Latest news with #personalizedmarketing
Forbes
a day ago
- Business
- Forbes
AI Is Changing Work. Is Your Talent Strategy Evolving Too?
The Archetype Effect asks why companies know so little about their employees—and offers a path to a ... More more inspired workforce. Why do so many companies know more about their customers than their own employees? This is the central question posed by my colleague James Root in his new book, The Archetype Effect. It is indeed an intriguing mystery. Business today segments customers in all sorts of ways to construct value propositions highly tailored to their needs. Personalized marketing—down to the individual consumer—is now quite commonplace. Not so with employees. Most HR systems are built on the assumption that everyone goes to work for the same reasons. In reality, it's a very different story. Deaveraging employees The book highlights six distinct archetypes of workers, each with unique motivations: These archetypes challenge long-standing management assumptions. The conventional wisdom in many organizations is that people need to be motivated by a vision. In fact, many, including most operators, don't particularly care; they find meaning outside of work. Similarly, it's often assumed that employees naturally want to advance to the next level. In fact, many, including most artisans, are not particularly interested. Just like with customers, we need to 'deaverage' employee motivations. Earlier this month I had lunch with a group of graduate students just starting their summer internship. They all had some degree of work experience already and, through this internship, were trying out the world of management consulting. The conversation focused on their career aspirations, why they were interested in this industry, and what they wanted to get out of the summer. As they told their stories, Root's insights reverberated in my head. Each intern had quite different motivations. One was clearly a striver, interested in climbing the corporate ladder as quickly as possible. Another seemed more of an explorer, wanting exposure to global opportunities and asking questions about mobility and cross-border assignments. The lunch left me convinced that if we treated them all the same, we would not tap into their true motivations or full potential. The business imperative Nearly 10 years ago, Michael Mankins and Eric Garton wrote Time, Talent, Energy about the power of employees who are not only satisfied but truly engaged and even inspired. Their research showed that engaged employees are 44% more productive than satisfied employees, and those who feel inspired at work are nearly 125% more productive. If we think about human capital the way we do financial capital, the returns on building a more inspired workforce become clear. Management must do a better job understanding and motivating people. Of the approximately 3.5 billion people who go to work each day, nearly 1.2 billion feel 'not engaged' and more than 500 million are 'actively disengaged,' according to research in The Archetype Effect. Surely there is a better way to maximize time, talent, and energy. How AI can help build a more effective talent strategy We live in a time of rapid change, in which workers often seem less committed to their firms and firms less committed to their workers. Young people struggle to get started in their careers, not knowing where or how to begin. Older workers are among the more motivated, but many firms don't fully embrace them. Artificial intelligence, already reshaping so many jobs, could help to close this disconnect. A new generation of digital, AI-assisted HR management tools might be able to match people to jobs more effectively, improving our ability to design tailored career journeys instead of having everyone climb one monolithic ladder. As we feed models more data about who we are at work—skills, achievements, qualifications, prior roles, trainings, motivations—they in turn will feed us more insights into performance and potential career pathways. It's possible for gen AI to make HR more human, not less. A recent analysis by John Hazan and Susan Gunn suggests that a typical company can save, on average, up to 20% in HR labor time through AI automation and augmentation. Think how that 20% could be more productively redirected toward identifying and addressing different employee motivations for work. This could elevate HR's role in the organization, from transactional operator to strategic adviser. Many companies are already collecting quantitative and qualitative data about their teams and experimenting with greater personalization for workers. This can include flexible options for where and when work can be done; flexible benefits such as financial planning services, additional personal leave, and wellness programs; flexible career paths with more sophisticated learning and development programs; internal mobility options; and the opportunity to spend work time on projects outside one's job description, something that started at companies like Google but is beginning to be extended to blue-collar workers as well. My lunch with the summer interns sparked deeper engagement with our leadership team on ways to inspire the diverse people in our organization. Armed with quantitative data as well as insights from supplemental interviews and focus groups, we now better understand the different motivations of different workers and are tailoring action plans accordingly. We need a diverse set of skills and backgrounds, and it only stands to reason that everyone won't be looking for the same things. The key to motivating them, as The Archetype Effect eloquently argues, is to deaverage workers as we have consumers. The business case for an engaged—and inspired—workforce is clear. The question is whether leaders will act.
Al Bawaba
16-06-2025
- Business
- Al Bawaba
Consumers buy the product, not the brand: 65% of UAE consumers ignore brand names when buying consumer goods
As UAE retailers and consumers start gearing up for the summer sales season, new research by SAP Emarsys in association with Deloitte has revealed increasing brand apathy among UAE consumers. When it comes to consumer products, 65% of UAE's consumers and 61% of the UAE's Gen Z population don't pay attention to the brands they're buying — as long as the product meets their needs. Furthermore, 67% of all consumers in the UAE have switched to own-label alternatives because they are more despite this heightened indifference to brands in general, a significant proportion of UAE consumers (68%) still actively advocate for their favorite brands in public. These insights are based on a survey of more than 2,000 UAE consumers and 100 senior marketers at multinational enterprises, which examined shifting attitudes towards consumer products.'Today's consumer landscape is shifting faster than ever, and brands must navigate this terrain with agility and insight,' said Marwan Zeineddine, Managing Director of SAP UAE. 'The research highlights a clear opportunity: while brand apathy is increasing, so too is the demand for personalized, emotionally resonant experiences. Leveraging technologies such as SAP business AI, brands can go beyond transactional relationships and deliver the kind of real-time, meaningful engagement that cuts through consumer indifference and earns lasting loyalty. This is where marketers can lead the charge; by bridging data and strategy to stay relevant and drive long-term success.'According to The Global Consumer Products Engagement Report by SAP Emarsys, we have entered the 'Engagement Era,' in which brands must establish a robust data foundation across their entire business in order to thrive. Embracing AI-driven, omnichannel strategies is no longer optional; it is critical for transforming fragmented data into actionable insights, building long-term relationships, and achieving true customer loyalty and lifetime message resonates in the UAE, where 72% of consumer product marketers say it is becoming harder to engage meaningfully with customers, indicating that the majority are at risk of falling behind in this new engagement-driven landscape. Success in the Engagement Era depends on delivering a personalized omnichannel experience across the entire customer lifecycle, and leading brands in real-time engagement are already putting these strategies into action.'Consumers globally aren't just becoming less loyal to brands — they're ignoring them entirely,' said Sara Richter, CMO at SAP Emarsys. 'That's a wake-up call for marketers. Without a strong data foundation, it's impossible to deliver the real-time, personalized experiences needed to achieve that all-important 'true' loyalty.'When asked about barriers to effective customer engagement, UAE consumer product marketers cited internal complexity as the biggest challenge, with 31% identifying this as a key issue. Additionally, data continues to pose significant hurdles: 53% of marketers say they are unable to access or use data in real time, and 69% report their organization's data is too unstructured to use when it comes to predicting future behaviors, only 28% of marketers feel confident in their ability to predict future consumer behavior, and just 30% believe they can effectively segment and analyze their global consumer apathy toward brands increases, marketers in the UAE recognize the need to improve fragmented engagement approaches and outdated technologies. According to the report, 65% of UAE marketers say they will need to overhaul their engagement strategies in 2025. Meanwhile, 69% believe personalization will be a key differentiator in the year ahead, especially important considering that 77% of UAE consumers say they value highly personalized Do Brands Stand in the Engagement Era?The report from SAP Emarsys in association with Deloitte also introduces the Customer Engagement Maturity (CEM) score, which ranks consumer product brands on the strength of their customer engagement strategies. This research builds on earlier findings from Bain & Company, which point to a major industry shift toward ERP and SAP S/4HANA. This shift underscores the urgent need for consumer product brands to break down silos, accelerate operations, and engage customers more CEM Index categorizes brands into three maturity levels:• Reactive: Still reliant on batch-and-blast marketing, sending the same message to all audiences.• Proactive: Using mobile and messaging channels, but still dependent on manual processes.• Predictive: Leveraging AI to anticipate needs, deliver real-time, personalized offers, and build long-term in the 'Predictive' category demonstrate that to truly succeed in the Engagement Era, a robust business AI-infused ERP foundation, supported by a customer engagement platform, is essential. However, many brands still lag behind, with only 34% of consumer product marketers in the UAE currently sharing customer engagement data with a dedicated ERP system. For those clinging to outdated strategies, investing in AI-driven, real-time engagement is no longer a luxury. This investment could be the deciding factor in whether a brand achieves its revenue targets in the Engagement Era.
