Innovating in an Age of Personalization

The CDO role is changing dramatically. Here are the skills today’s world demands.

In the alphabet soup that is today’s crowded C-suite, few roles attract as much attention as that of the chief digital officer, or CDO. While the position isn’t exactly new, what’s required of the average CDO is. Gone are the days of being responsible for introducing basic digital capabilities and perhaps piloting a handful of initiatives. The CDO is now a “transformer in chief,” charged with coordinating and managing comprehensive changes that address everything from updating how a company works to building out entirely new businesses. And he or she must make progress quickly.

Given these demands, it’s not surprising that the number of people in CDO roles doubled from 2013 to 2014 and is expected to double again this year.1We find that companies bring in a CDO for two primary reasons. The first is when they need to approach the complex root causes that must be dissected, understood, and addressed before any substantive progress on digitization can be made. And the second is when the CEO realizes the organization can’t meet the primary challenge of creating integrated transformation within its current construct (see sidebar, “Do you need a CDO?”).

In fact, the true measure of a CDO’s success is when the role becomes unnecessary: by its very nature, a high-functioning digital company does not need a CDO (however, it may want its former CDO to be the CEO). Of course, the vast majority of organizations are not yet at that point. And while there are numerous actions companies can and should take to help these executives work themselves out of a job—such as providing sufficient resources and active CEO support—this article focuses on five areas CDOs themselves must get right if their organizations are to successfully transition to digital.

1. Make digital integral to the strategy

Digital isn’t merely a thing—it’s a new way of doing things. Many companies are focused on developing a digital strategy when they should instead focus on integrating digital into all aspects of the business, from channels and processes and data to the operating model, incentives, and culture. Our analysis of how companies with a high Digital Quotient (DQ) operate shows that 90 percent of top performers have fully integrated digital initiatives into their strategic-planning process.2

Getting the strategy right requires the CDO to work closely with the CEO, the chief information officer (CIO), business-unit leaders, and the chief financial officer; the CDO also needs to be an active participant in and shaper of the strategy. An important foundation for CDOs to establish credibility and secure a seat at the strategy table is providing detailed analysis of market trends and developments in technology and customer behavior, both inside and outside the sector.

Yet CDOs can’t stop there. They need to bring a bold vision: 65 percent of companies that are “digital leaders” in our DQ analysis have a high tolerance for bold initiatives; among average performers, 70 percent of companies don’t see support for risk taking. This vision could include starting new businesses, acquiring technologies, or investing in innovations—one CDO we know made it his mantra to drive agile as a new software-development methodology for 40 percent of the company’s projects. No matter how it’s branded, CDOs need to be known within their organization for something that is courageous, new, and adds value.

In addition, CDOs must be specific about their goals. One international publishing house, for example, set a target of generating 50 percent of its revenue and profit from digital media within ten years, and it wound up doing so in almost half that time. Similarly, several banks that set the objective of increasing digital-channel sales to more than 50 percent are seeing that specific and measurable goal rally the organization.

 

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2. Obsess over the customer

While most companies say they know their customers, CDOs must make it a driving passion and core competency of the organization. With technology and customer habits changing so quickly, developing a deep and detailed view of customer behavior across all channels provides a common reference point in any business discussion and arms the CDO to challenge the status quo and make changes. For example, one CDO used the concept of customer journeys and big data mapping of these paths to show her peers where opportunities and pain points existed—and, in doing so, destroyed several myths.

This type of analysis is critical, to be sure, but an equally important part of the CDO’s job is communicating how essential the customer is to the organization. One CDO created clear and visually compelling dashboards on the customer journey and made a habit of consistently referencing them in meetings and when making decisions. Another set up a digitally enabled “war room” with real-time reporting on several key digital metrics, which soon will be piped to the tablets and smartphones of other C-suite executives. Yet another CDO sends regular company-wide emails highlighting customer breakthroughs, insights, and “voice of the customer” anecdotes. Such actions can help the business start to think more specifically about the customer so that everyone approaches all issues with a single crucial question: How will this affect the customer?

Digital capabilities ultimately provide an important foundation for improving the customer experience. It’s up to the CDO to identify those functions where digital is critical: for example, investing in automation capabilities to rapidly respond to customer interactions, developing sophisticated reporting and analytics capabilities to interpret customer needs, building innovative interfaces to gather customer data (for example, an alternative payment method), and creating mechanisms to deliver content and offers across all relevant channels. While the CDO will need to work closely with marketing and IT leadership, he or she should define the customer-experience journey and identify the requirements for developing and then supporting a dynamic system that is constantly learning and evolving.

3. Build agility, speed, and data

CDOs can build strong foundations for change by creating a “spirit of digital” throughout the organization. That could include setting up coding days for the board or holding company-wide hackathons—one company we know even had drones flying around the atrium of its headquarters. Core to building this spirit, however, is increasing the “metabolic rate” of the organization. That starts with changing basic habits, such as having strategy leadership meetings weekly or even biweekly to help ingrain the idea of moving at a faster pace. CDOs must look at how the organization operates and find ways to inject speed into processes. In some cases, it could be as straightforward as working with IT to automate existing development processes. But in others, it will require radically changing how the company works, such as setting extremely aggressive goals—as few as six weeks—for getting a product to market. Some CDOs do this by setting up “digital factories,” which are cross-functional groups focused on developing one product or process using a different technology, operational, or managerial methodology from the rest of the company. Embedding these factories in business units has the advantage of spreading the new culture and making the digital-factory approach the norm.

Managing a portfolio of these types of initiatives requires leaders to be decisive. If the data show a prototype doesn’t work, the CDO must be ruthless about killing the project, incorporating anything learned from the experience, and moving on. On the other hand, CDOs should establish flexible budgeting processes so that projects that show signs of success can get resources to scale quickly.

4. Extend networks

In a digital world, threats often do not come from established competitors but rather from innovative technologies that enable new businesses, start-ups that undermine established business models, or new developments outside the way the company defined its competitive space. For example, one of the big trends in the payments sector is the merging of commerce and payments functionalities in the same app—so, being able to pay for your restaurant meal using the OpenTable app you used to reserve your table.

Successful CDOs are keenly aware of such trends. They build networks of people, technologies, and ideas far outside of their company, constantly scanning the small-business landscape to identify possible acquisitions or partners that can provide complementary capabilities. Some CDOs spend as much as 50 percent of their time working with external partners to build effective working relationships that take advantage of every organization’s capabilities. To help bring these outside voices into the organization, many CDOs establish advisory boards of start-up leaders or create “challenger” boards of people with digital experience and expertise to review corporate initiatives and strategies. At a more pedestrian level, they regularly invite technologists or entrepreneurs to team lunches.

Building an internal network is just as important because company systems and technologies need to be flexible enough to work with outside parties. In particular, CDOs need to work with IT leaders to develop application programming interfaces and cloud-based architecture that works with a broader ecosystem of providers. Some CDOs realize too late that functions such as compliance, finance, human resources, legal, procurement, and risk also need to change to support a more digitally focused company. At one company, for example, an effort to accelerate time to market is in full swing, but procurement still insists it requires six months to approve a vendor. Changing such supporting processes isn’t easy—functions often have good reasons for why processes are undertaken as they are. But brokering compromises and testing new ways of operating that are necessary to make progress will be virtually impossible if a CDO doesn’t build internal networks early and engage with leaders across the business.

5. Get stuff done

CDOs are ultimately judged not by the quality of their ideas but by their ability to lead different types of teams, guide projects, overcome hurdles, and deliver integrated change.

Getting stuff done often requires hard-nosed negotiating skills. Consider the CDO at a financial-services company who wanted to stop business units from draining IT resources on independent projects that didn’t align with the overarching strategy. The CDO worked closely with the CIO and agreed to use her new budget to fund some of his projects; she also helped him retain and motivate key people by staffing them on important digital initiatives (which also assured him visibility into what she was doing). In return, the CIO agreed to stop supporting initiatives that the CDO didn’t explicitly approve. Both won in the end, and they now have a close working relationship.

A new CDO will benefit from the early establishment of near-term goals that can yield quick wins and wow moments that help build enthusiasm and momentum. Some CDOs find that building the marketing-commerce function is a great way to quickly demonstrate value, while others embark on accelerated cost cutting by automating core processes. It pays to define how success is measured, whether it’s tracking key digital and business metrics—such as digital-media revenue as a percentage of total revenue—or creating a full digital profit-and-loss statement (or both). To be meaningful for the business overall and to build credibility, key performance indicators must be aligned with those used by established business units.

Within his first month, for example, the new CDO at one financial-services company defined clear, discrete digital initiatives; developed a long-term vision in partnership with an anchor business-unit leader; and got his budget approved. Within six months, he hired a handful of key employees, launched several initiatives, identified gaps in the organization, and pulled together teams to fill them. A year and a half into the job, he was able to claim some solid wins and moved from a “shadow” profit and loss to an explicit one.

Of course, the projects CDOs commit to must be core to the business—such as developing new revenue streams, cutting costs, or getting to market faster—and not peripheral experiments, which could end up marginalizing their efforts. We’ve actually found it works best when a CDO’s budget is funded through the efficiencies and growth that he or she drives. In addition, we believe that budgeting is critical to ensuring that things get done. Successful CDOs not only time their actions to maximize budgetary flexibility but also change how funding is allocated. One CDO shifted from annual approval of large capital expenses for IT to a more venture capital–like monthly cycle, ensuring he could get more projects funded and launched. This approach also served to maintain funding momentum, with small bites over the course of the year predicated on demonstrated effectiveness.

Defining characteristics of the new CDO

When hiring a CDO, people often agonize over finding someone with experience that is just right. Yet we’ve found it’s the ability to lead transformation across an organization that is the true indicator of likely success in the role, and that requires a combination of hard and soft skills. Hard skills include the ability to articulate a strategic vision, the means to take on problems by identifying root causes across functions and making the tough decisions necessary to resolve them, experience in “pure play” digital and larger company transformations (typically in the consumer and technology sectors), and the managerial ability to lead and see programs through to fruition.

The importance of soft skills should not be understated: some CDOs estimate they spend 80 percent of their time building relationships. In our experience, successful CDOs have the patience to navigate the complex organizational structures of large businesses; additionally, they collaborate to get buy-in across functions and are able to diplomatically challenge the status quo and solidify relationships with a broad group of people. They also demonstrate leadership and charisma that excites the organization to drive change forward.

Of course, companies would be lucky to have executives in any function with this skill set. But driving organization-wide change isdifferent from the mandate for other senior roles. A recent Russell Reynolds Associates survey found that CDOs are meaningfully different from other senior executives across five categories: they are on average 34 percent more likely to be innovative and 32 percent more likely to be disruptive, and also differ with regard to determination, boldness of leadership, and social adeptness.3Leading an organizational transformation is messy work that requires masterful social skills to implement digital initiatives that create disruption by their very nature. Indeed, a CDO’s strong bias for action, bold thinking, and high tolerance for risk requires someone who can also manage the ruffled feathers, bruised egos, and flaring tempers that are common fallout from his or her activities.

As the digital age scrambles the traditional organizational structure, CDOs must not only launch the organization on its digital trajectory but also help it fundamentally evolve. The role requires a “bifocal” approach: achieving the near-term imperative of getting things moving quickly, while setting in place the longer-term conditions of success so the organization can compete digitally. Those CDOs that succeed will truly have earned their place in the already-crowded C-suite.

About the Authors

Tuck Rickards is a managing director at Russell Reynolds Associates, where he coleads the executive-search company’s Digital Transformation Practice. Kate Smaje is a director in McKinsey’s London office, and Vik Sohoni is a director in the Chicago office.

Chinese consumers continue to grow relentlessly in number and wealth. This is a well-studied economic trend. But what people are missing is how the changing behavior of these consumers is now regularly shaking the world.

Suddenly, when Chinese consumers change their minds about something, it ripples outward into the global economy. And this phenomenon is going to get a lot more noticeable in the next years.

The economic trend underlying this is the steady advance of China's urban middle class families. This is the group to watch. According to McKinsey & Co., Chinese urban household disposable income will reach $8,000 a year by 2020. This will be about the same level as South Korea, but in a much, much larger population. After Middle Eastern oil, Chinese urban middle class families are arguably the most valuable natural resource on the planet.

But within this big trend, an important shift is now occurring. Urban families are rapidly transitioning from "value hunters" to more emotional, aspirational and free-spending consumers.

Price-focused consumers have dominated the China story thus far. They typically have had little brand loyalty and tend to shop around for the best deals, mostly for life's necessities. Chinese companies such as Haier Group and China Vanke have done very well selling these consumers air conditioners and apartments at affordable prices.

The more emotional group now emerging, called "new mainstream" consumers by McKinsey, already has life's basics. And they have enough disposable income to buy discretionary items such as lattes and trips to Thailand. What they care about is quality, brands and how products make them feel. So they want real iPhones, not cheap alternatives, and they are able and willing to pay for them. What is fascinating about this group is that they behave similarly to consumers in developed markets.

And here's the factoid that matters. These "new mainstream" consumers accounted for about 5% of China in 2010, with value seekers then accounting for the overwhelming majority. But according to McKinsey, the new mainstream will represent at least half of urban middle class families by 2020. This is the important transition that is happening right now.

It means Chinese consumers are rapidly becoming much more emotional and unpredictable. Suddenly, when Chinese consumers like a movie, such as "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," they become one of the biggest source of revenue for it.

In 2015, McDonald's, KFC and other U.S. fast-food chains got a painful lesson in this phenomenon after media reports of alleged contaminated food in their Chinese outlets. Their global financial results took significant hits. While reported as a food scandal, this incident was really about urban Chinese families caring more about food safety now than in the past.

Overwhelmed

Conversely, if Chinese consumers decide that a particular brand is safe or better than its rivals, foreign companies can suddenly be overwhelmed with orders. This recently happened to Swisse Wellness Group, one of Australia's leading vitamin and supplement companies.

During the first half of 2015, Swisse, which had virtually no operations in China, suddenly found its sales there growing very rapidly. It turned out that Chinese consumers had begun ranking its products highly on Tmall. Revenues for the year (ended in June) jumped to A$313.1 million ($235 million) from A$125.6 million a year earlier. And unsurprisingly, a Chinese company (Biostime International Holdings) quickly bought Swisse in A$1.39 billion deal.

Another example is the story of the Bobbie Bear, a bright purple teddy bear stuffed with lavender and sold by a farm in Tasmania. This small lavender farm, a retirement project of owner Robert Ravenus, became inundated with orders after Chinese model / actress Zhang Xinyu posted a photo of her Bobbie Bear online. Orders surged to more than 45,000 and the farm was forced to suspend online sales, as it could not handle the demand from China.

The company then had to place limits on how many bears could be bought by visitors to the farm's gift shop. Chinese tourists were showing up in Tasmania in droves to make purchases. Annual visitors to the farm exceeded 60,000. At one point, a hacker, presumed to have been Chinese, broke into the farm's computer system to try to place orders.

My point is that increasingly emotional Chinese consumers (i.e., less pure value seeking) are now regularly causing events such as this around the world.

Increasing mechanisms

A second important factor is that the mechanisms through which Chinese consumers can impact companies around the world are increasing. The Swisse vitamin example was possible because cross-border e-commerce, known as "haitao" in China, now lets consumers there buy overseas goods online and get them delivered. Both Amazon and Tmall are charging after this cross-border opportunity right now.

Another mechanism is real estate. Every six to 12 months, Chinese consumers seem to discover a new favorite place and start buying huge numbers of homes there. This phenomenon started in Hong Kong a few years ago. Buying then switched to Vancouver and Toronto. In the last year, we have seen heavy Chinese purchasing of homes in New York and California.

Tourism is another powerful mechanism. The number of trips abroad by Chinese tourists now exceeds 120 million a year and their travels tastes can be unpredictable as well. For example, following the 2012 hit movie "Lost in Thailand," Chinese tourists started flooding into Chiang Mai, the main tourist hub in the area where the movie was filmed. Arrivals to the city were reportedly up 500% in 2013 alone.

So in 2016, two important factors are coming together: the increasingly emotional behavior of Chinese consumers (who are growing in power) and a multiplication of the mechanisms by which this influence can impact the world, often in real-time.

What this means for markets and businesses around the globe is that they can now be directly impacted by what is discussed at dinner tables, in offices and online in China. My recommendation is to start paying attention to those conversations.

July 2015, during the championship round of the World Surf League’s J-Bay Open, in South Africa, a great white shark attacked Australian surfing star Mick Fanning. Right before the attack, Fanning said later, he had the eerie feeling that “something was behind me.”1 Then he turned and saw the fin.
Thankfully, Fanning was unharmed. But the incident reverberated in the surfing world, whose denizens face not only the danger of loss of limb or life from sharks—surfers account for nearly half of all shark victims—but also the uncomfortable, even terrifying feeling that can accompany unseen perils.
Just two years earlier, off the coast of Nazarre, Portugal, Brazilian surfer Carlos Burle rode what, unofficially, at least, ranks as the largest wave in history. He is a member of a small group of people who, backed by board shapers and other support personnel, tackle the planet’s biggest, most fearsome, and most impressive waves. Working in small teams, they are totally committed to riding them, testing the limits of human performance that extreme conditions offer. Instead of a threat of peril, they turn stormy seas into an opportunity for amazing human accomplishment.
These days, something of a mix of the fear of sharks and the thrill of big-wave surfing pervades the executive suites we visit, when the conversation turns to the threats and opportunities arising from digitization. The digitization of processes and interfaces is itself a source of worry. But the feeling of not knowing when, or from which direction, an effective attack on a business might come creates a whole different level of concern. News-making digital attackers now successfully disrupt existing business models—often far beyond the attackers’ national boundaries:
Simple (later bought by BBVA) took on big-cap banks without opening a single branch.
A DIY investment tool from Acorns shook up the financial-advisory business.
Snapchat got a jump on mainstream media by distributing content on a platform-as-a-service infrastructure.
Web and mobile-based map applications broke GPS companies’ hold on the personal navigation market.
No wonder many business leaders live in a heightened state of alert. Thanks to outsourced cloud infrastructure, mix-and-match technology components, and a steady flood of venture money, start-ups and established attackers can bite before their victims even see the fin. At the same time, the opportunities presented by digital disruption excite and allure. Forward-leaning companies are immersing themselves deeply in the world of the attackers, seeking to harness new technologies, and rethinking their business models—the better to catch and ride a disruptive wave of their own. But they are increasingly concerned that dealing with the shark they can see is not enough—others may lurk below the surface.

Deeper forces

Consider an insurance company in which the CEO and her top team have reconvened following a recent trip to Silicon Valley, where they went to observe the forces reshaping, and potentially upending, their business. The team has seen how technology companies are exploiting data, virtualizing infrastructure, reimagining customer experiences, and seemingly injecting social features into everything. Now it is buzzing with new insights, new possibilities, and new threats.

The team’s members take stock of what they’ve seen and who might disrupt their business. They make a list including not only many insurance start-ups but also, ominously, tech giants such as Google and Uber—companies whose driverless cars, command of data, and reimagined transportation alternatives could change the fundamentals of insurance. Soon the team has charted who needs to be monitored, what partnerships need to be pursued, and which digital initiatives need to be launched.

Just as the team’s members begin to feel satisfied with their efforts, the CEO brings the proceedings to a halt. “Hang on,” she says. “Are we sure we really understand the nature of the disruption we face? What about the next 50 start-ups and the next wave of innovations? How can we monitor them all? Don’t we need to focus more on the nature of the disruption we expect to occur in our industry rather than on who the disruptors are today? I’m pretty sure most of those on our list won’t be around in a decade, yet by then we will have been fundamentally disrupted. And how do we get ahead of these trends so we can be the disruptors, too?”

This discussion resembles many we hear from management teams thoughtful about digital disruption, which is pushing them to develop a view of the deeper forces behind it. An understanding of those forces, combined with solid analysis, can help explain not so much which companies will disrupt a business as why—the nature of the transformation and disruption they face rather than just the specific parties that might initiate them.

In helping executives to answer this question, we have—paradoxically, perhaps, since digital “makes everything new”—returned to the fundamentals of supply, demand, and market dynamics to clarify the sources of digital disruption and the conditions in which it occurs. We explore supply and demand across a continuum: the extent to which their underlying elements change. This approach helps reveal the two primary sources of digital transformation and disruption. The first is the making of new markets, where supply and demand change less. But in the second, the dynamics of hyperscaling platforms, the shifts are more profound (exhibit). Of course, these opportunities and threats aren’t mutually exclusive; new entrants, disruptive attackers, and aggressive incumbents typically exploit digital dislocations in combination.

We have been working with executives to sort through their companies’ situations in the digital space, separating realities from fads and identifying the threats and opportunities and the biggest digital priorities. Think of our approach as a barometer to provide an early measure of your exposure to a threat or to a window of opportunity—a way of revealing the mechanisms of digital disruption at their most fundamental. It’s designed to enable leaders to structure and focus their discussions by peeling back hard-to-understand effects into a series of discrete drivers or indicators they can track and to help indicate the level of urgency they should feel about the opportunities and threats.

We’ve written this article from the perspective of large, established companies worried about being attacked. But those same companies can use this framework to spot opportunities to disrupt competitors—or themselves. Strategy in the digital age is often asymmetrical, but it isn’t just newcomers that can tilt the playing field to their advantage.

Technologists from across the globe recently gathered in Barcelona for the Mobile World Congress, the annual conversation on connectivity and celebration of new gadgets. While the conference traditionally focuses on phones, the discussions about mobile—in Barcelona and beyond—have grown increasingly wide-ranging as mobile technologies continue to seep into more areas of daily life. As one journalist covering the conference eloquently noted, "The Internet is becoming an invisible fabric—like air—that enables all the services we’ve come to depend on." In this schema, mobile devices and their apps are the stitches weaving together these services that help us work, play and live.

Indeed, the rise of mobile technologies has spurred the transformation of industries once considered sleepy into areas where some of the hottest new startups are operating. Uber and Lyft drivers have largely displaced cabbies; Airbnb has won over travelers who had previously booked hotel rooms; Postmates couriers have sped past the bike messengers of yesteryear with their promise of any local product delivered to your door in under one hour.

Looking at the common denominators of these startups gives us some clues about where the next mobility-enabled disruption might occur. First, these companies all offer services characterized by high time-sensitivity. After all, it's far more likely that someone waiting for a ride they've requested will return to a service that supplies a driver in four to five minutes as opposed to ten. By bypassing the dispatching step of traditional cab companies with location-based data capabilities, Uber et al. have cornered that competitive edge.

Second, these companies invest in technology but stay capital light by relying on assets that are already owned by the independent providers they partner with: Cars, bikes, houses and apartments. This low barrier to entry for service providers—no pricey taxi medallion to buy or hotel to maintain— results in the greater supply that drives down costs for consumers and thereby renders these services more desirable.

Finally, these companies are able to use technology to turn what I'll call "serendipity" into operating efficiencies. Theoretically at least, Lyft drivers or Postmates couriers accept jobs close to where they already are when the job comes up. Jobs are done more quickly, which means that workers make more money in less time and customers are more satisfied.

While a variety of industries have one or more of these features of providing time-sensitive services, possessing the option to rely on shared assets, and capitalizing on serendipity, I believe three more traditional areas especially ripe for mobile-enabled disruption are healthcare, staffing and banking. Watch these spaces if you're looking for the next company to have its "Uber moment."

Healthcare

Pioneers in telemedicine are improving access to care for patients who live in underserved areas or who can't otherwise travel to their doctor's offices. Startups like American Well and Doctor on Demand offer live video doctor visits via mobile app for a relatively small patient fee, and they're starting to gain momentum in part by making inroads to employer-sponsored plans. These services might be especially valuable in the arena of mental health, where on-demand offerings are growing and a shortage of face-to-face appointment availability means that patients are often unable to get the timely help they need to avoid crisis.

Staffing

Many of today's contingent workers find project-based "gigs" and other short-term work using mobile workforce platforms like Upwork, Fiverr and the company I co-founded, Gigwalk. The rise of such platforms has changed the game not just for independent workers, but also for HR departments and staffing agencies, which must now bolster their technological capabilities to stay competitive. The employers of today want to work with staffing partners who can anticipate and meet constantly and rapidly shifting staffing needs. The day when the average staffing agency employee wakes up and glances at an app on her phone to get that day's work location and assignment is closer than we think.

Banking

Brick-and-mortar and online-only banks alike have been quick to offer mobile apps that let their customers check balances, transfer funds and deposit checks from their phones, but there's still room for innovation in the key area of cash transfer. While mobile apps like Venmo and Circle let users send or receive cash instantly via text at no charge, we still haven't seen this capability offered at large scale and integrated with other banking services. The area is ripe for players who can wrap these services together at a low price point.

Just like EBay changed the garage sale to a large-scale virtual goldmine in the '90s as it used the Internet to match far-flung buyers and sellers, mobile is causing another wave of disruption that will reward a new crop of innovative players. Wherever they emerge from, they promise to further ease the "life on-the-go" that is our 21st century reality.  

What Will The Next President Do About Obamacare?
With the presidential elections less than a few months away and the race to the White House heating up, it is a good time to take stock and assess the future of healthcare in the United States. The election of a Democrat for president is widely expected to result in a continuation and expansion of the goals set out by the Affordable Care Act (ACA), while the election of a Republican will most certainly result in a roll back of some, if not all, of the act’s key initiatives. What we can expect from either of these electoral outcomes depends entirely on the individual in the Oval Office, the amount of Congressional support he or she is able to generate, and the overall healthcare objectives outlined by the next administration.


Precinct captain Christa DeHerrera, left, puts a band on voter Janell Lindsey after she checked in at a Democratic caucus late Tuesday, March 1, 2016, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

Scenario 1: Assessing the Healthcare Landscape Following a Democrat Victory

Hospitals will Continue to Benefit from Rise in Insured Population

A Democratic presidential victory will broadly result in the continuation of the ACA with potential to increase the scope, subject to favorable congressional approval. In this scenario, patients will benefit greatly through greater state-based adoption of health exchanges, enhanced federal subsidies from policies purchased on national exchanges and removal of exclusion criteria by insurers. This continued growth in insurance patient base will reduce declining hospital volumes and increase revenues. As per a Moody’s assessment of hospital financial performance in 2015, an increased insurance base has resulted in not-for-profit hospitals witnessing rising revenues (compared to a decline in 2014), while the financial status of for-profit hospitals has shifted from “stable” to “profitable.” Hospitals will use these revenues to provide high-quality acute care services, as well as play a greater role in pioneering novel therapies such as genetic medicine, nano medicine and 3D printing health technologies.

Retail Clinics: The New Linchpin of Care Provision

Rise of ambulatory care providers such as retail clinics and urgent care centers will be critical in transitioning chronic and non-critical emergency care away from hospitals. Hospitals will leverage the rise of these service providers to further decongest emergency wards, reduce operating costs and transition chronic care management of patients outside the hospital. At the same time, ambulatory service providers will also act as patient referral nodes for hospitals. As of 2015, over 100 partnership agreements had been signed between various hospitals/health systems and ambulatory care providers. The number of deals will extend significantly post-2017 as hospitals seek greater collaboration with ambulatory care providers. With an average cost of $100 to $150 per consultation in retail and urgent care clinics, insurers will seek to incentivize patients covered by their plans to seek care from these providers whenever possible.

Primary Care: In Desperate Need of an Overhaul

While primary care will continue to play a key role in the healthcare value chain, with over 60% of primary care practices acquired or in partnerships with hospitals or health systems, the high cost of primary care services and an expected shortage of 46,000 to 90,000 primary care doctors over the next few years will experience the adoption of primary care technologies, such as telemedicine and virtual consultation services, to improve efficiency of care provision.

CMS Spending will Continue to Remain the Bedrock of U.S. Healthcare Spending

While Medicare reimbursements will continue to decline across healthcare providers, greater statewide adoption of Medicaid expansion services will play a key role in financing care, especially for elderly patients and those suffering from one or more chronic conditions requiring care in a specialty long-term care hospital or in residential, semi-residential and nursing facilities. With 283 rural hospitals at risk of closure, Medicaid expansion will be critical in ensuring financial stability of rural hospitals. As of 2015, only 8.3% of rural hospitals were at risk of closure in Medicare expansion states, compared to 16.6% in non-Medicare expansion states. With a rapidly aging population and increase in chronic diseases, enhanced Medicare expansion will be critical in ensuring greater affordability and accessibility to care.

Scenario 2: Assessing the Healthcare Landscape Following a Republican Victory

Reduced Insurance Coverage, Lower Inpatient Volumes and Falling Hospital Revenues Sound the Death Knell for Hospital-Based Innovation

A Republican presidential victory will most likely result in a rollback of some ACA elements, if not the act in its entirety. Rollback of health insurance exchanges, including public, private, state and federal, will likely be the first step, which will result in the reintroduction of exclusion criteria and high co-payment plans for those suffering from pre-existing conditions. This will result in a reduction of patient base, which, in turn, will cause a steep decline in hospital inpatient volumes. This reduction in volumes will undermine and eventually erode the revenue gains made by not-for-profit hospitals over the past year. Traditionally, for-profit hospitals have been more adept at responding to market changes. In the coming years for-profit hospitals will be capable of holding on to patient volumes but will witness reductions in profits. These reduced revenues, coupled with ongoing Medicare cuts, will prevent hospitals from offering high-quality acute care services. Research of novel therapies such as genetic and nano medicine will remain within academic institutions, with large-scale utilization delayed by several years.

Ambulatory Care Providers: Overburdened, Underfunded and Stretched

In this environment, ambulatory care providers will become the de facto providers of choice for the increasing number of uninsured patients, most of which suffer from chronic conditions. Lack of insurance coverage for these types of patients will result in patients having to pay for services out of pocket. This will lead to sluggish revenue growth and will impact the rate at which these providers expand service lines and increase geographical coverage. In this scenario, hospitals will find it increasingly difficult to transition chronic care to these providers, resulting in increasing operating costs, which will impact hospital emergency wards the most.

No Country for Old Men (and Women)

The biggest impact of a Republican victory will most likely be rollback of Medicaid expansion across individual states. While existing Medicaid expansion states may not choose to roll back services, chances of adoption by non-Medicaid expansion states will reduce significantly. This will adversely impact financial health of rural hospitals and LTC providers, resulting in serious gaps in healthcare provision, especially for those patients living in remote areas and those who require 24/7 oversight and care management. With a rapidly aging population and rising incidence of chronic diseases, care providers will become ill-equipped and ill funded to handle the demand for LTC services, resulting in a huge economic burden on caregivers and patient family members.

Placing Pragmatism before Emotion and Rhetoric

Should a Republican win the presidency, he must take steps to ensure that the ACA will continue to be enforced. Rollback of elements of the act, while appealing to conservatives within the party, would most certainly create serious long-term damage to healthcare systems’ ability to cope with the increased demand for care services while continuing to be at the forefront of global medical innovation. It is absolutely imperative that a careful study be conducted to assess the efficacy of the ACA on various aspects of care in order to understand how to make the act more efficient and align it closer to the goals of the next administration.

This article was written with contribution from Tanvir Jaikishen, Senior Research Analyst with Frost & Sullivan’s Transformation Health Program.

There’s  been so much change in the way companies, leaders and businesses work with each other and together, so it’s difficult to plan your future, whether you’re new to the workforce, returning to the workforce or planning how to remain gainfully employed in later years. Here are my thoughts on the type of work that’s available and how to embrace these opportunities and and prepare for the challenges to come.

1. The tech-philic worker will be favored, and those who reject or deny this fact will be much less employable. Technology will help workers to gather and interpret data and information so that they can be more productive and better serve the customer, both of which are critical to the performance of any company.
2. The learning-agile worker will be favored. Those who are resistant to learning new ways of doing things will be left behind, especially as automation will replace the need of workers-who-perform-repetitive-tasks.
3. The communicative worker will more likely succeed as it would be easier for them to work with all the internal and external stakeholders involved in any job – from colleague to teammate, from partner to customer.
4. The patient, helpful, service-oriented worker will be better positioned to serve demanding customers. There will always be jobs for people who know how to make even the pickiest of customers happy.
5. Collaboration between people and companies will more likely succeed. Leaders will be those who can envision the benefits of collaborating across roles, companies and industries, and create and facilitate those successful partnerships.
6. If you combine the 5 traits above, you will find a worker who may be able to tailor products and services to the needs of the customer. There will always be a role for people who can succeed in doing this well.
7. Company leaders will be more focused on data and analytics, and there will be more meritocracy-based cultures and less politics.
8. Along those same lines, productivity of people and product/service lines will be based more on data and information, and less on politics and agendas.
9. Company leaders will help make it easy for adiverse population of workers to succeed – whether it’s making remote work possible or providing tech tools to support an aging or disabled or other non-standard worker.
10. The bottom line is that companies and leaders will acknowledge that they are only as good as their people, and think, speak and act accordingly.

Those are my thoughts on the Future of Work. How will these things impact YOU? Your comments are welcome.

It’s no secret that we’re obsessed with happiness. After all, the “pursuit of happiness” is even enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. But happiness is fleeting. How can we find it and keep it alive?

Psychologists at the University of California have discovered some fascinating things about happiness that could change your life.

Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky is a psychology professor at the Riverside campus who is known among her peers as “the queen of happiness.” She began studying happiness as a grad student and never stopped, devoting her career to the subject.

One of her main discoveries is that we all have a happiness “set point.” When extremely positive or negative events happen—such as buying a bigger house or losing a job—they temporarily increase or decrease our happiness, but we eventually drift back to our set point.

The breakthrough in Dr. Lyubomirsky’s research is that you can make yourself happier—permanently. Lyubomirsky and others have found that our genetic set point is responsible for only about 50% of our happiness, life circumstances affect about 10%, and a whopping 40% is completely up to us. The large portion of your happiness that you control is determined by your habits, attitude, and outlook on life.

"Happiness depends upon ourselves." -Aristotle

Even when you accomplish something great, that high won’t last. It won’t make you happy on its own; you have to work to make and keep yourself happy.

Your happiness, or lack thereof, is rooted in your habits. Permanently adopting new habits—especially those that involve intangibles, such as how you see the world—is hard, but breaking the habits that make you unhappy is much easier.

There are numerous bad habits that tend to make us unhappy. Eradicating these bad habits can move your happiness set point in short order.

Immunity to awe. Amazing things happen around you every day if you only know where to look. Technology has exposed us to so much and made the world so much smaller. Yet, there’s a downside that isn’t spoken of much: exposure raises the bar on what it takes to be awestricken. And that’s a shame, because few things are as uplifting as experiencing true awe. True awe is humbling. It reminds us that we’re not the center of the universe. Awe is also inspiring and full of wonder, underscoring the richness of life and our ability to both contribute to it and be captivated by it. It’s hard to be happy when you just shrug your shoulders every time you see something new.

Isolating yourself. Isolating yourself from social contact is a pretty common response to feeling unhappy, but there’s a large body of research that says it’s the worst thing you can do. This is a huge mistake, as socializing, even when you don’t enjoy it, is great for your mood. We all have those days when we just want to pull the covers over our heads and refuse to talk to anybody, but the moment this becomes a tendency, it destroys your mood. Recognize that when unhappiness is making you antisocial, you need to force yourself to get out there and mingle. You’ll notice the difference right away.

Blaming. We need to feel in control of our lives in order to be happy, which is why blaming is so incompatible with happiness. When you blame other people or circumstances for the bad things that happen to you, you’ve decided that you have no control over your life, which is terrible for your mood.

Controlling. It’s hard to be happy without feeling in control of your life, but you can take this too far in the other direction by making yourself unhappy through trying to control too much. This is especially true with people. The only person you can control in your life is you. When you feel that nagging desire to dictate other people’s behavior, this will inevitably blow up in your face and make you unhappy. Even if you can control someone in the short term, it usually requires pressure in the form of force or fear, and treating people this way won’t leave you feeling good about yourself.

Criticizing. Judging other people and speaking poorly of them is a lot like overindulging in a decadent dessert; it feels good while you’re doing it, but afterwards, you feel guilty and sick. Sociopaths find real pleasure in being mean. For the rest of us, criticizing other people (even privately or to ourselves) is just a bad habit that’s intended to make us feel better about ourselves. Unfortunately, it doesn’t. It just creates a spiral of negativity.

Complaining. Complaining is troubling, as well as the attitude that precedes it. Complaining is a self-reinforcing behavior. By constantly talking—and therefore thinking—about how bad things are, you reaffirm your negative beliefs. While talking about what bothers you can help you feel better, there’s a fine line between complaining being therapeutic and it fueling unhappiness. Beyond making you unhappy, complaining drives other people away.

Impressing. People will like your clothes, your car, and your fancy job, but that doesn’t mean they like you. Trying to impress other people is a source of unhappiness, because it doesn’t get to the source of what makes you happy—finding people who like you and accept you for who you are. All the things you acquire in the quest to impress people won’t make you happy either. There’s an ocean of research that shows that material things don’t make you happy. When you make a habit of chasing things, you are likely to become unhappy because, beyond the disappointment you experience once you get them, you discover that you’ve gained them at the expense of the real things that can make you happy, such as friends, family, and taking good care of yourself.

Negativity. Life won’t always go the way you want it to, but when it comes down to it, you have the same 24 hours in the day as everyone else. Happy people make their time count. Instead of complaining about how things could have been or should have been, they reflect on everything they have to be grateful for. Then they find the best solution available to the problem, tackle it, and move on. Nothing fuels unhappiness quite like pessimism. The problem with a pessimistic attitude, apart from the damage it does to your mood, is that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: if you expect bad things, you’re more likely to get bad things. Pessimistic thoughts are hard to shake off until you recognize how illogical they are. Force yourself to look at the facts, and you’ll see that things are not nearly as bad as they seem.

Hanging around negative people. Complainers and negative people are bad news because they wallow in their problems and fail to focus on solutions. They want people to join their pity party so that they can feel better about themselves. People often feel pressure to listen to complainers because they don’t want to be seen as callous or rude, but there’s a fine line between lending a sympathetic ear and getting sucked into their negative emotional spirals. You can avoid getting drawn in only by setting limits and distancing yourself when necessary. Think of it this way: If a person were smoking, would you sit there all afternoon inhaling the second-hand smoke? You’d distance yourself, and you should do the same with negative people. A great way to set limits is to ask them how they intend to fix their problems. The complainer will then either quiet down or redirect the conversation in a productive direction.

You should strive to surround yourself with people who inspire you, people who make you want to be better, and you probably do. But what about the people who drag you down? Why do you allow them to be a part of your life? Anyone who makes you feel worthless, anxious, or uninspired is wasting your time and, quite possibly, making you more like them. Life is too short to associate with people like this. Cut them loose.

Comparing your own life to the lives people portray on social media.The Happiness Research Institute conducted the Facebook Experiment to find out how our social media habits affect our happiness. Half of the study’s participants kept using Facebook as they normally would, while the other half stayed off Facebook for a week. The results were striking. At the end of the week, the participants who stayed off Facebook reported a significantly higher degree of satisfaction with their lives and lower levels of sadness and loneliness. The researchers also concluded that people on Facebook were 55% more likely to feel stress as a result.

The thing to remember about Facebook and social media in general is that they rarely represent reality. Social media provides an airbrushed, color-enhanced look at the lives people want to portray. I’m not suggesting that you give up social media; just take it sparingly and with a grain of salt.

Neglecting to set goals. Having goals gives you hope and the ability to look forward to a better future, and working towards those goals makes you feel good about yourself and your abilities. It’s important to set goals that are challenging, specific (and measurable), and driven by your personal values. Without goals, instead of learning and improving yourself, you just plod along wondering why things never change.

Giving in to fear. Fear is nothing more than a lingering emotion that’s fueled by your imagination. Danger is real. It’s the uncomfortable rush of adrenaline you get when you almost step in front of a bus. Fear is a choice. Happy people know this better than anyone does, so they flip fear on its head. They are addicted to the euphoric feeling they get from conquering their fears.

When all is said and done, you will lament the chances you didn’t take far more than you will your failures. Don’t be afraid to take risks. I often hear people say, “What’s the worst thing that can happen to you? Will it kill you?” Yet, death isn’t the worst thing that can happen to you. The worst thing that can happen to you is allowing yourself to die inside while you’re still alive.

Leaving the present. Like fear, the past and the future are products of your mind. No amount of guilt can change the past, and no amount of anxiety can change the future. Happy people know this, so they focus on living in the present moment. It’s impossible to reach your full potential if you’re constantly somewhere else, unable to fully embrace the reality (good or bad) of the very moment. To live in the moment, you must do two things:

1) Accept your past. If you don’t make peace with your past, it will never leave you and it will create your future. Happy people know that the only good reason to look at the past is to see how far you’ve come.

2) Accept the uncertainty of the future, and don’t place unnecessary expectations upon yourself. Worry has no place in the here and now. As Mark Twain once said,

“Worrying is like paying a debt you don’t owe.”

Bringing It All Together

We can’t control our genes, and we can’t control all of our circumstances, but we can rid ourselves of habits that serve no purpose other than to make us miserable.

20 Priceless Lessons Everyone Should Learn in Their 20s
15-minute meetings can be ultra productive.

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What are the most difficult and useful things people have to learn in their 20s? originally appeared on Quora - the knowledge sharing network where compelling questions are answered by people with unique insights.

Answer by Nelson Wang, entrepreneur, writer, and founder of ceolifestyle.io, on Quora:

Here are the top 20 things I learned in my twenties:

1. Marry your ideas with execution. Ideas are good. An idea married to execution is better. So you came up with 100 good ideas. That's great. Can you actually make any of them a success?
2. Being able to focus is a skill. When I was in my 20s, I wanted to be a writer, a producer, an actor, a financial analyst, a salesperson, and an entrepreneur. And that was just in the category of careers. Imagine what that list looked like for multitasking my daily activities. As I got older, I realized that our time and energy is incredibly limited each day. Being able to focus is absolutely critical if you want to make a big impact.
3. Perseverance is the most important skill you can learn. You will fail, sometimes over and over again. It's human. No one's perfect. It's not about you fall, but how you get up each time. Did you learn? Did you quit when it made sense? Did you try again? Learn to persevere. I wanted to quit after writing my first book because it was such a flop. Guess what? I continued writing for years and eventually I got published in Forbes, Time, Fortune, Inc and Business Insider. #StayTheCourse.
4. Working hard doesn't guarantee success, but it makes it more likely. Working hard does ensure a few things: you'll learn a lot, you'll develop discipline, and you'll typically see more opportunities. Combine working hard with working smart, and you've got a recipe for success.
5. Work is very personal. You spend about 24% of your time at work your entire life. Bring your whole, authentic self every single day. (This is Sheryl Sandberg's idea). Do you think people say, "Gosh, I love working with Nelson because he's so robotic and shows no emotion or personality." Nope, didn't think so.
6. You don't know everything; learn from others. According to Socrates, "The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing." Okay, I think Socrates is kind of right here. Just kind of. I think you know something. But none of us know everything. Leverage the intellectual power of your network and always be insanely curious to learn from others. You never know what incredible knowledge they can share with you. For example, the other day I sat down with a friend for a coffee and learned how he built a business that generated tens of thousands of dollars in sales in a few months with only a few hours of work a week. #MindBlown.
7. An important part of business is setting proper expectations. Learn to let people know in advance what to expect when they work with you. This is half the battle.
8. 15-minute meetings can be ultra productive. Hour-long meetings are almost always too long. Seriously, when's the last time you really had to have a meeting that long to be productive? Try aiming for 15 minutes. It forces you to be concise.
9. You can lead, with or without a title. When I worked at a huge technology company in Silicon Valley, I was an individual contributor. I came up with an innovative idea for generating sales and new customers on my own and soon the word spread about its success. Before you knew it, I was asked by the executive leadership team to present it nationally to the entire team. That's when I realized, leaders lead by inspiring, coaching, and empowering people to be great. You can lead with or without the title.
10. First impressions make a difference. I flew to over 70 cities in 2 years for business. When I wore a hoodie and fell asleep once, the stewardess woke me up and said, "It's time to wake up, teddy bear." I was 29 years old at the time. When I wore a suit (because I had business meetings that same day), people would treat me differently and call me "sir." First impressions make a difference.
11. Time is the most valuable currency. In college I spent an inordinate amount of time playing Mario Kart and partying. Yes, it was fun, but as I've gotten older I realize now how valuable that time was. If I could go back in time, I would spend that time pushing myself to learn, to grow as a person, to spend more quality time with my friends and family, and to even start a business. Also, when I was in my early 20s, I often thought about how to make more money. Money is important. We need it for food, shelter, and clothing. It's absolutely necessary in life. But the most valuable currency is time. Time with our loved ones. Time to live a life we can be proud of. Time is finite. Spend it wisely.
12. Most arguments don't matter. Choose your battles wisely. 13. Most people have a limited amount of social currency.
Sometimes only you can motivate yourself to be great. Sometimes one of your idols can inspire you. Sometimes a family member can get you amped up. Sometimes a love interest can drive you. And sometimes, only you can motivate yourself.
14. Figure out your why. Your purpose will fuel your drive. This is the strongest motivator of all.
15. Have strong opinions, weakly held. I love hearing people talk about their ideas and opinions in a passionate way. It shows they care. I also love it when people realize that there's a better way to do things (even when it's different from their own opinion). Be passionate and be open to changing if there's a better way.
16. Data-driven decisions are powerful. "I think the "subscribe" button on the site should be blue," said the executive. "Why?" replied the marketing manager. "Because, I just think blue will do better." Instead of simply making decisions based on opinion, consider leveraging data to arrive at an answer. For example, an A/B test is a common and great way to find out which variations perform better on a webpage. Embrace testing.
17. Intuition can be just as powerful. Sometimes, though, intuition can be really powerful. When Steve Jobs created the iPhone, he had an incredible sense of what he thought people would want. It reminds me of the quote from Henry Ford: "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."
18. Your most important investment is in your health. Treat your body well and it will thank you many years later. Eat more fruits and vegetables and exercise regularly. Your energy, focus, and general happiness will improve. My secret to how I got on track with my health? Eating a green smoothie daily for 30 days.
19. Integrity is what you do when no one is looking. But no one will ever know, you think to yourself. Yes, but you always will. And you'll have to live with it. Do the right thing.
20. Love is what really matters. At the end of the day, love is what matters. Love more.
This question originally appeared on Quora - the knowledge sharing network where compelling questions are answered by people with unique insights.

Why I won't give up my Blackberry
Mar 1, 2016101,346 views182 Likes146 CommentsShare on LinkedInShare on FacebookShare on Twitter
Every day ‎someone questions my Blackberry as the smartphone of choice but I can honestly say that it makes my life easier and me a more productive manager.



It's been a love affair since I first got my blue Blackberry in 2004 (the 6720 with a chrome screen which I'm definitely not nostalgic about). Since then I've easily and fast been able to compose and respond to e-mails wherever and whenever I am on the move without the need to ‎take out my laptop other than for working with documents. Most recently I have a Blackberry Q10 which is without a doubt the best Blackberry ever.

As a manager of a team at Vodafone and later founding and managing Golden Gekko my Blackberry has been a huge productivity booster as I'm always in control of my communication channels. In addition to this I use it to blog, read my daily newsletters, take notes, book and keep track of all my meetings, instant messaging and yes, for phone calls!

So how does the Blackberry improve productivity versus other smartphones?

E-mail and calendar work amazing well and are lightning fast
Type super fast on the physical keyboard without looking, taking notes, writing blogs and other longer texts
The battery always lasts a full day even if the phone is used heavily
It's small and can easily be used with one hand when needed.
The hardware is robust and has never failed me in the last 5 years.
When roaming it uses a minimum amount of data when sending and receiving and messages and no need to turn off other applications
The services are extremely reliable with only one major incident in October 2011
Related to the first point but usability is extremely good with swipes, touch screen and keyboard complementing each other
Core services such as Camera, Calculator, Weather, Whatsapp and Evernote work really well
The lack of distraction from ‎latest games and apps may be related to discipline rather than the device but I'll put it on the list anyway
And yes, I have an iPhone 6S and a Samsung Galaxy S6 with me as backup and to use all the great apps that also improve my daily life.‎ Maybe the combination of two or three phones is the reason that Blackberry remains my primary device. Because if I had to choose one phone then I would probably have to chose the iPhone or Galaxy.

...until very recently that is.



With the Blackberry Priv with a big screen, a keyboard and running Android available since December there might be an-all-in-one-device. I'm still trying it out‎ so will let you know when I've made up my mind.

‎Anyone else that still uses the Blackberry or that wish you could have it back? Let me know so I can add you to the dying bread of Blackberry fans.

About: Magnus Jern is a serial entrepreneur, mobile envangelist, published writer and speaker at conferences around the world. He helps big and small companies succeed in mobile currently serving as President of DMI International (acquired Golden Gekko in 2013). Get in touch with him through Linkedin.