Event Proceedings

Leadership
Beyond Digital
Digital Business Forum Executive Roundtable
Paris | 14 April 2015

Leadership Beyond Digital 1

Powerful digital disruptions—such as disintermediation and re-intermediation—
access to new insights, and the development of the zero marginal cost
economy are having a profound impact on companies and how work is
performed. Leaders are rethinking their operating models and forging new
collaborative partnerships.
After a decade on defense, European companies are stepping up to the digital
challenge, accelerating, and pursuing tomorrow’s competitive advantages.
Successful companies are building on their strengths and identities, becoming
more agile, and embracing ecosystem strategies long the domain of startups.
Our April 2015 executive roundtable in Paris featured provocative context-
setting discussions on a range of topics, including the zero marginal cost society,
the age of the multitude, the Internet of Things, the knowledge economy,
business model turnarounds, and digital marketing. Panel discussions delved
into how digital impacts business models, the legal playing field, innovation,
and how corporations and startups can collaborate and organize for a digital
transformation. The speakers and panelists are among some of the world’s
foremost digital experts, business innovators, and thought leaders on the front
lines of digital business. This summary reflects the main themes and insights
that emerged from the discussions.
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Keynote: The Zero Marginal Cost Society:

The Internet of Things, Collaborative Commons,
and the Eclipse of Capitalism
Jeremy Rifkin, author, economist, government advisor

Technology is driving a major transformation that could conceivably signal the end of
capitalism as we know it and the rise of a third industrial revolution. The transformation is
characterized by the so-called “Internet of Things” in which sensors help drive and monitor
activity on the factory floor, in the distribution network, in retail establishments, in vehicles,
and even in the home. Those living in this data-driven environment have a new, nearly trans-
parent view into many aspects of life.

Technology and the data that underpins it are improving efficiency to the point that marginal
costs are approaching zero. With such low marginal costs, individuals become both producers
and consumers, or what are called “prosumers,” who produce their own goods, services, and
media. In such a schema, traditional industries are supplanted by the apps, analytics, and
connectivity that underpin the distributed economy—known as the sharing economy of the
Collaborative Commons. While such a revolution once seemed plausible only in the realm
of digital goods (for example, digital disks and printed pieces giving way to downloads and
streaming content online), new technological innovations are breaking through and impacting
physical goods as well, evident in the Internet of Things, 3D printing, and highly localized
renewable energy production.

Two industries most likely to see radical change are energy and transportation. On-site electrical
generation through solar and wind power will challenge power companies to optimize distri-
bution across the grid. Actual power generation and sales will become a smaller part of the
energy business. Automobiles will become very different and much scarcer in the years ahead.
The internal combustion engine is giving way to electric power trains. More importantly, we will

Jeremy Rifkin

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likely see only 20 percent as many automobiles on the road in future generations as car sharing
becomes a common phenomenon and an Internet of logistics for sharing these autos emerges
to manage this network of distributed driving.

Europe will lead the way to this new era. Companies and individuals will be required to finance
these changes and governments will need to lay out the regulatory roadmap while also grappling
with how to tax this economic activity. The giant companies that provide the infrastructure for
the Internet of Things and the sharing economy (think Facebook and Google) will likely be
repositioned as regulated utilities. Companies will create value by aggregating and managing
networks, and public-private partnerships will play a significant role in this social market model.
The United States will likely lag behind in this transformation due to resistance from the trans-
portation and energy industries and its general political climate.

Have the courage to invent new business

models. Change the world tomorrow.
Quality of life will improve in the Collaborative Commons—for individuals and the planet.
Increased sharing will reduce our ecological footprint as fewer resources are consumed to
produce things and emissions decline through reduced carbon consumption. The Millennial
generation is ready to lead this change, as its members reject the old notion of freedom—
autonomy and self-reliance—in favor of a new definition of freedom characterized by
connection and access. Where power has long been viewed as a top-down, centralized
concept, Millennials seek distributed, collaborative, and transparent behaviors that charac-
terize the Collaborative Commons.

April 2015 Digital Business Forum live poll

Q: When will the Internet of Things revolution occur?

Response breakdown (total number 297)

0 50 100 150 200 250 300

Now! And that's just the beginning.

Not yet happening. Let’s talk about it again in 2020.

It's really far away.

Source: A.T. Kearney April 2015 Digital Business Forum Executive Roundtable

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Keynote: Disruptions and the Age of the Multitude

Nicolas Colin, co-founder and partner, The Family

As an industry makes the transformation to digital, it will typically evolve through five stages.
In the first stage, the “initial digital burst,” new digital startups emerge to focus on serving
customers in a personalized way. As these startups increase in number, digital becomes a topic
of conversation in the industry but the large, established companies rarely take action.

As customers begin to appreciate the benefits of personalized service, “the multitude awakens”
in stage two. At this stage at least one startup emerges in a notable way by creating sustainable
customer relationships. The multitude of customers becomes assertive and some established
companies acknowledge the need to provide similar customized services.

In the third stage there is a “new balance of power” as the startups continue to grow and put
pressure on established companies as they take market share from them. In response, the
established companies try to thwart and block the upstarts through a combination of
regulatory, legal, and political means.

In the “enter the giants” stage, established companies begin to consider merger-and-acqui-
sition activity. Consolidation throughout the value chain occurs, margins shrink, and the
weakest players are driven out of business.

Finally, “vertical integration” is in play as the former startups, now dominant, seek to provide
an even better customer experience. Incumbents that refuse to meet the multitude’s demands
must grapple with even more new startups entering the market—digital innovators that pursue
vertical integration as part of their innovation strategy to pressure the old guard. Examples:
consider Google’s move to deploy its own high-speed data networks and Netflix’s introduction
of its own original content.

How do these digital-powered startups capture the multitude’s loyalty? By developing a deep
understanding of each customer in order to determine how to provide the best possible
experience. By agreeing to share their valuable information, customers enter into a relationship
of mutual trust. While traditional businesses claim to understand their customers, digital allows
companies to capture data that allows
them to understand how individuals live
24 hours a day.

Companies must work in entirely new ways

to successfully make the transformation to
digital. Open, honest public relations are
essential to keep customer trust. Shareholder
value cannot be the chief concern. Rather,
investment in innovations to provide top-
notch customer care is a top priority. Human
resources needs to recruit people with new
competencies while promoting a culture in
which every employee serves as a brand
ambassador. Acquiring startups can help
bridge the digital gap, as they generally have
the talent to fuel innovation and deep
expertise into what customers want. Nicolas Colin

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Panel Discussion: New Business Models

with Internet of Things and Data
Moderators

Daniel Dadoun, vice president, A.T. Kearney

Julien Vincent, senior manager, A.T. Kearney

Panelists

Jacques Richier, CEO, Allianz France

Odile Roujol, chief strategy and data officer, Orange France
Pascaline de Dreuzy, CEO and founder, Institut Autonomie & Technologie
Yannick Levy, VP corporate business development, Parrot

Big data and the Internet of Things are disrupting traditional business models and forcing
established companies to adapt or perish. They are also driving tremendous opportunity.
A.T. Kearney estimates that by 2020 connected objects will account for new revenues and
productivity gains that correlate to as much as 3.6 percent of France’s gross domestic product.

As the cost to own and operate drones decreases, new applications of this technology are
appearing. For example, drones are being employed to monitor crop growth and the use of
pesticides and fertilizers, with the potential to increase food production and reduce chemical
usage. Doing so requires drone manufacturers and operators to work in an ecosystem of
specialists that can cull geologic, meteorological, and observations data.

Orange Telecom is utilizing big data in a range of areas. On the customer side, the company
uses big data to improve customer relationships—targeting and serving customers based on

Daniel Dadoun, Pascaline de Dreuzy

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what customers as individuals are experiencing in their lives. In a collaboration with Meteo
France, Orange is able to notify customers about severe weather and warn them to disconnect
sensitive equipment to avoid power surges. Orange’s digital efforts are being driven by a team
of people with deep business and information technology backgrounds that collaborate with
a range of partners, including startups.

The auto insurance industry is also being transformed by the Internet of Things and big data
by allowing new levels and types of customization. “Pay as you drive” and “pay how you drive”
automotive policies would not be possible without digital technologies. Allianz continues to
refine its existing offerings and look for new opportunities as the customer evolves. For example,
as we move toward a sharing economy, auto insurers must adapt to automobiles that are
“shared” rather than owned. To keep abreast of developments, Allianz is building partnerships
within an open ecosystem for innovation. At the same time, big data vastly increases insurers’
ability to manage data, which has long been central to their business.

There are many fears and paradoxes

in the minds of customers when it comes
to the Internet of Things. We have to
earn their trust.
Connected objects will transform the French healthcare industry as it grapples with economic
constraints and an aging population. Data privacy laws will need to evolve as health platforms
are used to aggregate data. Insurers, home automation companies, and drone manufacturers
will all be part of an ecosystem that transforms the healthcare industry.

Our understanding of the possibilities afforded by the Internet of Things is just beginning, in
part because of the limitations around data formats and flows. Even among value chain partners
data sharing is limited. A software platform that allows businesses to securely combine and
share data is sorely needed in order to maximize the potential of the Internet of Things.

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Panel Discussion: Legal Challenges—

Data Privacy vs. Innovation
Moderator

Hervé Collignon, partner, A.T. Kearney

Panelists

Edouard Geffray, CNIL general secretary

Ahmed Baladi, partner, head of the global technology group, Allen & Overy
Gilles Babinet, digital champion for France, European Commission
Wojciech Wiewiórowski, assistant European data protection supervisor

The laws around data collection and use in Europe tend to be restrictive compared to those
in other countries such as the United States. France, for example, has strict data protection
guidelines—data can only be collected if there is a defined purpose for doing so, if there are
clear limits as to who in a business will use it, and if it will be used within a finite window of time.
Consent for data use and access is also required of customers of French businesses. There is
significant variance around privacy rights in other European nations, which is making standard-
ization across the EU challenging. The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) presently has
directives in place for member nations but full-fledged regulation is still being developed as
members work through the political, cultural, and practical differences from country to country.

The public also has different degrees of privacy concerns, depending on the industry. People
tend to closely guard their personal healthcare and finance data while having minimal concerns
about real-time data collected about their utility usage.

Left to right: Gilles Babinet, Edouard Geffray, Wojciech Wiewiórowski, Hervé Collignon

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As we enter a new digital-powered industrial revolution, our approach to data management

will be critical. An open dialogue needs to take place around levels of protection in order to
find the right balance between two potential extremes: hyper regulation that stifles innovation
and an overly open approach that effectively creates an Orwellian society without privacy.
It is not so much a question of regulating technology as it is a matter of protecting funda-
mental rights.

Legal responsibility is increasingly shifting from the user to businesses and platforms. This
shift is due in part to the need for businesses, especially those working in sensitive areas such
as defense and finance, to guard against cyber attacks. Businesses must protect the data they
collect in order to safeguard individual rights. At the same time, it is important not to hamper
European companies’ competitiveness relative to countries with less restrictive regulatory
environments. The European Commission is currently working on a bill to increase the porta-
bility of individuals’ data. The bill is designed to bridge the current gap by reducing barriers
to entry.

If we keep talking about data as a goal-

driven approach, we will end up with
technocratic regulation that citizens
don’t understand.
Efforts similar to those of the EDPS can also resolve some of the territorial questions when
conducting business across borders. The business world is acutely aware of data’s strategic
importance as an asset that must be valued and protected. New European regulations extend
the enforcement of data rights into any jurisdiction that might do wrong by European customers.
European authorities are also attempting to regulate application programming interfaces (APIs)
as they apply to the Internet of Things and big data. The challenge is to apply generic legal
principles that address technology issues in general terms rather than specific technologies.

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Panel Discussion: Innovation—Agile and Open

Moderators

Michael Römer, A.T. Kearney

Michel Jaubert, A.T. Kearney

Panelists

Vincent Maret, open innovation, corporate research and innovation, Bouygues

Nick Leeder, managing director, Google France
Guido Van Til, director digital strategy, KLM
Aymeril Hoang, head of innovation, Société Générale

Speed is essential to digital innovation. Every company wants to be faster and more agile
in order to get products and services to market quickly. Google, for example, has 30,000
engineers in place yet leadership thinks the company is moving too slowly. Innovation is an
existential issue as the company constantly battles competitors to stay relevant. KLM gathered
its entire mobile team together for a day-long session to create an Android app that provides
travelers with flight status and boarding passes. Here, innovation is a survival strategy as the
company struggles to differentiate itself by providing superior customer service—in the skies
and in the digital realm—compared to the low-cost airlines.

At Société Générale, speed is about co-creation and collective intelligence. The firm has flour-
ished for more than a century by continually innovating and views digital as the latest way to
relate to clients who increasingly do their banking through mobile devices.

Organizing for innovation. There is no one right organizational model to improve a company’s
innovation efforts. Bouygues, for example, focuses on innovation at the local level first, and then
spreads the effort to the entire corporation and out to its ecosystem partners. A small corporate
innovation team coordinates efforts and pilots projects.

Michel Jaubert

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Google organizes according to what sort of innovation is being sought. If seeking optimization
or incremental innovation, an internal team manages and executes the process. For big picture
concepts such as driverless cars, joint ventures are employed. Projects are reviewed every 90
days, and are subject to termination at these increments. While Google encourages risk in the
pursuit of breakthrough innovation, it does not tolerate poor execution of projects.

KLM’s 150-person digital team works across the company to break down silos. This often entails
small steps at the outset to show the sort of impact an innovation can have. KLM’s “digital
backbone for innovation” regularly works with outside partners and conducts hackathons to
bring together programmers, designers, and project managers to address its innovation
challenges.

We want to work more like startups—

assembling small cross-functional teams
and working on short cycles.
Société Générale also employs hackathons and takes an ecosystem approach to quickly
generate ideas and prototypes. The company attempts to emulate startups by forming small,
cross-functional innovation teams that work on short cycles of no more than six months.

Startups have a role to play. Startups play an important role in Société Générale’s innovation
ecosystem. The company does not invest in them upfront, but will take a small stake or even buy
a startup when a collaborative effort succeeds. An internal, dedicated team is charged with
facilitating these relationships and identifying potential cultural barriers.

Google relies on startups for industry expertise (for example, working closely with healthcare-
focused startups to develop connected contact lenses). KLM’s ecosystem also includes
co-creation efforts with customers through an online platform as well as a beta community to
test mobile offerings. Bouygues has a team in place that specializes in facilitating relationships
with startups in order to fund efforts and quickly launch pilots.

Talent acquisition and management are crucial to innovation success. Société Générale
casts a wide net to hire everyone from interactive designers to PhDs. KLM values those who
can focus on the objective itself rather than just the innovation process, and who can even
challenge the process in the pursuit of new ideas. Ageism must be guarded against as experi-
enced employees often recognize the potential that digital opens up and are eager to be part
of the transformation.

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Keynote: The Knowledge Economy and Biomimetics

Idriss Aberkane, cognitive neuroscientist and geopolitist scholar

Scarcity and zero-sum thinking play major roles in economic thinking. But the knowledge
economy transcends this schema, centering on infinite resources that combine to create more
than the sum of their parts—where 1+1=3. Consider South Korea, which has few natural physical
resources for export and a population of just 50 million living on a relatively tiny peninsula. This
smallish nation actually exports more than $100 billion per year than fossil-fuel-rich Russia. With
an economy based on knowledge and technology, South Korea demonstrates that knowledge
is the new oil!

Knowledge grows exponentially. Yet, unlike physical commodities, this exponential growth
does not lead to devaluation and potential spoilage. The knowledge economy operates
according to three rules:

1. Exchanges are positive sum in nature—knowledge given is still retained by the giver

2. Knowledge exchanges are not instantaneous the way property exchanges are

3. Combinations are not linear; one unit of knowledge combined with another creates three
units, as new knowledge is created

The knowledge economy also features a new kind of purchasing power, as knowledge is
exchanged for time and attention. Thus, everyone is born with purchasing power because
everyone has attention and time to offer. Knowledge flows are proportional to the attention
paid multiplied by time.

Nature provides a powerful library of knowledge. Human science is not as advanced as nature
and what it produces. Science must be viewed more as a source of knowledge and less as a
source of resources. Nature holds the key to major technological breakthroughs. We need to
read into it better by examining phenomena such as shark skin, which is more bacteria resistant
than even the most advanced military-grade material and features denticles that reduce air drag.

Nature also provides a powerful model for

the “blue economy,” a world in which there
is no waste because everything that is pro-
duced is used and reused. A brighter future is
possible once we repurpose industry to make
factories produce in a waste-free fashion
similar to nature. What is currently perceived
as waste needs to be reexamined and made
useful. For example, only 1 in 500 parts of
biomass used to produce coffee is actually
consumed when we drink it. The rest of this
biomass is left to rot and generate methane,
a greenhouse gas. Yet coffee grounds can
be used in several ways, such as compost to
grow mushrooms or to manufacture goods
with odor-killing properties. Waste, in fact,
is an asset. Our lack of knowledge and effort
prevent us from seeing it this way. Idriss Aberkane

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Case Study: A Business Model Turnaround

Arndt Groth, CEO, PubliGroupe

Originally a newspaper advertising agency, PubliGroupe is a 150-year-old Swiss company with

a history of solid, steady growth that peaked in 2000. With the newspaper industry faltering, the
company had to reinvent its entire business model to survive. In 2014, the company sold off its
media sales business and shifted its entire focus to search, digital, and marketing services.

Like many media companies, PubliGroupe was undertaking more than a mere transformation.
With the severe decline in media circulation and newspaper ad spend, the company’s business
model no longer worked. Ad spends were down, and much of the money still being spent on
advertising was going to Google and Facebook.

Don’t be afraid to cannibalize your

core business. If you don’t do it, your
competition will.
We realized that the challenge was not the
digitization of the business but that a complex
system with many intermediaries had been
transformed along many dimensions. Power
shifted from publishers to advertisers. Multi-
media solutions replaced single-media sales.
Dedicated media brand agents were replaced
by channel matchmakers. And inventory-
based targeting had given way to audience-
direct targeting.

The opportunity, then, was to target the right

audience. We developed a platform to provide
customers with the tools and data needed to
reach audiences on the publishing side, and
made the transition from sales house to
technology solution provider. In becoming
digital, much of what we did was automated.

PubliGroupe will not be the last company

to undertake such a radical transformation.
We opted to cannibalize the core business
before the competition did, spinning it off
while moving away from media sales. We are
succeeding through leadership and maximum
transparency, while acknowledging that the
cultural changes will sort out over time. Arndt Groth

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Panel Discussion: Collaboration Corporate-Startups

Moderators

Matthieu de Chanville, principal, A.T. Kearney

Laure Charpentier, manager, A.T. Kearney

Panelists

Laurent Kocher, executive vice president marketing, innovation, and services, Keolis
Romain Lavault, general partner, Partech Ventures
David Monteau, director, Mission French Tech
Thibaud Morin, managing partner and founder, LEVEL-UP
François Wyss, co-founder, DataBerries

The concept seems simple: startups and established corporations both thrive by working
together in a symbiotic fashion. The corporation provides the resources that help catapult the
startup into a global leadership role, while the startup delivers disruptive innovations that help
the corporation in its digital transformation efforts. But too often, these collaborations do not
yield the desired results.

Entrepreneurial startups introduce concepts that alter the status quo. Consider how Uber and
other ride-sharing services are redefining transportation. Customers have become mobility
providers in the new transportation business; Uber, a company that owns no vehicles yet
connects passengers with drivers, has achieved a $40 billion market capitalization.

Selecting the “right” startup to work with is critical. It requires first identifying a specific digital
need and then looking at which startups are working in that area. Ambitious startups with proven
concepts are ideal; the corporation can help the startup grow into a leader.

Left to right: Laure Charpentier, François Wyss, Thibaud Morin, Romain Lavault, Laurent Kocher, David Monteau,
Matthieu de Chanville

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Several approaches have led to successful collaborations. One approach is to work with venture
capital groups to filter potential startup partners. Another approach is to acquire startups and
let them operate with relative autonomy, financing them and shutting them down if they do not
succeed. Setting up incubators within the corporate structure is also a possibility, but it can
lead to a silo from which innovation is not transferred. A direct investment approach poses risk
for both parties. The corporation may find that after a year the startup is no longer focusing on
the initial innovation, while the startup might find that a corporation as investor is burdensome
as the startup engages with other corporations.

The best approach may well be acquisition, although there are questions as to how and when
to integrate. Moving personnel between the corporation and the purchased entity can help to
push both entities toward a new, digitally focused culture. Acquisitions also bring on people
who would never have applied to work for the corporation.

In collaborations, startups typically view the corporation as a client and the corporation views
the startup as a potential acquisition target. The corporation is usually suspicious—having to
overcome the “not invented here” syndrome and trust young outsiders who rarely have corporate
experience. The culture clash is deepened by the startup’s struggles to understand how corpo-
rations operate. The two sides want to work together for mutual gain, but the path forward is
strewn with obstacles.

Collaborations require corporations to change in several areas, including culture, internal

processes, and risk. There is little room for slow, deliberate decision making in the digital age,
and this can be a source of tension between eager startups and their corporate partners.
Startups want quick, ready access to client assets. But they also want their independence, even
as corporations view them as potential acquisitions. Expectations must be aligned early on in
the relationship, even as startups agonize over the time it takes to begin productive work.
Rather than the year-and-a-half project cycle that these collaborations frequently take, cycle
time can be sped up using something like Google’s 90-day innovation calendar.

April 2015 Digital Business Forum live poll

Q: On collaboration between corporate and startups, what sentence best
characterizes your company?

Response breakdown (total number 284)

0 20 40 60 80 100 120

It’s not a topic. We don’t need startups.

We’re using various approaches,

conducting experimentations.
It's absolutely strategic,
a key area of investment.

It's essentially a financial and M&A play.

It's always been in our DNA.

Other

Source: A.T. Kearney April 2015 Digital Business Forum Executive Roundtable

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Panel Discussion: Organizing for Transformation

Moderators

Eric Gervet, partner, A.T. Kearney

Matthieu de Chanville, principal, A.T. Kearney

Panelists

Axel Dauchez, CEO, Publicis France

Yves Tyrode, digital and communication director, SNCF

SNCF is an old-line industry, yet digital is now at the heart of everything the company does—
from marketing to maintenance—as it continues its digital transformation. SNCF is currently
working on a range of digital initiatives, including Internet access on all trains and rail stations,
mobile ticket purchase, increased employee access to productivity-enhancing technologies,
and a move from corrective to predictive maintenance.

SNCF appointed an executive committee to drive its digital efforts. The CEO sponsors the effort,
while the chief digital officer steers it. The committee acts as a startup within the larger business,
with an emphasis on agility. Dedicated technology teams have also been formed to build the
company’s expertise in big data, Internet of Things, interface design, and open data. A community
of employees throughout the company act as ambassadors of the digital transformation,
communicating regularly and ensuring that the digital transformation is not operating within a
silo. SNCF is also taking the effort beyond its four walls by mobilizing an ecosystem of startups.

As an advertising and public relations firm, Publicis is undergoing a digital transformation while
also selling and communicating about digital. Digital will bring change in three major areas:
increase customer-centricity, improve internal productivity, and reinvent its value proposition.
Publicis has acquired companies to gain new competencies that allow it to better serve
customers, and wants to avoid being overly zealous about maximizing the return on its digital
investment in order to preserve its brand equity and company culture.

The digital effort at Publicis is being led through its acquisition strategy, with the recent acqui-
sition of Sapient providing an infusion of new talent and capabilities.

Left to right: Eric Gervet, Axel Dauchez, Yves Tyrode, Matthieu de Chanville

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Interview Summary: Digital—Inside Marketing

Interviewer

Eric Gervet, partner, A.T. Kearney

Interviewee

Laurent Solly, managing director, Facebook France

Facebook helps companies with their digital transformation efforts. It segments companies into
two main categories: those born in the digital era that need help scaling up to become global
competitors, and traditional companies that need to understand how digital can be a strategic
enabler of growth and productivity.

Digital is transforming marketing strategies and tactics at an unprecedented speed. The audience
is becoming increasingly digital, especially in the mobile sphere. The search industry has
essentially grown from nothing in a mere decade.

Target marketing has become highly personalized. No longer is sociological and demographic
data sufficient. Today, data is collected on individuals’ interests and behaviors in order to bring
personalized marketing to the masses as the traditional mass market approach sinks into obso-
lescence. Companies must combine data they have collected on customers with externally
sourced data to developed personalized marketing.

The return on marketing investments can also be measured in new ways. Every advertiser
craves information on their ROI, and digital provides powerful methods to determine ads’
impact on sales.

While many marketing success stories have been powered by digital, several key challenges
remain. For example, the speed of digital change can even overwhelm those companies born

Laurent Solly, Eric Gervet

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in the digital era. Midway through 2012, Facebook had realized zero revenues through mobile.
By the end of 2014, 70 percent of revenues were coming through this channel. The company
had to scramble to keep up. Because digital is about more than connections, marketing, or
technology, it is important for the CEO as the leader of the entire enterprise—rather than a chief
digital officer—to lead the charge to digital. It is also critical to manage all competencies no
matter where they lie. Collaboration is key, even if it means working with competitors.

A digital transformation is complex, but

one should not forget the opportunity
it provides.
Digital will continue to bring rapid change that every company must anticipate and prepare for.
The shift toward mobile is ongoing, bringing not just changes in technology but changes in
behavior. People are no longer occasionally spending time on the Internet through a computer;
they are constantly connected through their mobile devices. The growth in data and new ways
to manage it are ongoing. Our ability to understand consumer behavior relies on what we do
with this data. Instant messaging between corporations and their customers will continue to
evolve and provide new ways to “touch” the customer. The pace of the digital revolution will
only accelerate.

April 2015 Digital Business Forum live poll

Q: How do you characterize your marketing organization’s digital competence?

Response breakdown (total number 296)

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Highly digitized and expert

Still relying predominantly on external expertise

Digital savvy and collaborating with external partners

Traditional marketing teams tapping into the

talent pool of a separate digital team

Other

Source: A.T. Kearney April 2015 Digital Business Forum Executive Roundtable

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Closing Remarks
The Digital Business Forum was a day of strong calls to action to the business community.
Thought leader Jeremy Rifkin invites all to acknowledge the shift of economic paradigm, from
traditional value chains to distributed networks. The time for denial is over: Nicolas Colin
demonstrates the unstoppable disruption that all industries face. This is a race to capture and
understand customer intimacy, the signature expertise of startups. Governments and author-
ities must lay out the necessary infrastructures and legal framework.

For the business community, transformation is a multifaceted challenge. Business models must
be reinvented and companies should not be afraid to venture out from their core business.
Collaboration is the means to disrupt existing value chains and connect to new ideas, doing
so while acquiring new talent and partnering with startups. Internal resources need to be
mobilized with a clear sense of purpose, and the right organizational setup depends on a
company’s culture. Throughout the transformation, CEO leadership is a must to ensure the
entire company is aboard.

Finally, “test and learn” approaches must be embraced and outstanding customer experiences
provided with passion. Doing so positions companies at the heart of the digital battlefield.

About the Digital Business Forum

The Digital Business Forum (DBF) is a global, multidisciplinary network of senior executives
focused on developing and sharing insights about digitization’s impact on business and society.
The DBF provides a unique opportunity to discuss and debate the impact and value creation
potential of digital. DBF events are interactive, providing an unparalleled opportunity for partici-
pants to engage in the discussions and walk away with clear, pragmatic ways to build digital into
their business.

The DBF executive roundtable gathers in the amphitheater at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris.

Leadership Beyond Digital 19

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