This year in particular has been one in which many people have needed empathy in trying circumstances.
Yet how can large organizations with thousands or even millions of customers express real empathy?
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Arguably trust is today more than ever at the heart of value creation in the economy. The development of trusting, high-value business relationships is not an accident, it can be done purposefully. Below is a still highly-relevant excerpt from Chapter 4 of my book Living Networks describing how to do this.
Participating in the network economy requires very actively developing new and existing relationships with customers, suppliers, and partners. As you saw earlier in this chapter, companies’ external relationships are becoming both deeper and broader. Some firms do whatever seems right each time they take on a new customer, supplier, or alliance partner. Others have careful and detailed processes for building closer relationships that benefit both parties. IBM spends almost $1 billion on its alliance program for software developers, getting its return through the generation of over $4 billion in additional sales. It has a formal 40-step process that executives must go through with potential partners before signing an alliance agreement, including examining the fit with IBM, and getting a senior IBM executive to agree to act as an internal sponsor for the alliance.
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This paper was originally published in Academic Leadership Series: Improving Innovation and Collaboration Between Industry and Business Schools, based on a keynote by Ross Dawson at CA ANZ Thought Leadership Forum.
What is the value of academic–business collaboration? The current landscape suggests that there is much potential value that is not being realised, which begs the question, what is possible? What value can be created through utilising the wealth of resources we have in the academic–business sector, for the benefit of the business community and society more broadly?
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I recently spoke to a group of senior partners responsible for a major law firm’s relationships with its top 50 clients.
The session was primarily framed around helping the partners understand the degree and nature of the shifts impacting their major clients in industries such as financial services, mining, construction, and infrastructure.
However I also delved into the impact of new technologies including AI on the delivery of high-end professional services, a topic I have been doing substantial work on recently with several clients.
There are many specific issues stemming from the rise of AI and automation in professional services delivery, including the modularization of what have often been aggregated services, increased choice on service providers, changes in pricing models, and shifts in the relative roles of junior and senior professionals.
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Last week I ran a half-day workshop at the annual offsite for executives of a major airline alliance, taking the group from a broad view of macro trends shaping the future, through to the generation of specific actionable ideas to create greater value across the alliance.
As part of the workshop we used a framework that I originally developed over a decade ago in the context of collaboration in the financial services industry, but I have used in the last year in industries as diverse as healthcare, airlines, and professional services.
The future of every industry lies in value creation across organizations. To achieve that we need explicit discussions and engagements among all industry participants on what it is that they’d like to collectively achieve, and how they can get there. This framework lays out the key components:
Click on the image for a larger version
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I first met Mark Zawacki when I did the opening keynote at the ANZA Technology Conference in Silicon Valley in 2004, and Mark was also a speaker at the event. Mark has since founded the highly-regarded corporate accelerator 650Labs, which helps leading global corporates to drive innovation.
More recently I have met Catherine Stace, CEO of Cure Brain Cancer Foundation, who has brought inspiring and truly disruptive approaches to medical research philanthropy, by focusing on making research far more collaborative and effective rather than simply funding antiquated research models.
It is no surprise that collaboration between Mark and Catherine has created something exceptional: SWITCH Festival, to be held in Sydney 27-29 August.
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I recently gave a series of opening keynotes on The Future of Customer Experience as part of a roadshow for omnichannel customer experience platform provider Genesys, which is running a global series of events for their lead customers, which includes organizations such as News Limited, Vodafone, Western Union, and the Australian Taxation Office.
The central theme of my keynotes was the boundaries and relationship between humans and machines in customer experience.
Today, extraordinary insights from data and analytics enable us to address individual’s unique preferences to an unprecedented degree.
Yet the emotion, empathy and engagement of humans cannot be replaced – we all seek personal connection and a real sense of caring.
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Every organization understands they need to innovate, not just in bringing new offerings to market, but in continually becoming a new and better organization.
Networks are always at the heart of innovation. The new comes from combining the old in original ways.
Chemist Kary Mullis aptly described how he arrived at his innovations that won him the Nobel Prize in 1993:
“I put together elements that were already there, but that’s what inventors always do. You can’t make up new elements, usually. The new element, if any, it was the combination, the way they were used.”
Whether it is bringing together existing ideas to create new ideas, or connecting people in ways that generate new insights, organizations must design how they work to facilitate value-generating connections.
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Immediately after my opening keynote on Creating the Future of News at INMA World Congress in New York last week was a very interesting plenary session from Neil Zuckerman of Boston Consulting Group (BCG) on branded content in the future of media, drawing on a recent multi-country study they have done. I had already emphasized the importance of branded content in my keynote, so it was a great segue into his detailed analysis.
Zuckerman began by running through the severe challenges for the news industry, going on to highlight branded content as the next source of growth for the industry. Below are a few slides from his excellent presenatation.
BCG sees branded content growing at a 21% rate over the next 5 years. I believe it is likely to grow faster than this.
Source: Boston Consulting Group
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Yesterday professional services expert George Beaton and I ran the inaugural Clients and Firms of the Future: How to Compete conference in Sydney, bringing together around 100 senior leaders of professional services firms to look at the future of the industry.
It is just over 15 years ago now that my first book was released with the subtitle The Future of Professional Services (now out in its Second edition). While these days my work covers a far broader scope, over the years I have worked extensively with professional services firms to help them create successful futures.
There has been substantial change in the professions over the last decade, however there will unquestionably be far greater change in the years to come.
It was an absolutely fascinating day at the conference exploring the future of professional services. I will be sharing more from the conference over time, but today would just like to put down a few initial thoughts from the three themes of the day.
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