The 10 Influential Marketing Leaders to watch in 2019

Vol.4/ Issue-14

www.insightssuccess.com April 2019

The 10

Inuential Marketing Leaders to Watch in 2019

Leader of the Month

George Hughes, CMO The Star Entertainment Group

Chandar Pattabhiram

Imparting Wisdom Successful Personality Traits to Learn from Elon Musk

The Art of Leading Attributes of a Good Leader

E Thriving in the Multi-dimensional Sphere of Marketing

T

he world is constantly evolving through the new technological trends and with different aspects of business. One such aspect is marketing that no business can overlook. From traditional practices such as advertisement through television, print ads, radio space to digitalized practices such as search engine optimization (SEO), content marketing, social media marketing (SMM), and email marketing, marketing sphere has seen a drastic change.

Thus, the job of marketing has become more convenient as well as complex at the same time; as marketing leaders have to perform several tasks to reach out to their potential customers. Despite these differences of modern and traditional marketing practices, many leaders have smoothly carried out all the marketing functions and achieved the desirable results.

Being one of the foremost components of business management, marketing is present in all stages of the business. It communicates business offerings to potential customers and thus, requires strenuous efforts. This job role needs leaders, who hold attributes such as ability to intrigue, effective sales approach, sound communication, flexibility, resourcefulness, adaptability, and accountability. By effectively carrying out these responsibilities, there are some marketers, who are pioneering the marketing world with new possibilities.

With an intent to exhibit the significant contributions and inspiring journey of some of the world’s most influential CMO’s, Insights Success has compiled its list of “The 10 Influential Marketing Leaders to Watch in 2019”. These leaders have been at the frontline of digital transformation by their novel approaches of communicating a product or services.

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Internet led to digitalization; Digitalization enhanced Marketing; Through Marketing, businesses prevails.

Hitesh Dhamani

Driven with the perception, ‘In marketing, there aren’t markets - there are only buyers’, and embedded with the perfect blend of above mentioned abilities, a marketer for life, Chandar Pattabhiram, the CMO of Coupa Software, is the cover feature of our special issue. In his extensive career, he has held marketing leadership roles at startups like Cast Iron and Badgeville, fast-growth public companies like Coupa and Marketo, and some of the largest and most successful global companies like IBM. The remarkable contribution he brought to the marketing table at all of these companies is recognized by prominent social platforms across the world including LinkedIn. In June 2017, Chandar was recognized by LinkedIn as one of the top 5 CMOs in the world to follow for thought-leadership in the digital marketing domain.

The CMO’s strategic and executional abilities go hand in hand with high levels of responsibility and accountability. George Hughes, the CMO of The Star Entertainment Group is one such C-suite leader, who is featured as CMO of the month in our issue. The depth of his experiences across direct and digital marketing, marketing communications, product development, and corporate development have him positioned to help drive The Star’s brand in a highly competitive tourism and entertainment industry.

Delve in to more such inspiring stories and lessons from many such significant marketing leaders in this issue and reap the fruits of motivation. Also, make sure to scroll through the articles written by our in-house editorial team and CXO standpoints of some of the leading industry experts to have a brief taste of the sector.

Happy reading!

Contents 36

46

Incentives Solutions

Tech-Know Insights

Rethinking the Products of Today for a Better Tomorrow

What a tech CEO can teach your business about digital

58 Purpose Driven The Importance of Purpose

Cover Story

Chandar

10

Pattabhiram A Marketer for Life!

Articles 52

42

30 Industry Lessons

The Art of Leading

Role of Laboratory Information Management System in Manufacturing Sectors

Attributes of a Good Leader

Imparting Wisdom Successful Personality Traits to Learn from Elon Musk

Leader of the Month

20

George Hughes An Avid Marketer Aiming to Improve Customer Experience

April CritchďŹ eld

An Enthusiastic Marketing Leader

24

Jennifer Deutsch RedeďŹ ning Global Marketing Approach

28

Micheline Nijmeh Signifying Innovative Marketing Approach

34

Mike Fox

A Marketing Forerunner Who Makes A Difference!

Ric Navarro

38

Setting Benchmarks in Global Marketing and Communications

44

Stephany Zoo Creating Robust Marketing Experience

50

Ulrike Lemke

RedeďŹ ning Medical Innovation

56

Editor-in-Chief Pooja M. Bansal Managing Editor Anish Miller

Executive Editor

Assistant Editors

Bhushan Kadam

Jenny Fernandes Rohit Chaturvedi

Visualizer

Art & Design Director

Associate Designer

David King

Amol Kamble

Sanket Zirpe

Senior Sales Manager Co-designer

Co-designer Priyanka Rajage

Business Development Manager

Passi D.

Peter Collins

Marketing Manager

Sales Executives

John Matthew

David, Kevin, Vishnu

Technical Head

Business Development Executives

Jacob Smile

Steve, Anish, Alan, Anup

Technical Specialist Aditya

Digital Marketing Manager Marry D'Souza

SME-SMO Executive Prashant Chevale

Research Analyst Andy Mitter

Database Management Stella Andrew

Circulation Manager Robert Brown

Technology Consultant David Stokes

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Cover Story

Chandar Pattabhiram CMO Coupa Software

Chandar

Pattabhiram A Marketer for Life!

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Be a Greek and a Roman: bring the thoughtfulness and insightfulness of the ancient Greeks while bringing the great building skills of the ancient Romans to create the ultimate marketing machine.

R

emember the interview scene from Wolf of Wall Street, in which Leonardo Dicaprio asks candidates to sell him a pen? Now, what does that scene stand for? The forty-five seconds scene perfectly portrays the key attribute a marketer requires; an ability to intrigue. In the field of marketing, evoking the buying emotion of a customer by intriguing is the absolute purpose. Whether you are selling a pen or a billion-dollar cruise, you must know how to make the process of selling interesting. However, impressing personnel of different ages, interests, and emotions in a single product is quite a challenge, isn’t it?

Comprehending the potential customer and need of the hour paves its way here. Someone with these capabilities can be a successful marketer. But becoming a world’s leading marketer demands an unwavering and evolving vision beyond all.

With the idea to exhibit the inspiring journey and insights of some of the world’s most influential CMO’s, Insights Success proudly presents an exclusive edition of ‘The 10 Influential Marketing Leaders to watch in 2019’ Driven with the perception, ‘In marketing, there aren’t markets - there are only buyers’, and embedded with the perfect blend of above mentioned abilities, a marketer for life, Chandar Pattabhiram, CMO of Coupa Software, is the cover feature of our special issue. In his extensive career, he has held marketing leadership roles at startups like Cast Iron and Badgeville, fast-growth public companies like Coupa and Marketo, and some of the largest and most successful global companies like IBM. The remarkable contribution he brought to the marketing table at all of these companies is recognized by prominent social platforms across the world including LinkedIn. In June 2017, Chandar was recognized by LinkedIn as one of the top 5 CMOs in the world to follow for thought-leadership in the digital marketing domain.

First Little Steps As Chandar coins it, an influential leader is a combination of training and DNA -- it requires a natural gene for their function, and a passion for it. Some people are born wanting to be doctors, some lawyers, others

engineers. For Chandar, it was his interest in a range of activities, from advertising, to public speaking, to theater, that helped forge his path in marketing.

Early in his life, a family member shared an important piece of advice that shaped his career in marketing: “perception is reality.” He learned early in his career that a CMO doesn’t have to - and probably shouldn’t - be the best at everything but needs to be know how to bring everything together. The job is like a conductor and his orchestra. It is about bringing together the best instrumentalists that are masters at their craft and empowering them to excel and produce a harmonized hymn that ultimately achieves your objectives together.

Hence, as a marketing leader he strives to spot and cultivate tomorrow’s leaders by identifying the candidates that reflect the core values and attributes that make up to the team’s culture.

Being a team player, Chandar claims, “As a marketer, you have to market your company and the product, of course, but you also have to market your team’s work effectively. You can do a lot of marketing activities and look busy, but ultimately you want to focus on the ones that move the needle and then market those wins effectively.”

Enriching Experiences Beneath the surface of almost every great success story are stories of failures that have laid the foundation.

Chandar recalls an experience at Cast Iron Systems where he learned about the challenges of not crystalizing product market fit. Despite having a groundbreaking product (the first appliance offering for integration), the team of marketers did not find early traction because of product market fit: the differentiating attribute for marketing was simplicity, but the customer was Fortune 100 companies looking for comprehensiveness, not simplicity. It turned out they were trying to sell an iPod to a buyer looking for large professional-grade stereo systems to run concerts.

Upon the inception of SaaS and Cloud markets during this timeframe, the team quickly discerned that it is not the Fortune 500 but the “Unfortunate 5000”- the

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Never confuse effort with results.

unfortunately often ignored midmarket companies that couldn’t handle the cost or complexity of the traditional integration products - that truly yearned for its differentiation and offered the best product-market fit.

By maniacally focusing on this segment, Chandar and his team ensured its success. “You need to find product market fit where you can target a market that yearns and values the attributes you can offer,” Chandar asserts.

Pertaining to this experience, he learned to pick winners like Coupa Software by making sure there is a large market and real pressing need for the product(s), so it’s not a “nice to have” but a “must have.”

Chandar states, “You have to fail fast and know how to lose to win, and I’ve learned a lot from my failures as well as my success to help shape my journey of today.”

Another key area of learning he witnessed was around talent. He believes everyone has an individual brand that you need to embrace. As a leader, you must live and breathe working to cultivate those brands to help achieve everyone achieve success for themselves, and the greater good of the team.“True leadership comes when you grasp that and when you wake up in the morning; it’s not about powering your brand, but empowering theirs,” says Chandar. The greatest tool you have as a leader is how to intrinsically motivate by building individuals’ reputations and showcasing their success through recognition. Thus, in organizations like Coupa today, the core values are not just words but are intrinsic in the foundational fabric of the company.

Listen, Learn and Enable During his career, Chandar has had the privilege of learning from some of the world’s best B2B marketers, gaining the practical know how of the three pillars of marketing (product, demand generation, and corporate/brand marketing) and how to build an integrated approach that combines these three elements into the ultimate marketing machine.

For developing and articulating brand value, Chandar suggests listening to customers and prospects to get their perspective. He states,“Take a listen, learn, and enable approach. It’s about developing and articulating your brand by looking from the outside in.”

“Learn and understand the true differentiating attributes that made you win or lose; and enable your team to distill all this insight to design your swords and shields messaging and approach that will help you articulate your differentiation in an engaging way,” he adds.

A Combination of Emotion and Intellect According to Chandar, marketing starts with an understanding of who the buyer persona is and tailoring a message that evokes emotion to influence the decision making of that persona. This requires a combination of Einstein and Spielberg.

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Use recognition as an intrinsic motivator to instill a sense of purpose in your team while at the same time maniacally showcasing their success.

The Einstein approach is the science of marketing, grounded in quantitative and data-driven analysis of your ideal customer that can be used to determine the “plays” you are targeting. Only then can you fuel rinse and repeat motions that can be driven across distinct product offerings. This data-driven approach extends to a keen understanding of the return on marketing investment across all programs and making sure any available dollar spent on marketing is done so efficiently to drive impact.

The Spielberg approach is getting a personal understanding of your buyer to build and tell emotive stories that resonate with them in a way that’s distinct and meaningful. This practice allows you to build awareness that is relevant, drive influence in their decision making process, and engage them at every point in their journey.

As the CMO at Coupa, Chandar encourages these approaches to address three distinct personas the company’s business spend management platform appeals to -- procurement, finance and IT. There’s a unique anatomy to every deal that Coupa does based on each persona. It is grounded in a value message that resonates with that persona and draws an emotional, meaningful connection.

AI Driven Future The future of marketing is promising and the implementation of innovative technology is adding more value to the purpose of marketing. Chandar is also

certain about these sustainable shifts, and believes there are two AIs that will lead the marketing revolution.

Firstly, he notes, AI (artificial intelligence) and, more importantly ML (machine learning), are starting to have an exponential impact on the science of marketing - from chat-bot interactions for sales/SDRs, to the ideal customer profile determination, multi-channel orchestration and the social pulse of customers. He highlights how companies like Coupa are applying AI to powerful community intelligence, resulting in AI-driven insights and benchmarking to each customer based on the collective intellect of the entire community of customers.

He also sheds light on another AI, Authentic Interactions.

He indicates today is the day of brand authenticity.

Brand and culture are not distinct - they are one in the same. Customers are looking to support brands that adhere to the cultural values they hold dear and in order to do that, every brand has to be built inside out - where your company culture permeates to your customer through the product you deliver and the way you market it. He feels advocacy is an important part of “authentic interactions.” Our peer-bound world that hangs on the influence of advocates is impacting the decision making of both B2B and B2C customers. Having a programmatic focus on advocacy on both owned and earned channels (which lend an air of authenticity to your brand) is a key way for companies to drive customer acquisition in the future.

Stairway to Marketing Heaven At Coupa Marketing, Chandar is focused on the company’s Stairway to Marketing Heaven - Awareness, Acquisition and Advocacy. In the times ahead, he envisions driving awareness and building deep emotional connections with Coupa’s customer community; fostering closer synergies with sales to successfully drive acquisition and incremental business; and introducing (and scaling) the right advocacy programs to build customers for life who express passion about their experience with the brand.

“There is nothing more thrilling than helping a company achieve its greatest potential by telling the right emotive stories to win deals and building a high-impact marketing team. I thrive on achieving the perfect

harmony that enables you to establish an emotional connection that wins the mind of your buyer for life. This is much easier said than done, but central to being influential.” And that’s Chandar Pattabhiram for you.

Want to be a CMO? Having a disruptive product is not enough to achieve global success - a team of skilled marketers who actually display its uniqueness to customers is equally essential.

Be it door-to-door sellers or a digital marketing executive, every marketer plays a crucial part in ensuring the success of the product.

Being one of the world’s most influential CMOs, Chandar has supported exceptional people who are now CMOs in both public and private companies, and he further aims to cultivate great CMOs of tomorrow through nurturing insights. His blogs and interviews have had a great impact on budding CMOs across world.

And surely they will be helpful to our readers too.

He particularly advises them to harness storytelling skills as these will be one of the most important skills as a CMO. He highlights understanding that emotion is the precursor to a go-to-market motion. According to him, ultimate success is about making that emotive connection and winning the mind of the buyer.

Understand that connection and let that drive everything you do across all aspects of marketing (product, corporate, brand, and demand generation).

Chandar also motivates a data-driven mindset of “show me the romi” (return on marketing investment). As what gets measured gets funded.

Finally, he asks to harness the ability for contextual communication. He exclaims, ‘Become a marketer for marketing, and market your marketing as a brand.’

Learn to communicate the impact of marketing to different constituents based on what they care about.

What your CFO cares about is the empirical impacts and what the CRO cares about is how you are driving pipeline sales effectiveness and win rates. Identify their objectives, and align your communication to show how you are driving progress against them.

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George Hughes An Avid Marketer Aiming to Improve Customer Experience

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arketing is an intoxicating blend of art and science. It involves understanding human behaviour and creating or inviting a change in the customer mindset to ensure superior results. In equal measure it is dependent on measurement and analysis for insights and learnings. The ultimate mix of left and right sides of the brain. As customers become more selective, even cynical, when making decisions on brands, products, and services, marketing is key to driving consideration.

Excellence without the differentiation a targeted marketing campaign can deliver will not necessarily turn the revenue or market-share dial for a business. It is for these reasons the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) is considered crucial to an organisation’s growth and success. The CMO’s strategic and executional abilities go hand in hand with high levels of responsibility and accountability. George Hughes, CMO of The Star Entertainment Group is one such C-suite leader.

The depth of his experiences across direct and digital marketing, marketing communications, product development, and corporate development have him positioned to help drive The Star’s brand in a highly competitive tourism and entertainment industry. The Star’s vision is to become the leading integrated resort company in Australia. George Hughes has that at the forefront of his daily planning.

Below are highlights from the interview conducted between George Hughes and Insights Success: Give a brief overview of your background as an influential marketing leader.

I never expected to have a career in marketing. I started my career in the early 2000s on a graduate program at one of the largest banks in Ireland. Whilst on the graduate program I qualified as a chartered accountant but quickly realised that my passion (and some may say talents!) lay elsewhere.

Working as a commercial analyst on a range of growth and cost containment programs instilled in me a deep appreciation for the drivers of profitability; an essential ingredient for modern day marketing. It wasn’t until years later when I moved into a strategy role that I found my real passion - customers and consumer behaviour.

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Over the years I have had the great privilege of working for some of the most recognisable brands in Australia and in the U.K. I tend to gravitate towards challenging roles. The commonality is usually the need to make instrumental change whether that is setting up a business unit from scratch, turning around the profitability of a loyalty program, overhauling the marketing mix of a wellestablished consumer brand, developing a suite of consumer products or building a challenger brand in a mature market.

I’ve learned that fundamental change requires bravery, calculated risk-taking, commerciality, focus and tenacity.

Success comes down to people; do you have the right team?

Is there diversity in thought and experience? Do they trust each other? Can they collaborate for effect? Do they understand and are they passionate about their customers?

How do you diversify your organization’s offerings to appeal to the target audience?

In too many companies the marketing team operates as a communications or campaign execution function.

Exceptional marketing requires a combination of direct accountability for core functional areas (brand, creative, channel, etc.) and an influence role in developing or evolving the core value proposition of the business. The Star Entertainment Group’s marketing team plays an integral role in bringing the voice of the customer, the competitive market and the brand to the table. Our marketing team has a seat at the table in each of our business units and is involved in the development stage of everything from the design of a new bar or restaurant (such as Chuuka, our first off property signature restaurant at Jones Bay Wharf) through to the planning of The Queens Wharf development in Brisbane. Great marketing teams are customer obsessed. They know how to collaborate, engage and influence their colleagues. They also know their company’s point of difference and can communicate this to their target audience in an engaging and compelling manner.

What were the past experiences, achievements or lessons that have shaped your journey?

I’ve had my fair share of “career defining moments”.

April 2019|

Concept image only

Sky Deck which will be a feature at Queen’s Wharf Brisbane

Foyer of The Darling hotel in Sydney | April 2019

The Darling hotel at the Gold Coast

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Most of it is oriented around the role of leadership. One of those was when I was in my mid 20’s and living in the UK; I was given the opportunity to lead the sale of a financial services business. I reported directly to a member of the executive team for this project. The disposal process proved to be a challenging one. I was young and had limited experience in managing a program of work of this scale and was operating in a high-pressure environment.

Thankfully, I worked for a very experienced leader who was adept at getting the best out of me and the team. I’ve gleaned from my mentor the importance of recruiting for potential, attitude and ability to learn. In addition, she also taught me the importance of fostering a positive work culture where personal accountability and calculated risk taking is encouraged.

What were the primal challenges and roadblocks you faced during the initial phase of your career as a marketing leader?

Like most people, I’ve had a few challenges to deal with in my career. There have been times when a presentation has tanked, a campaign hasn’t delivered to plan, or a business case rejected. I’ve encountered poor leadership behavior and inappropriate behavior. On reflection, those challenges have been instrumental in my development. I’ve learned to be more resilient, patient, planned and philosophical. I’ve learned to speak up and to always stay true to my values.

It’s taken a (long) while but I’ve also learned not to be so hard on myself when things don’t go to plan.

What inspires you to become an influential marketing leader?

I am passionate about creating impact and tend to gravitate towards challenging projects. I find inspiration everywhere – from the small moments through to the big things in life.

It could be through music, art, a story, an advertising campaign, a new business venture or a business transformation. The common thread tends to be turning an idea into reality. I am continually in awe of human creativity, passion and resilience.

“Surround yourself with

a motley crew who are diverse in their background, thinking and style.

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The Star Gold Coast on the night of The Darling hotel opening

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April 2019|

Leader of the Month Where do you see yourself in the near future and what are your future goals?

Over the next several years The Star and its partners could invest as much as $6 billion into further developing its tourism and entertainment destinations across South East Queensland and Sydney. It’s an exciting time to be part of this growth agenda. To support the successful execution of these projects, we have transformed our marketing function. We have moved from a decentralised, generalist marketing structure to a centralised functional specialist model. I’m really pleased with the quality of talent we have in our business, augmented with recent external appointments. My priority is to lead our team through this exciting stage of development and deliver exceptional results for our customers, internal business teams and ultimately our shareholders.

What is your advice for budding and emerging marketing leaders?

Jack Welsh summed it up well when he said “before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you are a leader, success is all about growing others”. Invest your time and energy in growing your skill set, seek out feedback even if it is confronting and finally, never stop learning.

George Hughes CMO The Star Entertainment Group

| April 2019

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April

Critchfield

An Enthusias c Marke ng Leader

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Enlightening the new edge of marke ng approach.

April Critchfield CMO Zurixx

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n an interview with Insights Success, the CMO, of Zurixx, April Critchfield, sheds light on the company’s cutting-edge solutions that create the best financial education programs and shares her insights about the company’s core competencies and its future. She has also broadly discussed about her overall journey as a marketing aspirant.

Considering these influential and inspirational aspects, Insights Success recognizes April Critchfield as one of the influential marketing leaders to watch in 2019.

Below are highlights from the interview conducted between April and Insights Success: Give a brief overview of your background as an influential marketing leader.

I think it’s very important to lead with action through example, and to encourage people to think for themselves and make

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April 2019|

decisions. If you have expectations of your team members, and you can’t keep your own deadlines, you can’t really expect to have other people meet the same deadlines. For example – being on time to work…. It’s a simple act, and it’s something 99% of the time you have complete control over. But, if you’re showing up to work late every day, then you can’t expect to have your team members keep their commitments to also show up to work on time. I also have been one who appreciates knowing how my role and my actions affect other people and departments. I like explaining the big picture and how everyone’s role makes a difference – I feel it is the best way to encourage forwardthinking among your team members. When people come to me and ask a question or come to me with a problem, I will always answer like this: “no, and this is why” or “yes, and this is why.” We work through things together and I think helping team members come up with alternative solutions to problems empowers them to be stronger employees, and better thinkers.

What were the past experiences, achievements or lessons that have shaped your journey?

I’ve been fortunate to have great leaders shape me into who I am. I have worked in the corporate world for over 20 years and have been able to grow and take bits and pieces of each experience, leadership style and challenge with me along my journey. I have had influential leaders in every workplace that I’ve been a part of, and I can look back on every opportunity and say what I took away from it. I also have a few moments that I don’t like to remember fondly… the way I acted or behaved in certain situations, especially early on in my career. Not knowing how to handle stressful phone calls, meetings, or confrontation issues… but I wouldn’t change it.

Because of those (not so great) moments, I learned some pretty valuable things about myself. I know that it’s important to breathe, take a minute to let things settle, and to have patience, especially in stressful situations. Being able to go with the flow and proactively work to make a hard moment better, is a pretty amazing quality. I’m still working on it.

How do you strategize your game plans to tackle competition in the market?

I think being able to recognize growing trends and acting on them is instrumental in tackling competition in the market.

There is always something you’re going to see or like that you can take and make it your own, or improve upon. You want your competition to think of you as an industry leader, not the other way around. Don’t wait for your competition to come up with the next big thing. Do it first. That being said – it’s also very important to involve people in the beginning stages of strategy. Utilize other people’s strengths and allow collaboration. It will save a lot of time and energy when you can feed off each other’s ideas, and work through a game plan together. | April 2019

What were the primal challenges and roadblocks you faced during the initial phase of your career as a marketing leader?

I didn’t have a lot of marketing specific jobs or experience, so that alone was the biggest challenge…my background was in communication, accounting and analysis, so being able to combine that experience with the creativity of marketing was an amazing opportunity. I learned quickly about reaching out to others, managing vendors, trying new things, testing things out, and continuing education was key in the marketing world, it’s constantly changing. Marketing is so versatile, and being able to speak to a certain audience, and capture their attention through their response is a pretty fulfilling feeling.

What inspires you to become an influential marketing leader?

I don’t really see myself as “influential.” That’s kind of a tough question…. But I have had a lot of influential people guide and provide mentorship in my career. I strive to be like them, and to hold the same qualities that I’ve admired in other leaders. I have had people tell me that I’ve made a difference for them. That they’ve learned something from me, and it doesn’t matter what it is – if I have helped someone become a better version of themselves in any way, then I am happy with that!

Where do you see yourself in the near future and what are your future goals?

I want to always be learning and always be growing. I have a lot of things I still want to accomplish, like starting my own business, and getting more involved in my community.

What is your advice for budding and emerging marketing leaders?

Speak up! Remember, timing is everything. Make connections, network with people. Do things that might be out of your comfort zone. Do your research with the company, bring up fresh new ideas, and if your idea has already been brought up by someone else, and it didn’t work for some reason, find out why. Was it the timing? Was it the budget? Would it work now? Follow up and follow through.

About the Leader April Critchfield is the CMO at Zurixx, and a certified Professional in Marketing with a demonstrated history of working in the events services and live seminars industry.

She is a skilled marketing professional with a Bachelor’s of Science Degree in Communication, Organization & Speech from the University of Utah. April possesses the curiosity and ambition towards marketing. Initially an accounting background she enables her skillset in Negotiation, Budgeting, Customer Service, Advertising, and Event Management.

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Jennifer Deutsch CMO Park Place Technologies

Jennifer Deutsch 28|

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Redening Global Marketing Approach

April 2019|

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supportive and visionary leader challenges the traditional ways of doing things, while making an organizational impact well beyond their specific department.

Jennifer Deutsch, Chief Marketing Officer at Park Place Technologies, is described in exactly these terms. In an interview with Insights Success, she shed light on her journey as an influential marketing veteran, discussing her background, overall experiences and achievements along with Park Place’s core competencies and future.

Insights Success recognizes Jennifer Deutsch as one of the influential marketing leaders to watch in 2019.

Below are the highlights of the interview conducted between Jennifer and Insights Success: How do you diversify your organization’s offerings to appeal to the target audience?

We have a robust product development process that included several rounds of testing. Additionally, we established a Client Advisory Board that we engage with 6 to 10 times per year. We share our product road map with the CAB and ask for customer pain points that help us shape the global roadmap.

What were the past experiences, achievements or lessons that have shaped your journey?

My 25+ years on the client side, working for companies like Nestle and Marriott have provided me with fantastic B2C experiences and learnings focused on understanding the customer path to purchase as well as learning how to gain customer insights and understand market opportunities and how best to address these opportunities. My 10 years of agency experience have shaped the way that I approach problem solving, message development and creative development. | April 2019

How do you strategize your game plans to tackle competition in the market?

I work very closely with my global marketing team to develop categoryleading strategies and to identify technology and tools that can give Park Place Technologies an edge over the competition. Park Place has 9 new marketing operations tools that were introduced in 2018. Finding and identifying these tools was Job One, training and launching the tools was Job Two and integrating the tools has been Job Three and will be on going.

The high-tech approach Park Place is taking to marketing helps to win in the marketplace.

What were the primal challenges and roadblocks you faced during the initial phase of your career as a marketing leader?

I don’t see roadblocks. I view ‘obstacles’ as challenges and a form of entertainment!

Where do you see yourself in the near future and what are your future goals?

I love working at Park Place. We are in hyper-growth mode and being here has been the most exciting period of my career. I am working with the best team I have ever partnered with and hope to stay with Park Place until I retire!

What is your advice for budding and emerging marketing leaders?

Listen, learn, work hard, take risks, be a team player and think creatively.

About the Leader Jennifer Deutsch is a veteran of the marketing and brand development space, with over three decades of experience on both the in-house and agency sides. As Chief Marketing Officer of Park Place Technologies, Jennifer leads the company’s global marketing and communication teams, where she is focused on reinforcing its leadership in third-party data center maintenance and support from a global perspective. Jennifer has built a stellar

team of hand-selected marketers who have overseen 11 acquisitions during the past 20 months and have introduced a revolutionary, awardwinning, category-changing new product called ParkView ™. She and the team have launched new brand and product campaigns that have driven global brand awareness and captured 92% SOV in the category via an innovative content strategy, in what is today a growth-explosive category that 18 months ago was underdeveloped.

Jennifer is an advocate of mentorship across all levels, from the classroom to the boardroom. She is an innovative role model within Park Place Technologies, the broader technology industry, her local and regional community, and in her everyday life.

Not only does she raise the bar within her organization, but she puts mile markers in place for future leaders to come. Her efforts go above and beyond to ensure a bright future for women in STEM, and her strengths in mentorship of young employees, recruitment of team members and engagement in the local community. Jennifer is frequently cited as a source in marketing trade publications and podcasts, and selflessly shares her decades of experience with new and established team members across the U.S., the UK, LATAM and Asia. Her impact is personal yet global, direct yet company-wide. Additionally, her philanthropic efforts further magnify her selfless accomplishments within the medical and arts communities.

Jennifer is a humanitarian first, a pioneer second, and a role model.

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Role of

Laboratory Management System in Manufacturing Sectors

Information E

ven if an organization offers an outstanding series of creative products, it has to ensure that the quality is up to the mark. Being compassionate about quality management is quite essential for a business venture to become a promising manufacturer. Thus, quality is more likely to be a necessity rather than a want. It do plays a salient role in supply chain that has strengthened manufacturer’s belief of implicating information systems especially in laboratories for quality inspections on finished products and goods.

Similar to Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) has brought a disruptive change in traditional methods of supply-chain management. This technology acts as a reporting tool which allows researchers to input and store crucial data regarding the sample, such as schedule records, test-sample tracks, and also sample’s materialistic properties. Thus, it is quite obligatory for an organization to implement an adequate information system in an attempt to overrule all quality-related issues. Also, it often utilizes barcode generation for scanning in-process goods as well as finished products in an attempt to consume less time.

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Outlook on LIMS Utilizing to its full-potential LIMS operations customarily depend on the manufacturer and its requirements. Yet, there is a standard protocol on which the system mostly relies. It is deliberately designed to monitor and function on the various aspects of product quality management i.e. sample management. It handles the detailed records of each sample, and maintains accuracy in reducing the possibilities of the information getting mixed up in labs.

LIMS maintains the record of each and every unit, from a supplier to the researcher handling that sample. With such systems, the information tracking gets quite easier and could be fully automated, reducing the need for laboratory administration.

Implementing LIMS for workflow management aids a manufacturer to streamline the decision making process in the laboratory. The self-oriented system can automatically assign scientists regarding their tasks and even suggests the type of instruments required as per stated in the standard experiment module. Once the testing is completed, the system identifies and supplies April 2019|

Industry Lessons the sample for the further process.

Besides, many LIMS automatically cover ups various processes such as maintenance, inventory management and reporting. It is often useful for the instruments like centrifuges which generally face countless wear and tear, leading to variations in the readings. Such variations not only affect data analysis auditing but also, disrupt the calibration of the instruments. The use of LIMS system might vary from one organization to another, as the requirement of most of the industries is quite different.

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Equipment Calibration and Maintenance No industry can afford a failure in the quality checks.

Thus, many organizations spend loads of monetary assets over the laboratory maintenance and instruments calibration. With the LIMS system, an organization can surpass over unnecessary damages and monetary-cuts in laboratory. Apart from that, LIMS system must include maintenance records of the instruments used in testing, in an attempt to perform orderly preventive maintenance.

Due to the regular utilization, some instruments starts to show distortion that further affect the tests results. In case of depth micrometer, the instruction follows that it may require calibration every month or after every 50 uses. A manufacturer can improvise LIMS system, by including additional calibration instruction sheet which can be utilized by maintenance department thereafter.

Brief on Functions commonly found in LIMS Reporting: Irrespective of any category, every sector requires a prompt method to process out the reports.

Report helps organizations to analyze data and make further decisions based on it. From the ‘most used instruments’ to ‘lab-processing time’, it include all the required information flow from one unit to other.

Through implementing LIMS, organizations take a follow up and process audit trails of received information from such units. Yet, the level of difficulty varies with reports, as some may require higher custom coding to run while other export on Adobe PDF and MSWord.

EMR/EHR: Electronic Health Records is separate software, but some LIMSs includes EHR feature built-in mostly including patient reception queries and billing processes. Organizations mainly prefer on utilizing an all-encompassing system instead of software with singular capability. Integrating LIMS with such functions facilitate clinics with huge benefits while monitoring and maintaining a laboratory. It manages every bit of aspects

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such as data tracking over time, continuity in healthcare, reduced costs, gamut information, technology of prescriptions and result orientation.

Workflow Management: Automate workflows have often become a trail in businesses due to its ability to maintain a steady flow between various processes without any extra human efforts. Instead of focusing more on reducing work, it saves time taken for tasking complicated tasks. Hiring or Installing LIMS aids one to codify existing methods and procedures and could delegate the decision-making to the software. Say, if installed, it can take over on assigning jobs to scientists and can also pick out instruments, as per requirement. It only requires a strong command structure through which LIMS can operate much deliberately.

ERP: Enterprise Resource Planning software attains potential to manage inventory and like EHR, it is also self-processing software. Collaboration or say, integrating ERP into LIMSs is more favorable due to its high allowance in monitoring alerts over low-supplies, auto-calculation of storage capacity and location management. Through implementing LIMSs, one can surpass issues related to data transcription errors, turnaround time, WIP status, and statistical analysis and COA generation.

Aftermath of LIMS-integration in laboratories has been witnessed to be more efficient and been claimed as a reliable system by various manufacturers. Though the digital transformation has never failed to surprise the markets with its potential to bring out disruption, its many fruitful benefits are yet to be explored. One of such—mobile-friendly LIMS, is predicted to shift the traditional laboratories by delivering more compact experience to the manufacturers which sooner or later going to be trail among the lab-owners and manufacturers. Currently, it is focusing on improving environmental, petrochemical, health-care, bio-technology companies and R&D institutes.

April 2019|

Micheline Nijmeh Signifying Innovative Marketing Approach

Micheline Nijmeh Chief Marketing Officer Zscaler, Inc.

I

n an interview with Insights Success, the Chief Marketing Officer of Zscaler, Inc. Micheline Nijmeh sheds light on her journey as an influential marketing aspirant. She has also broadly discussed her background as a marketer, overall experiences and achievements along with the company’s core competencies and its future.

Considering these influential and inspirational aspects, Insights Success recognizes Micheline Nijmeh as one of the influential marketing leaders to watch in 2019.

Below are the highlights of the interview conducted between Micheline and Insights Success: Give a brief overview of your background as an influential marketing leader.

I have been in the tech industry for more than 20 years. I have been lucky to have worked in start-ups and large enterprises, taken companies public (and private), as well as been part of large growing organizations such as Salesforce.

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How do you diversify your organization’s offerings to appeal to the target audience?

As a marketer, it’s important to understand your buyer and their buying journey. Diversification of your offering is an important strategy, especially if you have penetrated the market. Your audience is always looking for ways to optimize their organization and processes while saving costs. Therefore, adjacent markets that compliment your existing solutions not only help with providing your customers with new offerings but, also reach new potential customers.

What were the past experiences, achievements or lessons that have shaped your journey?

I have been fortunate to work for incredible managers. They have always provided me with opportunities to learn and grow. Every opportunity or role I have taken, even ones that I may not have thoroughly enjoyed, has helped me learn and grow to where I am today — specifically, in demand April 2019|

generation. I recall being asked to be part of a demand gen team early in my career. I had not had the experience nor the interest, at the time. However, if it were not for that opportunity, I would not be running a marketing organization at a public company today.

How do you strategize your game plans to tackle competition in the market?

First, you have to know your competition inside and out. Understand their marketing and selling tactics just as much as their technology, and then put together a product and marketing SWOT analysis. Make sure your value proposition is differentiated and ensure your marketing (messaging, creative, tactics) stands out above them. Also, be sure your sales team is enabled and can articulate your message concisely, as well as be able to handle any “landmines” from the competitors.

Sales and Marketing need to have a unified strategy and approach.

What were the primal challenges and roadblocks you faced during the initial phase of your career as a marketing leader?

It’s been amazing to see the evolution of Marketing from being known as an event and advertising organization to a revenue/pipeline generating, valued organization. The ability to show the real benefit of Marketing amongst my executive peers was difficult when I didn’t have the data to support it.

Therefore, influencing company strategy was not always easy. With the onset of new marketing tools, this now has changed, and it’s inspiring to see Marketing “at the table,” helping shape strategy.

What inspires you to become an influential marketing leader?

The people! I love creating and building strategies and being able to do that alongside my team inspires me to come into work every day. I enjoy seeing how team members can grow within their career. As a leader of a global organization, I always focus on | April 2019

cross-regional collaboration. As noted

by Ken Blanchard, “None of us is as smart as all of us.” Therefore, being able to see an organization work together to build great marketing programs and grow together is inspiring.

Where do you see yourself in the near future and what are your future goals?

I see myself continuing to lead global organizations whether it’s in marketing or within a product business unit.

About the Leader Micheline Nijmeh is the Chief Marketing Officer at Zscaler, Inc. and mainly known for her innovative and proven marketing approach who possesses a balance of strategic thinking, data-driven decision making with proven results. She has also recognized for transforming marketing programs that creates demand, delivers customer value, and increases company revenues.

Micheline have extensive experience in marketing to the enterprise with solid

Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships.

—Micheline Nijmeh Chief Marketing Ofcer Zscaler, Inc. What is your advice for budding and emerging marketing leaders?

Besides executing on your strategies, I always advise emerging leaders to identify what their personal brand is and then live up to it and make it known within your company. People will remember what you are good at and may offer you additional opportunities that fit your strength.

My second advice is sometimes lateral career moves can be a great stepping stone to large upward moves. The more you learn and experience, the more value you can provide at your next opportunity.

accomplishments in all aspects of global marketing, all delivered with creativity and focused on execution and results. She has also been recognized for her unique blend of driving change and of building brand and demand generation strategies, creating successful lead generation and adoption programs, and the ability to communicate effectively, complemented by a “go get ’em” attitude.

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Rethinking the Products of Today for a Better Tomorrow

Celia Pool Co-Founder DAME

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April 2019|

Incentives Solutions

T

he world is finally waking up to the single-use plastic crisis.

Over the last 10 years we have created more plastic than the whole of the last century combined. Half of the plastic we create is used just once, and then thrown away, taking 500 years to decompose. By 2050, the oceans are predicted to contain more plastic than fish. The plastic crisis is now too big for recycling alone to fix.

Global governments, businesses and consumers need to collaborate quickly to make impactful change before it’s too late. However, change is difficult when environmentally damaging habits have become so entrenched and often appear more financially appealing.

Technology is helping in this fight.

Reusable water bottles are now widespread, and apps that help you locate drinking water refill stations are now emerging. At the same time, reusable coffee cup technology is addressing the half a trillion disposable coffee cups discarded every year. Such items are gaining increasing social currency with consumers, who are keen to display them as markers of their environmental conscience. This revolution is encouraging, but what about the products that people aren’t so willing to talk about?

100 billion menstrual products are thrown away globally every year.

These are single-use, mostly made of plastic and cannot be recycled. You can choose not to have a coffee, you cannot choose not to have a period. Reusable options (e.g. menstrual cups, cloth pads) have been on the market for decades, yet the adoption rate has been slow. The primary barrier to entry is the fear of habit change.

So how do we bring about a revolution? The answer is keep it simple. And take time to consider consumer psychology. As humans, we abhor change. We are creatures drawn towards the comfort of the known. By | April 2019

keeping habit change to a minimum, consumers are much more likely to adopt a new idea.

This was our philosophy at DAME when we created the world’s first reusable tampon applicator. We ensured the design was familiar and intuitive, so women did not have to compromise on their convenient, established rituals. We knew that hygiene could be a significant barrier to entry, so we worked with leading micro-biologists and medical engineers and used the best medical grade, antimicrobial materials on the market. As a result, the consumer only must rinse the applicator in cold water after use to keep it clean. Simple steps, minimal habit change.

However, it is challenging to tackle an issue that has such little awareness.

Menstruation has historically been shrouded in shame, fear and discretion.

It is not a topic openly talked about.

This is a problem with feminine care as a whole: it is frequently dismissed and the women trying to address it are critically underfunded. In 2017 female founders got 2% of the $85 billion VC investment pot. About 8% of partners at the top British VC firms are women.

According to Harvard Business Review, stereotypes about female entrepreneurs persist: women are overly cautious, shy away from growth, have insufficient resources and consequently their ventures underperform. Yet there is no performance data to support these stereotypes.

How are products used by women supposed to change in line with human and environmental needs, when they aren’t given appropriate recognition or have women involved in all stages of the process? Women need to be given more of a voice if we are to create meaningful change. The world of AI is already highlighting the need to diverse away from male, white, Western coders if we are to avoid

unconscious bias in the robots of tomorrow. Amazon had to abandon an AI recruitment tool that was discriminating against women, instead favoring prospects who mirrored Amazon’s existing male engineer workforce. At DAME women have been involved in every stage of the journey, not as a token gesture but as an absolute necessity.

However, our overarching business strategy goes beyond issues of inclusivity to incorporate a wider mission. DAME was founded on the belief that business can be used as a force for good. We use this core value to guide every decision we make in the business, bringing great clarity to our route forward. By communicating our genuine and authentic commitment to this mission, we hope that our message will quickly be picked up by those eager to join a movement for change.

To date, we have seen this happen not only with our consumers and the press, but with employees. People are increasingly drawn to companies doing good. 75% of millennials would take a pay cut to work at a socially responsible company.

All this strengthens our resolve at DAME to continue to tackle critical problems that are not openly acknowledged, that are significantly underfunded, and that have historically been controlled by giant monopolies.

Today we are focusing on menstrual products, but our vision is to revolutionize the entire bathroom.

These are big mountains, but having strong guiding principles makes the navigation much easier.”

-Words by Celia Pool Co-Founder of DAME For more information visit wearedame.co

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I

n an interview with Insights Success, the CMO of Culture Trip, Mike Fox, sheds light on the company’s cuttingedge solutions which are boosting the startup operating in travel, media and entertainment. Here he shares the company’s core competencies and his overall journey as a unique marketing leader. Considering these influential and inspirational aspects, Insights Success recognizes Mike Fox as one of the influential marketing leaders to watch in 2019.

Below are highlights from the interview conducted between Mike and Insights Success: Give a brief overview of your background as an influential marketing leader.

I’ve built and managed both iconic and new brands from Sony, CNN, and Snapple to Facebook and my current role at Culture Trip. One of the early architects of social marketing through the work done at Facebook, I’ve become passionate about building and scaling startups through a blend of brand, growth, and product marketing. I was on the marketing, sales and monetization team at Facebook and the big question was how we were going to make money on all these users. That remains a key question for all marketers. At Culture Trip, I have worked to build a hard-hitting marketing team for an emerging brand, starting from scratch in 2018. The team now comprises leaders from tech and the travel industry.

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April 2019|

How do you diversify your organization’s offerings to appeal to the target audience?

As primarily an online/mobile brand, our marketing is built to blend offline and online experiences for the audience to discover or participate in.

Since our company is about getting people to travel and experience cultures around the world, diversifying across both spaces leads to inspiration and ultimately action.

What were the past experiences, achievements or lessons that have shaped your journey?

Work as a brand planner at ad agencies gave me sharp consumer focus and the ability to find a key insight to drive the work. Work as Director of Marketing at Snapple gave me the experience of managing a business. Work at CNN immersed me in cross-platform marketing and content marketing.

Facebook gave me the passion to work for startups, an expertise in scaling businesses, and understanding of how to build/manage high-performing teams. In particular Facebook gave me the experience to manage high growth and to build marketing strategies that can scale and work internationally.

Culture Trip is giving me the opportunity to build a new brand in the minds of consumers as we are a travel and media company with relatively low brand recognition but huge potential in English speaking markets and globally.

How do you strategize your game plans to tackle competition in the market?

The principle that matters most is to create a “difference that makes a difference.” If your strategy does not accomplish this, it will not be meaningful or useful to consumers.

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What were the primal challenges and roadblocks you faced during the initial phase of your career as a marketing leader?

The challenge was to figure out how to solve problems without being within a traditional training program. For example, being in brand management at P&G is an amazing training ground, it creates incredible skills and experience. I was trying to figure it out as I went and at times could feel like I was “punching in the dark.” Although, that challenge has helped me enormously later on my career as it gave me a very strong muscle for solving ambiguous problems. Often marketing can be the forcing function for the other teams and also the most visible connector that gives a company internal coherence and momentum.

That has been almost invaluable in the startup world.

What inspires you to become an influential marketing leader?

I love marketing. I’m a complete nerd about it. So, the inspiration at this point comes from building teams that build brands and help great talent reach their potential.

Where do you see yourself in the near future and what are your future goals?

I see myself bringing Culture Trip to a global audience and disrupting the travel-media-tech space that we sit in the middle of. My goal is to create a new category of business from the work we do here.

What is the future of technology and marketing?

My answer is that right now the most interesting thing is augmented reality.

People talk about virtual reality but for Culture Trip we really want people to

do things in the real world, to book and to travel, and augmented reality is how eventually you can seamlessly integrate online and offline at the same time. If you can imagine someone walking down the street, and looking over at a building and augmented reality is able to tell them the history of the building. All that is related back to the content and the data that they are interacting with. That is going to become a major enhancement and a major opportunity for marketers presenting a more seamless and much more interesting way to communicate with consumers and users.

About the Leader Mike Fox is the CMO at Culture Trip, a travel, media and technology company with offices in New York, London, and Tel Aviv. He has also worked as Senior Level Marketing Executive with over 20 years’ experience in both consumer and business-to-business markets. In Mike’s early career he started working at advertising agencies, before moving client-side to Sony Electronics and Snapple Beverages. Next he joined CNN’s Strategic Integration Group, where he created multi-media content platforms for some of the world’s largest brands. Next he worked in CNN’s Strategic Integration Group before, in 2009, he joined Facebook’s monetization team and helped build the teams that grew Facebook’s annual advertising business to $12 Billion in five years. Since leaving Facebook in 2014, Mike has worked as CMO and CRO on early stage startups before joining Culture Trip.

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Attributes of a Good

Leader

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April 2019|

The Art of Leading

L

eadership is about using the power of a position to empower a group of people in order to attain a common goal. A leader’s task is to implement the plans that usually look good on paper, through a delegated team, in a specific time with an ongoing motion. She/he may use the traditional method or may think out of the box. It depends on the leader as how to do it; the ultimate motive is to get the job done.

Although, each and every individual has a different approach on leadership, some might say it is about setting examples, some might say it is about sharing the authority; what matters is, taking the right decision when it is most needed.

Leadership varies from one organization to another. An organization is a dynamic body and creates new probabilities every now and then. And with new probabilities, come new challenges.

Although, it is impossible to overcome every challenge, the business environment has adopted certain leadership styles for the efficiency of business: The Participative Leader Participative Leadership is the process of sharing authority with the work force in order to get optimum efficiency. The team, after getting access to certain powers, works responsibly to accomplish the goals set by its leader. The shared leadership also helps in case of any requirement of change, as the employees adapt quickly in such environment.

Incidentally, this style of leadership fits best in a scenario when there is a limitation of time.

The Transformational Leader A transformational leader inspires the team through effective communication and an intellectual environment.

However, these individuals require

| April 2019

more detail oriented managers to successfully implement their strategies.

Transformational Leadership is considered among the most effective employees of the organization. One of the examples of this type of leadership is when a leader is assigned on a higher level for effective environment.

The Transactional leader The transactional leadership, as the name suggests, enables the leader to incentivize the team corresponding to their performance. The team gets rewarded when it attains the goals and the Leader has the power to review the results and act accordingly when the team fails to do the same. The goals and the strategy to attain them are decided by the leader and the team itself.

The Situational leader Situational leadership is a theory that the best leader will adapt to the required leadership style according to need of the hour. A Situational leader may adopt democratic style while discussion business with senior executive, but may switch to transactional at the time of team review. However every individual has a natural style of leadership and it may be difficult to switch roles at a certain point of time.

Qualities of a good leader There is an old proverb that says, “Give a Man a Fish, and You Feed Him for a Day. Teach a Man to Fish, and You Feed Him for a Lifetime.” So is the case with leadership. One of the basic qualities of a Leader is to pass on the leadership skills.

Following are some of the qualities of a good leader:

communication grows. Especially, when it comes to leadership, there is no scope for lack of communication. A Leader who fails to develop this skill is looked up as incompetent, because it is his job to send the message loud and clear. Although, it is also important to listen as it is an integral part of communication.

Integrity C.S. Lewis said, “Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching.” Be it giving credit to one of the team members or be it admitting a mistake, a leader wears integrity as a badge of honor. They do what is right, no matter what. Ÿ

Empowerment As mentioned earlier, Leadership is about using the power of one’s position to empower a group of people in order to attain a common goal. A good leader shares his authority with the team in order to get the job done. By doing this, he shows confidence in the team and obliged by the gesture, the team works with full enthusiasm to accomplish the goal. Ÿ

Decision making There is risk in decision to making.

Great leaders take great decisions when the stake is high and it is the success of those decisions that make them great. To add up, a good leader takes right decision at the right time.

In conclusion, a good leader can be defined by the dynamics of his style in leadership, the values that he brings to the organization, the methods he uses to make the best of the resources, and the kind of decision he makes in the given situations. At the end it is about the attitude of an individual to bring the change for good. Ÿ

Communication Skills Communication is the basic requirement for efficiency in a business. As the level of hierarchy elevates, the requirement of Ÿ

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Ric Navarro Setting Benchmarks in Global Marketing and Communications

degree. This job bestowed him with an opportunity to work on communications and media for the Office of The Prime Minister. Thereafter, he went on exploring and honing his marketing and communications skills in B2B and B2C roles across diverse industries including FMCG, mining, infrastructure, sporting and professional services.

Ric Navarro Global Director of Marketing & Communications A Tetra Tech Company

C

reating a benchmark for others is often a responsibility bestowed upon a leader. In order to be worthy of being an influential personality, a true leader adapts to various strategies, further implementing them for the betterment of an organization. Although global professional services are flourishing in every dimension, the requirement of such personalities has become a need rather than a want. To dwell on the top of the industry, an organization requires a good marketing strategy which needs to be exceptionally executed by a prolific marketing leader. Ric Navarro is one such leader, whose marketing tactics have helped his organization Norman Disney & Young, A Tetra Tech Company, to reach great heights. Ric’s creation of the Four Cs’: Customers; Content; Channels; Consistency methodology, as outlined in his book, Marketing with Purpose: a CSuite guide to being truly customer-centric, has created a huge impact on the top and bottom line performance of his organization, resulting in a number of personal global awards and accolades.

Emergence of a Leader Prior joining to one of the Australia’s largest newspapers, The Age, Ric graduated from university with a journalism

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This diversity of sectors – and the nature of the roles themselves – required innovation and agility to lead, develop and manage the marketing and communications remit. Thus, Ric hopes for more number of journalists, writers and content creators to move into marketing leadership roles. After all, not all communications is marketing, but all marketing is communications.

A Broader Sense of Marketing At Norman Disney & Young, Ric and his team believes in following a fundamental step that many brands fail to embrace effectively which is to comprehend the requirements of the target audiences and to meet – and where possible, exceed – customer expectations accordingly.

To achieve this requires comprehensive and deep-dive research to articulate a compelling and targeted Customer Value Proposition (CVP). But to create a meaningful CVP, an organization needs to find out the language that its customers’ use to describe the product and how they benefit from it. Ric says the way many brands speak about their product or service can often differ from how customers describe it—therefore, comprehensive customer research is vital.

As Ric outlines in his book, Marketing with Purpose, a CVP is a clear statement that encapsulates three key criteria: Relevancy: explains how your product or service improves a specific customers’ life or solves their problems Ÿ Value: delivers quantifiable concrete benefits Ÿ Differentiation: shows your ideal customer why they should buy from you and not from the competition. Ÿ

April 2019|

“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not “

everything that can be counted counts.

Imposing Better Marketing Strategies Marketers need to position themselves as vital cogs the organizational hierarchy and in brand building. And by this, Ric means the bottom line.

“It’s important to keep your business and brand strategy at the heart of everything – this enables the business to understand why it’s so critical,” said Ric Navarro.

Ric is always careful to frame marketing activity in terms of how it’s helping enable the business, and how it’s a strategic driver of growth for the business.

If the most senior marketer goes into a boardroom and starts talking about soft measures and doesn’t connect the dots to what the pressures are on a board, then they’re not going to have a very productive conversation.

But if marketers really think about where the two meet, that is, where the customers’ do needs meet and where the company does needs meet, they can transform the conversation. Ric says this is the sweet spot where senior marketers can have a really fruitful conversation around how marketing can drive profitable growth for the business.

Being Customer-Centric According to Ric, keeping an eye on the competition is beneficial but cautions against obsessing over the competition. From his experience, Ric has seen too much energy and focus on the competition draining creative and strategic clarity from the core activity of marketing teams.

Rather, the focus must be – first, foremost and always – on the customer: What’s their experience with your brand like?

Are you ensuring all customer touchpoints are seamless and being constantly refined? What’s your average response time to any customer issues?

According to his experience, valuable competitor insights come organically through Voice of Customer programs, social listening tools, and social media. Marketing leaders should have in place robust martech solutions that focus on doing just as much listening as they do publicizing.

“Customers will be the first to point out competitor comparisons – they remain your north star to brand differentiation,” said Ric Navarro.

Catching-up with the volatility Ric’s says everyone wants to ‘go digital’ and believes that too many senior leaders are obsessed about digital

| April 2019

technology as the panacea to solve or improve marketing strategies and customer retention.

For some, digital is solely about the technology, while others think digitization is a new way of engaging with customers. Meanwhile some approach digital reform to represent an entirely new way of undertaking their internal business processes. None of these definitions are incorrect.

But such diverse perspectives repeatedly trip up C-Suite and leadership teams as they reflect a lack of alignment and common vision towards the brand. This often results in piecemeal initiatives or misguided efforts that lead to missed opportunities, under-performance, incomplete solutions, or false starts.

“Not so long ago, digital transformation occurred in small pockets of a brand, perhaps with a team doing cool incubator projects that might percolate to the top. Today, it’s happening in every direction. This has a major impact on how quickly brands – and their marketing teams – need to adapt culturally and organizationally in order to be customer obsessed,” said Ric. Ric knows that a successful orientation towards a digital experience requires significant transformation across an organization. He says references to ‘seamless digital experience’ should always infer ‘better customer experience’. He specifically understands that marketing and business leaders simply don’t have the resources to spend days reading 200-page reports for each new piece of marketing technology. Instead, they require synthesizing the information by asking one key question: ‘how will this technology enhance our customer obsession strategies?’

Ric holds a strong insight over the fundamentals of digital transformation and provides the following insights: Quite simply, I merge the left-and right brain discussion that surrounds digital strategy and break down the fundamentals of digital transformation into three key elements: Ÿ The in-house tools, tech, and analytics to guide customer obsession strategy and actions, Ÿ The methods and means by which to reach and interact with customers, Ÿ The digital environment where your customers engage with your brand.

These are my three fundamentals that I apply in the development of a fully formed digital customer experience solution.

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About the Author Pam Bateson is an expert coach and mentor in business, training others to Masters level qualiďŹ cations and supervising coaches. She has worked within the healthcare, retail, hotels, construction, media, agencies, education and public sector. She specialises in Coaching, Mentoring, Employee Engagement, Change Management, Learning and Development and Organisational Design. She has worked with all levels in organisations from graduates to the CEO. She has designed change programmes that connect projects, outcomes, training and coaching. The performance outcomes have been outstanding. She is CEO and Co-founder at Thrive Partners.

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April 2019|

Tech-Know Insights

Pam Bateson CEO & Co-founder

Thrive Partners

P

am Bateson set up Thrive Partners, an on-demand coaching company, three years ago. In this article, she shares her point of view on how important humans are in a more digital world, what she’s learned as a tech CEO, and what this means when you’re looking to use tech in a way that’s both disruptive and works for customers.

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In October 2015, I gave up a successful career as a management consultant and coach to set up Thrive Partners. Lots of people thought I was crazy. I was approaching 50, with two children still at home. But for the decade running up to that decision, I’d been thinking about a better way to deliver coaching – supported by digital, to share more widely the coaching tools I’d used to help clients for many years.

This was the business I set out to build three years ago. Today, we’re working with 25 clients on five continents – delivering our own brand of on-demand coaching, backed with insights for the whole business. The learning curve has been steep – particularly for someone who, by their own confession, didn’t have a lot of experience in learning technology. So here, I wanted to share some of the things we’ve learned – and what it might mean for your business.

Dream big I didn’t really set out to build a business that would be considered disruptive, but my background as a lean engineer and coach did mean that we ripped up the rulebook when it came to the coaching industry. We scrapped the idea that you needed to meet face to face, and that sessions had to last an hour, or even two hours. And we made it a lot easier for people to access a coach to answer the questions they had there and then – increasing access so people could chat to an expert within an hour.

Working with my co-founder, we then rebuilt the industry by asking the biggest questions we could imaging.

What if we could make coaching available to whole organisations? What if we could get listening as valued as speaking? And what if we could help organisations learn as quickly as individuals?

I found these questions irresistible: I wanted to do for coaching what Uber had done for getting a taxi, Netflix had done for home entertainment, and Tinder had done for dating. It’s these

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big dreams that have galvanised our success in the last few years – and which has set us in the right direction for the future.

Build for modern users Despite big dreams, we’ve also made our fair share of mistakes! A lot of them mistakes happened when we took our attention away from our end customers. It sounds obvious to see it there on the page. But it can be easy to lose sight of the customers that matter most, especially when, as a tech CEO, sometime we get preoccupied with a shiny piece of new technology.

So, what to consider first when it comes to users? The main thing to bear in mind is that they expect experiences that are easy and fast to access – a shift brought about by what we call the ‘Amazon Prime Mindset.’ In this era, clunky user experiences reduce the chances of uptake of services. In short, if your technology can’t match or exceed the quality of digital experience people get in their everyday lives, then you’ll need to go back to the drawing board.

Create wins for the many So, if users come first – who else can we harness the power of technology for?

Our answer? Everyone else in the system.

Early on in the development of our MyThrive platform, we realised that delivering digitally would enable us to do more than just scale and facilitate coaching in global organisations; it would also mean we could spot trends and patterns within communities of users, in organisations or society at large. Just as carefully listening has a powerful and transformative role in one-to-one coaching conversations, carefully listening to and analysing anonymised version of the conversations we host has a powerful and transformative role within whole organisations.

The whole-system insights we produced has helped to make sales processes smoother, improved communications and created more opportunities for people to learn.

Keep it human With suicide being the biggest killer of men under 45, loneliness sweeping through developed economies in epidemic proportions and a third of all young people suffering from anxiety, I strongly believe that we have a duty to keep talking to each other as a society.

We believe that keeping the art of conversation alive in this digital age is essential; only humans can master creativity, empathy, humour and imagination in a way that’s compelling.

Information is everywhere, so we’re using technology differently – to offer real human experiences at scale, at any time of the day, whenever our clients need a conversation, for everything you can’t Google.

And what of the future? Curiously, even the structures of artificial intelligence and machine learning look set to mimic human patterns. It’s still early days, but leaders in this space talk of ‘deep learning’ with AI – by layering up different tools that connect in the same way as our brain’s neural networks.

And so, the next three years?

My recent experiences have led us to ask even bigger questions than we did to begin with – which I suspect will lead to our next irresistible set of adventures! What if we could transform learning management systems into learning ecosystems?

What if any community of learners could connect with any community of teachers? And what if a better understanding of outcomes from learning could help both individuals, organisations and society to thrive?

I for one believe there are exciting times ahead.

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There is no greater skill than learning to ask.

Learn to ask for help.

Learn to ask the right questions. Learn to ask for more.

—Stephany Zoo Head of Marketing BitPesa

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April 2019|

Stephany Zoo Creating Robust Marketing Experience

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n an Interview with Insights Success, Stephany Zoo, Head of Marketing, Branding, and Communications at BitPesa, shares about her journey and contribution through BitPesa. BitPesa is a digital foreign exchange and payment platform for frontier markets. Stephany is obsessed with making things happen. She is a brand builder, an aggressive project manager and a passionate network architect.

Below are the highlights of the interview between Stephany Zoo and Insights Success.

How do you diversify your organization’s offerings to appeal to the target audience?

One of the reasons that BitPesa is one of the few truly PanAfrican companies is because we don’t think about it from a product standpoint— we think about it from the customer standpoint. How do we look at macroeconomic trends and greater financial landscapes to create problems that address B2B financial inclusion? It’s not about building a product because we think it’s appropriate. Instead, it’s about understanding the root causes of a challenge and building from the ground up.

What were the past experiences, achievements or lessons that have shaped your journey?

Living across 3 continents and 6 countries, I’ve been able to really immerse myself in markets, even when they are not my own. I really enjoy the process of market research, of networking and feeling your way around a demographic.

Since BitPesa operates across 10 African countries, it’s constantly a challenge to adapt ourselves into each country and each customer segment. Within this role, I have had the opportunity to explore each country we expand into directly.

How do you strategize your game plans to tackle competition in the market?

I don’t know if I really think about outmaneuvering the competition, because then even when you win, you are only one step before your competition. However, if you come from a point of inspiration and more organic customercentricity, then you will be many steps before your competition.

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What were the primal challenges and roadblocks you faced during the initial phase of your career as a marketing leader?

I never studied marketing, and to this day when young people tell me that they want to study it in school I think it’s silly. Marketing is about trying new tactics, being analytical enough to dissect the results, and being disciplined enough to optimize the campaign. You can’t get a feel for the marketing unless you try.

Because I studied economics, a lot of my peers always viewed marketing as unsubstantial and fluffy. However, recently there’s a whole movement of “growth hackers” who are incredibly influential in expanding and scaling businesses, and all they’re really doing is out-of-the-box marketing. I think this really helped much of my community take my role a lot more seriously.

What inspires you to become an influential marketing leader?

I don’t think anyone sets out to be influential. One becomes influential not only by doing good work, but by being able to replicate and then teach the method for good work. When I worked in China in the early 2010’s, people were concerned about the reliability of data. Now working in Sub-Saharan Africa, people are worried about the dearth of data. In these spaces, people get lucky and are able to ride a trend to get a huge wave of customer acquisition. However, it’s in these spaces that I am trying to create a process and actually create a robust marketing practice.

Where do you see yourself in the near future and what are your future goals?

It is very rare for CMO’s to be chosen to become CEO’s.

Usually it is the COO or CFO that rises to lead a company.

However, I hope to help change the view of CMO’s as strategic and pivotal business roles.

What is your advice for budding and emerging marketing leaders?

B2C may seem funner and sexier, but it’s B2B that really makes a world of difference. B2C is based on trends, while B2B is based on behavioral economics and psychology.

Focus on the things that last.

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Successful Personality Traits to Learn

from

Elon Musk L

egends never need an introduction. They tend to be victorious despite of their uneventful histories. They stick to captivating traits such as Discipline, determination and self-belief which help them accomplish wonders in the long run. One such example of an extraordinary person is Elon Musk, a South African Business Magnate, Investor and an engineer.

Musk is the founder, CEO, and chief architect of SpaceX; co-founder, CEO, and product designer of Tesla Inc.; and co-founder and CEO of Neuralink. As of February 2018, he is the 53rd-richest person in the world and has a net worth of $20.8 billion, which is far more than the net GDP of Greece taken into consideration.

While each entrepreneur possesses a unique set of traits that makes him/her successful, this Tech founder has a few traits much different from any other ordinary CEO, which has allowed him to build some of the world’s most respected and innovative organizations. Musk once quoted, “When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.”

Let’s have a look on these personality attributes and characteristics that make him a contender for the most innovative intellectual entrepreneur of the century alive.

Hard-work and Characteristic Work Ethics Elon Musk is a hard-working innovator, working for about 100 hours a week, and has been productive since many years. He may even be considered as the hardest working

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employee of the company, setting standards for his colleagues to follow and implement. Since the field of work lies inside his radius of interests, he enjoys it to every moment and bit when it comes to learning and execution.

Strong Risk Tolerance Founding a start-up involves a great deal of uncertainty and risk. A study found that after 10 years of being in business, 96 percent of the start-ups fail. Going by the statistics, Musk must have faced the same odds against him, when he had decided to leave an otherwise comfortable life to start a risky and uncertain business venture.

For instance, Musk left his PhD program at Stanford University to find a company called Zip2 with his brother in the year 1995. Later, the company was sold to Compaq computers, profiting Musk a bit over $20 million.

Following this, Musk once again took a great risk by investing millions of dollars to found a company called X.com, one of the world’s first online banks.

‘Always Be Learning’ Attitude An astounding and less-known fact about Elon Musk is that he is self-taught in programming and in many advanced level subjects. He read and understood a variety of books, which helped him gain endless and persistent knowledge and understand diverse concepts.

The best piece of advice on learning and implementation is to constantly think about how things could be done in a better manner and question self to seek the answers.

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Imparting Wisdom

Feedback Loop It is of prime importance to recognize the present symbol or otherwise ‘status quo’ in the market as an organization and re-position accordingly. Musk solicits constant feedback of the companies and executes ‘self-analysis.’ He induces efforts and divergent strategies to improve customer feedbacks and strives towards perfectionism.

For example, he seeks out his critics and tries to converse with them. This habit of self-reflection at regular and considerable periods is pivotal for any entrepreneur or organization to succeed in the long run.

Tendency for Vertical Integration Vertical integration is a strategy where an organization or a firm acquires business operations within the same product vertical. Both Tesla and SpaceX embrace this concept. For example, Tesla not only produces electric cars; they also generate public awareness about their cars via Tesla showrooms across various countries. And SpaceX does not only have the primary goal of rocket propulsions; they develop their own rocket architecture as well.

Faith in Self and the Founding Team Musk undoubtedly possesses a profound belief in his own capabilities as well as the potential-seeking factor of its founding team. He does not hesitate to gamble on large scale unless he is genuinely aware of the expected endresults.

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It is equally essential to maintain clarity of doubt in any large scale organization. Under his supervision, Musk encourages in creating a positive and comprehensive environment across his firms.

Preferring to Stand Out From the Crowd Musk elects to bring up innovation at every level of his understanding. He tends to impart theoretical knowledge at the base level, applying changes and executing the same on the practical level. He relies more on transitional aspects such as research and development, thereby increasing the probability of ground-breaking inventions.

Tesla Motors, a far headed firm headed by Elon Musk, is anti-ordinary. Its compelling marketplace has become a one-stop destination for potential buyers where they can interact about product specifications. They also have video testimonials that far outperform in the sales-dominated industry.

There is no ambiguity that Musk, by far, has been a pillar of inspiration for budding entrepreneurs and investors because of his prolific and optimistic approach towards life All these traits possessed by Musk, in some manner or the other, coincide with most of your habits. The only thing that stands as a potential barrier between these two is identifying your strengths and working on them on a continual basis. Go on, apply these traits into your daily life, and you may become the next big CEO the world is in need of today!

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Ulrike Lemke Vice President Lonza

Ulrike Lemke Redefining Medical Innovation

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n an interview with Insights Success, Ulrike Lemke, Vice President of Marketing at Lonza, shares valuable insights from the experiences she gained in her entrepreneurial journey. Moreover, she broadly discusses on the services offered by the company.

Below are the highlights of the interview conducted between Ulrike and Insights Success: Give a brief overview of your background as an influential marketing leader.

My educational background is in life sciences and my main motivation is to support medical innovation and technology advancements to help treat

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medical conditions or to prevent people from becoming ill. As scientist, you typically have deep insights into the pathway of a disease and its mechanics. But there is often less knowledge about what patients suffer from on a daily basis and what the holistic picture of their condition is. In other words, are you as scientist fixing the element of the disease that matters most to patients? Are you driving the right approach, that can yield a medicine that effectively improves health conditions?

I firmly believe that scientific innovation should be driven by deep insights into real and tangible needs of patients or even healthy consumers (if the objective is to prevent onset of

disease). But where should we get these insights from?

Understanding patient needs, sharing these insights with scientists to focus them on what matters and then communicating the advancements back to patients – this is how I see marketing in life sciences. So my curiosity to learn about patients and their actual needs naturally led me into this field. The first step was in market research areas and in business intelligence – roles in which you learn how companies find about unmet medical needs, how they observe trends. Without solid data and comprehensive analysis, insights may remain shallow and do not help driving real innovation. When I look around April 2019|

Be curious and passionate about learning. It inevitably leads to success. me today, all the disruptive new business models we see in the market, from Tesla, Uber, AirBnB, start from a different understanding of true market needs. No organization can afford today to not be deeply rooted in data – or the risk of disruption is massive.

How do you diversify your organization’s offerings to appeal to the target audience?

My current business context is in custom development and manufacturing for pharma and biotech companies. We are producing on behalf of our customers, active ingredients or the final medicine. There is a high pace of innovation in our customers’ R&D and we follow that innovation very closely. In our industry, marketers have a unique advantage compared to other industries. We can see the innovation pipeline of our customers early on, as regulatory requirements lead our customers’ to publish what they are working on. We constantly monitor which new manufacturing requirements these medicines might have and then invest into technology that allows producing them. So we are prepared to help our customers launch their medicines. In addition to questions around feasibility, we also work in understanding what the business risks and opportunities are for our customers on their path to market.

We focus on the challenges that bottleneck the process at the customer side and then innovate our business models to address them.

What were the past experiences, achievements or lessons that have shaped your journey?

For a couple of years now, customer centricity is a term used frequently, also in business-to-business organizations. To be successful in | April 2019

putting the customer at the center, the conceptual term should be broken down to tangible actions. We wanted to know what we as an organization truly knew about our customers. So first, we consolidated all data sources in the organization that had customer information in them. This reduced data silos and combined information, that was not broadly accessible before spanning marketing, sales, finance and production – all under one roof. We started to build agile data systems and infrastructure and moved a significant proportion of IT under the leadership of marketing. Data are integrated at the individual customer level, so customer preferences and behaviors can be observed across the entire customer journey. The insights we generate are disseminated across different functions through Apps and web entries, accessibility of customer information improved dramatically. We leveraged a lot of technology from big data to new visualization platforms to bring available information to decision makers. For the first time, we now have a more holistic picture about our customers, their needs and challenges.

Next, we plan to use this knowledge to support our field force, where we will use our learnings to hold proactive conversations based on our insights about the customer, away from the old way of responding to enquiries.

The move to customer centricity is data-driven and can create discomfort in an organization. It is a disruptive change and many functions are required to change their way of working. Supporting such transformation with the best possible change management and taking all stakeholders along, ensures success.

This is my biggest learning. Investing early on into explaining the roadmap

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and then co-create a roadmap across different functions, is the best way of taking everyone onboard.

Where do you see yourself in the near future and what are your future goals?

I would like to continue my learning journey in digital technology, using the rich data sources out there, leveraging developments from AI, machine learning, cognitive behavioral research and other areas are areas. There are still plenty opportunities to improve the interplay between market insights and manufacturing innovation in our business. This is a topic that I want to drive.

Longer-term, I hope to be able to build more broad technology expertise and then apply that in health related data. I would like to move closer to digital medical health and see, how we can best use digital means to improve public health.

What is your advice for budding and emerging marketing leaders?

Advice is always hard to give. Here is what worked for me. I was looking beyond marketing, as a function and starting to ask questions about what really drives a business and what creates impact with your customers.

Marketing is a team sport and not a function in a business. Through these questions, networks of engagement are created and we learned as teams. Don’t be discouraged, when you have to manage through change or when you are facing resistance. Change is a learning road for all that embark on it, but the road isn’t straight. Make the journey as comfortable as you can and be empathetic and then you will create followers.

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The Importance of

Purpose n addition to running Kenja as CEO, I have the fortune of teaching MBA students part time on Leadership, Marketing, and Strategy. For my classes and as a CEO, I think the most important place to start is with the “Why” - what is your Purpose as an Leader and as a Company.

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that Purpose is something that can be discovered in a day - often it will take time to think about this and reflect on it. The point of the exercise is simply to begin the very important self-dialogue to get to your Life Purpose. It does not matter how fast you go if you have not figured out what direction you want to run first.

Purpose as a Leader As a leader, the first place to start is with yourself. If you cannot lead yourself then how can you lead others?

The first thing to know about a leader is their Passion and the Values that led them to put importance on those passions. With an understanding of Passion, people can develop their Life’s Purpose. Purpose is your North Star, it is your unwavering unchanging goal which your daily actions will lead you to. Upon setting your own Purpose, you will need a Plan to take concrete steps towards the Purpose, Partners to benefit and to help you achieve your Purpose, and finally Persistence to help you with the very difficult task of staying focused on your Purpose.

In Kenja, every person in our company knows that although I had C level experience in companies like Vodafone, Verizon Wireless, and Fidelity Investments, I have always had a dream to found a different kind of company - one that valued Innovation and Ideas over Politics and the primary focus on Quarterly Profits. My passion is for solving problems in innovative ways and for implementing very difficult projects.

Passion, Purpose, Plan, Partners, and Persistence are the “5Ps of Life” - a workshop that I do with students to help them figure out their Life’s Purpose. 95% of people do not have a concrete Purpose in life - they let events and daily to-dos determine their activities. I do not think

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I was fortunate that I started with good co-founders, people that shared my vision and could contribute complementary skills. The plan is usually a natural outcome of a strong purpose and Persistence is usually achieved by knowing what works for you on a daily basis. For me Persistence is reinforced by refusing to consider a return to large company executive jobs and by daily use of the “Pomodoro” technique. (using 30 minutes interval of focused effort followed by a short break).

April 2019|

Purpose Driven

Ted Katagi CEO Kenja

Purpose as a Company Just as with Individual Leaders, a company will need to develop its own clear Purpose. A Clear Purpose gives motivation to people, clarity to strategy, and a clear branding for Marketing.

If we are honest with most companies, the Purpose easily devolves into meeting the Monthly or Yearly Targets.

The Purpose is not merely the result of your actions - the Purpose describes WHY you are pursuing your goals.

The Clear Purpose is lived by company members so it becomes a reflection of why people join and stay with your company.

Company Strategy is strongly guided by Purpose.

Things that lead you off the Strategic Path are rejected and you can find further value and differentiation in the area of your chosen competition. Small changes in your Purpose drives big results in the marketplace. Although Facebook and MySpace are both Social Networks, Facebook’s focus on connecting your friends resulted in many small innovations that MySpace with their focus on creating cool personal spaces did not.

felt by your customers. It is far more enduring than any single campaign message or even a business plan for a year.

Kenja’s purpose is to Revolutionize the way that mid to large companies collaborate to get work done through software. In the beginning it was difficult since larger companies tend to buy from other larger companies but we have now achieved something not easily copied.

After 7 years in Business, we now have larger organizations like Mitsui and Company, Randstad, and JICA (the Japanese Peace Corp) and many mid sized companies using us. If we had started with consumers and small companies only, then the functionality, security, and ease to use (for older employees as well) would be far different.

Starting with Purpose is not always the easy or obvious choice. There are many obstacles in the way and it is too easy just to focus on Profit or KPIs of the company.

However, a focus on Purpose will automatically keep Employee Engagement, Strategy, and your Branding on track.

If you are clear on your Purpose, then the Brand is not a just a slogan on a TV Commercial. It is lived by employees, reflected in your products and services, and | April 2019

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