Championing A New Growth Imperative In An Era Of Disruption

Forbes

2 days ago

Bill Pappas, Executive Vice President and Head of Global Technology and Operations, MetLife.
Amid a convergence and acceleration of new and emerging tech advancements, we are on the precipice of a new frontier for innovation. Rapid advancements in areas like agentic artificial intelligence (AI), quantum computing and cloud computing have proven this.
Against this backdrop, customer expectations continue to evolve, requiring tech and business leaders to prioritize customer-centric innovation to remain competitive and drive tangible revenue growth. Forrester's report found that "customer-obsessed" organizations reported 41% faster revenue growth than non-customer-obsessed organizations.
So how can tech leaders ensure they are staying aligned with customer needs so they can make the right decisions and help drive growth for their companies?
Master the game of options and choices.
2025 is shaping out to be a year of options and choices as tens of thousands of AI tools are currently available in the marketplace. With so many possibilities, leaders must quickly assess how these tools work, how they enhance the customer experience, whether they can be integrated into the enterprise framework and the long-term implications of adopting them.
As emerging technologies like AI continue to evolve at a pace we have never seen before, the real challenge for leaders is making decisions that responsibly create value for both the business and the customer—while preserving the flexibility to adapt to changing market trends.
To navigate this complexity, leaders must embrace a commercial mindset, aligning decisions with broader business objectives through value-based prioritization. This calls for the development of new strategies and playbooks that are prioritized for impact.
Create new playbooks with speed and discipline.
Over the last five years, the pace of change has been unmatched. For many situations we face today, this means there are no playbooks.
Leaders have had to navigate a global pandemic, adopt emerging technologies and manage the responsible use of AI. Amid all of this, leaders have had to create new execution playbooks while simultaneously executing business as usual. We had to build our planes while flying them.
To complicate matters further, playbooks are becoming more integrated in response to evolving customer preferences. For example, customers want more digital, self-service options, but they want those options to be secure. This means merging the cyber and digital playbooks.
Another example is the growing customer demand for both high-tech and high-touch solutions. Delivering on both high-tech and high-touch requires an entirely new playbook, one focused on meeting customers how, when and where they want to be met.
In today's innovation-driven environment, leaders need to revisit the foundation they have built through their digital transformation strategies and embrace a new growth imperative. Doing so requires leaders to strike the right balance between speed and discipline, both of which are essential to executing new playbooks that support broader business objectives. Those who can adapt with intention and clarity will set the standard for what leadership looks like in this next era of transformation.
Execute at scale.
One of the key enablers of a successful technology strategy is using tech and data to drive value and deliver measurable results for the enterprise. At MetLife, we place a premium on transforming pilots into models that can be embedded into products and service development, enabling execution at scale with agility and discipline.
But scaling innovation is not just about platforms and processes; it's also about people. This starts with acknowledging where we are today. We're all learning in real time, from the CEO to the CIO to our customer advocates. That's why creating a culture grounded in the ability to learn, unlearn and relearn is critical. It ensures organizations can adapt alongside the technologies they embrace.
At the same time, the connection between business and tech leaders has never been more important. With that said, challenges still remain. Innovation does not happen in silos, and success depends on everyone working toward the same objective: growth.
To meet this moment, we must balance technical proficiency with leadership capability. That means upskilling at scale—not just in AI and data, but in critical thinking, collaboration and adaptability. These are the leadership attributes that enable teams to navigate ambiguity and still deliver with discipline.
It is not enough to identify the value of emerging technologies; leaders across the enterprise need to communicate how these tools support business goals, both internally and externally.
At MetLife, we have seen the greatest success at uniting our business leaders around the idea that AI is a business imperative by outlining a clear path to value. We've framed it in terms of process improvement and competitive advantage, not as a shiny object we're chasing. This type of business alignment is essential for innovating at scale.
The Bottom Line
In this era of converging disruptions combined with limitless options and choices, the leaders that will successfully drive the next frontier of innovation will be those who use a commercial mindset to leverage technology as a gamechanger, understand which options are prioritized for impact and will support customer value, develop and execute new playbooks with speed and discipline, and align with the business to execute at scale.
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