending this event?

To hear from some of the experts in their respective field on developments that will shape business in the near future, and to have the opportunity to shape that future.

Thank you, Dipanjan, for taking the time to interview with Digital Diary and we will see you in Denver!

ABOUT TRANSFORMATIONAL CMO

This October, the 8th Transformational CMOAssembly in Denver is a unique event that challenges our attendees to learn how to anticipate what’s next for the highly complex marketing environment that has emerged throughout the year through a series of executive education roundtables, keynote presentations,collaborative think tanks, educational workshops, and networking sessions with our industry experts and advisory board over the course of 2 days.

Download your copy of the sponsorship prospectus here for more informa tion>>

Spaces are reserved for the best in the business. If you’re a CMO looking to stay one step ahead of the digital world, reserve your seat today >

What makes our assembly so exclusive is our exclusive content. And what better way than getting exclusive content than by downloading our brochure created with you in mind?

Download your copy here to get a sneak peek into our assembly today >>

Are Subscription Services The New Face Of Retail?

In this fast-paced world that we live in, it is no surprise that people want products delivered to them in an agile and effective way. Luckily, this can be accomplished by the emergence of subscription companies, that are growing at a rapid rate.

“In the month of April 2017, subscription company websites had about 37 million visitors. Since 2014, that number has grown by over 800%.” Forbes reports.

The subscription business has taken off in the retail industry, changing the way consumers receive goods and services. Forbes dedicated an article just for subscription businesses, and the insights found to prove just how much this industry is growing.

What Is A Subscription Business?

For starters, understanding what a subscription business is, is crucial to understanding why they are growing. In simplest terms, subscription businesses send consumers packages based off of items that have been picked specifically for that customer. The average subscription business delivers products once a month. Consumers are able to subscribe to this service and have a hands-on approach to what they receive.

This business has taken off in the last couple of years mainly because technology has grown so much, making it easier for companies to reach an audience and deliver products effectively.

There are many popular subscription services out there. You may be familiar with Blue Apron, which delivers ready to cook meals to customers. Dollar Shave Club is also a popular service that caters to men’s shaving needs, delivering shaving products to the doorsteps.

Subscription Services Are Growing

Forbes referred to as subscription businesses as being faster growing than most retailers, thanks to technology and mobile capabilities. Not only does technology help grow this business, but it proves what kind of customer base is out there, and what they are looking for.

Retailers can look to this kind of customer in order to adapt goods and services to meet their needs. This customer is one that is adaptable, up to date and looking for a personalized experience.

“It’s not enough anymore just to give consumers what they’re looking for if they know what they want they can get it with a click anytime. To get a consumer excited, you have to offer something they’re not expecting and subscriptions are an ideal instrument for surprise.” Forbes reports.

In order to achieve the utmost level of personalization, companies can’t be afraid to ask their customers what they want. A subscription business is only as successful as how much they know about their customer, in order to cultivate products and services that will meet their needs.

If your services are out of date and not targeting the right customer, it will fall short. Retailers can rely on data and analytics in order to get to the hearts and desires of their customers. Following a subscription model can be beneficial. After all, customers can cancel a subscription as fast as they can sign up for one. This is a challenge that retailers face in the growing age of customer engagement.

The secret to combating this challenge is selling a product that people actually want. Look inward, do your research and you will find what you are looking for.

“Google search is the biggest source of customers for subscription companies and social media is second. Social media is a more important source of customers for subscription businesses than it is for other types of retailers.” Forbes reports.

So, are subscription businesses, in fact, the new face of retail? According to many experts, the answer is yes. This industry is growing at a rapid rate, as new industries are being tapped into, like the beauty and fashion industry. We are faced with a market that only has the potential to grow.

ABOUT TRANSFORMATIONAL CMO

Download your copy of the sponsorship prospectus here for more information>>

Spaces are reserved for the best in the business. If you’re a CMO looking to stay one step ahead of the digital world, reserve your seat today >

What makes our assembly so exclusive is our exclusive content. And what better way than getting exclusive content than by downloading our brochure created with you in mind?

Download your copy here to get a sneak peek into our assembly today >>