This article was written by Manvi Seth, Senior Associate, Ben Calder, Senior Associate, and Zander Lopez, Media Producer at Metis Strategy.
In a milestone moment for Metis Strategy, our entire firm recently gathered in Washington, DC—the city where our story began—for our first all-hands offsite since 2019. The energy was electric as team members from across our offices came together, many meeting face-to-face for the first time. “We’ve grown so much in recent years, and meeting in person made that growth feel real,” reflected Mike, highlighting our firm’s remarkable journey of doubling in size since our last gathering. “Spending time together outside of our day-to-day consulting work has been a game changer for strengthening relationships, especially between our different offices.”
The offsite’s professional development agenda struck an ideal balance between forward-looking innovation and practical skill-building. Our teams dove deep into an AI workshop, exploring cutting-edge technologies shaping our industry’s future. We also collaborated on refining our management playbook, sharing best practices and insights across experience levels. A particular highlight was the “PowerPoint Karaoke” session, which proved to be both challenging and entertaining. As Amy, one of our newer team members, shared: “Although I was initially daunted by the idea of PowerPoint Karaoke and speaking in front of the entire firm, the encouragement I received eased my nerves and allowed me to just focus on laughing at myself (and everyone else).”
Team bonding took center stage through carefully crafted activities that showcased DC’s historic charm while fostering collaboration. Teams competed in an exciting scavenger hunt around the National Mall, followed by a spirited field day that brought out everyone’s competitive spirit. “Meeting everyone across the firm in DC for the first time was incredible!” exclaimed Hamza. “I loved getting to connect, socialize, and team up with so many amazing people… And let’s not forget the scenic boat ride on the Potomac or the dance moves during our post-dinner adventures—it was the perfect mix of work and play!”
The impact of in-person connection was undeniable. Allyson captured this sentiment perfectly: “You can’t beat the energy of in-person collaboration. The offsite proved that the benefits of being present with the team, building essential connections and learning as a group is both powerful and energizing.” This energy translated into tangible benefits, with teams gaining deeper appreciation for their colleagues’ work across different offices and practice areas. As Tony noted, “Nothing quite beats the personal connection. People and relationships are foundational to work that we do and getting an opportunity to create, and recreate, those human connections with our growing team was not only a great pleasure, but a great investment in our team and our business.”
As we continue to grow and evolve, we’re more excited than ever about the future of Metis Strategy. The offsite reinforced what makes our firm special: our people and our commitment to collaboration, innovation, and excellence. Mike summed it up perfectly: “The boost in collaboration after the offsite is undeniable, and it’s one more reason to be excited about what’s ahead.” If you’re passionate about making an impact and working with an exceptional team, we’d love to hear from you. Join us as we continue to write the next chapter of our story.
Company culture forever changed when remote work became the norm. In a remote-first work environment, maintaining a sense of community and shared purpose can be challenging. However, at Metis Strategy, we believe in the importance of making time for in-person collaboration, even when we are miles apart. Our Day of Service exemplifies this commitment, as associates, managers, and partners from across the country gather regionally to make a positive impact in their local communities.
This year, teams in D.C., Houston, San Francisco, Atlanta, Miami, and more participated in service activities centered around the theme of sustainability. As we head back to our respective offices, we’re grateful for the opportunity to connect with colleagues, uniting behind the common goal of helping others.
The Bay Area Squad worked with Indigenous Permaculture, an urban farming group that uses regenerative farming practices to feed those in need across the San Francisco and East Bay Area. The team mulched, weeded, planted, and fixed irrigation lines on their Treasure Island plot. The day was both productive and educational, as the team learned about the importance of sustainable agriculture and community partnerships in empowering communities to develop self-sustainable ways of living.
“It was interesting learning about how pairing certain plants next to each other can act as a natural pesticide,” said Becca Salisbury, an associate on the West Coast team. “We also enjoyed learning how this group teams up with local farms and restaurants to distribute food about to go bad to those in need.”
Surrounded by nature, coworkers, and a spirit of collaboration, the team not only gave back to the community but also gained a deeper understanding of the crucial role local wildlife ecosystems play in supporting sustainable farming practices. It was a powerful reminder of the impact that collaboration, and just a little bit of mulch, can have in nurturing both the environment and the community.
Across the country, the D.C.-based Titans gathered in support of the Rock Creek Conservatory, a watershed organization aimed at restoring, protecting, and supporting the natural oasis of Rock Creek Park. This group, which included our President Peter High, took on the task of picking up trash around the parklands.
“D.C. is such a beautiful city, and it felt good to contribute to that maintenance effort for a few hours,” said Jillian Fielder, an associate from the East Coast team who organized the event. “At the end of the day, we had a few decently full bags of trash which included everything from Styrofoam packing materials to beer bottles to candy bar wrappers. I’m really proud that Metis Strategy continues to make community engagement and service a firm-wide focus.”
The day was marked by teamwork and a shared sense of purpose, showcasing these Titans’ commitment to environmental stewardship and community engagement. Following the event, the team gathered in the park to celebrate with a Capo Deli lunch.
Our Titans in Texas made a strong impact, representing Metis Strategy across Dallas, Houston, and Austin. Kelley Dougherty, Eva Maxcy, and Katherine Kennedy spent the day sorting food donations with Meals for Kids Houston, an organization whose mission is to end childhood hunger by delivering healthy meals directly to the homes of children in the Houston area facing extreme hunger.
In recent weeks, the Houston area experienced unprecedented severe weather, which caused the Meals for Kids warehouse to lose power and forced the organization to discard a significant amount of perishable goods that had gone bad without refrigeration. “You could tell the organization was very worried that the weather issues would impact their ability to provide food for these kids,” said Kelley. “It felt great to be part of the community that stepped up to make sure that wouldn’t happen.”
The Houston-based trio couldn’t have stepped in at a better time, joining a community-wide effort to support an organization in a time of need. While everyone was united in the common purpose of community service, a friendly sorting competition also served as an exercise in teamwork.
The Day of Service was a major success across Metis Strategy. In addition to the stories shared above, Titans in other parts of the country also found ways to meet up, volunteer, and spend valuable time together without a screen in between.
At Metis Strategy, the Day of Service is more than just another company event; it serves as a reminder for us all to give back to our communities and strengthen our interpersonal relationships at work and beyond. We are proud of the dedication and hard work displayed by all of our teams and look forward to continuing this tradition of service and collaboration for years to come.
CHEVY CHASE, MD., April 4, 2024 – Metis Strategy, a strategy and management consulting firm purpose-built for digital and technology leaders, has been recognized by the Financial Times as one of the Fastest-Growing Companies in the Americas for the second consecutive year.
The prestigious award recognizes Metis Strategy among 500 companies that achieved the highest compound annual growth (CAGR) between 2019 and 2022. Metis Strategy’s organic growth speaks to the firm’s ability to truly partner with executives in advancing their organizations and personal ambitions through pragmatic solutions, powerful insights, and networking opportunities. Teams primarily based in the Washington, D.C. area, Dallas, TX and the San Francisco Bay Area enable the firm to serve clients throughout the United States and internationally.
“We are proud to be recognized as one of The Americas’ Fastest-Growing Companies by the Financial Times for the second year in a row,” said Metis Strategy President Peter High. “This is a testament to our team’s impactful work in shaping digital transformation strategies across industries while remaining agile in a fast-changing environment. We are grateful to our clients and members of our broader ecosystem for their partnership.”
From premier C-level counsel to strategy-setting and execution, clients partner with Metis Strategy at critical points in their business journeys. With a focus on enriching business leadership through in-depth content and active relationships, Metis has earned a reputation as the trusted advisor to senior executives at the nexus of business, technology, and innovation. Metis Strategy has also been recognized as one of the Top 50 Boutique Consulting Firms to Work for in North America by Vault and is certified as a Great Place To Work™.
About Metis Strategy: With more than two decades of experience, Metis Strategy is a boutique strategy and management consulting firm focused on the intersection of business, technology, and innovation. Serving mainly Fortune 500 and Forbes Global 2000 companies, areas of specialty include business strategy, digital transformation, technology strategy and operations, growth and scale strategy, and organizational change. We help define new products or services for clients, design improved customer and employee experiences through digital capabilities, and advise organizations on how they can achieve favorable business outcomes more efficiently and effectively.
Learn more about Metis StrategyRead about our work Listen to the Technovation podcast, featuring interviews with top technology leadersExplore career opportunities
Thank you to everyone who attended and participated in the 13th Metis Strategy Digital Symposium. As 2023 approaches the halfway point, leaders convened to discuss the rapidly changing economic, technological and geopolitical landscape and its impact on strategy in the months ahead.
Highlights from the event are below. Stay tuned to the Metis Strategy Youtube channel and Technovation podcast in the coming weeks for recordings of individual panel discussions.
As tensions continue to escalate around the world, technology leaders must understand and prepare for new geopolitical dynamics. Jared Cohen, Co-Head of the Office of Applied Innovation and President of Global Affairs at Goldman Sachs, argued that the notion of hyperglobalization ended before the COVID pandemic and that the world now faces a reorientation of supply chains and capital flows.
Technology executives are playing close attention to changing value chains and alliances. “Technology is changing geopolitics, and geopolitics is changing technology,” said Cohen. One of the biggest areas where technology is currently influencing geopolitics is in the area of generative AI, which Cohen dubbed as the “most disruptive experiment in anarchy” since the internet. He warned about the risk of people deploying large language models for “bad use cases” to cause real problems in international systems. While there is significant discussion around which companies have superior large language models, he noted a desire for the conversation to focus more on the implications of generative AI for the world.
George Lee, another Co-Head of the Applied Innovation Office at Goldman Sachs, said generative AI is dominating discussions with boards and management teams around the world. While its rapid growth offers many fascinating possibilities, it has also disturbed the human desire for order and linearity. Lee noted how creators are being constantly surprised as the emerging technology develops. “Anyone who tells you they know where this is going, how fast it’s going, and what our destination is, is just wrong.”
While conversations around generative AI have taken the world by storm, technology leaders today play a key role in translating the hype into reality. That means not only vetting new use cases for the technology, but also educating their teams about the benefits and risks of generative AI and creating policies that encourage innovation while ensuring responsible use.
“It takes courage to take a step back and say, maybe let’s not fall into the hype, let’s go about this in a methodical way,” said Digi-Key Electronics CIO Ramesh Babu. Babu created a community of practice around AI that includes stakeholders from across the organization and a list of key terms with consistent definitions to keep everyone on the same page. He also created a network of influencers within the company that serve as “education ambassadors” for the organization.
Allen Smith, CIO at Baker Tilly, recommended leaders approach generative AI like they would any other technology. “There is a difference between home runs and singles. Singles in this case are your front. Go do something, show it, have a tangible example,” he said. “Now, it can be used to fuel the really good ideas.” He also expressed concerns about the security and privacy risks that generative AI poses, noting the dangers that may arise from inputting sensitive data into services like ChatGPT and the need to identify and mitigate potential bias.
As companies continue to navigate an increasingly complex and competitive landscape alongside shifting customer demands, innovation will be a key source of differentiation for industry leaders. Many organizations find that design thinking frameworks help to formulate the strategy and direction that will help ensure they can harness that innovation effectively.
Michael Newcity, Chief Innovation Officer at ArcBest and President of ArcBest Technologies, highlighted the importance of empathy and deep listening to uncover unsaid user needs. To advance design thinking, Newcity has sponsors responsible for thinking through ROI, teams, timing, and other tactical factors that will help gain executive sponsorship and drive innovation initiatives forward.
Rob Krugman, Chief Digital Officer at Broadridge Financial Solutions, discussed the importance of understanding the value proposition for their customers’ customers, then working backwards to deliver value for Broadridge clients. “If we can solve the needs of that end customer, our client’s customer, the likelihood of us being correct is more likely than not,” he said. Across the ecosystem, “we’re all generating value, and we have a much better understanding of how to actually present and tell that story around value.” His team also works with the VC community to stay on top of emerging technologies and asks hypothetical questions to try and understand their impact on Broadridge.
Krugman laid out two different types of innovation: sustainable innovation, led by the product organization, and disruptive innovation. The key to both: “iteration, iteration, iteration, all based on validation.”
No matter the scope of a change initiative, whether adopting an emerging technology or implementing agile ways of working, leaders must act as role models for change within their companies and drive cultural transformation from the top down.
Hyatt Hotel Corporation’s CIO Eben Hewitt, who is working to nurture a product mindset and drive enterprise-wide behavior change, said engagement starts with the CEO and executive board. “When you see a boss acting that way, then you act that way,” he said. “You have to model it.” Hyatt also uses a “people playbook” to easily guide teams to resources they need for specific use cases, and Hewitt has encouraged the development of high-level cultural principles that inform behaviors throughout the organization.
Ultimately, culture is the most important driver of any organizational change. While many are familiar with Peter Drucker’s quote,“culture eats strategy for breakfast,” Ascension Chief Digital Officer Rajan Mohan added that “culture eats transformation for lunch.” At Ascension, Mohan has helped lead a transformation that includes a digital product orientation, end-to-end accountability and a focus on Ascension’s mission to reach underserved communities. With that shift has come a new mindset, as well as metrics that are more closely tied to business outcomes. “We’re not just measuring for measurement’s sake,” he said. “It is to demonstrate and deliver continuous value.”
Kathy Kay, CIO at Principal Financial Group, said driving cultural change requires leaders first and foremost to be their authentic selves. That includes a willingness to be vulnerable. “If you can’t show vulnerability…I think it sets a tone for people feeling less open,” she said. In addition to bringing that openness to her role, she works with peers at Principal to ensure leaders are giving teams necessary support, removing blockers, and helping them understand how their contributions matter. Kay also discussed the importance of adapting communications to local norms, particularly when working with teams across the globe.
Building a high-performance culture is of course linked to finding and developing the best talent. World Fuel Services CIO Josh McLean said some of the best people typically look for three things in their work: aspirational goals that give a sense of purpose; challenging work that helps them learn and grow; and being surrounded by other highly talented people. “I try to make sure those things are all present and in harmony, or a work in progress to get there.”
Not long ago, Target’s legendary chief information officer Mike McNamara announced his intent to retire. He would stay on through the naming of his successor. That successor has been found, as Brett Craig has been elevated to the executive vice president and CIO role at the company. He has been with the company for roughly 14 years, and he has held roles in technology and in merchandising among other business areas. His penultimate role was as the senior vice president of digital.
“The updates we’re making to our leadership team reflect the size and scale of our more than $100 billion business, while also positioning the company for continued momentum well into the future,” Target’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Brian Cornell noted. “I have tremendous confidence in [the company’s new leaders, Craig among them] and the value they bring to our organization as we work together to meet the needs of current and new Target guests.”
“This is a chance to work with thousands of world-class technologists building products and platforms that impact millions of people every day,” said Craig. “Our tech, data sciences and cybersecurity teams are simply doing an incredible job enabling Target’s strategy and advancing everything we do in service to our purpose. That’s a journey we’re going to accelerate, and Target’s culture of care, grow and win together will lead the way. How Target tech and our teams work together across the company is one of the most unique differentiators of our success.”
When reflecting on some of the areas that he will push hard to accelerate in the near term, Craig noted more personalized, relevant and seamless experiences for Target’s guests and creating new offerings that will drive more business to the company’s stores, Target.com and the Target app.
McNamara will stay on board as a strategic advisor to the company through the end of January 2023.
Peter High is President of Metis Strategy, a business and IT advisory firm. He has written two bestselling books, and his third, Getting to Nimble, was recently released. He also moderates the Technovation podcast series and speaks at conferences around the world. Follow him on Twitter @PeterAHigh.
As we recently passed the two anniversary of the pandemic, necessitating those of us who could work remotely to primarily do so, quite a bit has changed. Some companies have begun to return to office work on a hybrid basis, and roughly three-quarters of companies suggest that the path forward will be hybrid.
Whereas in 2019 and years prior, all work was assumed to primarily take place in an office, now there is optionality. Employees have different visions for what works best for them. Whereas one employee may long for more work in the office, others never wish to step foot in an office again, avoiding commutes and maximizing time with family in the process. These differences of opinion run the risk of creating conflict. To alleviate that possibility, a framework can be helpful. That framework can guide employees to determine together when to work in an office. With that in mind, here are five Cs to determine when work is best done together in an office:
A team may choose to connect when team members from different cities happen to be in the same city. This offers opportunities to bond, to break bread and to share experiences.
Connection may also come in the form of a firm gathering. Especially for firms where most work will be done virtually, outside of the confines of an office, some have elected to have all firm gatherings or department gatherings either in a city where an office hub exists or at a destination, such a Miami during the winter or a hiking destination during the summer. These are opportunities for connection that bond teams together. Colleagues can get to know each other outside of the work setting, and the next gathering may be the light at the end of the tunnel that keeps them looking forward to time with the firm.
Given the emphasis on virtual work over the past two years, there has been much call to evaluate where creative collaboration is best done. Most research suggests that when teams are called upon to create they do so best in person. Though online tools such as Miro and Mural offer worthy alternatives to the traditional white board, brainstorming in the same room together continues to offer greater chances to catch lightning in a bottle and draw out the best ideas for the company. True creation often entails developing something new. This might be a new innovative product, for example. Again, bringing together a cross-functional team in the same room where each can easily hear from each other, note all that is happening, and the like is the fastest path to success.
The office setting is often best suited for collaboration beyond creation, as well. One can think about a linear path in the collaboration process. As a new project or initiative is identified, the kickoff may best done in person. This collaboration can help mete out a plan, determine who will be responsible for what, and what sub-teams might collaborate on which details. There will likely be a period where individuals will have solo work to accomplish before the next collaboration is necessary. Thus, through the life of the initiative, it will be appropriate to work independently for a period and then to collaborate in person together. This can be a force multiplier to productivity, as during periods where independent work is appropriate, one can avoid the commute, perhaps leveraging a bit of the time that would have been spent doing so to drive the independent work to its conclusion.
At a time when so many people are leaving jobs as part of the so-called great resignation, it is all the more important to invest in one’s people. Better coaching, counseling, and career planning are key investments to make. An in person meeting is often best to read reactions to guidance provided, praise given, and constructive criticism proffered. These are conversations where trust can be won or lost, and it is best to be in person for more of them, if possible. Ironically, it is often the youngest members of our teams who appreciate the importance of in person career planning least but benefit the most from such guidance. It must be proven to them that these conversations are worth their while with the results that they might garner from more explicit planning sessions.
Last among these factors is the need to celebrate together. During the period of virtual work primarily, where meetings tended to stick to agendas that fit in 30 or 60 minute windows and then each team member spread like seeds to the next series of meetings with other people, many took for granted the need to celebrate all that we accomplish along the way. When a project concludes, when promotions are announced, when quarterly earnings are made public, among many reasons to possibly celebrate, taking the opportunity to do so forges bonds, while also making explicit the accomplishments of the team.
None of this is to say that these five activities can only happen in offices. None should wait for everyone to be in the same place at the same time to happen, of course, but in the balance, these are activities that are best done in the office. The framework is clarifying. It articulates a means of cutting through conflicting opinions of whether to meet in person or not. One can imagine colleagues debating whether an activity should be done virtually or if it rises to the level to warrant a trip into the office. One could determine if the activity aligns with the categories given, and if so, make the call to do so. Hybrid work is tricky as we have the unleveling of the playing field in earnest, but by setting up some simple ground rules together with sound explanations of why the path has been chosen will ensure that you are building trust across the team for the long term.
This past weekend marked the two-year anniversary of our living in quarantine. For those who had the option to work remotely, most made the move on roughly March 13 or 16. For a while, many executives bruised their shoulders as they vigorously patted themselves on the back for having successfully transitioned from in-office work to virtual work in March of 2020. They expected major issues, but fewer than expected arose. Of course, this is not to minimize the dramatic increase in cyberattacks that spawned as the threat landscape moved from offices to people’s homes, for example, but most businesses had employees who traveled, working from client sites, hotel rooms, on flights, and in a variety of other settings. This had been the case for years, and companies’ tools supported this model, for the most part.
What has begun to emerge as hybrid work begins in earnest for many companies will be much more difficult. Let’s begin with optionality. Prior to March 2020, 95% or more of all work was done in offices. Though business trips were a regularity for many, one’s primary work was done in an office. Therefore, switching jobs meant switching from one office to another and it would often necessitate moving from one city to another. There was not a lot of optionality in that scenario. Requests to primarily work remotely were easily rebuffed because it was not the norm.
In March of 2020, if you were in a job that could be done remotely, you did not have an option. You worked remotely for your own safety, the safety of your loved ones and the safety of your colleagues. Therefore, the playing field went from being largely even to, in some cases, more even, as everyone was remote rather than having some straggler business travelers dialing in to a group meeting in a conference room, say.
What has begun and will continue in earnest in 2022 will be the unleveling of the playing field. As offices open up, some are drawn to them and others are repelled from them. The employee in an efficient apartment with a spouse and a young child cannot wait to get back to an office full-time. The colleague who has a large house with a dedicated workspace separate from distractions may not ever want to commute again. Every flavor in between can also be found among an employee base. What approach will work best for productivity? What approach will work best for employee morale? What approach will amplify culture in the right way?
The future is likely to be hybrid. Most companies agree with this, and most are acting upon that hypothesis. That said, as a leader, whatever the going in hypotheses you have about the complexion of the future of work, it is critical to note that some will be wrong. Prepare your team for this inevitable conclusion. Two disciplines that must be focal are change management and communications. The former recognizes that changes will need to continue to happen and have a strong discipline in place to facilitate that change will be necessary. The latter ensures that formal and informal communications are in place to continue to provide updates to employees on what is working, what is not, what might be tested next, why, and so forth. It is best to err on the side of more rather than less communication during times of great change and uncertainty.
The last thing you want to do is go through any one-way doors in the decisions you make. If you tell employees that they will never have to come back into an office again, this will be difficult to walk back if the data and your company’s performance languish because of this decision. You will have given your employees a right that they will not take kindly to losing. Even if you are inclined to try virtual-only work beyond the period in which it is necessary for health reasons, best not to call it out as the solution for the long-term but rather that the company reserves the right to tinker with the model as time passes if the situation dictates.
Employees’ opinions should also be weighed throughout, of course. Many executives did not adequately take this point into consideration as initial plans were laid out relative to what the future of work might entail, and many paid the consequences in higher attrition rates. Engaging employees to understand what works best for them and why is a prudent measure to take, even if it is impossible to make everyone happy with the conclusions that will be made. The extent to which the communications plans can be frequent, transparent and bi-directional, all the better.
One must also lean on one’s ecosystem for insight. We are all going through these experiments at present, and if you poll ten executives at ten different firms about what the future of work will entail, no two will be exactly alike and some will be dramatically different. Remain in close contact with your ecosystem to understand what is working and why, what is not, and why, and judge your plans against what you learn. You may stick to your plans in the face of some of this data, but it is important to be open to changing your mind.
Lastly, as employees leave, and they will, of course, evaluate why they are doing so. Are your policies at all a consideration? Is the company an employee is leaving to join offering some sort of benefit or way of working that you might consider. This data is crucial to ensure that a trickle of departures does not become a flood.
The months ahead will be treacherous, but by forming a plan, continuing to test plans and developing open and honest dialogues with employees, a better future can be defined.
Thanks to all who joined the February 2022 Metis Strategy Digital Symposium. A special thanks as well to all of our speakers, who shared their perspectives on topics ranging from creating speed and agility in an era of “predictable unpredictability” to developing new operating models, scaling innovation, and using data and technology to enhance the customer and employee experience.
Digital and technology executives are seeing expanded purviews and greater strategic influence inside their organizations as technology becomes increasingly integral to business operations. In addition to traditional IT roles, today’s CIOs are taking on key roles in revenue-generating activities, helping to define the future of work, and leveraging strategic partnerships to find unconventional solutions to today’s challenges.
See below for a few highlights from the event, and check out the Metis Strategy YouTube channel and the Technovation podcast in the coming weeks for full recordings of individual panel discussions. In the meantime, click here to request an invitation for our next virtual event on May 19, 2022.
Customer focus drives greater impact for IT
Today’s technology leaders are more customer-centric than ever before as data and analytics capabilities help organizations better understand the customer journey and transform the customer experience through digital. Indeed, nearly half of attendees noted that customer centricity has been the biggest driver of impact and performance at their organizations.
At MetLife, Bill Pappas is utilizing his combined role as Head of Global Technology and Operations to drive a more holistic approach to managing the customer journey. The ability to collaborate internally across data and analytics, cybersecurity, infrastructure, customer-facing service advisors, and other teams has led to a greater understanding of the processes and decisions that impact customers, which in turn helps MetLife design better products and services for them.
At Inspire Brands, digital technologies have allowed the company to serve customers and employees more effectively across a variety of channels, CIO Raghu Sagi said. Buffalo Wild Wings, for example, went from having almost no off-premise business before the pandemic to having almost all off-premise sales as people stopped going out to eat. In response, Sagi and his team quickly rolled out new features such as curbside delivery and contactless payments, tools they could then scale across their other restaurant brands.
Even security services, often considered a friction point for many users, have become an avenue for delivering value to customers. Transmit Security, for example, is leveraging biometric capabilities and other technologies to help customers access their accounts faster while simultaneously strengthening the overall security of those accounts and reducing system complexity on the back end.
CIOs double down on culture, people development
As organizations continue to navigate a challenging talent market, executives are doubling down on people management efforts to attract, retain, and develop talent. That includes building internal culture, enabling flexible working models, and developing upskilling and reskilling opportunities to create growth opportunities for their teams.
“People are truly everything we do, and as a leader, your role is to be [first] a human resources manager,” Bill Pappas of MetLife said. In addition to articulating its value proposition to attract top talent, the company offers a range of upskilling and talent development initiatives, including a digital academy, that seek to foster the technology, commercial, and leadership skills needed to lead in today’s environment.
Edward Wagoner, Chief Information Officer for Digital at JLL Technologies, noted that data and technology are helping the company design the future of work and bring it to life at the intersection of physical and digital spaces. With some employees returning to office and others continuing to work remotely, Wagoner emphasized that there are still many unknowns, and that organizations across the board will continue to test new hypotheses and draw on lessons learned to improve the employee experience.
Indeed, technology leaders will play a central role in enabling new forms of collaboration and creating spaces that establish a level playing field and sense of belonging for diverse and remote employees. “As digital technology leaders, we’re so entwined in the culture game that we now need to go figure out what are these experiences that provoke people to collaborate differently,” said Vince Campisi, SVP Enterprise Services and Chief Digital Officer at Raytheon Technologies.
Tech leaders become a catalyst for new business partnerships
While CIOs have always kept a finger on the pulse of emerging technologies, they increasingly are forging more strategic partnerships with suppliers, peers, startups, and others to gain new insights and develop new products and services.
To navigate the emerging tech landscape, Novant Health, Chief Information Officer Onyeka Nchege focused on identifying core capabilities and building a strong partner ecosystem that could deliver a positive impact and improve the patient experience. In 2019, Novant Health solidified a partnership with Zipline that, through a fast-tracked operation during the pandemic, led Novant Health to become the first healthcare system to deliver PPE via drone distribution.
Although the real estate industry hasn’t historically been known as a leader in technological innovation, companies like JLL have established new partnerships to expand the company’s thinking and to better address ongoing uncertainties such as the future of work and climate change. Wagoner noted that JLL acquired an AI company to improve data-driven decision making. He also discussed the ways in which JLL is partnering with technology leaders across industries to address topics such as sustainability monitoring and reporting.
A dedication to scaling digital operations and innovation
CIOs, CDOs, and CTOs have an ever-growing role to play in helping organizations adapt quickly to changing markets and consumer demands. Key to that is enabling innovation at scale and applying digital tools to enhance operations.
Innovation is no longer a practice that takes place in a separate building, but rather a capability embedded across the enterprise, said Charu Jain, SVP Merchandising and Innovation at Alaska Airlines. Jain further drove these efforts by developing an innovation committee at the board level. This committee provides formal commitment and accountability to innovation efforts and helps identify opportunities to apply technology to revenue-generating activities and guest and employee experiences. Having teams across the company pursue innovation ideas, paired with strong change management and new ways of working, has helped make innovation a “fabric of how [Alaska Airlines] does business,” she said.
Sanjib Sahoo, Chief Digital Officer at Ingram Micro, highlighted digital innovation as a means of improving performance while constantly reassessing the business model and ensuring that there are no opportunity gaps in the organization. “We perform as we transform,” he said, noting the importance of integrating operational excellence and value creation into all transformation initiatives.
Since the pandemic began, CIOs are owning more innovation and business value creation processes, said Sunny Gupta, CEO & Co-Founder of Apptio. That includes a shift to product-focused operating models, which requires leaders to think not only about technology applications but also new funding models.
Technology plays key role in building supply chain resilience
Supply chain disruptions and natural disasters have caused strain on global operations, underscoring a need to digitize and automate processes and collaborate with peers and partners. Increasingly, technology is the key to building resilient supply chains that allow organizations to pivot quickly amid ongoing disruptions.
At Big Lots Stores, data and decision modeling help build stronger and more resilient digital supply chains, said Gurmeet Singh, CTO and CIO. The ability to process data from each point of the supply chain speeds decision making and allows the organization to pivot quickly when markets change, which ultimately impacts costs, store operations, and the customer experience. Singh has also spent time learning from startups in the supply chain space to understand how new technologies are driving greater visibility and automation.
Gary Desai, CIO at Discount Tire, remarked that resilient supply chains and strong relationships help improve the “speed of trust” with customers and drive better outcomes. Desai works alongside the Chief Customer Officer and Chief Product Officer at his organization and meets with the CEO of their supply chain software provider to discuss ways in which technology can continue to deliver value for the company now and in the future. New ways of working, including a shift toward planned appointments at stores instead of walk-ins, also present new opportunities to apply digital technologies and enhance relationships with local suppliers.
We hope you’ll join us for our next Metis Strategy Digital Symposium on May 19, 2022. You can register for the event here. Stay tuned to our website for more details.
Ather Williams III is the Senior Executive Vice President and Head of Strategy, Digital Platforms, and Innovation at Wells Fargo, a post he has held since October of 2020. In that role, he leads corporate strategic planning, defines and manages digital platforms and capabilities, and oversees innovation priorities, opportunities and company-wide efforts to drive transformation.
Williams strategy role cuts across the five business lines at Wells Fargo, three of which are focused on consumer and two of which are focused on enterprise customers. “We work across those businesses, across all of our range of capabilities, covering our 69 million customers, and all of our functions to put together a coherent strategy to serve those clients in an innovative way,” noted Williams.
One of the key strategic pillars that that Williams and his team has defined and is helping to drive focuses on technology and innovation and having a digital-first, mobile-first, though not mobile only, mindset. “Digital platforms are a natural place to sit with me because it is a transformation of how we bring together a consistent consumer experience that starts with mobile across our deposits and payments business, our consumer lending business and our wealth management business,” said Williams. “[This intersection] will easily migrate across our other channels, be it an ATM, a branch or a financial advisor’s office.”
Williams considers the innovation part of his mandate to be the “fuel for the future.” The inspiration for that innovation often comes from interactions with customers and the needs they articulate, and the innovation is then driven by the team he has at his disposal within Wells Fargo together with a partner ecosystem he has curated. By way of example, Williams noted customers’ desire to rethink how they move their money around the world or new ways of investing their money. He also noted working with customers on how best to decarbonize. Wells Fargo makes its innovation channel accessible to customers and the broader ecosystem can help bring those ideas to life.
Williams noted that the pandemic has been a remarkable accelerant for mobile adoption. “All the metrics I look at weekly on our digital platforms, how we are performing and interacting with our clients, they are all up double digits year-over-year, and it is continual growth,” he said. “On the consumer side of the house, mobile is our number one channel. Between mobile and online, we have about just shy of two billion interactions with our clients every quarter.”
Williams is quick to add that these growth figures are not the death knell to Wells Fargo’s branches, however. He offers coin and currency transactions and mortgage initiation as two of a variety of examples of interactions that customers are often more comfortable doing in the branches. Williams describes the strategic approach the company is taking as mobile first but not mobile only. “Making that transition from being what a lot of banks traditionally have been which is a physical interaction first, technology supporting it, to being a technology led, physical supporting it,” Williams highlighted. “That flip is what we are driving from a strategy perspective.”
The company has also flipped the traditional script on how innovation happens. It used to be that companies like Wells Fargo built products and technology internally without outside partners to speak of. Counterexamples include payment networks for credit cards, or for clearing payments internationally, but these were exceptions rather than the rule. “Increasingly, banks are becoming ecosystem orchestrators where we build some stuff, but we enable you to experience it through APIs,” offered Williams by way of example. “That change, going from a very inwardly focused culture to an outwardly-focused culture, meaning engaged in the broader ecosystem for our clients, has been a big change.” Williams underscored that this trend happens both on the consumer and on the wholesale side of the business. Now enterprises bank through their ERP system in their treasury workstation. Wells Fargo has developed a means of plugging into that.
When asked how he measures innovation, Williams volunteered velocity of ideas through the company’s pipeline. “We run a funnel process and I measure ideas in and ideas we push into production, but it is also how quickly we can churn them through,” he noted. “Anything in the cryptocurrency area for example, is changing so rapidly that, I just need to make sure that we are getting enough reps or enough at-bats on things to see what might stick.” He also indicated that he is mindful of patents filed by the company. He also mentions that it is no longer useful to simply benchmark Wells Fargo against other banks, as had been the primary measuring stick used. “We look at some companies that are traditionally very innovative, mostly in the tech space but not necessarily banks,” said Williams. “I do look at how quickly they are launching new products, and how they are driving the industry.”
Each of the line of lines of business has a strategy and innovation lead. Their main job is to help each business think about how they are going to meet those changing customer needs and how the company will respond to competitive forces. Additionally, these leaders investigate problems Wells Fargo is trying to solve and then tap back into that innovation stream of what is happening in the market. There is also a team that is focused on innovation strategy. That team is “focused on thinking about what is five or ten years out that we need to keep our eyes on,” Williams said, “It can be a technology thing, or it could be an industry trend thing that we can see is going to impact us.”
The leaders of each of these teams come together with some frequency to share insights and to identify points of collaboration. The innovation team drives research and development, as well as the pilot and deliver, test and learn continuum to scaled ideas. “We get an idea such as cross border money movement over the distributed ledger,” said Williams. “Here is the client, here is the business case, here is the client scenario, how do we make that happen? You pull it into the lab, you can stand up a prototype and get it to run. Then once you get to a certain place, you can commercialize it and you flip it back into the business.”
This well thought out innovation engine is already bearing fruit, and Williams is confident that the best is yet to come.
Carol Juel has been the chief information officer at Synchrony Financial since the company’s creation, after it spun out from General Electric just over seven and a half years ago. She had worked at GE for the decade prior to that. In the early stages of Synchrony Financial’s existence, Juel had the opportunity to think about new beginnings as to how a modern technology organization should function to best support a new, already scaled and growing business.
Like many CIOs, Juel introduced agile methods as a primary process to develop new initiatives within the technology realm. Like many peers of hers across industries, the iterative approach, engaging the intended audience and users in the process from ideation through to completion ensured a better end product, and it reduced the risk that time and money would be invested only to conclude with a collective yawn from customers, for example. Every project has degrees of uncertainty and risk associated with them, especially if they are truly innovative. If you are batting 1.000, you are not innovating, after all. Therefore, when contemplating scenarios where uncertainty reins, greater degrees of cross-functional collaboration are essential, and they can get the collective batting average higher for the technology and digital teams as a result.
Come March of 2020, we all entered perhaps the greatest period of uncertainty as the consequences of the pandemic on our personal and professional lives began to be reconciled. The progress Synchrony Financial IT had made in instituting agile gave Juel an idea. Why not make the executive team (the chief executive officer and his reports) an agile team of sorts? One of the key aspects that Juel thought would facilitate setting a path during unprecedented times was the concept of the daily stand-up meeting. “Agile stand-up meetings, for those who have never been to one, are a very specific meeting,” said Juel.
“Once or twice a day, the team gets together to communicate information. You’re talking about what you need, you’re making decisions and you’re talking about blockers. [By the conclusion of each meeting], everyone is clear about the actions that need to be taken, who is accountable and what’s going to get done by the next agile standup meeting.”
This was the new way of working for the Synchrony executive team, but those executives already had seen the great strides the technology team had made in leveraging the same methods, and this made the case very easy for Juel to implement this among her peers and with her boss, the CEO. “It was a conversation on an afternoon, and by the next morning we had our first executive-level stand up meeting.” Juel served as the scrum master for the team, helping the team streamline the methods used to achieve their goals.
The advantages were legion. Issues were discussed as soon as they were identified, common approaches to rectify those issues were developed almost immediately and with broad buy-in from across the team, the consequences of those decisions were monitored real-time and any course correction could be made quickly. The speed of decision making hastened and the pathway to value shortened just as fast.
“There was so much uncertainty at the outset of the pandemic. What consumer spending was going to look like? How would the job market evolve? Having tools as a leadership team that allowed us to work differently to respond to this unprecedented set of challenges was exciting.” This fostered a broader agile cultural change across the company. As the executives learned more about these methods, they began to deploy them with their own teams. Thus, the speed of all teams began to hasten in ways akin to the change that the technology team had experienced in the early stages of its agile journey. Juel credits these changes as critical factors in allowing Synchrony Financial to launch both Verizon’s and Venmo’s first ever credit card programs. Both happened in record times remotely.
The agile approach led to creative thoughts on how best to enhance the experiences of employees during trying times. As it became clear that normalcy would not return by the time schools let out for the summer, it also became clear how disruptive it would be for many to have kids at home all day without typical summer outlets like camps. This is where the immersion of the executive team in the agile principles shined. The leaders of Technology, Marketing and Human Resources worked together to design the camp. “The goal was to help school age children to have engaging activities that would be inspiring,” Juel said. “Older kids could help design programs for younger kids. Employees served as mentors for all, and different employees took responsibility for developing different modules.” These would include everything from learning how to do a cartwheel to STEM classes.
Not only did this fill a need that was a source of anxiety for employees, but it strengthened the community across Synchrony Financial, as employees helped other employees’ children.
A little more than a year into the pandemic, in April 2021, Brian Doubles was named chief executive officer of the company. As with any leadership change of this magnitude, it provided a reason to rethink Synchrony Financial’s operating model. One of those would bring technology and operations together under Juel’s leadership, as she took on the role of chief technology and operating officer. As technology became more pervasive across the operations, the tie between the two became clearer, and in a period of dramatic change the value to be derived by linking these functions in a new way was profound.
As her influence inside of Synchrony Financial grew, so too did her reputation outside of the company, as well. She would be asked to join the board of Brighthouse Financial in the fourth quarter of 2021, joining a select but growing group of enterprise technology leaders who have been asked to join boards.
By thinking more expansively about her role as a technologist, Juel fostered resilience in the business operations (eventually taking over responsibility for business operations), resilience in the families of employees, and became a board-level tech executive in the process. This is a great example of the great work done in IT finding broader applications and increased value through the creative thought process of a strong leader.
