In the evolving digital space, changing roles are defining the ability of the C-suite to build brands that are relevant and futuristic. Digital leadership is not just about the CEO or the CIO. Unarguably, digital is transforming business models, executive roles with all CXOs, not just the CEO, emerging as external influencers.
Does a company striving for digital transformation really need a CEO as a brand ambassador? Is it mandatory for the C-suite to be more visible?
These were some of the questions raised at a recent panel discussion on ‘Digital Transformation and the CXO as a Brand’ hosted by Trivone Digital Services at CeBIT India in Bengaluru, and moderated by Prasanto K Roy, head of media services, Trivone. Trivone’s two digital properties CXOToday and ChannelTimes were the official media partners of CeBIT India.
Asked whether visibility of the C-suite really matters, Jessie Paul, Founder and CEO, Paul Writer Advisory, said there is no one common formula.
“Each company has different visibility. Accenture doesn’t have a visible management, but it has the right content and it manages to get the right message across. Cognizant’s strategy is based on investors, and for TCS, it depends on tech analysts,” she said.
Saying that companies can’t afford to have customer service resting on the brand image of 5-6 people, she said regardless of who the CXOs are, the bigger focus for any business should be digitization.
Endorsing Jessie’s views, Ajay Bakshi, Senior Vice President – Business Transformation Aegis Limited, felt that if a person is bigger than the brand, it is not good for the company. “Individual as a brand can help as well as destroy. People purchased Apple gadgets not because of Steve Jobs. If Jobs’ image was so strong, it would hurt Apple. So the organization comes first and the CXO as a brand has to be developed to support that,” he said.
Taking a slightly different stand and asserting that CXOs need to be visible, Gautam Ghosh, Director of Talent Branding Flipkart, cited the example of Flipkart CEO Sachin Bansal’s recent stance of personally delivering products to customers. “The question is about visibility. The CXOs may be meeting customers and delivering to distributors, but unless the world knows what they are doing, how does it matter?”
But Ghosh’s take wasn’t accepted by Jessie, who said: “Anyone can get visibility—negative or positive. It is about trust. The CXOs must build a trust equation, and the organizations must encourage that.”