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Karin Immenroth: Developing Competency In a Data-Driven Business Culture

The advent of readily available data has fostered a new era of fact-based innovations in corporations, where exploring innovations and new systems can be backed up with empirical evidence. And with the disruption caused by COVID-19, there is accelerated adoption in data technology.

So why is it hard for businesses to adopt data as part of their organizational structure?

The biggest obstacles do not stem from the technical side of things; it’s about the culture. In this interview, Chief Data and Analytics Officer for RTL Deutschland Karin Immenroth shares with us how a business needs to transition into a data-driven culture and the approaches that a modern chief data officer (CDO) needs to adopt in today’s digital landscape.

 

The New Landscape of Data Culture

Over the past decade, data has steadily become an influential factor for decision-making processes. Especially in the past year where almost 60% of the global population is constantly online, businesses are looking into data analytics to better understand their customers and employees.

As with the aftereffects of the pandemic and the changing demands of today’s market, Immenroth highlights how the role of the data officer today has changed significantly while pointing out the underlying driving force for data transformation.

 

How has the role of the Chief Data Officers (CDO) changed and what challenges do they face in a post-pandemic market?

Companies didn’t have Chief Data and Analytics Officers ten years ago. That role didn’t exist yet. But because the market is changing dramatically due to progressive digitalization, “Data” as a topic is becoming more and more important. 

The biggest challenge, however, is cultural – it is not enough for a central data area to drive the cultural change, rather the entire company must start working in a data-centric way. 

The DATA Alliance is the central catalyst for RTL Deutschland on its way to becoming a content, tech, and data powerhouse. The pandemic has permanently changed the way we work. 

For us, as the DATA Alliance, the development surrounding the “mobile office” is very positive, as it means we can now work across Germany and in a completely flexible way. This helps us find and attract the best talent in the German market.

 

Why are companies still struggling to implement data competency and how has the pandemic affected their hesitancy towards adopting data culture?

We are in the middle of a cultural change, transitioning into a data-driven company. 

RTL Deutschland is a company with over 3,000 employees – a cultural change doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time, and it’s also important to have a few lighthouse projects that carry the topic of “data” into the organization and help spread awareness. 

We must make it easier for our colleagues throughout the company to access data, support them in interpreting data, and, of course, show them how to make better decisions based on this data. 

Just like the motto goes, “Use data, be better”. The pandemic has been a positive and driving force behind our cultural change – greater digitization has also brought the processing and implementation of data more broadly into society.

 

Developing and Simplifying Data For Organizations

Without a solid foundation for data culture, businesses will often miss out on the chance to fully utilize the data they’ve collected, or even encounter issues with data consistency or internal processes.

Deloitte reports that only 21% of the global workforce is confident in their data literacy skills. And with 70% of organizations expected to shift to new analytics techniques known as “small data” and “wide data”, businesses that are not data literate will get left behind.

Immenroth dives into how the leadership in RTL Deutschland has steered the company towards developing its analytics sector and advises those who are still trying to find success in building a data-competent organization. 

 

What can those in leadership roles do to improve data literacy within their organizations?

We have launched various projects that help our colleagues make better use of data for themselves and their day-to-day work. 

These are, for example, projects like our Reporting Center or our quota tool, Key Vision. We also support various stakeholders in the company by building data products and decision-support tools for their businesses. 

At the moment we are particularly active in the marketing, content, and digital sectors. And it’s also crucial for us to continue developing in the analytics sector, as it will enable us to make even better use of the treasure trove that is data analysis.

 

For companies and organizations that are struggling to find success in data, what key metrics and best practices should they focus on to drive the importance of data?

Our experience shows that it makes sense not to overcomplicate the initial steps. Very exciting and useful insights can often be found in simple descriptive data metrics. 

If you then go one step further and use analytics or even machine learning, data science, etc., you’ll often find unexpected results and insights that have been “fleshed out” by the data. 

I recommend a good dose of courage to use unconventional methods and approaches – we have had very positive experiences here and have been very pleasantly surprised on more than one occasion.

 

Starting Small and Establishing Data Competence Centers

In 2021, global big data and business analytics was forecasted to grow to $215 billion while connected IoT devices are expected to create 79.4ZB of data by 2025. 

With global economies adopting data analytics at an accelerated pace, businesses might be tempted to “go big” with investments in a data-driven culture. Immenroth believes that CDOs and organizations should do the opposite instead while building on Data Competence Centers to kickstart their digital transformation.  

 

In the pursuit of a data-driven culture, what pitfalls or common mistakes should CDOs or organizations be aware of?

More doesn’t always mean better. My experience is that it’s best and most sensible to start “small” and then expand gradually. In concrete terms – it is better to always start with a small proof of concept and then decide whether something bigger can emerge from it.

Fail fast and have the courage to make and admit mistakes… This is the best way to learn and then use what you’ve learned in your organization.

 

How would you advise CDOs or data leaders who want to seamlessly integrate competence centers?

My recommendation is to look at where topics related to data are anchored throughout the company. 

Then, based on that, you can build the core for the so-called Competence Center. It is advisable to define central topics and make them the heart of the Competence Center, and it is also fundamentally important that enough “data” ambassadors are distributed throughout the company in the areas correlating to each topic. 

In my opinion, it’s this balance that counts. In any case, our experience shows that a central Data Competence Center can be a very successful catalyst for the transformation of a company.

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Mikko Tepponen: CDOs are Catalysts for Change

When asked about his biggest achievements as FLSmidth’s CDO, Mikko Tepponen talks about the following:  

“We saved up to USD150 million annually for a customer by providing them with digital and optimization solutions.” Tepponen also says the data collected from FLSmidth’s sites and equipment is “the basis of many of our digital services and solutions, creating a lot of positive momentum in our digital transformation.” 

The two statements clearly show that successful digital transformation consists of three factors — digital maturity, tech investments and strong leadership. Mikko Tepponen shares why he’s excited to be FLSmidth’s CDO and walks us through the company’s digitalization and sustainability efforts.

 

What is the link between digitalization and sustainability in an organization? 

Digitalization is an enabler for sustainability from several perspectives. First, you must be able to measure sustainability goals. For example, a company with ambitious targets for the reduction of CO2 emissions. Digital tools are important in industrial settings in terms of collecting data and understanding emission levels. 

In industrial settings, the cycle time for replacing equipment or building new capacity in the market is very long. Some of the equipment used is at least 30 years old. In order to work with zero emissions and carbon neutrality, you need to have the technology ready within the next couple of years.  

But at the same time, you can already do so much today from an optimization perspective with digital tools. For example, we take a traditional cement plant and optimize it, finding energy savings of 5% to 10%. These will directly benefit the environment, forming a good business case for customers. At FLSmidth, our future rests on two pillars — sustainability and digitalization. They’re very much intertwined and you can’t have one without the other. 

 

Tell us more about FLSmidth’s MissionZero ambition and its milestones so far.

MissionZero is our central ambition in the cement and mining industries. In the cement industry, it goes back to the following questions: “How can we substitute some of the fuels needed in cement manufacturing?”, “What raw material is it produced from?”, “How do we move away from using limestone and clinker into clay?”  

Mining is quite a water-intensive and energy-consuming process. How can we use less water and lower the energy footprint within the mining industry? As a technology provider, we’re committed to having all the technology ready and available by 2030, so the two industries can become carbon neutral and emission-free.

 

What are the greatest challenges and advantages of being a CDO in a company with a 135-year legacy? 

We’re very much an engineering company and we’ve built a lot of the technologies that are behind current cement and mining processes. In an engineering culture, people are willing to try and push for new technologies and get excited about innovative projects. That is one benefit of working in a company like ours. 

In terms of challenges, I could say it’s the same thing. Every engineer likes to invent and has individual ways of working. This presents an obstacle when driving uniform technology from a process perspective.  

The related systems in the back end are not always easy when you have a mindset that everything can be tweaked to be a little different. As a CDO, you want to build a system of uniformity that can be automated and developed further.  

 

What does this legacy mean to FLSmidth’s digital agenda? 

Because we’ve been around for a long time, we have great and long customer relationships. A lot of digital innovation happens together with our customers. We also have a large installed base that spans several decades. How do you link into that installed base with technology that is decades old? 

As some of it existed before the Internet, it can be upgraded throughout the years. The heritage brings great opportunities because there is plenty of installed base and equipment that can be connected. This can bring a lot of value as we’re a company with a global heritage. We can work anywhere in the world at any time but must keep in mind the history and old systems that are in place.   

 
Find innovative ways to build a strong digital agenda through expert panel discussions and case presentations at Denmark’s Digital Advantage event.
 

How exactly is customer co-creation utilized in FLSmidth’s digital transformation journey? 

We have a standing rule when developing new digital technology. I think it holds true with a lot of our R&D efforts in traditional and digital spaces. We don’t develop anything unless there is a customer involved in that development. It is crucial, even for a technology company like us. 

We call ourselves the best in generating physical equipment and the digital services related to them. Of course, you want to have that end-user input all the time when you’re developing new services. It reduces the time to market,  helping us get the right answers quicker.

If you’re successful, you get the first references immediately. If you have the data to back it up, it’s even better. For example, this solution increases productivity by 2% or improves availability by 5%. This allows us to solve challenges and scale solutions out to the market quicker.  

There is also a lot happening with our most important customers. They’re tackling the same digital transformation challenges as us. They’re thinking about how to operate their plants more effectively. As some mine sites are located in super remote places, our customers are moving towards autonomous operations. What role can we play in helping them with that technology? 

 

What are the biggest challenges when it comes to integrating digital tools across all business functions?   

Many industrial companies such as OEMs and manufacturers of industrial goods have grown through a series of acquisitions, resulting in a mixed landscape of solutions and systems. At the same time, there is the integration of different cultures, processes and ways of working. It becomes a challenge if there is no clear focus on harmonizing your processes.  

At FLSmidth, we had a holding company structure that consisted of product companies and small entities. We’re making progress in standardizing global processes and that has helped us in delivering digital tools. There is still much work to be done as our enterprise architecture is quite diverse. For example, we just announced a major acquisition – which is subject to regulatory approvals – of thyssenkrupp’s Mining business, an entity with more than 3,000 employees and many locations around the world. An enterprise architecture and system landscape need to be as lean as possible to manage the additional complexity of acquisition of this magnitude.  

 

How has the CDO role evolved in the past year in terms of leadership and driving tech investments? 

At FLSmidth, the CDO is expected to be a catalyst for change as well as a technology leader. Digital organizations are used to working in agile ways and CDOs are tasked with introducing a modern and emphatical leadership style. The CDO role is a balancing act of trying to constantly push their organization a little bit more than they’re willing to. When you get a little bit of pushback, then you know you’re at the right level of trying to drive change. CDOs need to make sure that their organization is ready by taking on new ways of working. It’s an exciting time to be a CDO because I think it’s more vital than ever. 

 

*The answers have been edited for length and clarity. 

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Digital Healthcare: How Is Technology Transforming Health?

In a post-pandemic world, it’s clear that the need for digital transformation in healthcare has become important. A survey done by McKinsey with 213 European physicians claims that more than 50 percent believe that telemedicine will be a significant part of a modern healthcare system. 

With the digital healthcare revolution underway in European nations, it’s evident that hospitals and clinics will need to adapt to emerging technologies and integrate digital health solutions as part of their strategy. 

But what is digital healthcare? And how is technology transforming healthcare?

In this article, we take a look at some of how hospitals and clinics are integrating health digital solutions, how digitalization is used to fill the healthcare skill gap, and why data will be a significant tool in the care industry.

 

Adoption of Digital Technologies In Hospitals

Europe has been facing unprecedented pressure within the healthcare system and the pandemic has shown that despite the improvement in quantity and quality of care, there is still a gap in efforts toward digitalization.

This is in part, due to several challenges such as bureaucracy in healthcare and the costs of technology for organizations to implement digital technologies.

However, it does not mean that digital technologies are not being experimented with and utilized at all. In fact, due to the pandemic, certain countries are accelerating their adoption of digital and telemedicine solutions to help improve the quality of healthcare services provided.

One such example is Portugal’s use of the ePatient system for centralized and real-time patient data management. ePatient allowed clinicians to monitor and communicate with their patients remotely if they were not able to be present. 

 
 

This adoption of a digital healthcare solution has made home care easier for healthcare professionals in Portugal as they can communicate with each other over the application.

 

The Skill Gap In Digital Healthcare

With digital systems in place, hospitals and medical professionals will need to learn how to fully utilize these solutions to deliver care. However, many in the workforce, especially in the nurses’ field, are still lacking the skills and proficiency to handle digital healthcare solutions and technology.

Before organizations can scale up these digital systems, the digital divide and skill gap within the workforce need to be acknowledged. The workforce that delivers care to patients needs training and support to use new systems, and to use these technologies effectively to deliver high-quality digital care. 

How should organizations overcome this skill gap challenge?

Everything starts at the top and clear strategic directions from those in leadership roles to integrate and train the workforce to embrace new technologies and skills must be the priority. It’s important, however, that when investing in new systems, it needs to be guided by the organization’s long-term visions and account for sustainability.

Beyond that, investing and supporting educational initiatives that provide a platform for the workforce to develop these skills will be essential in filling the medical skill gap. One such initiative is the NURSEED program by a Danish collective company that seeks to address the nursing shortage and skill gap in Denmark through a digital platform.

 
 

Future of Health Is Digital and Data

Putting digital solutions in place and equipping the workforce with the necessary skills will lay the foundation for a digital healthcare revolution for many organizations. The next step is to fully embrace the healthcare digital transformation and understand the role of data analytics.

In recent years, big data tools have played significant roles in healthcare decision-making. This is in part due to the pandemic, which resulted in an enormous surge of health data being available, allowing for bigger and better analytics.

How can the health industry utilize these data?

Through descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive analytics, healthcare providers will have immediate access to necessary information, and improve overall efficiency. 

 

For healthcare professionals, this would mean improved predictive modeling that can alert them of potential risks of chronic illness or even self-harm. And on a larger scale, it can even predict outbreaks.

With predictive and prescriptive analytics, organizations can expect a reduction in overall healthcare costs by reducing appointment no-shows, preventing equipment breakdowns, decreasing fraud, and even managing supply chain costs.

Bottom line: better data leads to better healthcare.

 

Technology Is Transforming Healthcare

There is no doubt that the healthcare digital revolution is underway and technology will transform the solutions and approaches in modern care. The question is now whether organizations are changing fast enough to keep up with the demands of modern healthcare.

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Jori Fabricius: How Kemira Utilized Digitalization to Build a Resilient Supply Chain

After a disruptive year, supply chain & procurement companies are still reeling from the impacts of the pandemic. They continue to face obstacles in transportation and logistics, rising prices of raw materials, and shifts in customer demand.  

Supply chain leaders have realized that digitalization and sustainability efforts need to be prioritized to provide flexibility to respond to unforeseen challenges. Jori Fabricius, Senior Vice President of Global Supply Chain Management at Kemira, shares his insights on the post-pandemic supply chain landscape and its effects on tech adoption, leadership and more.  

 

The pandemic has accelerated digital transformation efforts in supply chain and procurement. What tech adoptions have been the most effective in mitigating the disruptions presented by the outbreak? 

There are many aspects to this, but what immediately comes to mind are control tower tools, visibility enabling tools and processes that support fact-based alignment across functions. The idea is to bring transparency to deviations as soon as possible and enable fast mitigations. 

  • Real-time execution controls (day to day): These were implemented at Kemira two to three years ago. The controls are nature operative and used in placing replenishment purchase orders and securing material availability. They are connected to visibility tools and alerts in real-time, providing personal dashboards that show performance and risk incidents to operators as they are happening. The addition of AI allows operators to supervise product quality and connect the dosing of chemicals.  
  • Planning tools (weekly or monthly, mid-term): These are extremely valuable as they provide optimized plans to mitigate potential or current constraints, and to enable fast cross-functional problem-solving. In Kemira, we started the implementation of upgrading the planning environment globally, which has been successfully taken into use for supply planning. 
  • Visibility tools (long-term): This is related to general aspects of performance — a good example is visualizing Kemira’s distribution networks with enriched built-in KPIs. This allows us to visually capture recent changes such as distribution cost performance, distribution distances, shipments sizes and transportation emission calculation.  

All these tools are necessary to drive performance and to enable faster, better decisions and implementations. This saves time, improves service and creates new business opportunities. Another thing to note is that these tools are highly dependent on cleansed, credible master data and one common enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform.  

 

In your opinion, how has digital transformation affected leadership roles in supply chain and procurement? 

Over my 30-year career, I think there has been a continuous change in the supply chain in terms of technology and science. In fact, the term ”supply chain management” did not exist before 1982 even though the concept has been around long before that.  

When digital transformation cracked the nut of “the distance dilemma”, the world became a smaller place and brought different cultures together. With more companies centralizing teams from their physical locations, supply chain leaders need to be culturally sensitive and emotionally intelligent to build engagement across diversified teams. 

Supply chain leaders also need to understand other functions better. They can no longer work in isolation. To be efficient, they need to gain knowledge on multiple industries and professions, and learn a number of skills. Going back to the tools I mentioned earlier, they are useless without analytical skills. Leaders must be adept at using IT tools because these are business-critical capabilities.  

 

Sustainability is a core part of Kemira’s business strategy and operations. Why is there an urgency for organizations to embrace sustainability and what are its long-term benefits? 

At Kemira, we can proudly say that our value system supports sustainable world thinking. One of our values is ”We care for people and the environment.” Having this value makes for a strong foundation for future sustainable initiatives.  

Other than values, we need to understand the different players around us such as our customers, investors, regulators, resource market and employees. In the last five years, investors have been putting more effort into implementing sustainability programs. No company today can say that sustainability does not have a role in their business strategy.  

In terms of recruitment, I think the fight for talent will only grow bigger as we go along. This is because the younger generation will choose companies that reflect their own values, and sustainability is a topic that comes up very often during Kemira’s job interviews.  

What do I think are the long-term benefits? I would say it is very difficult to work in this world if you are not a good citizen. Regulators, Customers and Investors for sure are moving in a sustainable direction which not only supports good citizenship but is also a ticket to a profitable business.   

 

What are the biggest obstacles when it comes to maintaining sustainability in all levels of the supply chain?  

It is fair to note that the obstacles are partly related to behavior and an individual’s value systems. It is difficult to change as culture and values always beat a good strategy. 

Because of that, I would say change management is the most difficult part as transforming current value systems may not happen quickly. Another hurdle is missing infrastructure – replacing an entire supply chain is a major change and does not happen overnight. For example, shifting from oil-based materials to bio-based ones. There is bound to be some resistance as current infrastructures have been in place for decades. Hence, leaders must implement change management carefully, taking into account regulations and investors’ needs.  

“It is easier to steer a boat that is moving and floating,” rather than one that is sinking.  

 

What can business leaders do to future-proof their supply chain and procurement functions in order to tackle unprecedented challenges? 

Organizations must be ready for a heavier fight for resources and competencies in the future. There will be market upsides and downsides, especially with leaner pipelines. Additionally, they must always develop new digital capabilities that drive business value and build engagement.  

Business leaders must also look for the best talent to join their companies but recognize that it will be a challenge. Engaged and flexible employees are role models and potential future leaders. They are usually the best people to secure an organization’s resilience and continuity.  

 

What are emerging supply chain trends in 2021 and 2022? 

I believe there are two main trends supply chain leaders should look out for:  

  • The new order after COVID-19: After 1.5 years of living in isolation and running operations, leaders need to reflect on the lessons learned from the pandemic. It has been no doubt a tough time for organizations. However, it is time to truly understand the phenomenon itself and to build a sustainable working model. 
  • Digitalization remains strong: There will be more choices for digital applications in operative work, like pricing tools. Procurement and sourcing platforms will also accelerate B2B integration and collaboration, and support building communities.  
 

*The answers have been edited for length and clarity.  

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Breaking Down Silos in Insurance With No-Code Technology

In recent years, Insurers have sought to digitalize their processes and improve their customer experience, making it more seamless and tailored to the needs of today’s digital consumers. Many large incumbents have partnered with insurtechs and invested in technology platforms to digitalize their selling or claims management process, establish virtual payment options, or improve their websites’ usability with chatbots.

While digitalizing parts of the customer journey was a great initial step, it did not address the industry’s core problem. That is, adopting a truly digital-first mindset, rather than offering unchanged products with an online quote and bind journey and putting band-aid solutions on outdated business models.

 

Silos Across Business Lines and Distribution Channels

 

Purchasing insurance products is a cumbersome process, and most customers utilize both offline and online channels to research their options and gather the necessary information before they are confident of making a purchase.

For this reason, digitalizing processes in insurance companies should not be seen as a replacement for the existing agency model. On the contrary: digital technology should help insurers to automate standard processes and enable the agent as they advise the client to add an extra layer of personalized services. From a productivity perspective, digital technology can free up the human workforce to focus on more value-added tasks and extend the capability of selling insurance at the point of sale or through non-traditional partners, let it be for valuables, travel, mortgage insurance, or SME risk covers.

As Manisha Bhargava, Head of Global Sales at Innoveo explains, “Consumers are merely covering their risk to insulate themselves, their families and their lifestyle from potentially disruptive events that may impact them financially. They are not seeking to buy “insurance”. Innovative Insurers should put their customer first as they build products, with the changing customer lifestyle at the center of their offerings.”

To achieve that, insurance companies have a lot of customer data on their hands. The trouble is that it is siloed across multiple legacy systems. For example, when it comes to the integration of online and offline distribution channels, a 2019 McKinsey survey concluded that in the vast majority of cases, insurance customers who switch between digital and non-digital channels still cannot continue their journeys online. In other words, even though many insurers have some type of lead routing from their landing page to their offline sales and service channels, due to the lack of channel integration, this usually remains a one-way street, leaving customers with a broken digital journey. Those who have compared product offerings online and then called an agent to seek in-person advice, no longer have the possibility to get back to the digital buying journey that they started in the first place.

 
Source: McKinsey & Company: Moving to a user-first, omnichannel approach, January 7, 2021.
 

Strong Demand for Digital-native Insurance Products

 

As E&Y points out, the penetration rate of both life and non-life insurance segments already had a declining tendency years before COVID-19, especially in the USA. The number of policies sold has fallen, as products that were once attractive to consumers no longer meet their needs.

Traditionally, large insurance carriers operate with separate business lines, based on the type of risk that they cover. This operational logic does not reflect our current lifestyle, where we make decisions in a digital space and expect to have instant access to information. As consumers are getting used to seamless online journeys like ordering products on Amazon or signing up for Netflix based on their individual preferences, it is logical that they would expect the same, sophisticated experience when looking for insurance coverage online.

Despite the increasing demand for digital-native products, the percentage of insurers who offer more complex insurance products for purchase online remains low, according to another recent McKinsey research for the European market. McKinsey also finds that approximately 66 percent of insurtechs specialize in select parts of the value chain, such as data collection, while less than 10 percent aim to disrupt the full business model. If we add the fact that most of the industry still relies on face-to-face interactions, we can see that there is a huge opportunity for digital disruptors and those who are willing to embrace new technology.

 

The Relevance of No-Code for Insurers

 

To maximize customer lifetime value and increase conversion rates, it is key to reduce the complexity of the buying journey for customers and agents alike, and this is where no-code platforms come into play. If an agent or broker wants to scale his business, it is no longer sustainable that three different customer calls’ data would land in three different CRM systems. To connect the dots across those data silos, insurance companies need software that could sit on top of all their legacy systems.

“Because of hard-coded legacy systems that incumbents depend on for specific product lines, their adaptability is painful and expensive. A no-code platform like Innoveo Skye® has a pivotal role in making this digital transformation smooth and incredibly fast”, Manisha Bhargava argues. “When you adopt a broader, turn-key solution like Innoveo’s no-code platform, an insurance product becomes nothing but a data model. And the moment you abstract the process this way, you will be able to make systematic improvements and break silos across the whole value chain.”

Overall, no-code platforms present an untapped opportunity for the insurance industry. With Innoveo Skye®, insurers can have all their business lines, agents, brokers, and customers in one platform, creating an omnichannel experience. The platform also lets them configure private and public channels and define which functionality is available to each one of them, which provides the flexibility to combine and package various products for their customers.

If insurance companies truly want to get closer to their customers and cater to their needs, then it is crucial to increase the frequency of touch with their end customers and understand that they are looking for an effective, secure, and easy way to cover their risk. They want products that offer holistic coverage, and they expect insurance providers to be proactive in risk prevention, by using the data available in their possession.

In the words of Manisha, “True digitalization in insurance means to deliver on the 5Es (excite, educate, enable, execute and empower the buyer) through the buying journey without the need for any physical interaction.”

Written by Barbara Péterfi, Content Marketing Manager, and Manisha Bhargava, Head of Global Sales at Innoveo.

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Egmont Philips: Driving Growth and Digital Transformation

The chief marketing officer (CMO) role has always evolved with the market landscape. Egmont Philips, Marketing Director of DAS, believes that the time for change has come and executives now need to evolve their roles as CMO. 

What does that have to do with cooking?

In this interview, Egmont shares with us his perspective on how CMO roles have transformed to meet current markets, the challenges they face in strategizing transformation, and why you need to think like a cook.

 

Evolving The CMO Into a Digital-Driven Role

 

CMO has always encompassed numerous roles, from bottom-of-the-funnel lead generation and sales support to brand development. This has always set the role for failure as they lack the strategic, longer-term strategy of other C-level roles.

However, digitization has disrupted the traditional CMO position and has forced many executives to rethink what the term “CMO” means in today’s landscape. The effects of the pandemic are a catalyst for this development.

 

Has the role of the CMO changed dramatically since the pandemic? And is the change here to stay or for the short-term?

 

The role has changed. As a marketeer, you always need to anticipate, adapt, and change the organization. But some market developments went faster than planned. 

On one hand, digitization has a steeper development curve, which is good news for marketers. On the other hand, as platformication increases, this will lead to a faster shift of power based on customer ownership and causes many traditional players to rethink their business models.

With over 4 billion active users, the CMO needs to be able to bridge the gap between marketing and technology to successfully forge meaningful connections with its customers. Given the diverse platforms available and channels such as Clubhouse, catching the attention with the right content in the right context will require a shift from the traditional behaviors of marketers.

Of course, there are challenges when making that transition, and 2021 looks to be as challenging for the CMO as was the pandemic for businesses last year.

 

Achieving Sustainable Growth Through Data and Transformation Strategy

 

What are the major challenges you foresee in 2021 and how should the CMO overcome them?

 
  1. Growth via new business models: Digitization, platformication, the energy transition, and the need for a more inclusive world are trends that create new opportunities. It will also disrupt current business models. The speed of change is much faster than before and to succeed, the key will lie in the talents you hire and the business ecosystem you build to signal changes and develop new propositions.
  2. Resilience: For many industries, market dynamics have changed due to the pandemic. 

The way to overcome this is to develop scenarios. Use scenarios where you exaggerate variables. Think of ways to deal with extremes. This will fuel your creativity and it helps in decision-making for the short term.

While growth and resilience stand as the key priorities that Egmont highlights, there is also a growing awareness to develop sound customer experiences in both B2B and B2C markets.

The need to be an experience-driven organization is becoming important as more and more consumers (59% in a post-COVID-19 survey) are prioritizing customer experience in a post-pandemic world. 

Egmont delves into the reasoning as to why CMO is needed in this transformation and the approach that they should adopt.

 

Why is becoming an experience-driven organization increasingly important? And what is the CMO’s role in this transformation?

 

Many products have become commodities. The only way to differentiate is by building bespoke experiences, experiences that are built around a strong company purpose. The CMO is the chief experience design officer and is at the forefront of setting design criteria and building multidisciplinary teams around customer journey optimization themes.

 

How should the CMO strategize their marketing plans to improve and strengthen customer experience?

 

The struggle is often how to determine the ROI of investment in customer experience optimization and figure out how to allocate a budget. The recipe for strategizing CX is to use journey maps to pinpoint which part gets what KPIs and what investment is needed in capacity and budget. 

This allows for a simple overview that will help convince boards to invest.

As for the tools needed to help the CMO improve CX and strengthen the customer journey, there are a few emerging technologies that Egmont believes will be key for organizations to invest in.

 

What are the key tech tools that the CMO needs to focus on investing, especially in today’s “new normal” market?

 

RPA and digital assistants are most effective when used to automate processes that are of low value to the customer as well as to your company. Such as changing your address, categorizing and directing incoming emails to the right person, etc.

Data analytics are the real thing, no doubt that the CMO needs to invest in market intelligence, customer intelligence, and algorithms that help to personalize the customer experience and create higher conversion rates.

 

Reinventing the CMO role

 

Given the drastic change that industries around the world have experienced due to Covid-19, it is not shocking to think that the marketer’s role has changed alongside it. 

For Egmont, the title of the CMO has to be re-imagined, and he offers his advice on how marketers should approach the shift in marketing roles.

 

There have been talks in the industry about changing and re-inventing the CMO title in today’s “new normal” markets. In your opinion, what should it be changed to and why?

 

I am spreading the gospel of changing the CMO into Chief Customer Officer. Marketers do not only translate market developments and change customer behaviors into propositions. They have also become the orchestrators of customer journeys.

 

What is your advice for the CMO on how to prepare for the shift in marketing roles?

 

Maybe the most fundamental way to prepare is to change your self-image.

I see myself as an experimental cook. I build various propositions for several customers and personalize them by combining a basic set of ingredients in completely different dishes. Restaurants and food are like fashion. It changes every season. When it comes to experimentation with the ingredients, you need to be a bit of a chemist. 

I use this analogy when approaching market research, data analysis, creating propositions, and managing the team in the marketing kitchen.

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Greg Williams, Editor-in-Chief of WIRED UK: “Organizations Should Be Thinking About the Next Threat”

What is the biggest lesson your organization has learnt from the past year? 

If the answer is that businesses must be prepared for anything, you are not alone.   

Research by McKinsey & Company revealed that agile organizations respond faster to crises. Therefore, creating an agile business culture should be high on every C-level’s list of priorities.  

It is time for leaders to relearn and revamp business strategies, build flexible facets within teams and make full use of new technologies. This begs the question: Is your organization prepared to tackle unprecedented changes and tech-related challenges? 

We speak to Greg Williams, editor-in-chief of WIRED UK and thought leader on future-shaping ideas, trends and technologies; for his take on what organizations should look out for in 2021 and beyond.

 

New Technologies and Opportunities

 

Technology, both a blessing and a curse of the 21st century, perpetually churns out new developments that businesses are struggling to catch up with. Industries are technology-saturated, resulting in overwhelmed leadership teams and employees. 

Williams cuts through the noise and highlights several key trends that will impact companies in the next few years:  

“AI will continue to be embedded throughout the organizational value chain, offering new insights and helping enterprises make better decisions.“ 

By leveraging data and artificial intelligence (AI), companies can improve all stages of their CX journey. For example, Amazon used AI and predictive analytics, before the browsing prospects even made a purchase, to unify data from customers, understand their patterns, predict their next step and recommend products based on their interests. 

Williams also stressed “the decarbonization of economies as automotive becomes electrified, cities become smarter and investors divest from fossil fuels.” 

The World Business Council for Sustainable Development supports Williams’ sentiment, stating that sustained decarbonization is the most effective way to manage climate change. Group CFO of Storebrand, Lars Aasulv Løddesøl, recommends adopting sustainable efforts to ensure long-term financial returns and that it is ultimately “the right thing to do” for any organization.  

Williams states there will be “new forms of automation and we’ll see an opportunity for home technologies” as people spend money on their living environments and on local services.” Home applications with embedded AI and automation features promise both advanced technological appliances and security. Trending home technologies include video door alarms, remote-controlled locks and ultra-modern burglar alarms.  

In addition, 2020 saw “the end of education as we know it, with learning moving online.” However, Williams feels that the social aspects of learning are hard to replicate in a virtual environment. 

 

A Whole New Automated World

 

Williams predicts that “back-office technologies such as RPA and AI-centric customer service will continue to deliver value, as will cloud.” 

PwC estimates that 45% of work activities can be automated with the help of RPA, saving $2 trillion in global workforce costs. The automation of repetitive processes will free up valuable time for managers and employees involved in finance and accounting, HR administration and claims processing, among others.  

Chatbots, the face of AI-centric customer service, have eased the workload of human support teams across industries by addressing common requests and filtering genuine enquiries. This will create “a shift away from keyboards as new interfaces begin to have applications both for consumer products and for enterprise,” Williams commented. 

The relevance of cloud technology is undeniable. Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud are three of the most popular cloud platforms in the market, and interviewed CIOs in our Executive Trend Survey are contemplating between the cloud computing services while some are even working with all three of the platforms. 

There is no choice but for organizations to accept and embrace “the gradual presence of automation in the physical world as well as the business operations functions we’re already seeing,” Williams says.  

 

Into the Unknown

 

Post-COVID, the immediate priority for decision makers should be ensuring their digital strategy facilitates effective scenario planning. 

So, what scenario planning strategies should businesses implement? It all boils down to looking ahead and being prepared. Williams strongly suggests all digital strategies should have an “in-built notion of constant uncertainty” moving forward.  

‘‘The cadence of regular audits of preparedness should now be increased in order to enable organizations to become more fluid and be able to deliver new products and always attune to client and customer needs,” Williams added.  

Even though the climate crisis may seem like a distant issue to many organizations, Williams states “their impacts will be felt throughout society unless urgent action is taken.” Fortunately, some progress has been made with heavy-emitting industries, including BP, Shell, Daimler, and Rio Tinto, taking on more green initiatives through the COVID-19 outbreak.  

Big players in finance and investment are also taking steps to combat climate change. BlackRock, asset manager giant, has pledged to penalize directors of companies that fail to manage environmental risks.  

However, Williams believes that ”we still need some significant technological breakthroughs in areas such as green steel and green concrete.” 

Here’s a staggering statistic: steel production makes up 7% to 10% of total carbon emissions — twice the amount from air travel. According to a recent study by McKinsey & Company, approximately 14 percent of steel companies’ potential value is at risk if their environmental impact remains unchanged. 

German steelmaker, Salzgitter, is already aware of that risk and will be increasing green steel production to a “five-figure” volume this year with increasing demand from the automotive industry and white goods sector.  

Williams says, “all organizations should be thinking about the next threat.” 

Organizations that proactively revise and improve business practices with this mindset stand a better chance of surviving unforeseen obstacles – be it a global pandemic, economic collapse or climate crisis. 

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Pandora’s CIO Peter Cabello Holmberg: Building A Hub Of Agility And Digitalization

Pandora took the business world by storm this year as the renowned international jewelry retailer successfully drove digital transformation and innovation in the midst of COVID-19 and launched the much-talked-about Digital Hub.

To find out more about the Digital Hub and Pandora’s agile aspirations, Management Events interviewed Pandora’s CIO, Peter Cabello Holmberg, winner of CIO of the Year 2020, who shared the objectives of the ‘Hub’ and its importance in Pandora’s continued digital strategy.

 
(Photo: Mikael Rieck, from Computerworld)
 

THE DIGITAL HUB

 

The Digital Hub, also known as the Hub, opened its doors in Copenhagen in July 2020. But what exactly is the Digital Hub?

 

The Digital Hub is actually a place. It’s a physical location; a full floor in a building next to our global office, where we have room for some 200 headcounts. We initially called it ‘Global Office 2’, but as we wanted to create some hype around digital and our digital strategies, we decided on ‘Digital Hub’.

Also, we were running out of space in our global office, and we had pockets of digital talents – the IT, marketing, and e-commerce teams – sitting in different places globally. That wasn’t optimal so we wanted to consolidate our digital talents in Copenhagen.

We believe that having our digital talents in the same location would help our delivery speed, and our intention was to have a new layout of office space that could facilitate agile ways of working, where people can move around and sit in teams to exchange knowledge on a daily basis.

In the early phases, we discussed building it in New York or Amsterdam, but we decided to build it next to our global office in Copenhagen because there was a need for proximity with the rest of the senior executives there. We were super lucky that we could get the office space next to our global office.

 

How did the idea of the Hub come about?

 

We’ve been working with our thoughts and aspirations on digitizing across our value teams for a couple of years. And what we realized was that we had to orchestrate ourselves differently to deliver faster on our digital aspirations.

We’ve been relying on waterfall approaches, business cases, and other methods that were very slow for us to get things started and signed off, so we needed a different operating model and a different engine room.

It was that realization – for us to deliver on our digital aspirations, have more transactions on our online channels, and improve digital marketing, omnichannel, and in-store technology – that we felt the need to bring the technology, e-commerce, and marketing teams together and implement new, agile ways of working.

 

Projects like the Digital Hub are huge investments, and getting the stakeholders’ buy-in is always a challenge. How was the project presented for the executive buy-in?

 

I went to the CEO and the executive leadership teams a year and a half or 2 years ago and said that we needed to do an IT transformation. I said that I would save money for the company, build new career duties, and introduce agile working. And I got a sign-off on that.

The CEO bought into it because we – on top of the savings – also presented strong business cases for digitalization and data-driven consumer growth that were very attractive with significant incremental revenue.

 

AGILE WORKING AND CHANGE MANAGEMENT

 

After getting the sign off on introducing agile ways of working, how did you start its implementation?

 

We did a number of introduction sessions before we did anything else. We talked about what agile is, its meaning and principles, and the choice of methodology, and introduced the terminology. We also did a few proofs of concepts, small projects that we would normally put into an agile release train (ART), and applied agile ways of working, like scrum meetings.

Other than that, we had meticulous discussions about Spotify and SAFe, and supporting tools for agile ways of working. We initially made a decision to go with both models, which was a mess for us. Now we’re back to the principle of one model.

We made some decisions along the way that were just wrong. So when we went live, we went in knowing that we had to learn if the decisions and changes worked and asked everyone to give feedback so that we could adjust on areas that didn’t work.

 

Major organizational transformations can be difficult to execute smoothly. How did Pandora handle the change management?

 

This was a massive change management exercise, but we knew we had to shift our ways of working completely.

So we gave people a flavor of how this change would look. We started to talk about what an ART should be like and introduced new and different roles to both the business and organizations. We pieced it step by step, presenting increasingly more elements of agile working.

There was change management happening both bottom-up and top-down, but at some point, we came together and communicated to everyone involved that ‘This is how it’s going to look, and here are the members of the Arts’.

We communicated the incoming change to all parts of the organization with 50 to 70 lightning talks about agile working held for all the employees to participate. More than 1,200 people from the entire business signed up to learn about it.

Even when we went live with our first ART, we continued having lightning talks because more and more people wanted to know about it.”

We try to stay as open and transparent along the way so that everybody knows what was happening. It was a lot of communication on where we were, what was happening next, and what to expect.

 

HIRING AND TALENT MANAGEMENT

 

With all the transformation initiatives, what were the responses from the teams and employees?

 

The interesting thing is, as we implemented the agile ways of working, our churn rate of people in IT, marketing, and e-commerce leaving Pandora has gone down. Even though we did this massive transformation, the turnover rate has decreased.

From what I’ve seen and heard, people are actually quite excited to try agile working. They want to see how it works. Some have already tried it and are super happy with it. And those who have always worked in traditional waterfall approaches are keen to learn about agile ways of working because everyone’s talking about it.

 

With about 200 employees working on a collective digital strategy, how does the Hub ensure that decisions and responsibilities are delegated to the right people and teams?

 

We have a number of ARTs now, and the biggest and most mature one is our consumer ART.

Whatever the team does in this agile release train is tied to our business strategy, so there’s a link from the strategy to how we work with agile portfolio, lead portfolio management, and so on. So we can track from strategy to ARTs to APEX to features to use cases.

Since we have defined the ART with all the members and different roles, there’s full transparency on who’s responsible for what. Everyone knows what their role is in the whole process.

Furthermore, the tool that we use holds the overall description of the business strategy, and breaks down into the related ARTs and components, so that we’re constantly updated on the business timeline and deliveries. Hence, I would know exactly what’s going to be delivered and when. It’s pretty amazing.

 

It’s not news that Pandora has been actively hiring digital talents for the Hub. What talents are being seeked, and what hiring strategies are being used?

 

We’re hiring very different types of profiles into the Digital Hub from all over the world – Columbia, Argentina, the US, and Singapore. We want people who are creative, who have an opinion, who want to push things forward and make a difference. And because we also want to set them free with the business, we want them to be self-operating.

What we did with hiring was create hype around the Digital Hub. We had the CEO talk about the Hub when he was interviewed, and we sent out press releases and reached out to different media. We also talked to universities about what we were doing and trying to achieve and spread the word that we wanted to build a digital powerhouse in Pandora and be number 1 in our industry.

So we set the ambition level quite high, which is part of attracting talents while doing features and events and mobilizing all types of channels to spread the word.

 

What challenges did the Digital Hub encounter in terms of recruiting talents and managing the current workforce?

 

One of our bigger problems was that, when we got a ‘go’ for the Hub, it was the time when COVID-19 hit. So we had to hire these positions using Teams and Zoom since we couldn’t meet the candidates face-to-face.

We also had to go about the hiring processes in a different way because everybody was on lockdown globally, and we couldn’t fly them in and bring them to the Digital Hub. From Day One, they had to start from their home office. We sent PCs and laptops to them, and onboard them from their home and whichever country they were in.

 

Now that the Hub is completed, what initiatives is Pandora taking to ensure a functional communicative and collaborative culture?

 

The Hub initially was driven by the CDO, CIO, and our SVP for data analytics. Now that we have consolidated these functions under a CDTO then the Hub is anchored with the CDTO. We’re trying to create a community so that the Hub is seen as one team with one common purpose.

Now, the Digital Hub has its own dynamics, and there are social events, fireside chats, and town halls where people across different organizations can participate. We put these people together in one location, and what this has actually done is broken down the silos that we were experiencing previously.

We’ve been sitting on different floors, in different buildings, in different countries. Now that we have brought the teams together, they talk to each other every day – they literally sit next to each other – so it has broken down the silos between different functions. We’re much more aligned compared to before, and that is a huge improvement for us.

 

DATA AND DIGITALIZATION

 

In terms of technology and innovation, what challenges did you face with the Hub?

 

We didn’t have many challenges with our technologies and choice of technologies when we started the transformation.

We already had a roadmap on what to do with data. We had our online platform, our salesforce, e-commerce, and cloud. Our biggest challenges are with integrations, master data, and a scattered point of sales landscape. But overall, we are in fairly good shape.

 

What stage is the digital transformation of Pandora at the current moment? What other processes are underway to boost the brand’s digital experience?

 

What we have now is a pretty solid digital strategy that has been shaping up over the last 8 months or so.

We’re going all in on our user data for tips on marketing and personalization. We’re also considering communities for people who are interested in our type of jewelry, and planning to introduce a global loyalty program that will hopefully further drive brand loyalty.

The consumer ART is working with data, and working with the marketing team on digital marketing and personalization. In regards to data-driven consumer growth, we also set the teams free to use data to drive sales. By combining the different data sources that we have, such as our transactions and customer browsing data, the ART teams are free to make decisions on their own to allow faster decision-making.

 

What are the biggest differences between the company’s past and present data utilization?

 

It’s two different worlds before the Hub and after the Hub is live. The incremental revenue that is delivered from our data-driven consumer efforts is just outstanding.

We’ve built the integration between different sources in our stack, applied new technologies, and hired Ph.D.-titled profiles to work with data so that we can learn more about our consumers.

We didn’t have that data focus a year and a half ago. I think we had one person in Pandora working with data, but now we have 60+ people working only on advanced data analytics and the use of data.

 

SUCCESS AND THE FUTURE

 

What do you consider to be the key achievements of the Hub?

 
(Image: Peter Elmholt, from ZDNet)

What’s interesting is that the agile way of working that we implemented has really proven its value when the pandemic hit.

Our stock prices have gone up some 100% during 2020 when COVID-19 hit, and that’s quite amazing. It’s actually all down to our technology readiness and the shifts from physical stores to taking advantage of our online channels and digital initiatives.

We were able to step back and look at our priorities and completely change our focus, and now the rest of the business – HR, finance, and other parts of our commercial organization – want to embrace agile working because they see its value. This is just the start and we want to do even more.

Additionally, we see that we can move much faster now. Because the teams are dedicated to the agile release trains (ARTs), they’ve become very efficient and knowledgeable about their role, purpose, and responsibilities. So we’re able to come up with solutions to business strategies at a faster rate.

 

There are always expected ROIs for major projects. What is the anticipated ROI in 2021 due to the Hub?

 

When we first started, my focus, and marketing’s focus, was on revenue-generating and return on investment. It was clear when we went to our CEO that what we proposed was very attractive and that data-driven consumer growth, meaning advanced data analytics alone, would pay for our Digital Hub. And we still have many other initiatives that we’re driving.

In some cases, in terms of ROI, we’re talking about a factor of 10 of the investment. Also, our stock prices have gone up significantly because we took advantage of our online channels and digital initiatives. I think that alone shows the impact of getting digital right.

 

What are the upcoming plans and strategies for the Digital Hub and Pandora?

 

We are in the middle of finalizing our digital strategy for the next 3 to 5 years. We never had a digital strategy before, but now we have it, and it sets the direction for our technology investments across our value chain – where we want to invest our bodies and resources.

Also, we’re focusing on how we can take agile working and our technology operating model to the next level. Yes, we started out with Agile but we’ve only been live for a year or so. Now, how do we bring this further? What do we need to invest in? What kind of profiles, like what agile coaches or release train engineers, do we need to bring on board to further mature our agile ways of working?

 

What commercial goals does Pandora seek to achieve in 2021? What role does the Hub play in achieving these goals?

 

Our key focus right now, and into the next 3 to 5 years, will be on revenue-generating initiatives. We want to drive even more revenue through our online channels.

Aside from that, we’re also focusing on creating an even more seamless customer journey across our different channels. We want to engage with our consumers in a more meaningful way – be more precise in what and when we communicate so that we become more relevant.

Of course, we do all of these to drive revenue, and the Digital Hub is instrumental for us to proceed with the plans.

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New Times, New Journeys for Talent & HR Leadership

Empower_Growth_Through_Data-Driven_Customer_Experience

Innovation in HR has always been the key focus for organizations in discovering and adopting new solutions, improving workflow and productivity, and to innovate and excel. In today’s COVID-19 world, Maistering BV’s Chief Sales Officer (CSO) Venkat Iyer (Markets, Sectors & Domains) understands that innovation in the HR industry is needed now more than ever to remain efficient in these new times.

 

The Focus Of Innovation In New Times

The role of HR leaders has always been to be at the forefront of innovation. From innovating workflow processes to adopting intelligent solutions and creating a better employee experience, HR leaders are pivotal when it comes to innovation and business improvement.

However, the current crisis has pivoted the outlook for HR leaders, pushing them to adopt new approaches for workflow efficiencies in the shortest timeframes. Especially in today’s remote working conditions, businesses need to remain efficient and prioritize quality over quantity.

For Iyer, the key points of focus that HR leaders need to be aware of can be summed in three major points:

 

1. Promoting digitalization and increasing productivity by understanding how technology can improve the workflow of people in the organization.

2. Shifting from complicated processes to simple ideas. Simplicity in HR can also mean leveraging distributed intelligence from the employees and efficient use of AI solutions.

3. Engaging the external workforce in an agile and unprecedented way. As remote working becomes the norm, skills become readily available in the digital marketplace, and HR needs to adapt to tap this availability for business needs.

 

The shift towards new technology and digital platforms is a necessary shift for HR leaders. Despite traditionally focusing on innovating processes, employee experience, and talent identification, Iyer says that the “current situation has encouraged us to look at digital connections among employees, simplify processes, and leverage skills in a digital marketplace.”

 

Adapting To Change And Innovating In HR

In the ‘new normal’, HR leaders cannot rely on the traditional ways of managing organizations. While Iyer points out that HR leaders have been quick to “introduce and manage change consistently over the past years”, the current situation demands an environment that is more driven by technology.

 

“Adopt AI services and solutions, embrace the cloud, and live in the virtual employee realities by introducing digital methods,” notes Iyer.

 

As these are business priorities for organizations anyway, Iyer believes that leaders can adopt these new methods and ride the wave while still keeping past priorities in check.

Of course, leadership will play a key role in fostering innovation, and Iyer highlights how most HR leaders are addressing the challenges through a familiar process of “defining the problem, addressing the variables that make it complicated and agreeing on the best way forward.”

However, in these ‘never normal’ times, Iyer believes that HR leaders need to adjust and develop a new core capability: a simplicity mindset.

With HR now working around the clock, to be truly effective, Iyer mentions the need for leaders to embrace the mindset of collaboration and simplicity, foregoing the traditional linear thinking and embracing a collective intelligence where the organization is the team.

 

Prioritizing The Digital Transformation In HR

With the new challenges faced by HR leaders today, the journey towards organizational improvement has shifted towards digital transformation and solutions.

Iyer points out that for HR leaders to be at the top of their game in these new times, they need to embrace digital transformation and start new journeys in utilizing effective but simple tools to tackle complex and complicated problems.

The three key technologies that Iyer believes HR leaders should prioritize are:

 

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI)

Chatbots have been part of HR systems for quite some time, helping to answer employee queries. But it’s time to step up the game via managing change, tracking employee emotions to help with health, seamless collaboration and open information exchange, aligning to business goals and tracking KPIs, and creating an impact – AI can help vastly in all of these.

With services available today in many areas that embrace the digital workplace and workforce, HR leaders should step up on AI adoption.

 

CLOUD

Only a few years ago, companies were discussing the benefits of systems such as the cloud. Today, they have embraced it.

Cloud-based systems are being used more and more for a variety of reasons, and the same is true for HR platforms and solutions as well. The possibility of being able to manage and complete work through a digital platform has allowed employees not only to do the job much faster, but most importantly, it has allowed for significantly increased earnings.

The use of cloud-based platforms also brings about numerous benefits such as reduced costs, greater and easier access, predictability and availability, and better reach.

 

COMPLEMENTARY PLATFORMS

In addition to core HR platforms that companies have adopted, the need for additional services that complement these massive platforms, and how it can be quickly integrated and used become increasingly important.

Solutions that improve collaboration and ideations, connect to external workforces, match talent with availability, organize and orchestrate HR journeys, measure impact, and are more predictable are vital to companies.

 

Establishing A Culture of Innovation

Iyer emphasizes that HR leaders today need to adapt and learn new methods in cooperation with employees, business partners, and stakeholders to foster a modernized culture of innovation.

 

“How can you create and maintain a culture of innovation when almost all of your workforce is working from home?”

 

Facing these challenges should be at the center stage for HR leaders. For Iyer, it’s important to adapt to the digital workplace while still ensuring that innovation contributes to both the employee experience and business needs of the organization.

To do so, Iyer believes that the following 3 methods should be considered by HR leaders to cultivate the innovation mindset in today’s digital workplace:

 

  • Create new behaviors that reflect not just your company values, but also the current digital workplace style
  • Spawn global and virtual digital ideation sessions
  • Capture and share learnings and ideas openly

 

All of these can be achieved by having a digital platform that complements the existing HR solutions in the organization. New times call for new journeys for sure, but technology today can help to make those journeys magical.

Maistering BV understood this and created the unique platform Master Collections. It addresses this topic by providing leaders the ability to run magical business journeys with essence, beauty, and impact in a way that classical HRM systems simply cannot.

 

Innovating Towards The Future Game Changers

The changing workplace requirements have caused a major shift in all industries, and for Iyer, there are several game-changers that HR leaders need to prioritize to maintain innovation.

In essence, the three major game-changers that HR should focus on are:

 

  • Prioritizing Re-Learning and Re-Skilling: HR leaders should now focus on re-skilling their potential employees to make them efficient and equipped with the skill of multitasking. Learning & Development would take place in a new digital collaborative platform.

 

  • Quality over Quantity: Taskforce optimization, performance management, and talent identification will all focus on top talent and work, which also mean that hiring and role filling will be different.

 

  • External Workforce Management: The pandemic has also exposed a wide variety of available talent, which few have looked at – temporary workers, contractors, project-based hires, and deliverables-based work packages. This also necessitates the need to have systems that can adapt and accommodate externals quite easily and consolidate content and let them collaborate seamlessly with existing employees.

 

The path towards innovation has changed tremendously due to the pandemic. Businesses and organizations need to undertake new journeys for talent & HR leadership to achieve a culture of innovation. With their platform, Master Collections, Maistering hopes to navigate leaders and businesses into the new times with the right tools.

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Internet of Things: Imperfectly Smart Devices

internet of things

Smart technology or IoT continues to shape both consumer and industrial domains. Achievable through the convergence of multiple technologies, which include machine learning, real-time analytics, commodity sensors, and embedded systems. Companies who miss an opportunity and or fail to innovate alongside IoT face the genuine possibility of being overtaken and fail over time.

 

IoT’s most significant trend in recent years is the explosive increase in connected devices, controllable over the internet. According to Fortune Business Insights, the global IoT market size stood at $250.72 billion in 2019. Projections indicate this number will reach $1.46319 trillion by 2027, exhibiting a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 24.9% during this forecast period. 2020 saw a rise in the following components of the IoT model; Networks and Communication, Sensors, Data Analytics (Cloud), and Applications, with different degrees of impact.

 

IoT brings a lot of benefits and new opportunities to businesses all over the world. Environmental sensors, machine learning capabilities, and artificial intelligence platforms provide various operational services for organizations across different industries. Although there are fundamental characteristics shared by most devices, the wide range of applications for IoT technology also means that the particulars can be entirely dissimilar from one device to the next.

 

Due to the large amount and variety of connected devices, IoT continues to implant itself deeper in our lives and society, making it another prime target for cyber-attacks. According to the IBM X-Force Threat Intelligence Index 2020, Financial services remain the topmost attacked industry, closely followed by the Retail sector. Ransomware and Magecart attacks were the most prominent attacks observed against retail and impacted at least 80 reported e-commerce websites in the summer of 2019 alone. Operational Technology (OT) targeting also increased by 2000% from 2018, with more attacks on Industrial Control Systems (ICS) and OT infrastructure than in the past three years.

Operational-Technology-Attack-Trends-2020-IBM-X-Force-Threat-Intelligence-Index-Report-1

Cyber-attacks are not new to IoT; the most common breaches are spyware, malware, and human errors. The latter is critical due to the increase in phishing tactics through email. Attackers have been impersonating consumer tech brands with tempting links to trick users into clicking malicious links. Consumer Technology giants such as Google & YouTube (60%), Apple (15%), and Amazon (12%), made up the bulk of targeted spoofed domains, where attackers hit due to the monetizable data they hold.

 

An innocuous IoT device should not be run unsecured. Therefore, both users and manufacturers need to accentuate and take cyber defense seriously. Thus, resulting in the real need to systematically understand the threats and attacks on IoT infrastructure to secure IoT devices against attackers. This article attempts to identify threat types, analyze, and describe intruders and attacks facing IoT devices and services.

 

Brute-forcing and Poor Passwords

IoT devices often require passwords for users to access and or control the device. According to Cybernews, the most common passwords worldwide are “123456”, “123456789”, “qwerty”, and the word “password” itself.  Weak passwords place your most sensitive information at risk and are similar to not using any password in the first place.

Weak Passwords

Manufacturers typically provide IoT devices with preset login credentials, making setup easier and consumer-friendly. These preset credentials are often openly available from a single web search and easily broken during brute-force attacks. Thus, IT administrators must replace the preset login credentials with significantly stronger credentials. The recommended way to go about this is to create quality passwords unique to the organization or the device and utilizing password managers.

An additional step would be to enable or implement two-factor authentication (2FA). Doing this instantly increases the security level by creating an additional lock that an attacker is less likely to access.

 

Improper Data Transfer and Management

IoT devices make automated decisions and carry out actions without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction. Thus, it is vital to the integrity of IoT applications that the source(s), data being fed, and produced are protected and verifiable at both ends. To achieve this, data must be encrypted from creation to consumption. However, this typically requires a higher level of encryption, cryptology, and intelligence than is easily achievable by the conventional one-way Transport Layer Security (TLS) encryption.

 

Furthermore, dynamic keys should be employed that ensure each data payload is encrypted with single-use keys that are not stored on the device itself or shared over the network, particularly over an insecure network.

 

Insecure Network

IoT devices require an active network connection to allow endpoints to communicate with each other over the internet. As a result, one of the initial and simplest attack methods a malicious attacker can deploy is to seek out weaknesses in running network services and the network communication model of connected devices.
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Attackers attempt to manipulate several vulnerabilities to obtain login credentials, communication tokens, and other identifiers that the Service Ecosystem uses to identify various endpoints. It is crucial to secure endpoints with industry best practices to protect data integrity, privacy, and Man-In-The-Middle attacks (MITM). One method involves encrypting device authentication data at the data-level paired to the public key. Consequently, any captured data should remain unreadable without the equivalent private key.

 

Unsecure Update Process

Firmware and other software patches are often required to be pushed out to IoT devices to prevent them from being compromised or left in a vulnerable state. Organizations have to upload these updates securely to each endpoint as soon as they are made available. Failure to secure access to the update, verify the sources, and integrity can have physical consequences, resulting in data loss and corrode brand reputation, introducing legal liability.

 

Even if vulnerabilities and loopholes are identified, not all IoT devices can be updated securely, and this may be due to the following reasons.

  • Wrongful or no firmware validation.
  • Updates are delivered in plain text or without encryption.
  • No anti-rollback measures
  • Users are not notified of available updates. This is a fairly common occurrence.

 

Implementing anti-rollback update mechanisms can prevent attackers from downgrading a device to an older software version with a known security vulnerability that the attacker can exploit.

 

Inadequate Privacy Protection

IoT devices, by design, collect and store a significant amount of users’ personal information. Unfortunately, not all manufacturers implement strong privacy or data management and protection policies. Those that do tend to begin by encrypting and implementing various layers of distinct checks and balances, providing data security between endpoints. When these security and privacy protection models are absent, improperly installed, or set up, glaring issues crop up.

 

One such example of improperly set privacy controls by the manufacturer was the TRENDnet Webcam Hack. TRENDnet marketed their SecurView cameras for various uses ranging from home security to baby monitoring and claimed they were secure, the FTC said.
Data Protection=However, they had faulty software that let anyone who obtained a camera’s IP address look through it — and sometimes listen as well. Thus for at least two years (2010 – 2012), the SecurView webcams allowed the transmission of user login credentials in clear, readable text over the internet! It did not just end there. Even their proprietary mobile app for the cameras stored users’ login credentials in clear, readable text, right on their mobile devices allowing anyone who obtained a camera’s IP address to look and sometimes listen through it as well.

 

Insecure Ecosystem Interfaces

The IoT ecosystem comprises all the components that allow consumers, governments, and businesses to network between their IoT devices. Some of these include networks, data storage, remotes, security, dashboards, and data analytics. Interfaces like a backend API that devices use to connect to a larger network ecosystem can also be compromised. A significant security concern to network operators and manufacturers is 5G network technology, which is expected to shoulder the connectivity load of IoT devices.

 

IoT devices, when integrated with centralized management platforms and legacy systems, are at high risk of being compromised by users who unknowingly introduce security vulnerabilities at the application layer. When such interfaces are compromised, it is often due to the previously mentioned reasons and improper traffic filtering.

 

Conclusion

Should an IoT vendor build its device or devices with insecure software libraries or other elements that are from an insecure source, then the device(s) will logically be insecure. Other means include using third-party software and hardware from a compromised supply chain or the insecure customization of Operating System (OS) platforms.

 

Manufacturers must comprehend that as more IoT ecosystems are being built, it is equally imperative to build security in, right from the very start. From sourcing components to firmware writing, initial installs, and throughout a device’s lifecycle. Thus, as more and more IoT connected devices come online, these and other yet undiscovered vulnerabilities need to take center stage.

 

Alongside poor management practices, targeted malware, and weak IoT architecture, IoT devices and technology can also be exploited through hard to detect zero-day vulnerabilities. Attackers continue to modify their malicious code to obfuscate better and spread within networks faster. Some of the better practices that should be applied to IoT technology include not over connecting your systems, not trusting a compromised device, particularly if it was compromised locally, and for vendors, frequently subjecting your code and hardware to third-party penetration testing (Black & White Box variants).

Consumer vs Enterprise IoT Attacks

In the future, a significant feature of IoT devices will be the ability to rapidly modify device configurations through remote tools and deliver innovative applications and capabilities. Additionally, all control updates, and packages, will include increased security and encryption to block attacks while driving more automated deployments.

 

The goal remains to enable a user at a local site with little to no background or understanding of IoT and IoT edge devices to connect a power cord, network cable(s), and walk away. Allowing the device to carry out self-provisioning and authentication automatically. Likewise, should a need to move the device occur, it can self-provision itself to its new location’s conditions and obligations.