KPMG’s Lana Briggs has seen how working in digital transformation has changed in recent years, but it’s that variety that can make the work extremely rewarding.
As director within KPMG’s digital and customer consulting practice, Lana Briggs works with organisations across a number of sectors to digitally transform the experiences her clients offer their customers.
Naturally, working in the area of digital transformation means her days are always different depending on the projects she’s working on.
But even on a broader scale, Briggs told Siliconrepublic.com about how working in digital transformation has changed due to the pandemic and growing customer expectations.
‘People are more likely to vote with their feet if organisations don’t get it right’
– LANA BRIGGS
If there is such a thing, can you describe a typical day in the job?
My days and weeks are highly variable, depending on the nature of the projects I’m working on. But typical daily activities include: attending huddles, running client workshops, participating in global knowledge-sharing sessions, conducting market research and checking in with my teams.
What types of project do you work on?
Many of my projects are focused on helping organisations to develop their digital channels, create new digital customer journeys and/or improve overall user experience.
Projects also focus on aligning frontline operations to the digital ambition of the organisation, whether that’s by streamlining existing operations, establishing new digital assist offerings (like web or video chat, digital advisers and online help centres) or by developing digital awareness campaigns to help employees and customers become digital advocates.
What skills do you use on a daily basis?
Key skills include data analytics, market research, customer journey mapping, facilitating ideation and design-thinking sessions, running interactive workshops, user experience design and prototyping.
What is the hardest part of your working day?
At the moment, as is probably the case for many, it’s probably the lack of direct interaction with people. While I spend most of my day talking to people on Teams calls, I miss the informal in-person conversations over coffee or lunch – I find that really energises me. I’m very much looking forward to having these again now that we’ve started our return to the office.
Do you have any productivity tips that help you through the working day?
A daily walk and fresh air have been key – and remembering to move between meetings or at regular intervals when working individually.
Listening to digital innovation and customer experience podcasts while walking also helps me to stay on top of the latest trends and keeps my creative brain ticking.
The Digital Transformation Podcast by Kevin Craine and The Intuitive Customer Podcast are two of my favourites.
When you first started this job, what were you most surprised to learn was important in the role?
Insights immersion and collaboration is key when designing new or improved digital experiences. It’s critical that ‘outside-in’ insights inform design thinking– ie giving clients a view of the latest trends, customer expectations, best practices and competitor benchmarks.
This helps people to see the art of the possible and provide clarity on what’s needed to remain competitive, rather than being limited by existing internal policies and operations. It’s also about bringing the right people into the room to work through a problem and/or design a solution together in a structured and accelerated way.
That’s why I’m really excited about the recent launch of KPMG Ireland’s new innovation hub, Platform X. Platform X is specifically designed to host client collaboration sessions and equipped with the latest technology to create truly immersive and interactive experiences.
The space is perfect for rapid incubation of new digital products and services and is also plugged into our 32 other global innovation hubs, meaning we can bring global experts into the room for our clients at the click of a button.
How has this role changed as this sector has grown and evolved?
I’ve noticed a real acceleration in the focus on customer experience and demand for digital innovation across all sectors here in Ireland since the beginning of the pandemic. A strong digital offering and great user experience is no longer a nice to have, it is a key differentiator.
Customer expectations have also grown rapidly in this space, across all generations, and people are more likely to vote with their feet if organisations don’t get it right.
A few years ago, our work was more focused on experience improvement in human channels and of largely manual processes, but now it is all about the digital experience, process automation and synergising the front, middle and back office to create a more efficient and agile business.
What do you enjoy most about the job?
Working across a variety of organisations in a wide range of sectors with people who are central to driving innovation in their business. Gaining and sharing best practice insights, inspiring new ways of thinking and doing things, working with organisations to bring concepts to life and seeing the benefits play out is all extremely rewarding to me.
