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Running the Race for Business Growth and Relevance

17/01/2023
Consultants
New York, USA
326
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Accenture Song’s TJ Lightwala, marketing services activation and transformation lead for growth markets talks about how innovative practices and value-driven models will provide the winning pace

The story of business growth and relevance is akin to a horse and its rider – it goes together in all ways, just like an experienced rider and a trained horse are in sync in the field or on the course. As businesses look at driving growth and maintaining relevance with their customers, the racecourse matters. 


I look back at the years spent in the USA, and an example comes to mind that illustrates just what we mean by “the racecourse”. American bookstore Barnes & Noble went from a fully experiential retail layout with a Starbucks in every outlet, to forming a book club community, a digital reading tablet called Nook and a loyalty program. Inside Barnes & Noble’s transformation is a story of how a company decided to reinvent its business, with technology, data and creativity, and simplify its retail experience to keep pace with its customers. Its racecourse improved over time. The rider (i.e., the consumer) and horse (i.e., the brand) also evolved in their needs and ability to create experiences. 


With the economic, social, environmental and political upheaval of today, people are facing a world that may feel out of control. We’re facing a crisis of relevance. 88% of global executives think their customers are changing faster than their businesses can keep up. Notably, 71% of consumers in the Asia Pacific region wish companies would respond faster with new offerings to meet their changing needs. 


These are clear signs that brands must feel the pulse of the consumer, and consumer insights have a huge role in helping brands understand the consumers’ voices. For example, Thailand food delivery app, Robinhood, is evolving itself into a “super app” to offer expanded services such as travel booking, grocery delivery and more. NRMA Insurance in Australia is also evolving. The company increased its brand valuation significantly by delivering ‘help’ to its customers anytime they need it. 


As businesses review their “racecourse”, there is a growing commonality. Businesses have moved from a product-centric approach focused on performance to a customer-centric strategy meant to prioritize experience over time. They understand that people are multi-faceted and complex and that external forces impact on their life decisions. Hence, they perpetually evolve their offerings and experiences to create value as life shifts. 


Consider the case of Best Buy. The consumer electronics giant moved from being excellent product experts on the ground for people looking to buy technology to a “total life technology partner” with the creation of Totaltech. Totaltech is a new membership option that makes it easier to buy, set up, understand and enjoy tech products and fix them when something goes wrong. Best Buy recognized that while technology was an essential part of its consumers’ life, it was also a source of stress, cost and confusion. The company saw a growing need in its consumers’ life – one that was not pegged around products or experiences – and responded with a new offering that could adapt to people’s changing circumstances.  


In another example, Santander Sim offers the fastest and most convenient way to apply for a personal loan in Brazil, the world’s fifth-largest country. The digital platform has slashed both the time and the requirements needed to apply for a loan, meaning that more Brazilians than ever are hearing ‘yes’ where they might previously have heard ‘no’. This set a new precedent during the pandemic for the help Santander Brazil could offer to improve people’s lives. The banking industry is one that must evolve beyond products and experiences. Banks that focus on helping customers adapt to their ever-changing needs and priorities – be it a young family expanding into a new bigger home, or retirement planning for mature professionals, or college savings for families with kids – have the most potential for growth.      


In striving for life-centricity, we see companies beginning to break out. According to Accenture Song’s research, the highest growth companies are widening their strategic aperture, transforming in ways that position them to drive new growth and relevance. Companies that lead in life-centricity will outpace the growth rate of their peers by nine percentage points annually. The ones that lag furthest behind in life centricity are likely to shrink year-on-year. For a US$10B company, this could mean the difference between growing US$4B in new annual revenues over five years or shrinking by US$1B in the same period. 


As brands relook at their “racecourse” in these times, they can consider a few things to transform their marketing services. These can include conducting maturity and value roadmap to focus on necessary marketing practices that drive return on marketing investment (ROMI) and efficiencies in channel marketing, especially using customer relationships management tools and first-party data capabilities through monetization. Other considerations to drive consumer value are: 


1. Tune-ups to assess in-flight programs which can help define what to keep, modify or pause

2. Content automation and personalization pilots through automation tools to reduce time and costs 

3. Martech assessments to understand all customer data and tech capabilities across B2B and B2C functions with a focus on safe brand consent practices

4. End-to-end marketing attribution to calculate the impact of marketing investment with proven Multi Touch Attribution (MTA) and Marketing Mix Modelling (MMM) solutions. Boost your MROI while embedding data-driven decision-making into your planning process


Brands that will thrive are those already reflecting on the areas above to unearth opportunities to increase efficiency, reinvest savings and deliver growth through performance whilst staying relevant and driving purposeful value to their customers. The “racecourse” ahead may have a few bumps in the track, but with innovative practices and value-driven models, the horses can stay on course and even create new wins for their riders. 




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