Innovation-arkiv - WilburFlow

22 February, 2022

What I learned from a Digital Transformation Theater

Have you ever realized the amount of time you spent in worthless meetings and how easy it is to get caught up in busy work...so this is one of those stories.

It´s noon and your stomach says you need food, your brain is trying to wake up. You have just spent four hours in a weekly meeting that you will never get back.

The weekly meeting began at 08.00

We are about 30 digital experts sitting in a traditional boardroom that holds 25 people, on the projector screen we see a classic PowerPoint with the text "ResultMeeting v45" with a "sexy" PowerPoint slide with people cheering. Guessing the purpose of the slide was to make the numbers more "engaging". 🎯

Our boss enters the room with rapid steps and calls out while moving toward the whiteboard:

- Good morning everyone, hope everyone is doing great, we don´t have that much time today so I hope everyone is psyched and ready to go!

Then a four-hour number medley began🤓 , when the participants were done presenting their numbers, they sat down, with empty eyes 😵‍💫, slowly sinking down into their chairs.

There is always someone who falls asleep at the meetings, sometimes several(me myself once after a late client meeting the day before), it usually happens when you "rest" your eyes a little too long if you understand what I mean. 🥱 😴

But this day I met the eyes of others who have already checked out. It's like being back in school again, you know that feeling when you lost focus after 10min and you count the seconds until the clock strikes 12.

The meeting finally ends, you stand up, you have since 30 minutes ago started texting with other participants where you should go and eat, everyone takes their things and goes out on the town.

You feel heavy in your head, irrelevant figures on outcomes and budget, figures that do not say anything about what customers think or think, figures that are compared to last year and do not take into account new behaviors or events.

The rest of the day was very inefficient as you were trying to get back to that focus and energy you had before going into the meeting.

What the hell happened I asked myself!? 🤯 Should work be like this? You have spent over 16 years at various start-up and scale-up companies, met ill-run entrepreneurs, constellations of people who create monster growth machines with just a few resources, and now you are stuck in meetings talking about meetings when your time to market is getting slower by the meeting. Yeah and running the numbers in the business case you by easy figure out this wasn´t really effective or created any value for the co-workers or the business.

We were there to digitally transform the business, but we were stuck in the act of a traditional number at the transformation theater that did not lead up to anything else than lost productivity. What could have been a Chat update and a 15 min stand-up became so much more of a culture killer.

Btw. There was nothing wrong with the people in the room! This was just one example of the wrong environment, culture, context, management styles that we all have experienced some time in our life...

For me, this was one of those experiences that gave me the wake-up call, that things needed to change. I was wasting time and energy, and so did everyone around me in the room. So I asked myself, how could we skip the busy work and focus on finding the moment of truths that really matter in a rapid phase so all of us can become highly effective, aligned, and collaborative. Yeah, and have fun doing so!

That's why WilburFlow was founded, WilburFlow is a design-driven innovation firm that helps companies create new businesses and products in a rapid phase. With unrivaled expertise in both product and experience design, we partner with industry leaders to create bold products, experiences, and digital platforms that are designed around the needs of their customers and the contexts in which they use them.

And by now you are probably wondering why I am sharing this story...

Long story short, this is my first of several upcoming series on how to build Great; - Leaders, -Teams, -Experiences, and -Products. Followers will be getting access to Insights, Challenges, Experiences, learnings as well as valuable treats, guides, canvases from our product, business, and team development programs at WilburFlow.

So stay tuned and follow me, subscribe to your monthly newsletter, and follow WilburFlow in our social feeds.

Yeah, and don´t forget to smile, it looks good on you!
/ Joacim Alm
Founder of WilburFlow

Published by Joacim Alm in Customer Centricity, Design Thinking, Digital Transformation, Innovation, Lifelong Learning, Microlearning, Okategoriserad, Teamwork, The WilburFlow Story

Tags: digital transformation, Doing your best work, Great leaders, Product Experience, Team developement, WilburFlow

28 December, 2021

Digital Tools for the hybrid Innovation team

Even before the Covid-19 pandemic swept over the world, the way we work was changing. Markets, customer needs, and behaviors are changing, and Covid-19 has, in many cases, accelerated the pace of change and created an even greater demand for new innovative services.

The pandemic has changed how many companies operate, and the norm for what work looks like is changing. "Digital by default" and "remote-first" have gained momentum in the pandemic, which means that how we work with innovation must also change. Excellent digital collaboration tools can offset the potentially negative effects remote work has on innovation.

Some digital collaboration tools are already being widely used, such as video conferencing tools like Zoom, Skype, and Microsoft Teams and messaging services like Slack or WhatsApp. Most people also already use cloud storage services such as Google Drive and Dropbox for sharing data rather than printouts and USB sticks. We will not devote this field note to these popular tools but instead, recommend digital tools for innovation and collaboration that you may not have tested.

These are the tools we at WilbuFlow have frequently been using in these pandemic and work-from-home times. Check out 90DaysOf if you are curious about what we are working on and how WilburFlow helps teams become better, more innovative, and more engaged.

Use digital whiteboards for idea generation, visualization, and workshop facilitation.

MURAL describes itself as a "digital workspace for visual collaboration." This incredibly useful innovation tool for design thinking can help you, and your team create and collaborate visually. Create charts, brainstorm topics, and ideas, and create more effective meetings and workshops. This is also an excellent tool for running digital design sprints.

Collaborate, create prototypes, test, and collect real-time feedback.

InVision helps you develop high-fidelity prototypes and high-quality graphics that look like finished designs. Build digital prototypes or MVPs that can easily be shared within the team and with external testers.

Figma really stands out as a collaborative tool for creating mockups, wireframes, and prototypes in real-time.

Google Forms is an excellent tool for conducting interviews and gathering feedback. It's also free.

If you regularly perform tests on a large scale, it can be a good idea to invest in the tool you use. With SurveyMonkey, you get more flexibility in designing your digital interviews and quickly getting the reports you want.

Hybrid Teams training Are you familiar with our digital training programs for teams? Read more about them here.

Let your attendees Schedule meetings with ease using shared calendars.

If you need help planning meetings and want to avoid the back-and-forth emails to find a time that suits all parties, a scheduling tool like Calendly can be something for you.

Are you working with OKRS?

Weekdone simplifies your team's work with OKRs by making individual and collective goals visible. Transparency is increased through interactive reporting. It reduces your need for weekly stand-up meetings through quick and easy online check-ins. Besides, you can use Weekdone as a planning tool where team members can plan their day and week with the company's vision in mind.

Organize and plan your team's work.

Uppfattningen nere? Nuvarande problem och avbrott | Downdetector

Notion is an online tool for project management and notes. It is designed to help members of a company or organization coordinate deadlines, goals, and assignments for the sake of efficiency and productivity.

With the collaboration tool Trello, you can create "boards" where you gather ideas, share, and save important information in one place. You can organize the team and the team's tasks throughout the innovation cycle.

Asana is another popular tool that helps you, your team, and your organization coordinate and plan workflows and projects more efficiently. This is an appreciated tool by project managers and agile organizations.

Conclusion:

Choose the right digital innovation tools and enjoy better remote collaboration.

Experiment with digital communication and collaboration tools to create more human encounters. Choose the tools that suit your team and your challenges.

Challenge everyone in the team to become better at running, facilitating, and participating in workshops. It will increase efficiency and improve your joint work quality. No matter which tool you choose, you should make sure that everyone on the team masters it.

Yeah, and don´t forget to smile, it looks good on you!
/ Joacim Alm
Founder of WilburFlow

You can also sign up for our newsletter where we send out news about customer experience, digital transformation, innovation, design thinking, and much more. On your terms of course.

Published by Joacim Alm in Digital Transformation, Innovation

Tags: remote collaboration, remote innovation, Remote work

1 January, 2021

Evolving your Customer Experience in 2021 and beyond

Imagine how your customer experiences today differ from your experiences only a few years ago. Our interactions with companies, products, and services have changed considerably over a relatively short period of time. The standards of customer experience are changing rapidly, fueled primarily by technological progress.

More customers are stating that customer experience is a big part of how they make purchasing decisions. This means more of us are demanding better treatment and are willing to pay for it. It’s now time to shift from digital transformation to experience transformation.

At WilburFlow, we are passionate about helping companies grow and taking advantage of their employees' potential by becoming customer-centric and design thinking on a path of continuous learning.

We love trends in customer experience, even if we try to keep ourselves from trying to predict the future. Our ambition with these predictions is not to give a complete picture of everything that will be important in 2020 in terms of customer experience but to highlight five powerful trends that will have a major impact on many companies.

Customer experience will continue to grow, change, and evolve, but what will happen in 2021?

Understanding changes in customer needs and expectations and acting on those insights is the key to success in today’s dynamic experience economy. So let’s take a moment and talk about how the customer experience field will evolve in 2020.

1. We will continue to move from creating occasional positive experiences to taking care of the entire customer journey

It will become more important to understand and measure the value of investments in customer experience and the ability to provide personalized interactions at scale. It is not just delivering one-off experiences that get lots of attention but rather becoming an organization that can meet expectations every time.

2. We will start delivering an improved customer experience through trust and transparency

Transparency in the digital age is one of the most important and pressing customer experience trends. Being highly transparent in terms of advertisement, pricing, business practices, etc., can help build and maintain trust with your consumers.

3. AI Bots are going to play a bigger part in your digital customer experience

We can expect increased adoption of virtual assistants and it will soon become the primary channel of self-service.

Chatbots provide two main advantages over chatting with a human: speed and availability. But contrary to popular belief, virtual agents aren’t about to replace humans in front-end operations. With the help of AI and chatbots, human customer service agents can save time and effort, become more productive, and focus on being a source of revenue rather than being a cost center.

We should perhaps add that chatbots are more than just customer service tools. Chatbots can be great for marketing and sales as well as be integrated with social media channels to automatically respond to direct messages from consumers.

Even though bots are becoming a bigger part of customer interaction, what matters is creating frictionless experiences from the customer’s perspective. Therefore it's also critical you focus on identifying when a customer needs help or needs to decide on something, and based on that need, take care of the customer the right way. When a customer needs human help, they must get it.

4. We will see more hyper-personalized experiences

Big data and companies' improved ability to capture, use, analyze, and draw insights through the data will enable companies to target customers in real-time and take personalization to the next level.

Personalization is the key to customer experience. According to Accenture, 75% of consumers are more likely to purchase from a company that knows their name, purchase history, and/or recommends items based on their purchase history. But it doesn’t stop there; according to a study by VentureBeat, 77% of digitally exposed consumers expect a super personalized digital experience. Consumers want the services and experiences customized according to their needs, preferences, and requirements

Extreme personalization or hyper-personalization will be the main focus for many brands in 2021 and beyond.

5. We will get better at integrating customer experience metrics in our KPIs and show experience related business results

We will get better at integrating experience data operational data swell as using those insights to create better products and services.

Given that we are facing tougher times, ROI will dominate the discussions, and proving the benefits of investing in customer experience will be increasingly important.

On top of that, 2021 will hopefully be the year when we finally figure out who’s responsible for delivering on those customer experience KPIs. A new set of senior customer experience job titles has appeared

The big picture:

Some of these trends, such as personalization, have been around in some form or other for quite some time and will continue to be so. But all are important for companies that wish to remain relevant in the eyes of their customers.

We live in a rapidly changing world where digital transformation is forcing companies to change their business models and adapt to the new market reality. But it’s not companies that are driving this change; the customer is driving it. Investing in customer experience is a question of survival for many companies.

To address their customer experience challenges companies should adopt a unified customer experience strategy and apply design thinking over sales, service, and marketing to redefine technology and business processes.

Companies must also identify user narratives across the customer lifecycle by strengthening customer relationships, driving loyalty, and focusing on top-line improvements by creating a seamless and simplified experience.

Want to hear more about how we can help you create excellent customer experiences in 2021 and beyond?

Yeah, and don´t forget to smile, it looks good on you!

/ Joacim Alm
Founder of WilburFlow

Published by Joacim Alm in Customer Centricity, Innovation

29 December, 2020

COVID-19 and the Increased Need for Innovation

2020 has been a difficult year for many people, and our thoughts go out to all those affected by this terrible pandemic. This field note's focus is not on the catastrophic consequences of Covid-19 but on how behaviors and needs have changed in its wake.

The current pandemic has had an enormous impact on society and the economy. During these uncertain times, technology has been an enabler for many companies and communities.

Innovation is a solution to the business crisis in times like the Covid-19 pandemic. Digital transformation and exploring digital technologies are no longer diffuse concepts. They have become fundamental strategies for any business to stay ahead of the competition and succeed in a digital-first world.

These statistics show just how much Covid-19 has impacted consumers, the opportunities created by new technology, and how the world is forever changed. When behaviors and needs change radically, you must innovate to meet them and to remain relevant in the market.

The Impact of COVID-19 on Digital Transformation and New Technology

70% of businesses chose to increase or maintain digital transformation spending during the pandemic. (According to IFS)

58% of businesses that had not yet begun a digital transformation program said that Covid-19 has accelerated their digital plans. (According to BakerMcKenzie)

76% of businesses plan on long-term IT changes as a result of Covid-19. (According to SWZD)

More than a third of 2021 tech budget increases will be influenced by Covid-19. (According to SWZD)

While 52% of companies plan to cut or defer investments because of Covid-19, just 9% will make those cuts in digital transformation. (According to PwC)

During the 2020 pandemic, there was a 15% increase in the use of digital tools for health support by consumers. And, 37% of consumers are very likely to use telehealth in the future. (According to McKinsey)

Covid-19 has accelerated healthcare investments within AI and nanotechnology, which are expected to grow at a rate of nearly 50% more a year towards a market set to be worth $1.333 trillion by 2027. (According to Vector Innovation Fund)

The Impact of COVID-19 on Us As Consumers

Sure, the need for new technology-driven by the ongoing pandemic is interesting. Still, something more interesting is to look at the human behaviors that drive change. Many of us have seen impacts in every aspect of our lives during this pandemic.

Here we have found some interesting statistics on how our behaviors have changed that can serve as inspiration for how we should direct our innovation efforts in the coming year.

69% of consumers say Covid-19 has made them more focused on managing their mental health and well-being. (According to PwC)

55% of consumers will prioritize more time with family after the virus has been contained. (According to Accenture)

87% of U.S consumers prefer to shop at stores that have touchless or robust self-checkout options. (According to Shekel)

79% of consumers say they will continue to use self-checkout or increase their usage after Covid-19. (According to McKinsey)

78% of consumers have made a change in where they shop for food. (According to FMI)

31% of U.S. consumers are changing to less expensive products to save money. (According to McKinsey)

39% of consumers say they will purchase more in the future from brands that responded well to the crisis. (According to Deloitte)

31% of global consumers anticipate they will visit movie theaters less often after the pandemic. (According to GlobalWebIndex)

We can look at changing behaviors and needs, driven by the Covid-19 pandemic, from different perspectives. Here we have found some interesting statistics on how our purchasing behaviors have changed.

E-commerce, as a whole, is projected to grow by almost 20% in 2020. (According to IBM)

36% of consumers now shop online weekly, an increase from 28% before the pandemic. (According to Selligent)

Globally, 49% of consumers shop online more now than they did pre-Covid-19. (According to Bazaarvoice)

One of the most significant e-commerce growth areas was over-the-counter medicine, which is expected to see a 44% increase in customers shopping online in 2020. (According to McKinsey)

The number of orders placed online and picked up in-store grew 208% between April 1 and 20, 2020, compared to a year ago. (According to Adobe)

79% of consumers say contactless store pickup is significant to them. (According to Incisiv)

It is also important to know that some things do NOT change. According to Incisiv do 91% of consumers say they miss shopping in stores.

If you are interested in more statistics and trends from 2020 involving digital transformation, new technology, digital skills, and the demand for new customer experiences, we would like to recommend this field note that we recently published: Digital Transformation 2020 Statistics.

Do You Want To Stay Up to Date With Innovation Trends and Much More?

Sign up for our newsletter where we send out news about customer experience, digital transformation, innovation, design thinking, and much more. On your terms of course.

Published by Gustaf Ledin in Digital Transformation, Innovation

Tags: digital transformation, innovation, Statistics

27 October, 2019

Accelerate Your Business With Customer-Centric Innovation

How can we deliver successful services to tomorrow's customers? For most of our careers, we have worked on the answer to that question. The advances in technology and communication combined with the explosive growth of data and information have created an enlightened global consumer.

These new customers require us to do business that creates a positive customer experience throughout the customer journey. Developing these businesses, products, and services is what we talk about when we talk about customer-centric innovation. Continue reading if you are interested in learning more!

Innovating From the Outside In

Most companies, especially larger companies, have a traditional view of innovation. This traditional view includes the delusion that values, products, and services should be created within the company. The process for customer-centered innovation is changing that, thinking from the outside in instead.

The customer-centric company delivers a shared value for the company and the customer. Every time a customer-centric business makes a decision, it considers its effect on the customers. This builds loyalty and customer satisfaction.

Meet Customer Needs and Expectations

Customer-centric innovation helps brands think more broadly about their customers and helps brands see clearly from multiple perspectives when developing new products, services, and experiences, reducing the risk that the company is investing money and developing products and services that do not meet customer needs and expectations.

Innovation is for Everyone

Customer centricity also changes how we innovate within the company. From limiting the development of products and services, and launching them in the market, to specific departments for business and product development, innovation becomes everyone's job. Marketing, customer service, and many more must also participate in the process.

Traits of a Customer-Centric Organization

A customer-centric organization's business model is based on understanding the customers and how they can contribute to its profitability. This requires them to design business processes that recognize the different customer and segment needs. They focus on delivering a positive and seamless customer experience at every touchpoint throughout the customer lifecycle.

Customer-centric organizations ensure a culture that puts the customer in focus during decision-making processes. Making it a top priority to have an active dialogue with customers and acting on their feedback.

If you are not already innovating with the customer in focus, it is time to start immediately. Scale up your organization's innovation power from a limited number of people and ideas to get access to infinitely more ideas even from outside the business. Besides, you will reduce the risk of innovation efforts that do not meet customer needs.

Stay updated on the latest news about customer-centricity and digital transformation

Published by Gustaf Ledin in Customer Centricity, Innovation