At SXSW, Shifting Perspectives to Fuel a Digitally Efficient Future

Apr 10, 2023 | min read

If you need a few good ideas, there’s no better place to look for them than Austin in the spring. At this year’s South by Southwest conference, CI&T brought together a diverse and visionary group of technology and marketing leaders to share their best practices and must-have insights, ideas that will help organizations thrive in the post-digital transformation era. Here’s what we learned.

Session: The Real State of Electric Vehicle Adoption

High fuel prices, aggressive tax incentives and a heightened awareness of the real-world impacts of global warming are pushing many drivers to think about buying Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs). With six percent market share in the U.S. today, BEVs still need to overcome some “cons,” even as the “pros” become increasingly obvious.

Action items:
Demystify BEVs. Forty-two percent of car buyers have no true understanding of BEV ownership and operation. They need to know about charging, maintenance, subsidies and more. Dealers are on the front line of course, but charging station providers, government at all levels and local utilities should work together on education and demystification. For example, BEV drivers must rely on several apps to search for charging locations provided by competing companies. All that info should be in one unified app, and by the way, those charging stations should be in good working condition.

Communicate with customers through Web sites and apps. BEV marketers can’t and shouldn’t assume what consumers do or don’t know. They must meet them where they are—not just at the dealership—and get them interested and informed using whatever online strategy works best. One example: GM’s powerful EV Live platform, which gives visitors an instant, live, one-on-one video tour and conversation about GM’s BEV initiatives. It’s a remarkable opportunity to engage an interested consumer in a powerfully direct way.

Don’t count on subsidies. Governments have been generous with cash and tax-credit BEV subsidies for years, most recently in the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes a $7,500 consumer tax credit for BEV purchases. But it’s far more important to focus on bringing the costs of BEVs down and open up the market to more consumers. GM’s upcoming Equinox, for example, will have a sticker price starting under $30,000.

Sell a solution.
Most people drive less than 50 miles a day, and 90 percent of the energy stored in BEV batteries at any given moment is not being used. That means BEVs that are plugged in to the grid (usually at home) can actually return power to the grid if needed during surges or can even power a home when the electricity goes out. Marketers must find ways to communicate that BEVs are a lifestyle and culture changer that may positively impact not only the environment but also the grid itself. There’s much more to the BEV story than large dashboard screens and charging stations. Tell the whole story.

Session: A Paradigm Shift to Unravel the Developer Shortage

Demand for skilled developers is off the charts, but the supply is simply not there. A rapidly digitizing economy has led to a projected global shortfall of four million developers—as many as 1.2 million in the U.S. alone—by 2025. Low-code tools and reskilling programs offer some short-term relief for companies but it will take a paradigm shift that prioritizes diversity, education and policy to realize real change and secure the tech industry's future.

Action items:
Find diverse partners and vendors. It’s important to try non-traditional methods to identify talent, even though doing so takes time and effort. Microsoft, for example, seeks out tech vendors and tech partners who are led by diverse founders and reaches out to organizations such as Black Men Talk Tech and Black Women Talk Tech. Its Diverse Founders Initiative invites companies to present at its annual Tech Week. In 2022, 43% of presenting companies had diverse founders, up from 10% a year earlier.

Focus on the employment journey, not just the certification test. Anyone can pass a test, but entering a corporate environment for the first time is an entirely different matter. Recruiters and potential employers must support that journey, finding ways to teach networking and interviewing skills and to help new employees make a soft landing as they begin their corporate life. At Estée Lauder Companies, that means partnering with Microsoft Accelerate in various cities to offer Microsoft training and LinkedIn Learning and working with Year Up, a six-month tech boot camp followed by six months of job placement help.

Require a college degree? Maybe not. Are management and HR ready to have a conversation about removing a college degree requirement for entry-level IT and coding jobs? They should be. The bias toward college grads is hard to shake, but filling the developer gap will require out-of-the-box thinking. HR should be writing job descriptions not about qualifications but about the actual skills that are needed to be successful.

Recruit in unusual places. One hugely important lesson of the COVID-19 pandemic was that millions of people could work remotely with great success, and that includes millions of disabled people who may face obstacles in working in an office environment. Recruiters should be tapping into all that available talent. HR should also challenge its biases and open the doors to formerly incarcerated people, who often find themselves unable to find employment anywhere.

Session: Reorganizing Teams Toward Customer-Centricity

Digital disruption impacted nearly every aspect of work and culture even before the world shut down, but the pandemic fueled the fire, accelerating digitalization at an unprecedented rate. Many companies are still stuck with slow-moving, non-customer-centric organizational structures. Organizations must shift from a function/silo-based structure to teams organized around customer needs and journeys.

Action items:
Strive for speed: Businesses that cling to woefully outdated management philosophies simply don’t have the ability to succeed in a world that now moves at nearly the speed of light. They must reduce the time it takes for them to respond to any kind of market shakeup. A three-year horizon? No way. Today’s horizon may not even be three months out. An almost VC-like management approach is required, handing the reins of planning and execution to small and adaptable teams and giving them the license to experiment, iterate and take risks.

Blow up traditional workflows: It’s imperative to create a new kind of workflow, an organizational structure in which people don’t sit in vertical siloed functions waiting to do just their small part. Think of it as drilling through those silos and creating new and efficient horizontal multidisciplinary teams that work in concert, keeping their eyes on their particular piece of the larger puzzle.

Build failure into the process: Management may have a pathological fear of failure, but that mindset has to change. In the teams we propose, you can fail without losing face because failure doesn’t fall on any particular individual and because it’s built in as part of the process. Failing on an iteration of the “product” is isolated; it doesn’t doom the entire “project,” and it doesn’t have to be reported up the chain as long as the team tries again and succeeds

Make sure people see the fruits of their labor: No one wants to tighten the same bolt forever; everyone wants to launch a product, their product, and see it take flight. Remember, tasks don’t deliver success, teamwork does, and teams consist of people who want to work in a culture that celebrates innovation and iteration. Get multidisciplinary teams right, and turnover rates fall as productivity spikes.

Session: How to Decode Culture to Build a Better Future

Companies traditionally think about the future in terms of business and markets, but they often overlook culture, which can lead to missed opportunities, lack of relevancy and low levels of consumer engagement. To stay ahead of the game, companies must be aware of the cultural zeitgeist and understand that Millennials and Gen Z are the drivers of cultural and consumer trends.

Action items:
Find the power center in your market. Paula Englert, CEO of Brazilian future trends consultancy Box 1824, applies a methodology called the Influence Network to every segment and market she studies. Alphas are the creators. Betas are the propagators, the influencers who get word of the new creations out. They disseminate the new. Betas most important to reach because the mainstream checks with them before making purchase decisions. To build a new and relevant brand, you have to connect with betas, understanding that they are digital natives and are between 18 and 24 years old.

Create ecosystems instead of ads. YouTube Brazil leveraged the power of soccer’s World Cup not just by posting videos about it but by creating a complete online experience that connected celebrities, players and creators to enjoy live action. The special channel grew from 50,000 to 6 million fans within three weeks. AB InBev also turned to technology when the pandemic forced the NBA into a bubble. Rather than let its Michelob Ultra beer sponsorship languish, it adapted fast, creating Michelob Ultra Courtside, a full-court press to surround the arena with huge video walls and fill them with livestreams of lucky fans who had won a Michelob contest to join in the fun. A smashing success—even President Obama showed up—it raised brand awareness and equity significantly…and boosted sales too.

Develop an equality message. The Gen Z cohort, currently 11 to 26 years old, is far more interested in activism than earlier generations, willing to fight for the climate, for social justice and for more equality across all aspects of society. Therefore marketers must reach out to these market influencers with messages that move them. AB InBev, for example, took its existing message about the pleasures of an active lifestyle and bolstered it with a five-year, $100 million pledge to invest in women’s sports. At YouTube Brazil, efforts are underway to make the platform more democratic and accessible and use it as a tool for education.

Session: The Winning CX Formula for the Future of Retail

Today's digital shopper journeys either skew toward peak efficiency on one end of the spectrum or toward high engagement on the other. The rarest—but most successful—customer journeys strike a delicate balance, building exceptional experiences around simplicity, community and customized omnichannel CX connections.

Action items:
Keep it simple for the shopper. It’s crucial to look constantly for ways to streamline engagement and shopping. Product development must always be oriented toward making things as simple as possible for the customer.

Understand your community through constant communication. It starts with rigorous and frequent research to stay on top of trends. It continues by enabling interaction between you and the customers—and between the customers themselves—on every sales platform. Social interaction leads to engagement and turns a five-minute visit into a 25-minute visit.

Use apps for great omnichannel CX experiences.CI&T’s Connected Retail Report 2023 found that 40 percent of consumers choose apps as their digital channel of preference. We’re at an inflection point. You may assume that you need all the technological trappings of a Web site to sell efficiently, but your customers will likely tell you differently. You must engage them where they are.