Friday's Growth
Inspiration

Becoming an ideal partner

As part of our podcast series, Hidden Growth Champions, we’ve always been on the lookout for leadership teams who know how to partner, who recognise the opportunity in their business ecosystem and are willing to consider a bigger play, which they may not necessarily control, but bring to life. This week, I had that opportunity emerge once again, as I was speaking with Krishna Nadella, Global Head of Solutions at Symphony.

Symphony began as a chat platform for the financial services industry and quickly evolved into a full-scale workflow collaboration tool. Now, it would be easy to view Symphony as a stand-alone platform, which clients go to, but when you think about it – why would you leave your own process, refined over years of work, perhaps even transformed as your organisation experienced digital transformation, to continue work on someone else’ platform? This is when the team at Symphony, led by Brad Levy, who became CEO in 2021, realised that real collaboration takes place not in a ‘chat silo’ but where the customer is.

Looking at the ecosystem, steering customers from one platform to another, might seem attractive at the outset. However, it is in fact detracting from customers’ jobs-to-be-done. It distracts us from where value is created and where partners come together, to deliver what no single entity can deliver on their own, in the best interests of the customer. And in partnering, in embedding collaboration in the client’s environment, in their process, organisations are adopting new capabilities. From sometimes accidental partners, they build the ecosystem by design and become…well the ideal partner themselves.

Have a good weekend everyone.

Saar Ben-Attar

Useful Links:

Our Manifesto 2.0

From our partners at the Center for the Future of Organization (CFFO), How to succeed in business ecosystems

Our strategic partnership with CFFO explained

“This is where multiple parties come together, solve issues in real time fashion. What would have taken days, if not weeks, to go back and forth, now happens within a chat.”

Krishna Nadella

Symphony

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Upcoming podcast episode

This coming Monday, our fascinating conversation with Eduardo Clemente, Banking executive, Ventures builder and Author goes live. We speak about the mindsets and attitudes that generate value in the complexities of business on the African continent, and of realising our ambitions and dreams, in the process.

By subscribing to our Podcast series, you will receive notice as this and new episodes air.

https://hiddengrowthchampions.podbean.com/

IN CASE YOU MISSED OUR New Year's Day Event

Hosted by Strategic Futurist and Author Nancy Giordano and Ascent Growth Partners’ founder Saar Ben-Attar.

As we got centered on what this new year could offer and what discerning choices are to be made, we co-hosted an inspiring live event.

With us were climate activist Clover Hogan, Craig Dubitsky (Chief Innovation Strategist at Colgate-Palmolive) and others. A wonderful reminder to start the year on a positive note, with people who inspire us, in thought and action.

Watch the event here.

GOING 'OFF-SCRIPT'

What we should be looking at, as countries and entrepreneurs in Africa, is how we find new ways of doing things, leapfrogging what other regions such as Europe and the Americas have done. Technology is increasing exponentially and coming up with solutions for real problems, how do we look at those technologies and replicate new ways of doing things? How do we think completely differently to solve our problems for the next 10-15 years?

Eduardo Clemente discusses how Africa can leapfrog what other nations have done.