Michael Cairns

Managing Partner

Information Media Partners

Digital Transformation

Senior Management Seminar Session

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Introduction

Michael Cairns is a publishing and media executive with over 25 years experience in

business strategy, operations and technology implementation. As a business

executive, Mr. Cairns has successfully managed several troubled and under-

performing businesses, creating new business opportunities, developing new funding

sources and enhancing shareholder value for investors. His years spent as an

operating executive have largely been with brand-name publishing companies such

as Macmillan, Inc., Berlitz International, Wolters Kluwer Health, Reed Elsevier and

R.R. Bowker. As a consultant, Mr. Cairns has worked with clients as diverse as

AARP, Hewlett Packard, InterPublic Companies and Reed Elsevier with an emphasis

on business strategy, market development and corporate development.

His skills and experience include:

Business and corporate strategy development and implementation

Operations management and business transformation

Traditional and digital publishing and operations

Print-to-digital transformation and adoption of new business models

Software development and software services

Mr. Cairns holds an MBA (Finance) from Georgetown University and a BA from

Boston University. He has served on several boards and advisory groups including

the Association of American Publishers, Book Industry Study Group and the

International ISBN organization. Additionally, he has public and private company

board experience.

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Michael Cairns

Information Media Partners

Strategy Consulting

New York, London, Melbourne

Tel: 908 938 4889

Michael.cairns@infomediapartners.com

Find me:

LinkedIn Twitter Blog Flickr InstaGram

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Information Media Partners

Michael Cairns established Information Media Partners in 2006 as a boutique strategy

consulting firm focused on the information and education publishing segment. The work

conducted by the firm includes product development, corporate development, sales

management and corporate reorganizations. We work with established businesses, private

equity owners and potential acquirers.

Examples of our work include:

Reorganized and re-focused a $25 million software publishing company by aligning

business operations with client priorities; implementing internal collaboration tools and

project management standards; re-building executive team to focus on effective and

efficient management

Defined a new business strategy for a large non-profit association and advocacy group,

expanding their business model into global markets to exploit their core knowledge and

expertise across a broader market

Led an information technology capabilities review at a large international advertising

holding company. Completed over 200 interviews in 15 international offices and multiple

group focus sessions to define the operational ‘gaps’ between existing agency capabilities

and those necessary and important for client delivery by region

Completed a sales management effectiveness review for a global software company and

defined six key project initiatives to improve sales effectiveness, market development and

account management

We approach our client engagements in a standardized, logical manner which creates the best

environment to identify key business drivers, administrative and logistical road blocks and/or

product or market definition issues. Our investigative approach leads to better insights into

your businesses and supports the development of workable solutions and recommendations

for success.

Visit the Information Media Partners website for more information.

Sample Client List

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Digital transformation is not….

a choice

partial or part-time

casual or non-committal

incremental

about legacy systems

about complacency

about risk aversion

without consequences

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Digital transformation is about…

challenging the status quo

optimizing the value proposition to the customer

massive changes in process, technology, people, products, customer relationships

experimentation and managing failure

new partnerships, employees, leadership

risk and risk-taking

organizational change and change management

agility and nimbleness

cross-functional, multi-disciplinary work practices

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Year 0 Years 1-3 Years 2-4

Launch digital reinvention program

ID opportunities for near-and long-term cost reductions

Set business strategy for revenue growth and migration to digital products/services

Devise and implement e-commerce technical platform

Re-scale/restructure technology platform to accommodate digital production & delivery

Set framework for launch of new e-products and services

Adapt existing products and services to electronic distribution platform

Continually refresh and improve scalable technical platform

Develop and maintain a strategic direction that progressively expands digital transformation across organization

Continually explore and confirm expansion targets -- new markets and new offerings

Enhance the continuous communication link between product teams and customers

Continually update metrics for measurement of company’s leadership in marketplace

Staging the transformation

Stage:E-Commerce

Enabled

Digital

Enabled

Recognized

Digital

Leader

Estimated

Timeframe:

Project:

Build New Products

Build Out Core Capabilities

Transformative Products and Services

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Stage:

E-Commerce

EnabledStrategy, products,

standards and processes

are aligned with the benefits

of electronic distribution.

Recognized

Digital LeaderMarket leading provider of digital-based

solutions to core market and capable of

leveraging a state-of-the-art technical

platform for entry into new markets and new

product offerings.

Timeframe:

Core

Capabilities

Focus:Same customers and markets, but with improved operations, ordering, communication and reporting.

Existing customers and markets, but with better, more adaptable and high-margin products more efficiently delivered.

Existing and new markets, with breakthrough products, competitive advantage in the form of editorial development and cost structure, and a significant driver of innovation throughout the organization.

A more efficient, customer-

responsive organization.

Digital marketing

CRM

Design, UI/UX expertise

Mobile strategy

Data strategy & analytics

Development & engineering

Product management

Client-focused R&D

Core capabilities and HR planning

Lamplight initiatives

Mobile apps (and access)

Payment platform

Access & entitlement

Integrated CRM, MDM

Multiple business models

2nd Generation KPIs

Expanded HR planning

Defined (new) customer journeys

Multi-channel strategies

Single view of target customers

Fully digital value chains: end-to-end provider

Operational continuous improvement philosophy

Sunset ‘legacy’ products

Brand re-focus, relaunch

Seamless integration of acquired products

Envisioning digital transformation

Year 0 Years 1-3 Years 2-4

Perc

enta

ge o

f R

evenue f

rom

Dig

ital

Digital

Enabled

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Guiding digital transformation

Start with vision and purpose: “When a unified understanding of customers is lacking, companies

struggle to mobilize employees around integrated touchpoints, journeys, and consistent experiences, while often failing to discern where to best place their bets as digital broadens customer choice and the actions companies can take in response.” (1)

Focus on your customers/consumers and their behaviors

Define the right planning horizons to reinvent yourself frequently

Understand and invest in competitive differentiation and advantage

Harness flexible technology effectively

Define and establish new motivation and performance plans

Eliminate operational silos and fiefdoms which impede change and cooperation

(1) Culture for a digital age, McKinsey Quarterly, July 2017

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Committed executive sponsorship

CEO/Board sets step-change objectives Start with vision and purpose

Shareholders must have long-term conviction

Avoids ‘back-sliding’ and ‘good enough’ delivery

CEO communicates vision – what needs to be achieved, why and when

Assign senior management responsibility Make other leaders accountable

Remove blockages

Motivate staff via bonus, financial and other reward programs

Encourage inspired leadership where leaders ‘own’ digital change

Establish reporting frameworks that support constant questioning, revision and adaptation Aligning organization around ‘digital by default’

Agreement comes from relentless daily engagement

CEO actively interested in all activities

Proactive, disruptive, ambitious

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A relentless focus on the customer

Organize around customer outcomes, not legacy processes Think ‘audience’, not ‘product’

Ask how does this create value for the customer?

Adopt customers into the product-development process: Co-design with users

Use customer feedback to challenge assumptions/mock-ups and build knowledge of customer needs

Establish a deep knowledge of needs, requirements, pain points and objectives

Obsess over customer engagement and encourage continuous improvement in product development

Use marketing actively to engage with consumers, not passively to persuade

Include suppliers and partners in open product development activities

Engaged customers become advocates for the product(s)

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A philosophy of iterative improvement

Build out core capabilities – establish base Customer, product, marketing data management

Agile technology, UI/UX expertise

Data science and analytics

Select initial (Lighthouse) digital product ideas carefully with respect to impact, cost, timeframe, need Prototype: Make multiple product bets

Test and experiment

Test/plan business models which are experimental Honor cost of failure and increase speed of learning

Enabling flexibility creates “pure play” opportunity

Setting reporting frameworks that review objectives and results, provide opportunities to double-down or pivot

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Technology to facilitate not impede

Redefine the role(s) of IT from legacy maintenance to enterprise and customer enablement Replace old, inefficient systems

Outsource non-core activities to build flexibility

Seek nimble, flexible and easy-to-use technical solutions Agility and resilience

Technology in terms of value to customers

Smaller, iterative, focused ‘blocks’ of work

Enable course correction and effective spending in development

Amazon technology practice: “Eat your own dog food”

Open source solutions and “open” by default

Subscription-based models and virtual/cloud-based solutions over self-hosted servers and proprietary software Limit long-term ‘lock-in’

Third-party provider contracts which vary based on usage/data

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Technology is increasingly personal

B2B users are all B2C users: Experiences co-mingled Changes behavior of B2B users acting like B2C users

B2C users are impatient, dilettantes, passionate, social

UI and UX experience is shaped by B2C media experience

Invest in researchers and analysts to define customer needs

Think audience, not product: be channel flexible Understand how customers want to consume your content

• “What does the customer do immediately 10 minutes before and 10 minutes after they use your product?”

Adapt to the needs of the customer, not to the existing product range

Essential to create multi-media: Text, audio, data and visual assets

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Work across silos and collaborate

Develop digital thinking across the whole organization No digital enclaves

Establish integrated cross-functional teams

Not limited to one department – literally applied and embedded everywhere

Collective wisdom Catalog and make best use of the digital expertise you have

Establish collaborative tools and share knowledge Office 365/Google Docs, Cascade, Atlassian, Slack, etc.

Share data, results, experience

Stream training sessions, community events and meetings

Ensure joined-up, comprehensive information systems

Implement fully-integrated business model(s) Not ‘just digital’

Constraints often cultural, not technical Silos enable inadequate information sharing, insufficient accountability

and lack of coordination on enterprise-wide initiatives

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Skills-based investment

Adopt broad-based internal training programs Change hiring practices

Revise job descriptions

Distribute decision making Avoid top-down management decision making

Enable cross-functional and cross-business small team-based initiatives

Provide ‘at point-of-use’ tools & data for decision making

Think and act like a start-up

Enable learning culture Lunchtime talks on benefits of technology tools

Encouraging staff to ideate and provide mechanism to contribute

Establish internal venture fund

Encourage quick decision making via agile project management practices Acknowledge mistakes, learn from them, rapidly fix them with alternatives

Agile approach can facilitate a ‘culture of experimentation’

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Reward digital progress

Communicate benefits across the business

Show how digital works better and easier

Drive motivation for digital

Encourage people to think about how digital creates

improvement

Open decision making where all staff can participate

Simple as daily ‘stand-up meetings’

Tools and information at point of contact to encourage

decision making

Tough problems can be effectively addressed by

small, focused teams

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Data management

Product metadata management

Create product data methodology and center of

excellence

Customer (CRM) and marketing (MDM)

Secure data program

Data to drive product improvement and new product

development

Performance and users

Metrics which catalog activity and the impact of

changes and improvements

Social application interfaces

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Systematically gather and use data

(Re)define key performance measures

From basic to sophisticated over time

• Short-term growth milestones

• Specific measures for digital transformation/digital adoption

• Measures for the impact of digital change

KPIs impose themselves over time helping to navigate and

define road maps

KPIs represent the coordinates of user behavior

Data as a strategic asset (2)

Have a data strategy

Have a data owner

Data which is consistent, comprehensive, clear

(2) Corporate Data Strategy & the Chief Data Officer

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Look outward to market & competitors

Map competition across sectors by digital

achievement and/or capabilities

Actively engage competition

Apply experience from different industries

Create value through platforms and networks

Understand and invest in differentiation and

advantage

“Best in breed” benchmarking

Build global awareness

Seek partners to build virtual scale

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“Lighthouse” projects

New initiatives need to be chosen carefully Markets where customers are passionate

Markets where decisions are expensive

Investments linked to clear achievable targets Rank success, opportunity, benefit, timeframe, costs

Initial projects offer significant rewards with manageable risk

Targets help prioritize benefits of initiatives

Targets make things clear and can drive transformative change

External benchmarking can support target definition

Setting ‘step-change’ targets early on guards against ‘good enough’ and regression

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Establish high-caliber launch teams

Product launch team(s) under senior executive

(CEO, CDO, CRO)

Hire and/or train designers, data scientists, scrum

masters, developers

Expect to hire 10-50 new people for initial products

Explore “Acquhire” opportunites with M/A activity

Aggressive on price and justify with added features,

content, functionality, etc.

Launch teams hand over products to ‘core’ product

groups over time

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Please visit my blog for related articles

and presentations:

http://personanondata.blogspot.com/2011

/09/corporate-data-strategy-and-chief-

data.html

Michael Cairns

Managing Partner

Michael.Cairns@InfoMediaPartners.com

908 938 4889

LinkedIn Twitter Blog Flickr InstaGram