Organizations are looking for new thinking to shake up their product and service offerings.
On February 6, 2018, Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched its Falcon Heavy rocket carrying a cherry-red Tesla roadster. The headlines called it a “new frontier” and “smashing success”. The world has been enjoying space travel since a Russian cosmonaut orbited the earth in 1961. So why was SpaceX’s achievement hailed as so innovative?
Because the private aerospace firm is a prime example of a disruptor, says Gordon Sandford, partner and national leader for Deloitte Digital. Innovation means reimagining well-established industries or practices, and challenging the status quo.
“I think it’s about questioning the norms and coming up with new approaches, services and products that haven’t been tried before,” says Sandford.
As Sandford explains, many Canadian companies have some form of digital initiative in their strategy. Yet few are looking at creating a competitive advantage through disruption by design. That means purposefully pivoting to thrive in an increasingly digital world. It also means operating at digital speed, so taking action based on insight but despite some uncertainty.
A Deloitte study found that the world’s leading digital companies have 23 unique traits, ranging from agility to collaboration to continuous innovation. These traits, a digital DNA, need to be ingrained in any company that wants long-term success.
Any company, in any industry, can embrace digital disruption, be it the latest in high-tech equipment or a streamlined process – even traditional accounting firms.
“Even at Deloitte we have had to take a holistic approach to our thoughts on innovation, tackling all aspects of our own business,” says Sandford. “Perhaps the most influential element is our digital studio, which is made up of hundreds of people dedicated to coming up with never-tried ideas and we’re investing heavily in AI [artificial intelligence]. We’re just doing things differently.”
He says Deloitte has reshaped its business to bring it into today’s market, and beyond, by developing its own formula for disruption.
It works like this. Take deep industry knowledge and extensive experience around how people and companies work. Combine that with expertise in advanced technology, analytics, creative thinking and marketing execution.
Then, be empowered to take calculated risks and to try the unexpected. That means prototyping solutions, testing them, possibly failing and learning, shifting gears, testing again and launching.
The result is an ability to deliver brands and organizations that, Sandford says, consumers want to love.
“As I tell my clients,” he says, “this is not your grandfather’s Deloitte.”
Sandford points to EQ Bank, a digital challenger bank, which hired Deloitte Digital to help build its customer experience. Deloitte worked to design and implement EQ Bank’s front-end digital and mobile experience.
The launch of EQ Bank was so successful that they were flooded with customer sign-ups. Deloitte stepped up again to help manage the surge of EQ Bank’s new digital customers by streamlining the onboarding process.
“Until we launched, we were working from assumptions and projections,” explains Dan Dickinson, chief digital officer at EQ Bank. “After that day, we were working from real customer and transaction data, and had to analyze and act on that data quickly. That analysis drove how we prioritized fixes, and changed business rules, thresholds and our internal processes. Deloitte was a big part of gathering, rationalizing, visualizing and understanding all that data.”
As that project demonstrated, it can be difficult for any organization to transform, but is more necessary than ever to pre-empt competitive threats and become your own disrupter.
“We know how important it is to form meaningful relationships with clients, so that we can go beyond their ‘normal’ and create something exceptional,” says Sandford.
He says he is excited about Deloitte’s integrated ability to merge business strategy, insights, technology, innovation, creative and execution for a comprehensive approach to people and brands.
“We’re in a period of rapid change, which you can look at as a positive or negative,” says Sandford. “We’re showing people how to leverage new techniques and new insight with the power of digital behind it. Those that can figure out how to operate in this new normal will have an advantage and be able to provide products and services that will be more compelling.”
Advertising feature produced by Globe Content Studio. The Globe’s editorial department was not involved.