Kip Meyer, Managing Director, Custom Partnerships at IESE welcomed a packed room of executives at IESE Business School in New York City, inviting them to, “turn off your certainty, turn on your curiosity.”

The event had a unique three-part format: an introduction setting the context for the discussion, a moderated panel of global business leaders, and interactive small group conversations that enabled the participants to explore the implications of business reinvention, facilitated by Professor Mike Rosenberg.

Vivaldi founder and CEO, Erich Joachimsthaler, PhD, opened the door for curiosity with the introduction, highlighting a recent AlixPartners survey of 3,000 CEOs that found 98% saying they need to overhaul their business model within the next three years, but most did not know where to get started. Joachimsthaler also explained the differences between digital transformation and real business reinvention – it is about reinventing the core, not just leveraging technology but also reinventing the entire business model and even the leadership approach.

The expert panel included Krishan Bhatia, President & Chief Business Officer, NBCUniversal; Tara Bustamante, Group SVP, Business Transformation, Warner Bros. Discovery; and Andreas Fibig, former Chairman and CEO of IFF and former President & Chairman of the Board of Management of Bayer Pharmaceutical.

Over the next 90 minutes, some of the thorniest questions facing businesses today were presented by moderators Julia Prats, IESE Professor, and Anne Olderog, Vivaldi Senior Partner.

• How do you know it is time to reinvent you core and what does this imply?
• When do you integrate new technology?
• How do you navigate a changing business model?
• What are the implications for leadership?

The discussion spanned these 4 key areas:

REDEFINING THE CORE

Industry Boundaries Are Shifting

In times of disruption, industry boundaries are not what they used to be. Krishan Bhatia spoke about the example of how we’re seeing increasingly interactive commerce functionality introduced into the media and gaming sectors, as consumers look for shopping experiences that are as simple and engaging as watching their favorite shows. At Warner Bros, the recent success of the game Hogwarts World demonstrated how media franchises can span traditional media and gaming.

Andreas Fibig spoke of entirely shifting industries during his leadership at IFF – from chemistry to biology, from producing ingredients to co-creating entire solutions.

The Core is Not What It Used to Be

While the core of the media industry has always been defined as content – as Tara Bustamante pointed out, the definition of what content is, evolves at the speed of light. Is it content enriched by data that shows its significance and impact? Is it metadata? Is it content co-created by and with consumers, such as on social media? Is it interaction and discussion around its impact? What trusted/quality content was yesterday may not be what it is in the future, as we are headed towards immersive, engaging, interactive content where audiences are invited to participate in various forms (and share data on their preferences in the process).

Similarly, Andreas Fibig spoke of his reinvention of IFF as a CEO – and the move from ingredients to full products that fit consumer needs. An example is the reinvention of animal protein with plant protein in order to supply protein needs of a growing world population – a need that require new textures, flavors and tastes, much beyond enzymes. This move allows the tackling of big, previously unsolved problems – such as world nutrition – and reinventing taste in the process.

TECHNOLOGY

What Comes First – Technology or Consumer Changes

In that age old debate, Krishan Bhatia’s position is that consumer changes force the reinvention – making business reinvention a must. With the growth of streaming alongside linear TV, the advertising model and technology around it is being reinvented, noted Bhatia, who tested the hypotheses that advertising is best when targeted and relevant. NBCU’s One Platform, which Bhatia leads, offers advertising models – and metrics – suited to both streaming and linear TV. He sees an evolution from one standard of measurement that has been the legacy currency for the TV industry to a multi-platform multi-currency measurement giving advertisers more choice. It’s also a far better fit to measure the complexity of how people are consuming content which is increasingly across multiple platforms.

For Tara Bustamante, media and technology cannot be viewed separately anymore – they are intrinsically liked together, especially as predictive analytics allow new consumer experiences to be created, from gaming to shopping or social interactions. As Bustamante said, media and technology are now intertwined — media operates in tandem with technology to create outstanding consumer experiences, supported by data that allows for precision targeting and personalized paths.

“We view everything through the lens of technology,” she shared.

BUSINESS MODEL

The Rise of Ecosystems As a Business Model

As the core is being redefined with support from technology and data, what we monetize today can be very different than yesterday. Yesterday’s model was monetizing content as an asset to be leveraged, in a traditional pipeline value chain model. Today, as Bhatia pointed out, media companies realize that their core asset is the understanding (through data) and relationship (through technology) with consumers. First, this requires a deep understanding of audiences and their preferences and desires on their own terms – rather than simply defining audiences by product preferences (e.g. Action lovers). Second, the foundation of the business model is no longer the transaction (i.e. selling to consumers media that they consume) but a series of interactions that engage consumers across the content they choose to be a part of their lives. These interactions can include gaming, in-media shopping (or InScene Advertising that NBCU has pioneered), content co-creation, etc.

Media companies have an opportunity to redefine themselves as managers/orchestrators of immersive content organized around key media franchises (or in business terms, Interaction Fields, as Erich Joachimsthaler would call these). For the first time, as Bustamante pointed out, media companies are thinking about how to monetize these relationships as opposed to benefit from on-off transactions.

Traditional Value Chains are Pulled Apart

These ecosystems require a broad cooperation from many players across the industry and outside to be effective, as no one player will have the required capabilities. All speakers spoke of collaboration with a wide network of start-ups and other industry players from across the ecosystem. Andreas Fibig spoke of co-creation with customers – a much different model from creating an ingredient and monetizing it by selling it to customers, in a traditional value chain model. The ecosystem model allows forces and capabilities to be pulled together from across the industry to solve big problems.

LEADERSHIP

Curiosity as Core Leadership Competence

Bhatia echoed the need for inquisitiveness – he actively recruits for curiosity as a core competence, since he sees it as a key success factor for leaders in today’s world of complex ecosystems. This makes experience in the industry less relevant than the ability to calculate backwards from the desired outcome. For the ecosystem economy, leaders can be those who can ask the right questions, since nobody has the definitive answers.

In closing the event, IESE Professor Mike Rosenberg drew a further distinction between transformation and business reinvention, rooted in radical shifts in technology and the world. To cope, an ecosystem approach may be called – to push industry boundaries, search for big answers to big questions – and ultimately reinvent your business.

Is your business ready for the future?

This event evolved from a unique partnership between Vivaldi Group, a global leader in business and brand transformation, and IESE Business School, a global leader in management education ranked #3 worldwide (2022 MBA rankings.) Following the success of the event, IESE Business School and Vivaldi plan to partner to host more events together in the future.

The post Four Key Takeaways from “Reinventing Business” appeared first on Vivaldi.

In the Q&A below, Mauricio shares thoughts on the biggest challenges facing brands today, leadership lessons, and a look into his life outside the office. 

What are you most excited about as you take on your role on Vivaldi’s leadership team?  

Vivaldi has been an agile leader in growth strategy and innovation for over two decades, and ambidexterity is needed now more than ever. Organizations that are able to effectively tackle fast-paced digital strategies as part of the core business strategy, while pursuing other opportunities and rethinking its business model, will be the ones that thrive in this era of digital disruption. 

I am very excited to deepen our current service offerings, bring brand and business strategies to life, work with top notch talent across the globe, and launch new services, products and ventures that contribute to a more humanized world. 

What is the most valuable lesson you’ve taken from your previous endeavor as the founder and CEO of LIQUID,  a digital-centric innovation and transformation hub?

I truly believe that team building, capabilities, and organizational design are iterative and must evolve as the company evolves in terms of its value proposition and service offerings. As a company re-defines / defines its winning aspiration and where to play choices, we must learn to understand our team’s motivations and capabilities. Moreover, I am a strong believer of the T-shaped capability model, as an organization grows, talent needs to have both range and specialization. Range provides a common domain to better understand the process and what each person provides of value throughout, and specialization provides real technical capabilities that are needed when building products and services and launching them to the market. 

What do you think is the biggest challenge facing every company today? 

Defending and growing your core business while pursuing other growth opportunities in the adjacent and transformational spaces. Ambidextrous organizations will be the only ones that will survive the disruption. I believe this is something that every executive knows conceptually and theoretically, but the complexity lies in how to organize (purpose, structure, processes, talent, openness to collaborate with multi stakeholders in an ecosystem) a company in order to do both things right at the same time. Moreover, you don’t know who you actually compete with today and where disruption will come from; we have to evolve from understanding “industries” to understanding the “problems and opportunities” we face as humans. We all have to look and think beyond our core business to create options for the future, today. 

What are some industry trends and/or challenges that you’re paying attention to right now? 

• The biggest challenge I observe today for “traditional” companies is competing with new and upcoming startups (and venture capital money). Take a look at venture capital investment. It’s growing at tremendous rates. In LATAM, Nu Bank is an excellent example, reaching its IPO in +- 5 years and becoming the most valued bank in the region.
• Health/Wellness. We are what we eat, mental wellness, work/life balance, the transformation of the healthcare industry and the new products and services around wellness. It’s impressive how many habits have changed around the way we take care of ourselves, the pandemic has dramatically accelerated this.
• Remote Work is here to stay. Remote work is not the same thing as “home office”, organizations that master working remotely with global and diverse teams will truly develop a competitive advantage.
• Purpose Driven organizations; organizations that operate with an ample but specific winning aspiration will be more attractive to the best talent (especially new generations) in the world as well as give space for disruptive innovation to happen.
• Open Innovation and ecosystem building are key to discovering and amplifying growth domains. All companies and organizations must look beyond their own talent and capabilities and explore new ways to co-create new options for the future. If we believe we are the center of the universe and we can create everything we need to succeed on our own, we are doomed for failure.
• “New technologies” such as AI, machine learning are no longer “new”, these technologies are transforming how companies generate value, create high growth and scalable solutions. Not all companies can and should create disruptive technology, but all companies should understand how these can bring about new value to their current and future business models.

What are the most important questions that companies need to be asking themselves?

All companies must ask themselves: What is my winning aspiration? Why do I exist? What is my role in society? If we have a clear understanding of what our role in society is, what problems and opportunities we are willing to undertake, then it is much easier to attract the best talent around the globe, and explore new growth domains. 

What’s a book worth reading?

Redesigning Leadership by John Maeda. This short memoir brings forth insights on leadership and  vulnerability. The key takeaway: the more truthful you are to yourself and others, the easier it is for people to connect and follow your lead. Another book I really enjoyed was Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows and Diana Wright. Some of the biggest problems facing the world such as war, hunger, poverty, and environmental degradation are essentially system failures and cannot be solved by fixing one piece/problem in isolation of others. These concepts can also be used to design new businesses that cross industries. 

What’s a passion of yours outside of work? 

I am a soccer fan, I love playing and watching the games, I am a FC Barcelona fan as well as the Peruvian National Soccer Team. Fortunately, I have had the chance to attend the last 4 world cups and it was a dream come true when I watched Peru play in the Russia 2018 World Cup (vs Denmark, France and Australia). I enjoy all aspects of the game, but if i had to choose one, it would be the coach’s role and its mixture of both strategy and team building. 

The post On Thinking Beyond Your Core Business, with Vivaldi Partner Mauricio Andujar appeared first on Vivaldi.

Andujar will apply his extensive expertise in open innovation, digital products, services and ventures, to help Vivaldi’s clients build strong brands, drive exponential growth, transform the fortune of companies, and reimagine new business models. Andujar’s appointment signals the company’s commitment to continue undertaking more global engagements and the various challenges of a platform economy, while guiding clients as they shift their focus to the creation of new value in the future.

“Every company needs to reimagine how it creates value. I firmly believe that those that create a competitive edge through fostering shared value for brands, society, customers and even its competitors will grow and win, and those that extract more value than they create will cease to exist. There is a huge opportunity for companies to re-envision themselves in this new world,” says Erich Joachimsthaler, CEO and founder of Vivaldi. “We are thrilled to welcome Mauricio Andujar, who shares that vision and will focus his efforts on increasing Vivaldi’s value to clients and partners through deployment of new cutting-edge, digital solutions designed to exponentially increase scalability of business objectives and drive revenue.” 

For the past 12 years, Andujar served as co-founder and CEO of LIQUID, a global and digital-centric innovation and transformation hub. There, he orchestrated a team that provided end-to-end solutions such as service and product design, growth, venture building and open innovation to industry-leading companies. He also designed, launched, and scaled LIQUID’s Venture Studio, specializing in incubating and accelerating early-stage startups in Peru and throughout Latin America.

“I am very excited to join Vivaldi as it expands its current service offerings, bringing brand and business strategies to life. Working together with Vivaldi’s top-notch talent across the globe, I plan to help launch new services, products and ventures that contribute to a more humanized world,” states Andujar. “Vivaldi has been an agile leader in growth strategy and innovation for over two decades, and ambidexterity is needed now more than ever. Organizations that are able to effectively tackle fast-paced digital strategies as part of the core business strategy, while pursuing other opportunities and rethinking its business model, will be the ones that thrive in this era of digital disruption.”

The post Vivaldi Appoints Mauricio Andujar As Partner As It Expands Its Digital Capabilities And Deepens Its Footprint In Latin America appeared first on Vivaldi.