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<ul><li><keyword id="6371981" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="gartner" source="Orion">Gartner</keyword> forecasts worldwide IT spending to <a href="https://quixy.com/blog/top-digital-transformation-statistics-trends-forecasts/">grow by 5.1%</a> in 2022. </li><li>IT businesses now seek visionary leadership to assist them in focusing on and planning software implementations, generating efficiencies, and enhancing service quality. </li><li>9<a href="https://www.strongdm.com/blog/devops-statistics">9% of businesses </a>confirm that <keyword id="1968247" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="devops" source="Orion">DevOps</keyword> has had a positive impact on their organisation in 2020. </li></ul>Most businesses are now on their way to <keyword id="860946" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="digital-transformation" source="Orion">digital transformation</keyword> as they employ disruptive technologies to innovate goods, services and business models. Chief information officers (CIOs) have been battling to keep up with their business stakeholders' unquenchable thirst for additional digital capabilities. In fact, Gartner has predicted global IT spending to <a href="https://quixy.com/blog/top-digital-transformation-statistics-trends-forecasts/">grow by 5.1%</a> in 2022. CIOs increasingly rely on third-party vendors for the technical support they require. As a result, several CIOs have implemented multi-speed IT, increased their usage of <keyword id="6493908" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="agile" source="Orion">agile</keyword> approaches, or even built new digital divisions from their traditional IT departments. While leaders around the world were focused on responding to and recuperating from COVID-19, questions concerning future operating models have appeared, and must be addressed quickly in order to successfully emerge on the other side. The global digital transformation market was valued at $<a href="https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/digital-transformation-market-43010479.html">521.5 billion</a> in 2021. This is estimated to more than double to $1247.5 billion by 2026, with a compound annual growth rate of 19.1% during the period. In the past, IT was primarily seen as the back-office department in charge of providing training, configuring software, patching up hardware and equipping new hires with the appropriate technology. But today's IT operations are moving toward a more proactive and future-focused natural flow. Business leaders are becoming more aware that IT cannot just be tasked with "keeping the lights on". IT businesses now seek visionary leadership to assist them in focusing on and planning software implementation, generating efficiencies, and enhancing service quality and environment. People in enterprises may now connect with one another, vendors and clients all across the world thanks to technological advancements. Instances of advanced IT operating models <ul><li>Vendor collaboration</li></ul>Enterprises profit from outsourcing IT tasks in a world powered by cloud services and internet of things (IoT). Businesses like the fact that they don't have to hire qualified IT workers directly. Even IT service providers, however, can take advantage of outsourcing parts of the business to other vendors as a cost-effective strategy for any growing company. Vendors deliver a product to the company, which regulates service standards and overall quality. The corporation must ensure the success of the final product by making sure the vendors are well aware of the company's service standards, and by prioritising communication and collaboration throughout the process. <ul><li>Change in <keyword id="6458484" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Work-culture" source="Orion">work culture</keyword></li></ul>To increase service delivery, quality and speed, companies are embracing cultural changes such as using Agile concepts and DevOps. In fact, <a href="https://www.atlassian.com/whitepapers/devops-survey-2020">99% of businesses </a>confirm that DevOps has had a positive impact on their organisation in 2020. Agile teams work on projects in sprints, keeping in close contact with business users all through the process. Members of the team are fluent in a variety of programming languages and use them to create on-demand cloud services that match business demands. Reinforcing the development team’s understanding of the business model, using quick prototyping procedures and understanding how IT restrictions hinder development – all of this play a part in the firm's successful operations. <ul><li>Partial integration</li></ul>The IT group collaborates closely with the team to achieve specific business-focused goals in a partially-integrated approach. These models are excellent for businesses that rely on IT service delivery and results to succeed. Business transformation is the benchmark overall. IT departments should take a variety of approaches to IT integration. These comprise – establishing new positions such as Chief Innovation Officer, <keyword id="213914" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="business-analyst" source="Orion">Business Analyst</keyword>, <keyword id="14577183" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="service-specialist" source="Orion">Service Specialist</keyword>, and Solution Specialist; putting in place new performance management procedures; and engaging in professional development so that IT professionals can better grasp how their work affects the organisation's value. <ul><li>Full integration</li></ul>A fully-integrated company model needs IT to be present in every process of the operations. As a result, CIOs must react by expanding IT resources beyond a single back-office department and move toward a strategy that includes seamless integration across all business channels – operations, processes and corporate IT. Customer demand for enhanced service delivery is driving the need for organisation-wide digitization. As a result of implementing this strategy, improvements can be achieved in delivery of services, both internally and externally, besides value creation. Companies that take this approach are frequently the ones that already use data and analytics to track the requirements of the clients they serve. Full integration goes a step further by allowing staff to move outside their comfort zone, create objectives and foresee client needs. IT will not only be responsible for measuring results but also for assisting in their implementation. This technique will be most effective if there is a cultural transformation. Organisations need to encourage IT teams to use customers' data points to build fresh and novel projects. A completely integrated IT culture dwells on innovation and a futuristic vision that leads the digital transformation mission! SEE ALSO: <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/mobile/news/google-pixel-6a-vs-nothing-phone-1-smartphone-comparison-of-price-specification-and-features/slidelist/93179167.cms">Google Pixel 6a vs Nothing phone (1) – price, specs and features compared</a> <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/news/facebooks-revenue-drops-for-the-first-time-ever-and-may-fall-further-in-the-future/articleshow/93177864.cms">Facebook’s revenue drops for the first time ever and may fall further in the future</a>

Decoding the future of IT operating models

<ul><li>The biggest myth surrounding selfie-clicking, filter-using GenZs is that they’re self-absorbed, but experts say that they’re more family-oriented than others. </li><li>Raised through a more friendly parenting style, parents are their 4 am friends and Gen Zs are also ‘reverse-influencing’ them to chase their dreams. </li><li>Gen Zs like to keep things open and fluid – from education and personal relationships to consumption and personal identity. </li></ul>GenZs or zoomers are the most mysterious of all generations — especially when compared to GenXers, baby boomers, and even their immediate predecessors – the millennials. They also appear to be full of paradoxes and, hence, are also heavily misunderstood. A lot of research is going into getting a deeper understanding of these digital natives – who were born right at the turn of the 21st century. Selfies, filters &amp; a sense of ‘self’ The biggest myth that surrounds them is that they’re self-absorbed. Most youngsters are either clicking selfies or filtering to put them up on social media, and constantly worrying about themselves. This may be true, but not entirely, according to Aditya Kaul, group account director at Kantar. “They are high on individualism, low on regrets and more self-appreciating. Like other generations, they prefer to live by their own values but prefer to live in a joint family,” he added, speaking at a webinar organised by Market Research Society of India (MRSI). “They come with an easy sense of entitlement that causes discomfort to the older generations,” said Anjana Pillai, partner, Quantum Consumer Solutions. Love thy parents But that doesn’t mean they do not get along with their parents. On the contrary, they have been raised through a more friendly parenting style, and are able to close the generation gap with their parents – becoming one of the first generations to do so. GenZs have been able to have a ‘reverse influence’ on their parents. “We hear of cases where many people in their 50s say that they chase their dreams because their children encouraged them to,” said Ashwini Sirsikar, group service line leader, Ipsos UU and SIA. This was clearly evident in the many parent-child duos that appeared on the business reality show Shark Tank India i<a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/news/an-aai-and-two-college-dropouts-home-snacks-biz-sends-shark-tank-judges-into-a-bidding-war/articleshow/96784920.cms">ncluding Patil Kaki</a>, GetAWhey, House of Chikankari —indicating that the way ahead is a combination of old and new. “Parents are an important means for them to negotiate with society, and parents are their 4 am friends,” adds Pillai. East not West Westernisation had made its way to India before the country attained freedom, but GenZs might be the first to resist that. They’re not blindly aping the West, say experts. “Being Indian and Indianness is a big deal for them – it’s stylish and sexy. But they do not have blind love or hate for their country,” said Mukul Gautam, vice president and chief of capacity building at Purple Audacity. This change could have happened on the back of many success stories of Indians – such as startup founders, athletes, global politicians and not to forget the many Indian-origin chief executive officers leading global tech majors. Open to… everything Zoomers also have something in common with the older generations – they’re just as religious as the older generations, and are also open to the idea of arranged marriages. Their acceptance of arranged marriages, however, is more a swing towards openness than towards traditionalism. GenZs are open to everything. They’re morally fluid and a lot more experimental, and open to trying new things. The constant change around them has made them open to change — from education and personal relationships to consumption and personal identity, there is a desire to keep things open. “GenZ has lived through the narratives of climate change, socio-cultural-political instability, many movements, polarisation etc., which has tempered their optimism and made them very pragmatic and opportunistic,” says Gautam. However, this doesn’t have a bad connotation since they’re constantly evolving, questioning and pursuing multiple identities. “It’s not a passive quest either. As if on dopamine, they constantly look and learn,” says Pillai. Yet, there are pitfalls to being young in times like these, as they’re experiencing youth in a way no other generation ever did. Too many choices available too early, exacting demands from self and a perpetual quest for validation, especially on social media, are some of the reasons for the growing mental health problems. The GenZ, who was born right when the internet took off, however, is better equipped to deal with social media and pitfalls. “It’s not mindless browsing. Social media is used judiciously to create a carefully curated identity and for furthering their personal career aspirations,” says Sirsikar. While millennials are toggling between online and offline identities, GenZs are doing a better job of closing the gap — better prepared for the future that is turning virtual in a much bigger way.

Decoding GenZ: Highly individualistic and low on regrets - this generation has what it takes

<ul><li>Ad &amp; Media Insider’s latest property Storyline, brought to you in association with <keyword id="1959531" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Wattpad" source="Orion">Wattpad</keyword>, one of the world’s most loved <keyword id="282281" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="storytelling" source="Orion">storytelling</keyword> platforms, endeavors to decode what storytelling stands for today.</li><li>Today, we bring you highlights from our fourth and fifth episodes where we discuss the changing role of <keyword id="35666" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="advertising" source="Orion">advertising</keyword> creatives, how brands are choosing to communicate with GenZs innovatively and what role a platform like Wattpad is playing in this innovation.</li><li>Watch <keyword id="3844857" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="harshad-rajadhyaksha" source="Orion">Harshad Rajadhyaksha</keyword> and <keyword id="3844858" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="kainaz-karmakar" source="Orion">Kainaz Karmakar</keyword>, Chief Creative Officers, <keyword id="531122" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Ogilvy-India" source="Orion">Ogilvy India</keyword> and <keyword id="3747310" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="devashish-sharma" source="Orion">Devashish Sharma</keyword>, Country Head, Wattpad India talk about the evolution of creativity and storytelling and how they are evolving as storytellers to tell successful stories in today's world.</li></ul>Episode 4: Harshad Rajadhyaksha and Kainaz Karmakar, Chief Creative Officers, Ogilvy India Most of us have loved the work coming out of Ogilvy India in the last few years and the creative powerhouse between most of that work is Harshad Rajadhyaksha and Kainaz Karmakar, the Chief Creative Officers at the agency. The duo, along with Sukesh Nayak, Ogilvy India’s third CCO, have been at the forefront of crafting inimitable stories that have won our hearts while creating an impact. Be it the recent recreation of Cadbury Dairy Milk’s famous Cricket stadium ad, or its work for Hindustan Unilever titled ‘The Shower’ which won a National Award, Ogilvy has time and again proven the impact good storytelling can have in brand building and in making a brand a part of a consumer’s lives. In the 4th episode of Ad &amp; Media Insider’s Storyline, brought to you in association with Wattpad, one of the world’s most loved storytelling platforms, we spoke to Karmakar and Rajadhyaksha to understand their creative process and their thoughts on the evolution of storytelling and what the future holds. The evolution of storytelling We have seen the <keyword id="6354839" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="marketing" source="Orion">marketing</keyword> landscape transform at a fairly rapid pace in the last 5 years. With more and more platforms cropping up, consumers are finding more places to express themselves, and brands are having to reach out to them at different touchpoints. What kind of impact has that had on the way Ogilvy has been telling stories? “Storytelling is as timeless as love or friendship, so I don't think it's going out of fashion anytime soon, or even later. But there has been a rapid transformation, especially in the last five years. I would not call it a change, rather, I feel there has been an expansion. Something fantastic has happened, media has become more open and liberalised and our first encounter with this happened back in 2015, when we did a campaign on zero budget to end open acid sale. We worked with like-minded people and with a real acid attack survivor. We shot the film. Had this been 20 years back, we would have had no place to show the film because media needed to be bought. It still needs to be bought but now there is also freedom to put out your own content. We put the film on YouTube and Facebook, promoted it ourselves, and the trajectory of the campaign has been astounding. It has won everything there is to be won, and we could achieve our goals with zero budgets and it was made possible largely by the changing nature of media,” said Karmakar. But does having a plethora of platforms pose the problem of plenty? Do creatives now have to think of communications suited for individual platforms? “Between Kainaz and I, we have spent around 20-25 years in advertising and we have ourselves evolved from the era of Print to Television. Then somewhere in the second decade, we started getting used to the concept of smartphones and multiple apps and hence multiple screens. But if your story is engaging with the relevant connect, the medium becomes secondary. Technology has put the spotlight on people who could all become storytellers, and brands saw people enjoying this content and slowly realized its power and thought of latching on to it. So, in terms of the number of mediums, I feel the more the merrier because today you just have a width and variety of storytelling,” explained Rajadhyaksha. From advertisers to product managers to solution finders With the evolution of media and advancement of technology, many brands are now also open to experimenting where, as a pat of a campaign, they have ended up creating a completely new product. In an attempt to encourage the habit of washing hands with soap among children in rural India, Ogilvy helped Savlon create special chalk sticks infused with soap. In another campaign to promote a similar habit, Ogilvy created a heat stamp to put on roti at the Maha Kumbh Mela for Lifebuoy. The brand’s message-on-a-roti ended up reaching over 5 million people. In both these campaigns, the idea led to the creation of a completely new product. Both these campaigns won awards and hearts. Is it challenging for agencies to then have clients come up to them and say they want to create a completely new product and take the business to a new trajectory? “It's not a stress at all. What I really love about the times that we work in is that our clients are super excited about doing work that is new and innovative. And that is something we should grab with both hands and make the most. I would be very worried if our clients weren't pushing us. The fact that they want different solutions, to use different media and support us, is a great sign. Recently, one of our teams has come up with a karaoke technique to help people with early Alzheimer's, in collaboration with MTV. So, the fact that clients are asking us to do such work and they are excited about it, is not a pressure but a thing of joy. The truth of the m after is we are actually becoming solution finders above and beyond just communicating a message. People are interacting, touching and feeling things beyond your client’s products, these are products made by you. They're actually getting to experience technologies that have been just ideas in your head and now we’re seeing them out there actually helping someone. It has also brought clients and agencies closer than before. It's a great time to be in the creative business,” said Karmakar. A message for marketers With the advent of Web 3.0 and us looking at a world where a metaverse might soon become a reality, things are changing at a rapid pace. What are a few things marketers should keep in mind to be able to navigate these highly dynamic times? “I feel no matter how much technology you have, or whatever new media comes in, the absence of a great idea means your money is not well spent. In fact, it's money wasted. So, first find yourself a partner who can give you a great idea, and then use your media, technology, etc, as partners to that. Do not work the other way around because everything starts with an idea and that is not going to change,” said Karmakar. Sharing his tip for marketers, hought, Rajadhyaksha added, “Completely well-meaning clients and brand custodians, at times, have brand guidelines about what the brand’s personality should be. But when it comes to exploring certain new-age things, treat your brand DNA and the personality of your brand like your family name, but treat the new media like the grandkids of the family. While they will bear your family name, allow them to be a little different, to take a few more risks. That's how I would encourage all clients to look at the newer mediums. You might be an 80-year-old legacy brand who advertises and talks in a certain way in your storytelling on TV. We aren’t saying become someone with a completely different personality on the newer mediums, but be a little adventurous and bolder and allow the younger kids in your organization and the agency to deviate a bit. Let them live their lives their way, as long as they still bear your family surname.” Watch the full episode here: <div type="twitter" handle="admediainsider" handlename="Advertising and Media Insider India" image="http://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/1281482517443305472/8RPcjmow_normal.jpg" favoritecount="1" retweetcount="1" status="LIVE | Join Kainaz Karmarkar (@spalifekainaz) and Harshad Rajadhyaksha (@Harsh_Words), CCOs, @Ogilvy_India as they… https://t.co/63l7yYar9K" createdat="1645702223000" id="1496809730655748100"></div> Episode 5: Devashish Sharma, Country Head, Wattpad India The art of storytelling has changed and new-age mediums like Wattpad are at the heart of this change. To understand the role Wattpad has been playing in this evolution of storytelling, we caught up with Devashish Sharma, Country Head, Wattpad India, who told us how consumers are using the platform, how that is helping brands connect with an engaged set of audience and what the future of storytelling could look like. From one-way communications to interactivity The biggest way in which storytelling has transformed in today’s digital era is by opening it up to consumers. In the TV and Radio era, a brand would come up with a one-way communication, which has undergone a complete transformation now. Explaining this evolution, Sharma said, “About 15-20 years back, a lot of brand building was one-way messaging. Brands would create something and then push it down to millions of Indians, predominantly TV or billboard. However, in the Internet era where the target audience has become younger, the focus of brands have shifted to digital platforms. And recently, it is also about interactive content. Today, brands don't just want to push their messaging, they want the audiences to create their viewpoint about the messaging and have a discussion with the brand about it. In lieu, it creates more awareness in a very interesting and exciting manner.” Communicating with GenZ With the younger generation which is difficult to please and said to have reduced attention spans, brands now have the task of finding innovative ways of engaging with them. Explaining how Wattpad has been building its communication to engage with this audience Sharma said, “If I were to look at it from a Wattpad lens, we are a very democratic platform where anybody can write on a topic they love, and at the same time, consume stories on a specific niche topic that might interest them. However, what differentiates us is the fact that the experience you get on our platform is not just of reading a book, it is also about connecting with other readers, leading to social engagement. Beyond this, the stories that become really popular and are highly engaging are taken on by production houses and top studios to turn into movies, TV shows, web series or other forms of digital entertainment. As a platform, being at the epicenter of ideas directly coming in from Gen Z storytellers allow us to really capture the right stories which we amplify.” Why long-form content works While there has been a debate for a long time around decreasing attention spans, Wattpad has been able to make long-form content, and has held its audiences captive with engaging stories on its platform. So what is it that Wattpad has gotten right? “Personally, I feel that the idea that people have less attention span is a bit of a misnomer. It might be true in certain contexts, but given the right content in the right format, people definitely make time to consume it. If a certain content captures your interest group and the experience of consuming it is something that you really enjoy, people will definitely prefer long- form content because it adds meaning and gives you much more than just snacking on punchlines,” explained Sharma. There has also been an ongoing debate about whether the younger population reads at all. However, the fact that Wattpad has a community of about 94 million readers and writers on its platform proves that given the right content and right amount of social engagement, people will stay on the platform and consume content, added Sharma. “The entire social element really elevates the user experience because we are able to give our audiences the liberty of connecting with the creator of the content and also other readers who love the same content as you. This bonding evokes a strong emotional response which is something that brands really like because when they work with us, they know that the content they're getting already has a built-in audience that did not just skim through it but actually interacted with it. So, the secret sauce is to have a platform that enriches the experience of consuming content and provides more democracy in terms of capturing diverse voices.” How brands are using Wattpad Today, more and more brands are open to experimenting with mediums and formats that is giving them highly innovative ways of engaging with their target audiences. So how has a platform like Wattpad helped brands create engaging stories and build enduring relationships with their audiences? “At Wattpad, our focus is on figuring out how our community can bring value to brands in the form of stories. And that's the real value that brands get. So, when brands have a brief, they come to us, we work with them to figure out how to engage the community from day one, where we invite all our users on the platform to write their version of stories on the messaging that the brand wants to create awareness on. So, instead one story, you get maybe thousands of stories from all over the world from your target audience that really connects with your brand messaging. Once the stories come, we pick the top stories and promote them for more readership because we realize that readers around the world who may not have written content still want to connect with the brand on the messaging that other users on Wattpad have written. And since we also have a studios division, we are able to adapt these stories into video and other formats that can traverse the messaging of the brand beyond Wattpad into more video-focused channels,” he explained. Earlier this year, Wattpad worked with Maybelline on a campaign for raising awareness on the impact the pandemic had on the mental health of Gen Zs around the world under the hashtag Brave Together. Wattpad invited everybody to write a short story or a personal experience around the topic and for every story that came in, the platform partnered with an NGO to donate a certain amount to raise awareness around mental health. “A campaign like this made the community feel that the brand cares about its voice and is not pushing its messaging on them. Secondly, the involvement of the nonprofit increased the connection with the brand, making the entire initiative more genuine. And this sort of brand positioning really benefits the brand in the long-term because they are able to create fans instead of just consumers,” he shared. So are there a few factors that can help brands success on Wattpad? Sharma said, “The key to being successful as a brand on Wattpad is to support a messaging for your brand that Gen Z users really care about. And secondly, be open to their interpretation of the message that you want to create awareness on. For example, we did a campaign with Puma in India where they launched a clothing and shoe line with Mary Kom and the hashtag was Born to Provoke. I really liked the way they used Wattpad. They invited our community members in India to write a story, a personal experience, a song or poetry to celebrate women breaking barriers. We got stories from different parts of the country that spoke about women from different age groups and backgrounds breaking societal norms. This was a very successful campaign and I think I use it as a benchmark because the brand here took a backseat, letting its target audience do all the work, whether its creation or consumption of the content. And a lot of users, on finding a story or song that they resonated with, shared it on their social network. So, the voice of the whole campaign went beyond just Wattpad.” With a community of more than 94 million people on its platform from across the world, Wattpad is witnessing an increasingly growing community of highly engaged audiences, opening up opportunities for brands to drive their brand messaging to a highly targeted audience. Watch the full episode here: <div type="twitter" handle="admediainsider" handlename="Advertising and Media Insider India" image="http://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/1281482517443305472/8RPcjmow_normal.jpg" favoritecount="4" retweetcount="2" status="LIVE | Join Devashish Sharma (@devunofficial), Country Head, Wattpad in conversation with Ashwin Raghunath as they… https://t.co/zqsgEg6zo0" createdat="1646047811000" id="1498259230859542530"></div>

Storyline: Decoding the art of storytelling in today's highly dynamic world

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"><html><body><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div></div></div>The most successful brands have one thing in common: They understand and prioritize digital commerce.They don't separate e-commerce and mobile from their brick-and-mortar operations - they combine all efforts into an omni-channel strategy to reach and sell to customers, whether in-store or online.It's not just the online-bred brands - like Amazon, Google, and Alibaba- that have mastered this process. Even traditional companies founded long before the Internet are aggressively transforming their cultures.For example, General Electric is outfitting its core products with connectivity capabilities and applying real-time analytics to the resulting data volumes. Ford Motor Company has staged a digitally-driven turnaround, and even legacy software companies - like Intuit - are successfully moving their operations online.Digital commerce isn't confined to cloistered, Silicon Valley offices. It's ubiquitous across industries and cities.<h2>Keys to digital success</h2>Leaders at traditional companies must move forward with digital-first thinking, proactive marketing, and an electronically-empowered workforce. Here are four keys to a successful digital transformation:<h3>1. Define digital.</h3>Paint a desirable digital vision for the company - one that can be understood and embraced at all levels of the organization. Enterprise-wide cultural change takes time to evolve, so set realistic deadlines for planning, implementation, and refinement.<h3>2. Conduct a culture assessment.</h3>Before making significant changes, enlist someone outside of the company to assess company morale, including how employees interact and communicate with each other. These insights can help you "benchmark" your culture and determine the techniques needed to create change.<h3>3. Set company-wide, explicit, and measurable goals.</h3>For a digital transformation to be sustainable, leaders should create a sense of urgency and importance beyond just financial metrics. Share specific goals with employees (e.g. generating 50% of leads online within two years).<h3>4. Lead by example.</h3>It's important for employees to see the transformation occur at the top first. If current management leaders fail to inspire by example, they should be replaced; digital commerce is that important. A digital transformation can be challenging, especially for traditional offline brands. But each company has the potential to succeed at digital.Adapted from a Cognizant whitepaper, <a href="http://www.cognizant.com/perspectives/old-dog-new-tricks-how-analog-brands-create-digital-cultures" target="_blank">"Old Dog, New Tricks: How Analog Brands Create Digital Cultures."</a>This post is sponsored by <a href="http://www.cognizant.com/" target="_blank">Cognizant</a>. Find out <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/sponsor-posts">more about Sponsored Content. </a></body></html>Follow BI Studios on <a href="https://twitter.com/bi_studios_" target="_blank">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/BusinessInsiderStudios" target="_blank">Facebook</a>, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/bi-studios" target="_blank">and LinkedIn</a>.

How to help your company adopt a digital culture

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"><html><body><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div>Successful companies like Amazon, Netflix, and Apple all know a secret about digital business: They use code halos, or the data traces that we all leave when we work, communicate, socialize, and basically live on the internet.This data can help your business better operate in the new digital reality. Here are some things businesses should understand to get the most out of code halos.<h2>1. Everything is data, and data is everything</h2>The more we work, play, socialize, learn, and interact with each other, and even machines online, the more traces we leave in the form of data. Forward-thinking companies have to make use of that data to remain competitive.<h2>2. Understanding data gives businesses a competitive edge</h2>Having data isn't enough. You need to understand it, which means analysis, benchmarking, and comparison over time. Understanding data requires testing and, ultimately, action. This knowledge lets a company provide the right products and services at the right time - and in the right way to the right people.<h2>3. Digitization requires new operations and business models</h2>Successfully driving your business with data means more than just adding new capabilities. It requires changes in business models and how companies operate, and not just once. The rules keep changing and require continuous reinvention.Purely digital companies such as Amazon, Uber, Facebook, and Google have an advantage, but that doesn't give established companies a pass. And even digital-borne businesses have to adapt. Think of how Netflix had to move from renting DVDs to streaming video.<h2>4. Keeping an eye on the future can pay off</h2>Someone once asked hockey great Wayne Gretzky how he became the best player in the game, and he said, "I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been." In other words, why just react to situations when you can actually predict them? Code halos allow companies to do just that by uncovering previously unseen opportunities and helping to avoid problems. Businesses can look beyond today's revenue to focus on what's next for customer experience and market differentiation, which is the key to their future.<h2>5. Data fuels personalization for consumers</h2>In a busy and noisy world, consumers long for, and insist on, real attention to their needs. They want service with a personal touch. But excelling in customization has to go beyond just the products and services you offer - the "what." It has to extend to every aspect of the customer experience: the how, when, where, and why. To understand the answers to those questions, you need to learn from the data that code halos can provide and then use it to change how your company does business.Adapted from a <a href="http://www.cognizant.com/perspectives/five-digital-truths-every-executive-must-understand" target="_blank">Cognizant Perspectives article.</a> <a href="This%20post%20is%20sponsored%20by%20Cognizant.%20%20Find%20out%20more%20about%20Sponsored%20Content.%20%20Follow%20BI%20Studios%20on%20Twitter%20and%20Facebook." target="_blank">Learn more about what code halos can do for your business.</a>This post is sponsored <a href="http://www.cognizant.com/" target="_blank">by Cognizant.</a><a href="http://www.cognizant.com/InsightsWhitepapers/how-digital-is-quickly-reshaping-customer-experience-processes-codex1182.pdf" target="_blank">Find out more about Sponsored Content.</a></body></html>Follow BI Studios on <a href="https://twitter.com/bi_studios_" target="_blank">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/BusinessInsiderStudios" target="_blank">Facebook</a>, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/bi-studios" target="_blank">and LinkedIn</a>.

Understand this one thing to have a successful digital business

<ul><li>Ahead of our <keyword id="28240" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Independence-day">Independence Day</keyword>, we spoke to experts about what <keyword id="247986" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Brand-India">Brand India</keyword> stands for today, how it has evolved the years, and what would a pitch for Brand India look like today.</li><li>We try to answer a few of these questions with <keyword id="356571" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Ambi-Parameswaran">Ambi Parameswaran</keyword>, Founder, Brand-Building.com, <keyword id="3194505" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Prabhakar-Mundkur">Prabhakar Mundkur</keyword>, Brand Advisor and Mentor, <keyword id="244384" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Lloyd-Mathias">Lloyd Mathias</keyword>, Business Strategist &amp; Angel Investor and the former Asia-Pacific Marketing Head of HP Inc, <keyword id="175362" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Harish-Bijoor">Harish Bijoor</keyword>, Brand Guru &amp; Founder, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc and <keyword id="247533" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Karthik-Srinivasan">Karthik Srinivasan</keyword>, Brand Consultant and Social Media Expert.</li></ul> On the occasion of our 74th Independence Day, we thought of sitting back and reflecting how far we have come as a nation in the last 74 years. A lot of work has gone behind building Brand India over the years into what it stands for today. However, the year 2020 has brought with it massive changes, not just in India but across the world. The pandemic has perhaps changed how we live our lives forever. The business landscape is changing too. For years now, our country’s population has made us a rather attractive market for many global players, with most of the biggest global brands trying to make inroads into India. However, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent clarion call for becoming ‘Vocal for Local’, has brought about a wave of enthusiasm to adopt local brands. And things are changing slowly. The ban on Chinese apps have further also given rise to numerous Indian players coming into the picture and wooing consumers with their innovative, differentiated offerings. So when we talk about the image of India as a brand, it is safe to say that it is ever-evolving. However, in our attempt to dive a little deeper and decode what Brand India stands for today, we caught up with some experts from the industry. They helped define Brand India for us, told us how it has evolved over the years and told where we stand in the global scheme of things, while also giving us a pitch for Brand India. <div type="image" title="Ambi" msid="77526854" hostid="261"></div> Ambi Parameswaran, Founder, Brand-Building.com Brand India has traversed a vast terrain in the last 74 years. From the days when the Western world gave us a few years to come apart at the seams, to becoming a basket case, economically, today we are the world’s largest functioning democracy. We have our problems and have not achieved a China-like miraculous rejuvenation, but we are not a country going out looking for aid. Brand India has emerged into a brand that stands for a number of things in the minds of the global citizens. On the one hand it is seen as the originator of Meditation, Yoga and nature-based cures. On the other end, we are seen as world leaders in Information Technology services. Our hospitality industry is widely recognized as among the best in the world. But there are pieces missing in all this. We are a poor country. While millions have been pulled out of severe poverty, almost 25% of Indian households live below the poverty line. Is GDP a good enough measure or should we look at a different measure? While arguments may rage over that question, we cannot have a large percentage of our population going hungry, without education, without healthcare, without a proper roof over their heads. So there is a lot of work to be done. Brand India, which was once set to become a global disappointment, is no longer in that corner. The world is wanting Brand India to come out shining. It is up to us to rise to this challenge and become a kind, spiritual, democratic world economic power. Happy Independence Day! <div type="image" title="Prabhakar." msid="77526858" hostid="261"></div> Prabhakar Mundkur, Brand Advisor and Mentor I think we have evolved from a colonial state into a country of our own. But over the years we have not come to mean one thing or a few things to people around the world. Yes of course mystics, spirituality, yoga, elephants, cows, ancient civilisation, world’s largest democracy and land of diversity all seem to stay with us. But as a country we need to mean much more. I remember in the old days we always associated ruggedness and quality with German products. We associated quality with British and American products and so on. When Japan first made an entry into the world market, we associated them with cheaper products. I bought my first National Panasonic two-in-one because it was cheaper than the rest. Some people told me it would work fine but wouldn’t last very long. I was OK with that. But it didn’t take them long to overcome that reputation. Most Japanese products I have bought last me longer than anything else. I know people who finally sell their Toyota Corolla after a good 10 years because they are almost disgusted that it won’t stop. Or the famous triad London-Paris-New York became the epitome of fashion. When China entered the world economy, they were in the same situation as Japan in the 70s. Cheap products. But again, China overcame that long ago. I look at my Apple charger in my MacBook Pro and see that it says it is produced in China. And I wonder why I still can’t fit an Indian 3 pin plug into my wall socket without holding it up with matchsticks or some other packing. I wish we made plugs that would fit perfectly. Again, China is just the world’s supply hub for everything. And they can make batteries but they can make Boeings as well. In this context I would like India to mean something. I know that we are known for software but I am disappointed that we are known to be the cheaper software engineers around the world (code coolies) who are capable of working long hours. I also often wonder why the software that Indian engineers are producing is making the developing countries more developed. Why is that technology not available in India? India needs to be a value-added manufacturer of goods and services in the world economy. It’s not the samething as being an exporter. An exporter rarely dominates the world market. We have the chance to be the world’s supply hub. We have an advantage of being democratic, trustworthy and honest. But let us please leave our pride of jugaad behind. It’s only a low-cost ingenious solution that can work in India and nowhere else in the world. <div type="image" title="Lloyd" msid="77526869" hostid="261"></div> Lloyd Mathias, Business Strategist &amp; Angel Investor and the former Asia-Pacific Marketing Head of HP Inc. As India enters into its 74th year as a free nation, it’s interesting to look at how we’re perceived by the world and where we clearly need to get to.As far as perceptions go, while we’ve dusted off the colonial legacy of maharajah’s and elephants, we’re still steeped into tradition, and seen as a nation that takes two steps back for every step forward. While nations younger than us have moved ahead and given their citizens a better livelihood, we still find ourselves battling age old disputes, debating reservations, struggling to get basics right – education and healthcare for all; clean drinking water and functional infrastructure. A word-cloud of business related attributes on India would have terms like | poor infrastructure | dysfunctional legal system | unresponsive bureaucracy | corrupt policy makers | archaic labour laws |in short a difficult environment for business. On the positive side, India remains the world’s most vibrant – if sometimes floundering – democracy, with diversity that would make most continents seem homogeneous, in comparison. It’s vast and growing middle class and dramatic growth of the internet and digital services, offers a world of opportunity that Jio platforms cleverly used to woo global tech majors and some of the world’s premier funds. Then of course, we have the shining stars that still make India so alluring – Yoga, Bollywood; world class management talent; tech and software geeks running the world’s back end; an emerging hub for startups; a deep culture of service and the ability to get the impossible done surmounting the odds. Going forward we need brand India to build a strong culture of trust and reliability; speed, efficiency and quality, while still keeping our multicultural ethos.The lumbering elephant needs to trot… The world is waiting. <div type="image" title="harish bijoor 1" msid="77526874" hostid="261"></div> Harish Bijoor, Brand Guru &amp; Founder, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc. From a state of food shortage, to one of disease and death (a very high rate of infant mortality included), a very low level of literacy and a very deep degree of poverty, Brand India has traversed many, many miles. And yes, there are ‘miles to go before we sleep’ for sure! India today is a robust brand in the roster of nations. Our second largest population number makes us a market for many from every nation. Additionally, higher prosperity indices make for a robust domestic consumption market itself. A strong government at the centre, a host of very positive reforms that relate to health and education in particular will lead us to the dreams that India aspires for. It is clear that India does not lack for positive policy initiatives. If at all there is a lack and lag, it is in the implementation. As India evolves, we need to tackle the key issue of jobs for all. And that is the only red flag for now in our brand progress. Brand India today represents numbers for a start. The 1.3 billion plus population number is a number no nation can ignore. The important aspect of Brand India is the fact that we are a vibrant and strong democracy. A democracy that fought for its freedom, went through early tumult of a nation in the making, and has emerged over the years as a strong force to contend with. A strong democratic force. The diversity of India is its other appeal. A diversity woven into a seamless unity under the nation and its positive governance structure. Yes there are differences and noises of dissent and fight of every kind, and that is indeed the true nature of India. Each and every voice of dissent is a positive voice that seeks the same goal: a strong, mature and prosperous India. That indeed is the beauty I see in the political dissent we witness today. No one is right and no one is wrong right now. Time, debate and dissent will cobble together the future for this great land of ours. That's the beauty of brand India for me. <div type="image" title="Karthik sri 4_3" msid="77526877" hostid="261"></div> Karthik Srinivasan, Brand Consultant and Social Media Expert The pitching of Brand India depends on who it is being pitched to. For instance, if it is being pitched to voters in India, the narrative would be very different, compared to Brand India being pitched to overseas investors. If it were a generic pitch to no specific group in particular, I'd perhaps pitch Brand India in the following manner: India is all about largeness. Largeness in emotions Largeness in meaning Largeness in faith Largeness in consumption Largeness in giving Largeness in living There is good and bad in the largeness - it denotes excesses, history (largeness in time), population, loudness among others. But that unique combination makes it larger than the sum of its parts. India is greater than the sum of its parts.

Decoding ‘Brand India’

<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/digital-business-decoded"></div></div></div>At a point in American history when the public has never been so outraged by high drug prices, a new type of drug could be a major part of the solution.They're called "biosimilars," and an easy way to describe them is that they're like a generic version of biologic medications, which are medicines produced by living cells. But it's a bit more complicated than that. Unlike generics for chemical-based drugs (think antibiotics or birth control pills) that can be interchangeable with branded versions, the copy-cats of biologic medications, which are produced using living cells, have a few more caveats because the drugs might have different reactions in your body.Even so, they are the best way to drive down the cost of biologic medications that have been around for a while. Last month, the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-a-biosimilar-2015-11">estimated biosimilars would have a $41 billion impact</a> on the pharmaceutical industry over the next five years.By other calculations, Dr. Steven Miller, the CMO of pharmacy benefits manager Express Scripts, told Business Insider the US could be saving $250 billion over the next 10 years. The discount of putting people on far less costly biosimilars - even just new patients who have never taken the original - will be substantial.Whatever the financial impact, there are concerns about how and when biosimilars will get to market.<h2>Whatever you do, don't call it a generic</h2>No matter what part of the health care industry you're chatting with, it's clear: Biosimilars are not generics.Here's why: When you have an ear infection and need antibiotics to clear it up, your doctor may prescribe you a branded version of the antibiotic that costs $50. But when you get to the pharmacy, the pharmacist might offer you the $5 generic version. It's likely worth the switch: The $5 version will have the same effect on your ear infection. Biologic drugs use cells to produce the medication. For that reason, every company owns their own cells, which come from plants, animals, yeast, etc. The companies test out these cells and use technology to make the cells produce just the right kind of biological material, like <a href="http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/CentersOffices/OfficeofMedicalProductsandTobacco/CBER/ucm133077.htm">protein or sugars,</a> that will treat a certain disease. That material is specific to the genetic makeup of the cells that produced it. AbbVie, a biopharmaceutical company, makes a number of biologic drugs that could one day face biosimilar competition. For that reason, they have a vested interest in making sure the drugs are prescribed to patients in the right way. "These aren't generics, because you can't exactly replicate the different cell lines," Jerry Clewell, AbbVie's US scientific director of biotherapeutics strategy told Business Insider. These cell lines are an important distinction between chemical and biologic-based drugs. But, companies are not interested in sharing their cell lines with competitors: Clewell said pharma companies have "Fort Knox-level security" over them.Because companies won't share their cell lines, it means that people's immune systems (which many of these biologic drugs try to help out) might react differently to the drug. That could mean patients who respond to one drug might not respond to its biosimilar, or the drug could have much different side effects.For that reason, the FDA has made it clear that the drugs are not interchangeable. That means only your physician can make the choice to switch you from one biologic drug to a biosimilar, or from one biosimilar version to another. So unlike being able to substitute a generic antibiotic for its far more expensive branded version at the pharmacy, biosimilars can't be so easily swapped.<h2>The first approval</h2>The <a href="http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm436648.htm">FDA has shown</a> that it is willing to approve these drugs so long as there are "no clinically meaningful differences in terms of safety and effectiveness from the reference product," according to their website. The FDA <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/biosimilars-bioequivalence-and-interchangeability-2015-4">approved the first biosimilar</a> drug in March 2015. The drug, called Zarxio, helps patients in cancer treatment fight infection, and has the same active ingredient as the biologic it's similar to, called Neupogen. Neupogen is owned by Amgen, which is also developing nine biosimilars.Zarxio was approved because it was able to show that it was just as safe and effective as Neupogen. The warnings of side effects for <a href="https://www.novartis.com/news/media-releases/sandoz-launches-zarxiotm-filgrastim-sndz-first-biosimilar-united-states">Zarxio</a> are virtually identical to <a href="http://pi.amgen.com/united_states/neupogen/neupogen_pi_hcp_english.pdf">Neupogen</a>. Even so, the two are not interchangeable, which mean there is a chance that if a patient were to switch between one and the other, there could be a change in the way the medicine reacts with their system. That includes a biosimilar version of the anti-inflammatory medicine adalimumab, which Amgen started filing with the FDA on November 25. Biopharma companies <a href="https://www.boehringer-ingelheim.com/news/news_releases/press_releases/2015/10_november_2015biosimilars.html">Boehringer Ingelheim</a>, Baxalta, among others are also developing adalimumab biosimilars. AbbVie markets adalimumab as Humira to treat a number of autoimmune disorders including rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn's disease, and plaque psoriasis. The drug made <a href="http://qz.com/349929/best-selling-drugs-in-the-world/">$12.5 billion in sales</a> in 2014.Geoffrey Eich, a spokesman for Amgen Biosimilars, told Business Insider that the biosimilar competition Amgen would face from Zarxio inspired them to launch its own biosimilar development. Amgen had the experience of working with branded biologic drugs, so why not make biosimilars as well?"Competition is a good thing," he said. "Biotech has to think about having an eye toward the end of a drug's life cycle to reinvest in new medicine."Eich said the nine biosimilars Amgen has in development will challenge the $52 billion of yearly global sales the branded versions of the drugs make now.<h2>A different kind of discount</h2>Zarxio, which is owned by pharmaceutical company Novartis' generic drug unit Sandoz, was the first biosimilar to make it to the US market.But, Miller said, people aren't buying it.That's because the drug was just a <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-novartis-drug-idUSKCN0R30C220150903">15% discount off</a> Neupogen's list price. That wasn't enough to get pharmacy benefits mangers, which are responsible for negotiating prices of drugs between pharmaceutical companies and health insurers, to switch their plans to the new drug."Discounts are going to have to be greater than that," he said.Sandoz did not respond to request for comment on this story.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div></div></div>On the other hand, the price cut won't be as low as it is with most generics. It doesn't take as much time, energy, and money to make a generic medicine. Eich said that to develop a biosimilar, it usually takes about eight years and costs about $50 million. In comparison, a generic takes a quarter of that time (about two years) and costs a tenth of the price ($5 million) to produce.Even though the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare think that might be the case to pay a lot less. At the end of October, CMS<a href="https://www.cms.gov/Newsroom/MediaReleaseDatabase/Fact-sheets/2015-Fact-sheets-items/2015-10-30-3.html"> solidified rules</a> on how to price biosimilars that make it more in line with generic pricing, becoming an outlier. Others, including Miller, are more realistic about the possible cost of biosimilars. "Do we think they're going to get to 60, 90%? The answer is absolutely not," he said. Miller estimates the sweet spot is somewhere around 30%.

There's a new type of medicine that could save the US billions over the next decade - but not everyone wants that to happen

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"><html><body><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div></div></div>There's a data revolution happening, and younger businesses, like Netflix, Uber, and Airbnb, are at the forefront. These companies are reaping the benefits of being able to quickly gather, render, and interpret data to make key business decisions.A "data culture" not only empowers employees, but also strengthens businesses against competition. If you don't build one, you may lose talent to younger companies that offer more freedom and satisfaction.Here are six ways to improve your company's data culture:<h3>1. Map the data.</h3>To effectively use data, the entire company needs access to it. The best way to do this is through a data map, which shows where data is coming from and what it means. Data maps can also uncover "dark data" - information that may unused or undervalued simply because it has yet to be studied. Cross-referencing seemingly unrelated data could lead to major savings.Through mapping data, insurance companies are increasing fraud prevention, and streaming video services are able to tap into new markets. It's an important first step that gets everyone involved.<h3>2. Encourage different interpretations of the data.</h3>Seeing value in interrelated data requires a creative eye - or many. Data can be viewed in a number of ways. Your team members should feel comfortable expressing what they see in the data, and as a leader, you should encourage employees to share their various interpretations.<h3>3. Cultivate transparency.</h3>Once the data is collected, share it with the entire company. Data shouldn't be kept private by a single team or department. Being transparent with the data ensures it can be utilized fully, often for unexpected purposes, that can benefit the company. Transparency is a keystone of an accurate data map.<h3>4. Reward people who use data effectively.</h3>It's helpful to recognize and rewards individuals and teams for successfully using data to achieve company goals. Not only does it boost morale, but it will encourage more employees to do the same. Create positive data-based goals for your employees to work toward - such as new ways of understanding customer behavior, or identifying new markets - and generously reward them for accomplishing those goals.<h3>5. Identify areas of friction.</h3>In outdated business models, certain departments may develop rivalries based on conflicting goals. Internal debate and compromise is a healthy part of any business, but businesses with a successful data culture will defer to the data to solve conflict between departments. Emotional rivalries can be counterproductive, so using empirical data to settle conflicts is a smart solution.<h3>6. Focus on strategy and innovation.</h3>Innovative companies like Facebook and Whirlpool host ideation sessions and hackathons, where employees are encouraged to participate in strategy planning. This contributes to a dynamic, transparent data culture. When employees have access to data and freedom to make recommendations based on that data, the company will thrive in the long run.Adapted from a Cognizant whitepaper, <a href="http://www.cognizant.com/InsightsWhitepapers/how-to-create-a-data-culture-codex1408.pdf" target="_blank">"How to Create a Digital Cultur</a>e," by Poornima Ramaswamy.This post is sponsored <a href="http://www.cognizant.com/" target="_blank">by Cognizant</a><a href="http://www.cognizant.com/" target="_blank">.</a>Find out <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/sponsor-posts">more about Sponsored Content</a>.</body></html>Follow BI Studios on <a href="https://twitter.com/bi_studios_" target="_blank">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/BusinessInsiderStudios" target="_blank">Facebook</a>, and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/bi-studios" target="_blank">LinkedIn</a>.

6 ways to strengthen your company's data culture

<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/digital-business-decoded"></div></div></div>It's no secret: the <keyword id="6354851" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="Retail">retail</keyword> industry is struggling. With people choosing<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/consumers-spending-less-on-apparel-2015-5" target="_blank"> not to spend their money on clothes</a>, retailers need to know where to look.But while mall stores struggle, fast-fashion giants such as H&amp;M, Zara, and Forever 21 are thriving.This is in part because of strategies that are based in data and analytics. By understanding what the consumer is craving, these companies can drive sales. This is not a new phenomenon."Fashion, especially 'mass fashion' has always been about data," Anush Prabhu, Partner and Chief Channel Planning and Investment Office at advertising agency Deutsch said in an email to Business Insider. "Retailers see what designs/products of some of the more expensive designers are selling and they then create 'reproductions' of those designs/trends. For example,when a quilted bag from Chanel is seen to be trending, a Forever 21 or Kate Spade comes out with quilted bags that are similar."Fast fashion companies know the importance of curating data more than anyone."Retailers, especially fast-fashion retailers, are always at the forefront of innovation because they work with razor thin margins and are more focused on the direct results/performance of ads than any other group," James Green, CEO of Magnetic, a company that specializes in providing data to marketers, said to Business Insider.And the more information that's available, the easier it becomes."Today, given the extent of data available, retailers in fashion can be a few steps ahead of the game - for example, they have access to millions of conversations in social media and can be more predictive of what is going to catch on before it does," Prabhu said. "Access to shopper behavior based on weather, mobile data on store visitation, etc. can be capitalized on further to change the game. For example, retailers like Gilt a few years ago started focusing around the time of day when in office browsing activity was the highest - activating against that data changed how people shopped for fashion online." And perhaps more obviously, when an e-commerce retailer "suggests" items for shoppers to buy, it utilizes data based on the shopper's browsing and search histories.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div></div></div>Further, this data can also help companies create intelligent, specific marketing campaigns."Remaining on the cutting edge involves running advertising campaigns that are knowledgeable about the customer base; these campaigns cannot simply show different ads to different folks based on their "intent," but also need to target consumers based on their past purchase behavior, loyalty and other data," Green said.For example, this could include using information to create a consistent tone."Combining customer information with advertiser outreach is critical for reaching the correct consumer base for a few reasons: First of all, consumers have grown to expect a consistent experience from all brands - and are increasingly happy when technology provides a solution without being prompted," Green explained. "We see this when Google sends an alert reminding you about your next appointment; for a retailer, it is more subtle but just as compelling. Telling someone that the product they bought six months ago is currently on sale is now a well-received tactic by consumers. The opposite effect occurs when a consumer is still receiving special offers for that H&amp;M bag, the Topshop coat, or any other product that has already been bought. The likelihood of this annoyance happening is reduced or even eliminated if advertising is tied to a CRM system."Another way to make sure retailers don't have misfires is to utilize testing and cull the results for information.One brand that executes this practice is <a href="http://www.adoreme.com">Adore Me</a>, a fast-fashion lingerie company that has experienced tremendous growth. It was named <a href="http://www.inc.com/profile/adore-me" target="_blank">Inc.'s No. 2 retail company</a> and No. 14 overall company on its prestigious Inc. 5000 list. Inc., which notes that in three years, the company has grown a whopping 15,606%.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div></div></div>Just look at the numbers: in 2012, the company brought in $1.1 million. By 2013, the company brought in $5.6 million. And in 2014, it raked in $16.2 million. (To put it in perspective, this summer, director of business and brand development Sharon Klapka told Business Insider it was on track to out-sell lingerie stalwart La Perla.)In fact, Adore Me attributes much of its success to its strong marketing, which hits the right note, thanks to its testing practice."We A/B test our lingerie models through an A/B testing platform created in-house," Camille Kress, a business and brand development associate at Adore me, said to Business Insider. "For each set of lingerie, we shoot multiple versions of images to run on our website. The difference between two images might be as simple as the model having her hand on her hip or in her hair. For every 1,000 people that come on our website, 500 will see picture A and 500 picture B - we then see which images shoppers click on more and which one leads to more sales."Some of the tiniest clues - like how women respond to brunettes more positively than blondes, in Adore Me's case - can help bring in more sales.It's also important to avoid mistakes - especially in the case of a fast-fashion e-commerce retailer, like Adore Me."Because lingerie lead times are huge and because we are fast-fashion, it is very important not to have any missteps. We take our crowdsourcing data into consideration when launching new products and collections - which leads to less "fashion misfires" as we can predict better what will work and what won't," Kress said.While fashion giants have wider sets of data at their hands, it's remiss for up-and-coming companies - especially e-tailers - to think they can count on intuition."E-tailers absolutely cannot rely on intuition or what they think they already know. Online fast-fashion brands have a great advantage: easy data collection. This data cannot go to waste and needs to be a constant source of inspiration and a decision-making tool," Kress said.And experts agree. "Without data, marketers know nothing," Green said. "Humans are terrific pattern matchers, but for us to identify a pattern the data points have to be limited. For example: a flock of birds suddenly taking flight indicates something dangerous might be present. But there is simply too much data available for any individual to spot a pattern. So we need powerful analytical tools available to spot trends, run tests and find out what causes outcomes. For fast fashion retailers who are trying to churn out trends at an even more accelerated rate, utilizing analytics in an efficient manner is even more vital to their business model. We all know that the amount of data available today is unprecedented and it continues to grow at an exponential rate. There are amazing insights in that data if you've got the tools and the scientists to search for them."

How data is saving the retail industry

<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/digital-business-decoded"></div></div></div>Financial technology, also known as fintech, is booming around the world right now, with <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/william-garrity-associates-global-fintech-heat-map-2015-9">billions of dollars flowing into companies trying to reinvent the way we move money and make markets smarter</a>.The USA is at the forefront of this, <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/william-garrity-associates-global-fintech-heat-map-2015-9">with $31.6 billion invested in fintech over the last 5 years</a>. But there are still some innovative ideas and companies that have yet to make it big in America.We've rounded up some of the most exciting and innovative fintech businesses set up outside of the US. Some are trying to crack America but have yet to reach scale. Check them out below.

7 cool financial technologies we wish were big in the US

<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/digital-business-decoded"></div></div></div>Amy Nauiokas, founder and president of fintech investment firm Anthemis, says: "Big organisations can see where the markets have been, where they're going, they can identify those trends. But I think the startups are always going to be able to move a little bit more nimbly."Nauiokas worked in mainstream finance at places like Bear Sterns, Barclays, and Cantor Fitzgerald before setting up Anthemis in 2008."We spent quite a long time in this space trying to convince people of the future," she says. "You'd seem like a crazy person running around with a spreadsheet about how all the businesses were going to change on the back of technology and innovation. Some would listen and some wouldn't."Those who didn't are likely all ears now.<h2>Loans: 'They're doing things that were impossible 5 years ago'</h2>Perhaps the biggest area of upheaval has been in the way people and organisations lend and borrow money. Traditionally, banks had the monopoly on this. They took deposits, and extended credit. In the process, the banks make money by charging borrowers more interest than they offer savers.But recently a crop of startups have found a way to squeeze these margins and offer a better deal to savers and, often borrowers, by adapting an online model first popularised by music piracy - peer-to-peer.Platforms like LendingClub and Prosper in the US and Funding Circle and Zopa in the UK have exploded in popularity, doing hundreds of millions of dollars and pounds in loans and attracting huge valuations.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_left"><div><div class="image on-image"></div></div></div>Peer-to-peer as a model first rose to prominence with personal and business loans, but companies like SoFi and Earnest are applying the model to student finance and specialist lenders are also springing up doing everything from mortgages to invoice financing."One of the big things that P2P lending is doing is really making it easier for people to borrow money - that's the big value proposition," says Peter Renton, the founder of global peer-to-peer conference LendIt.Where banks can take weeks to approve a business loan, peer-to-peer lenders take as little as 24 hours. The platforms automate huge parts of the underwriting process and plug into a myriad of data sources.Renton says: "It's easier, it's quicker, it's more user-friendly. These companies are not steeped in finance, they don't have necessarily this background thinking that things have to be done in a certain way. They're reinventing the wheel in a much more efficient way."Kabbage is the most innovative small business lender on the planet. They deliver a loan to a small business lender in 7 minutes. The way they do it is they connect all the data and the more data you connect with them, the cheaper it's going to be."It started off with eBay data. They pull in all your eBay data and see what's your daily sales volume, ratings. Now they pull in dozens of sources - UPS data, Amazon, QuickBooks, Yodlee, Yelp, Facebook. They're doing things that would have been impossible 10 years ago, that probably would have been impossible 5 years ago."Renton says that "this is the true innovation in this industry - the ability to work with data, databanks won't work with or can't work with."There are a crop of online-only loan companies who aren't following the peer-to-peer model but are still beating the banks at lending by simply using data in a smarter way, making them faster and easier for borrowers. Banks are starting to recognise the skill of many of these startups. SunTrust Bank acquired online lender FirstAgain in 2012, later re-branding it LightStream.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div></div></div>Christian Faes, boss of UK peer-to-peer platform LendInvest, says many of his biggest customers are banks that lend over the platform. LendInvest specialises in peer-to-peer mortgages.Faes says: "The short-term mortgage market is quite specialist. Banks see the short-term market as a good opportunity but they can't really be bothered to go set up a desk, to hire business development people, to originate deal flow, to hire underwriters."It's a lot easier to come along to a platform like LendInvest. That is really where peer-to-peer ends up. You get specialists in origination in particular asset classes and institutions come to them to get exposure of particular assets."<h2>Payments: Blockchain is coming</h2>Alongside the way people lend cash, the way we pay for things is also being overhauled."We're just coming out of probably a good 3 years of being pitched any and all payments model," says Pascal Bouvier, a partner at fintech venture fund Route66 and a <a href="http://finiculture.com/">fintech blogger</a>. "I'm personally suffering from payments indigestion."On the business side, companies like Sweden's iZettle and Square in the US are making it easier for small businesses to accept card payments through cheap terminals. Companies like Sweden's Klarna and Stripe in the US also make it easy for small businesses to accept card payments online.Meanwhile on the consumer side, services like Apple Pay and bitcoin are offering people new ways to pay for the good they buy.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_left"><div><div class="image on-image"></div></div></div>International money transfers are also being disrupted. UK companies TransferWise and WorldRemit have both attracted <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/transferwise-58-million-andreessen-horowitz-2015-1">big investments from Silicon Valley funds</a> for their approach to international money transfer.Like the lending startups, the key appeal of these money transfer businesses are they make sending money abroad easier, faster, and cheaper. TransferWise uses <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/how-transferwise-works-2015-1">peer-to-peer to match people with others sending money in the opposite direction</a>, saving fees.WorldRemit <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/worldremit-founder-ismail-ahmed-mobile-wallets-moneyconf-500-million-valuation-2015-6">specialises in sending money to mobile wallets in emerging markets</a>, essentially digitising the Western Union network.Bouvier says: "A lot of the investments to date were on the easy stuff - digitalisation of front-end distribution channel, personal payment solutions, some type of debit card coupled to an app."But now there are signs of deeper changes in payments, within the so-called "rails" - the deep-rooted infrastructure used to actually process payments within and between banks.22 banks from around the world, including JPMorgan, Credit Suisse, and Barclays, recently <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/jpmorgan-barclays-and-others-join-r3-on-blockchain-project-2015-9">formed a coalition to develop common standards and use cases for the blockchain in banking</a>.The blockchain is the software that both powers and regulates cryptocurrency bitcoin. In its most basic form, it records ownership of bitcoin, as well as transactions.Transactions are signed off by the parties involved using the software, then added to the blockchain, a long string of code that records all activity.Once other transactions are added on in front of an exchange, the exchange is stuck there forever and can't be changed, in the same way you can't change a brick once it's been built into a wall.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div></div></div>The software cuts out the need for a "trusted middleman" to sit in between parties in a transaction as it acts as that middleman. This makes transactions quicker, cheaper, and easier when compared to the current systems banks use. The coalition of banks looking to adapt blockchain to mainstream finance is headed by R3, a startup headed by 32-year Wall Street veteran David Rutter. <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/13-new-banks-join-r3-blockchain-coalition-2015-9">22 top investment banks are now signed up.</a>Rutter <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/jpmorgan-barclays-and-others-join-r3-on-blockchain-project-2015-9">told Business Insider recently</a> that while payments are one use for the blockchain in finance, his remit is to explore everything from issuing shares on blockchain to using it as a "smart contract", where the code generated is itself the contract.<h2>Investment: 'Platforms like ours deal with thousands of investors'</h2>The blockchain could have a big impact on investment then, as well as payments. And investment is another area of finance that has already undergone huge changes thanks to technology.The most noticeable change in investment over the last few years has been the rise of crowdfunding. A model pioneered in the US by Kickstarter, crowdfunding lets ordinary people fund projects online, either by lending them money or buying equity in the project or company.In the US, platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo are dominated by idea or cause based crowdfunding campaigns - people can fund cool ideas like the Pebble smartwatch before they're built, or even a new project from a <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/crowdfunding-isnt-just-for-the-little-guys-1404955610">big company like chip maker Marvell</a>. <div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_left"><div><div class="image on-image"></div></div></div>In the UK, however, crowdfunding on platforms like Crowdcube and Seedrs generally takes a different form. Established, <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/brewdog-equity-for-punks-crowdcube-and-launches-bond-2015-9">growing businesses such as BrewDog</a> and JustPark are turning to crowdfunding platforms as a way to raise money.The "crowd" buy in just like traditional investors would when buying shares, rather than fund a specific project. The big difference between buying shares on the open market is there's no way to trade once you own them.But soon that could change too - Crowdcube, the UK's biggest crowdfunding platform, <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/crowdcube-6-million-investment-numis-ipo-2015-7">recently partnered with City of London stockbroker Numis</a> and the pair plan to launch the world's first crowdfunded IPO next year.At the time the partnership was announced <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/crowdcube-6-million-investment-numis-ipo-2015-7">Crowdcube CEO Darren Westlake told Business Insider</a>: "IPOs are obviously public offerings, but if you look at what's happened over the last couple of decades it's been less and less possible for ordinary people to participate, as the majority of the listing have been filled out by institutions."The reason for that is because whoever's running the book, it's very difficult for them to deal with thousands of people rather than just one institution. However, platforms like ours have been set up to deal with thousands of investors - that's where our strength is."Another big development in investment is the introduction of social and gaming elements. Israeli platform eToro lets investors "follow" other traders to see what they're buying and selling. There's even a feature that lets investors automatically copy the trades of people they follow.And companies like <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/twitter-has-created-an-entirely-new-wall-street-ecosystem-here-are-the-companies-leading-the-way-2015-9">Acuity Trading, Selerity, and iSentium</a> are trying to harness data from platforms like Twitter to give an indication of investor "sentiment", which in turn gives them an idea of which way to trade.<a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/ecb-twitter-bullishness-stock-market-moves-2015-7">A recent study from the European Central Bank</a> found Twitter has a "statistically and economically significant predictive value" for stock markets in the US, UK and Canada.<h2>Challenger banks: 'You don't go to the banking sector for tech'</h2>There's plenty of competition in the US banking sector, but in Europe, and particularly the UK, the landscape is dominated by a few big players.That's starting to change, thanks to the rise of so-called "challenger banks", such as <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/metro-bank-history-2014-11">Metro Bank in the UK</a> and <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/fidor-links-interest-rates-to-facebook-2015-9">Fidor in Germany</a>.This new crop of lenders prioritises technology. Atom Bank, Mondo, and Starling are 3 pre-launch challenger banks in the UK that are planning to have no branch network and operate primarily through mobile phone apps.<a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/atom-bank-gets-banking-licence-from-bank-of-england-to-launch-app-2015-6">Atom Bank CEO Mark Mullen told Business Insider in June</a>: "Our inspiration is not coming from banks. You don't go to the banking sector for technological excellence. We're working with tech companies with credits in the motor industry, gaming."<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div></div></div>Not only are these new banks rethinking what a bank should look like, they're also re-imaging how it should work.Germany's Fidor was one of the earliest to pioneer a banking model that works more like an app store than a traditional lender.Fidor offers core services, but it also lets customers use third-party products like peer-to-peer loans or currency trading. The bank is more like a marketplace where people can shop around.<a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/fidor-bank-launches-in-the-uk-2015-9">Fidor CEO Matthias Kröner told Business Insider</a> he sees the role of a bank becoming the guardian of a customer's identity, acting as a trusted gateway in the same way Facebook does when you use it to log into other sites around the web.Kröner said: "A bank's role in future will be protecting your identity. Identity will be the biggest asset."<h2>The future: 'Things are barely beginning here'</h2>Not all parts of finance are being turned upside down though. One big area that has yet to be revolutionised is insurance. <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/route66-ventures-and-anthemis-on-insurance-fintech-2015-9">Investors and companies want that to change</a> - an accelerator programme to help insurance startups grow is launching in London next January, backed by big names like UK car insurer Admiral and German insurer Allianz.<a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/route66-ventures-and-anthemis-on-insurance-fintech-2015-9">Route66's Bouvier told Business Insider</a>: "Insurance companies need to be way better at sifting through universes of structured and unstructured data. Things are barely beginning here - the network of data that's going to be coming out of the internet of things is going to be massive."Insurance has plenty of room for new business models like peer-to-peer and efficiencies like automation that have hit finance over the last few years.More broadly, we're likely to see many of these innovations enter the mainstream. <a href="https://twitter.com/kaarmann/status/645994091038253056">TransferWise CEO Kristo Kaarmann recently tweeted</a>: "Hope we'll graduate from fintech to finance. We don't call uber cartech nor BI newstech."Banks and established financial firms are increasingly looking to work with fintech startups to help them keep up with the pace of change.UBS has <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/ubs-future-of-finance-fintech-competition-2015-8">launched a competition to find startups to work with</a>; Barclays <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/barclays-derek-white-on-bitcoin-and-blockchain-2015-9">runs a fintech accelerator programme</a>; and banks like Santander, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan are all <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/santander-monitise-fintech-investment-joint-venture-2015-7">investing in companies in doing everything from bitcoin to peer-to-peer loans</a>.Anthemis' Nauiokas told BI: "I think where you'll see the success stories is with banks and financial institutions that recognise they can't do it all, but instead identify the areas in technology reform where they do have an edge and partner with someone to do the rest."That's going to be a model that will be very successful for some financial institutions."Fintech is going mainstream.

This is how a new crop of companies are trying to reinvent banking

<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/digital-business-decoded"></div></div></div><keyword id="6354851" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="Retail">Retail</keyword> is changing like never before. Thanks to new technologies, it is easier than ever for retailers to tailor every customers' experience. From robots to fitting room apps, here's how the store of the future will be different

Here's what shopping will be like in the future

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"><html><body><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div></div></div>For today's digital consumer, offering exceptional customer support isn't enough - they expect a superior customer experience all of the time. And companies like Google and Amazon have responded by revamping their operating models. But even if your organization isn't ready for that type of change, you can still better connect with your customers by digitizing a few key support processes to engage more authentically with customers. Here are <a href="http://www.cognizant.com/InsightsWhitepapers/how-digital-is-quickly-reshaping-customer-experience-processes-codex1182.pdf" target="_blank">six strategies</a> for revamping customer support processes to deliver a memorable experience, drive sales, and grow revenue.<h3>1. Be proactive</h3>Don't wait for complaints to reach your call centers. In today's social media-driven society, angry customers often go online first to voice their unhappiness.Identify ways of redefining processes to drive proactive support. By tying predictive and prescriptive analytics to service and support, you can solve problems before they boil over into complaints.<h3>2. Create multiple channels, one customer experience</h3>Customers move fluidly among call centers, IVRs, social media queues, online chat, and email - and expect customer support to do likewise. An omni-channel experience delivers the message that your organization values customers and encourages their engagement.Creating one experience requires a unified view of customer interactions - by leveraging existing CRM systems or using a cloud-based solution. You'll also need to redefine support outcomes to include customer demands, such as the expectation you can anticipate their needs.<h3>3. Develop personalized experiences</h3>"Mass personalization" is a core strategic goal for companies eager to digitize the customer experience. For instance, online retailers are dovetailing support with sales, thereby altering the once-transactional sales process to one focused on the art of suggestion.As your products become more personalized, so too must customer support - through smarter technology and more advocacy-focused service personnel.<h3>4. Deliver 'moments of magic'</h3>Most support organizations focus on responding to incidents. But customers want "moments of magic," those unexpected interactions that leave them feeling valued.Customers crave recognition and organizations need quantitative and qualitative measures to deliver it. Evaluate whether you have the right mechanisms and metrics to encourage moments of magic.<h3>5. Encourage interaction</h3>The one-to-one nature of customer support makes it a goldmine for feedback. But converting customer support into a function that offers insight into customer wants and needs requires a shift in focus from reactive to interactive.Identify the functional, operational, and cultural changes needed for interactive support. Then put in place mechanisms to enable your support organization to listen carefully to customers, which in turn creates meaningful experiences.<h3>6. Empower frontline support</h3>You can't count on technology alone to create a positive experience for customers - there needs to be a human element as well. Make sure customer service representatives have the right training they need to succeed, combined with the authority - and budget - to offer refunds, incentives, and other ways to make customers happy. This approach can create value for customers and ultimately improve your bottom line. Adapted from <a href="http://www.cognizant.com/InsightsWhitepapers/how-digital-is-quickly-reshaping-customer-experience-processes-codex1182.pdf" target="_blank">a whitepaper</a> by Mahesh Jadhav and Robert Hoyle Brown, Cognizant senior leaders.<a href="http://www.cognizant.com/InsightsWhitepapers/how-digital-is-quickly-reshaping-customer-experience-processes-codex1182.pdf" target="_blank">Find out more about how Cognizant is helping companies improve their digital strategy.</a>This post is sponsored <a href="http://www.cognizant.com/" target="_blank">by Cognizant.</a><a href="http://www.cognizant.com/InsightsWhitepapers/how-digital-is-quickly-reshaping-customer-experience-processes-codex1182.pdf" target="_blank">Find out more about Sponsored Content.</a></body></html>Follow BI Studios on <a href="https://twitter.com/bi_studios_" target="_blank">Twitter</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/BusinessInsiderStudios" target="_blank">Facebook</a>.

This is how to make your customers happy

<ul><li>A <keyword id="85231" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="cio" source="Orion">CIO</keyword> must be a skilled businessperson in addition to being informed and savvy in the technology field. </li><li>Successful CIOs must strike a balance between an organization's goals and objectives and ensure that their people are supported, inspired, happy, and successful. </li><li>CIOs are expected to be decision-makers and leaders and foresee problems. </li></ul> For years, leaders have emphasized the importance of CIOs moving beyond managing existing <keyword id="6354185" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="IT" source="Orion">IT</keyword> to utilizing technology to create <keyword id="6355515" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="business" source="Orion">business</keyword> value. This priority has now turned into a mandate. Despite this critical requirement, according to <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-digital/our-insights/can-it-rise-to-the-digital-challenge">McKinsey's 2018 IT strategy survey</a>, 79% of firms that had sought digitalization, are in the initial stages of their technology transformation. CIOs understand that they must be chief executives, but the business knowledge they must bring to the table is constantly changing. The management principles and long-standing executive talents, for example, remain permanent must-haves. However, based on available data and facts, there is a list of issues that rise to the top and become dominant. But the role of the CIOs is increasingly under focus. <a href="https://www.ibm.com/downloads/cas/JVGYV4LM">Back in 2011</a>, only one<a href="https://www.ibm.com/downloads/cas/JVGYV4LM"> in five CIOs </a>ranked themselves as a critical enabler of business/organization vision. CIOs are not only entrusted with directing technical projects in today's environment, but they are also important, valuable actors at the level of the organization ladder. In fact, as per another report,<a href="https://www.cio.com/article/306384/state-of-the-cio-2022-focus-turns-to-it-fundamentals.html"> 78% of IT heads</a> feel that the role of CIOs has got elevated due to the pandemic. A CIO must be a skilled businessperson in addition to being an expert in the technology field. Successful CIOs must strike a balance between their organization's goals and objectives and ensure that their people are supported, inspired, happy and successful. CIOs are expected to be decision-makers and foresee problems. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Effective communicator" comment="subhead" text="Effective communicator">Effective communicator</cmsannotation> When CIOs communicate the importance of IT and its business value to all non-technical staff, they effectively turn into business heads. They lead the tech revolution in the company, emphasizing the need for other non-technical stakeholders to collaborate. <keyword id="24346" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Communication" source="Orion">Communication</keyword> with different departments in the organization is much easier when the CIO and the rest of the squad are transparent. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Customer centricity" comment="subhead" text="Customer centricity">Customer centricity</cmsannotation> IT and the CIO will remain the executor of the plan rather than the shapers unless they commit to a better understanding of the customer. In fact, just around half of the technology executives say their companies have been successful in driving the architecture of e-commerce and customer experience. The further IT is removed from the client, the less it can comprehend what customers appreciate and what role technology should play in providing that value. That is not how tech firms work. CIOs need to step in and ensure bridging the gap between IT and the customers. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Decoding the data game" comment="subhead" text="Decoding the data game">Decoding the data game</cmsannotation> Given the criticality of data, a CIO needs to be familiar with each step of the data gathering process in order to better lead his or her team and ensure that it is optimally collated, cleaned, structured, and analyzed. While it is critical for CIOs to be willing to take chances, they must also be able to use data to determine how dangerous a move will be. Data accomplishes nothing on its own; it requires people skilled in analyzing it to derive useful insights that can help to craft smart strategies. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Emotional intelligence" comment="subhead" text="Emotional intelligence">Emotional intelligence</cmsannotation> Emotional intelligence, once deemed a soft skill, is now front and center in talks about successful leadership. Emotional intelligence is now far more significant than it was a decade earlier in a CIO's toolkit. It is just as crucial to demonstrate a business leader’s competence in this capacity, as it is to showcase technological or business knowledge. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Turn security to strength" comment="subhead" text="Turn security to strength">Turn <keyword id="6355300" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="security" source="Orion">security</keyword> to strength</cmsannotation> CIOs must modernize security procedures in order to improve prevention and resilience. This transformation can be best facilitated by approaching security with a development perspective instead of a compliance mindset. One method is to use a DevSecOps working paradigm, in which security is embedded into each phase of an agile product cycle instead of being a test at the end. CIOs can harden security even more by adopting a "security as code" strategy, which specifies cybersecurity guidelines and rules and then implements them as code via architecture and automation. Today's CIOs must wear numerous hats and are no longer exclusively focused on technology. A successful CIO must have a business sense in addition to handling and optimizing IT teams. This includes streamlining procedures and keeping on top of new technological advances to improve the customer experience. They must also be consistent and honest communicators, understanding the peculiarities of their teams while transmitting the data to and from the rest of the organization simply and succinctly. To move their organization forward, every CIO must both foresee and welcome change. The successful CIO will also be the driver of that change.

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Ashley Lutz

This is how to make your customers happy

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Five occasions when a CIO needs to function like a business head

BI India Bureau

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