Jeneanne Rae
January 8th, 2013 | Filed under: Customer Experience, Motiv | 1 Comment »
Customer Experience, or CX, is finally coming to the fore as a new management competency to be mastered. Unlike in years gone by, the average executive now has a good idea of what customer experience is, and what it can do for his or her business.
The challenge is that most companies now face the reality that they probably offer a large set of mediocre customer experiences. Due to legacy structures and systems, this is likely especially true if your company is more than fifteen years old (which I see as the demarcation point for when “customer experience” became a tangible idea) because either the importance of investing in them was ignored for so long, or perhaps they weren’t originally designed from a consumer perspective.
What this means is that many companies (maybe even the majority of companies) are now in “fix-it” mode with respect to making the customer experience they produce competitive to begin with. And when I say competitive, I don’t necessarily mean competitive with the typical industry competitors who may be just as bad, but rather the larger set of customer experience exemplars that we have all grown to love and respect—the Amazons, Apples, Starbucks, and Virgin Atlantics of the world. Let us not forget that customers are now judging by the golden standards that these companies have set, and in an age when people are moving at constantly accelerating pace, “fix-it” may not be enough. Keep reading »
Jeneanne Rae is President and CEO of Motiv. An internationally renowned thought leader on business innovation, she was named one of Bloomberg BusinessWeek’s “Gurus of Innovation.” Read more about her here.
Jeneanne Rae
January 4th, 2012 | Filed under: Motiv | 1 Comment »
This post was a column featured on the Management channel of Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Click here to view.
Let’s face it, 2011 was a tough year by all measures. The sluggish global economy and European debt crisis were a drag on our confidence, the way Congress behaved scared us all, and the twin trends of a shrinking tax base combined with runaway health care costs make it impossible to see how things will turn around any time soon.
This is precisely why innovation is so critical at the moment. Trying to maneuver through the unchartered waters we find ourselves in cannot be accomplished through traditional means alone. Here’s a list of 10 innovation resolutions that I think you will find valuable for 2012.
Keep reading »
Jeneanne Rae is President and CEO of Motiv. An internationally renowned thought leader on business innovation, she was named one of Bloomberg BusinessWeek’s “Gurus of Innovation.” Read more about her here.
Jeneanne Rae
December 14th, 2011 | Filed under: Motiv | No Comments »
Last month, the Chief Editor of Innovation Management, a leading “knowledge center for Innovation Management practitioners”, invited me to write a review of Jeffrey Phillips’ latest book Relentless Innovation: What Works, What Doesn’t – And What that Means for Your Business. Phillips is a respected Innovation Consultant and Blogger, and has written several informative books and articles on innovation as a strategic capability.
In his newest book Relentless Innovation, Phillips looks at innovation from an enterprise-level perspective, encouraging companies to adopt an innovation capability that can be scaled and repeated throughout the firm, rather than attempt the one-off innovation initiatives that are so common in many organizations today. The book is an excellent read, one which I highly recommend.
Unlike most other books on innovation that strictly focus on ways to identify innovation opportunities or learn from successful innovators, Relentless Innovation acknowledges the fact that not every company can simply apply Apple or P&G’s innovation tools and processes and achieve similar results. Instead, Phillips, who is the lead consultant at OVO Innovation, identifies the two most significant barriers that limit most companies’ innovation efforts: middle management and business-as-usual.
He uses case studies from best-in-class market exemplars to illustrate how to overcome the barriers to innovation and create an environment of “innovation as usual”; however, rather than promote specific innovation tools or processes that organizations should employ, Phillips presents solutions that are at times broad generalizations more so than actionable recommendations. Continue Reading»
Jeneanne Rae is President and CEO of Motiv. An internationally renowned thought leader on business innovation, she was named one of Bloomberg BusinessWeek’s “Gurus of Innovation.” Read more about her here.
Jeneanne Rae
November 14th, 2011 | Filed under: Motiv | 3 Comments »
Last Friday, I had the honor of serving on a panel at the annual meeting of the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association (HBA) with some very distinguished women. Pat Furlong, the Founder and CEO of The Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy (PPMD), and Dr. Freda Lewis-Hall, Chief Medical Officer at Pfizer and HBA’s “Woman of the Year”, also participated. Wendy White, who is founder and president of the marketing agency Siren Interactive and leads the industry as a relationship expert for rare disorder therapies, moderated.
(L-R) Panel moderator Wendy White, Pfizer Chief Medical Officer Dr. Freda Lewis-Hall, The Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy CEO Pat Furlong, and Motiv Strategies CEO Jeneanne Rae
The HBA serves mid-level leaders in a range of healthcare-related fields, including pharmaceuticals, medical devices, insurance, and a host of support services. Over 700 women attended the session, where most of the industry’s dominant players were represented. I had heard from the organizers what high-energy, high potential leaders were among the attendees, and judging by their questions, they were no doubt thinking hard about the future of their businesses and careers.
The group was interested in hearing what role technology and innovation will play in helping to address some of the biggest issues facing the healthcare industry, as well as society. The panel was quick to acknowledge the biggest challenge facing the industry: improve quality while simultaneously lowering costs – an interesting design challenge to say the least. We agreed that technology will play a major role in improving communication and analytics. The group acknowledged that therapies involving the relatively new field of genomics are going to be particularly breakthrough. While technology will be an enabler, innovation itself is expected to drive more holistic solutions, promoting wellness over sickness as an organizing principle for forward-thinking companies, and focusing more on patient and caregiver issues than ever before. Continue Reading»
Jeneanne Rae is President and CEO of Motiv. An internationally renowned thought leader on business innovation, she was named one of Bloomberg BusinessWeek’s “Gurus of Innovation.” Read more about her here.
Jeneanne Rae
November 2nd, 2011 | Filed under: Motiv | 1 Comment »
As CEO of a woman-owned company, I was overjoyed at Virginia “Ginni” Rometty’s appointment last week to the position of CEO of IBM. That she has ascended to this rank is unsurprising; her promotion follows many years of dedication, hard work, and sharp business acumen.
What is surprising is just how selective the group of women is that she has joined. The 16 women who currently lead Fortune 500 companies truly are the few, the brave, and the proud. Despite the fact that women make up approximately half of the U.S. population of 312 million people, they comprise only 3% of Fortune 500 CEOs and 20% of Fortune 500 boards.
There have been numerous studies that speculate the reasons for, as well as hypothesized solutions to, this “glass ceiling” for women in business, but there have been remarkably fewer studies that make the business case for how companies can reap the benefits of installing female CEOs. Although equal opportunity for all should go without saying, there are also sound strategic and biological reasons why having more women business leaders makes sense.
Women understand other women
It has been widely reported that women make or influence up to 80% of all consumer purchases. With this astronomical buying power, it is astounding that more firms have not yet realized the competitive advantage of having women lead those very companies that influence such a large percentage of the customer base. Just ask the Femme Den, an internal collective at Smart Design dedicated to enhancing women-oriented product design. They found that “although many companies have recognized the female market to be a significant opportunity, they are failing to connect with this sizeable segment.” The benefit of having a member of the target market in the boardroom is compounded by the fact that women tend to be more empathetic than men, allowing women the potential to provide greater insights into their target audience. Continue Reading»
Jeneanne Rae is President and CEO of Motiv. An internationally renowned thought leader on business innovation, she was named one of Bloomberg BusinessWeek’s “Gurus of Innovation.” Read more about her here.
Jeneanne Rae
October 11th, 2011 | Filed under: Motiv | No Comments »
Last week I was on a panel jointly hosted by the Heathcare Businesswomen’s Association (HBA) NYC Metro chapter, Bloomberg, and Gerson Lehman Group, where I serve as a council member, and innovation expert. Held at the spaceship-like Bloomberg headquarters at 58th & Lexington, the title for the evening affair that attracted about 130 women (and a few men) mostly from the pharma industry was “The ROI of Innovation.”
I was in very good company. Jami Rubin, Healthcare Research Group Business Unit Leader for Goldman Sachs; Barbara Dalton, VP, Venture Capital Worldwide Business Development & Innovation at Pfizer Inc.; Michele Holcomb, VP, Corporate Strategy, Teva Pharmaceuticals; and Ritu Baral, Senior Analyst at Cannacord Genuity all came to give their perspective on the issues facing the industry and what to do about it.
Here is the basic problem: drug pipelines are not expected to yield many more blockbuster drugs during the next few years; generics now make up 70% of all drug sales; and the traditional business model for this industry is not expected to yield anywhere close to the revenue growth and profit margins enjoyed in the past. In fact, many would say that big pharma is fundamentally broken at the moment. Continue Reading»
Jeneanne Rae is President and CEO of Motiv. An internationally renowned thought leader on business innovation, she was named one of Bloomberg BusinessWeek’s “Gurus of Innovation.” Read more about her here.
Jeneanne Rae
September 26th, 2011 | Filed under: Motiv | No Comments »
I did something last week I thought heretofore unimaginable. I attended my first AARP annual convention. Held at the L.A. Convention Center, 18,000 folks representing a highly diverse set of professions and ethnic backgrounds, interests and persuasions, converged together for what was a surprisingly rollicking good time.
There is a movement afoot for this particular demographic that has serious consequences for our society. Not satisfied, nor often able, to retire like their predecessors, people of this vintage are interested in reimagining their lives as never before. Helping to navigate the “What’s Next” moment for its members is now squarely on the agenda for AARP, a task that could be the organization’s biggest contribution yet.
For the last several months Motiv has been privileged to work with an extraordinary group of people to produce the first phase of AARP’s Life Reimagined Project. The concept is a social media platform that would connect the 39 million AARP members, as well as non-members, in new ways to help them find the help and inspiration they need to identify and do what they are most passionate about. Continue Reading»
Jeneanne Rae is President and CEO of Motiv. An internationally renowned thought leader on business innovation, she was named one of Bloomberg BusinessWeek’s “Gurus of Innovation.” Read more about her here.
Jeneanne Rae
September 12th, 2011 | Filed under: Motiv | No Comments »
Ever since the writing and editing team of Bruce Nussbaum and Helen Walters and their merry band of whip-smart innovation reporters broke camp from Businessweek’s Innovation channel, I have been a little lost when it comes to finding the center of gravity for innovation thought leadership.
As a contributor to many columns of Businessweek’s online channel, I felt like part of the family, and so followed their excellent reporting on the latest and greatest going on in product and service innovation, design and design thinking, and innovation management. It was that rare editorial team that could grasp the depths of these topics, adding so much to our understanding of the challenges, triumphs and failures of this intriguing part of the business world. Ask any designer who has been the most influential person in his or her profession in the last decade and I bet the answer nine out of ten times will be Bruce Nussbaum.
Bloomberg has continued its commitment to the topic, but I must say, I am wondering these days because Businessweek, as well as the alternatives, seems far less satisfying to me. Fast Company is trying but often falls short in its commentary on the implications for business and society in its innovation reporting, and its design channel feels pretty shallow most of the time. The Harvard Business Review, where many former Businessweek columnists have migrated and merged with many of the “who’s who” of academia, somehow feels stuffy and conceptual even though the editors are clearly trying to position its innovation content as hipper than in the past. Not that I don’t have huge respect for writers of HBR’s innovation content, but I also haven’t noticed many new faces either.
Enter a new kid on the block: Innovation Management.
Continue Reading»
Jeneanne Rae is President and CEO of Motiv. An internationally renowned thought leader on business innovation, she was named one of Bloomberg BusinessWeek’s “Gurus of Innovation.” Read more about her here.
