2023 Outlook

We’ve collected 29 Perspectives On What To Expect In 2023…in one place. All Things Insights at TMRE and All Things Innovation at FEI captured an outlook statement from leaders in each respective space. Access the Report now.

Here are a few highlights: 

“The key is to focus on what you can really control and influence. The rest will just drive you crazy.”
Pete Dulcamara, VP, Corporate Research Organization, Site Leader, Innovation and Operational Excellence Center, Kimberly-Clark.

“Good effective insights do basically three things. They inspire, enable and optimize.” 
Stephan Gans, SVP, Chief Consumer Insights and Analytics Officer, PepsiCo. 

“The inflation on both prices and salaries, the push for diverse talent in attracting diverse talent in the workplace. That’s all going to be very difficult in 2023 when you have a limited budget.” 
Serena Huang, Global Head of People Analytics, Visualization & HR Technology, PayPal.

“I think you’re going to see a slight slowing in the metaverse. But I like to separate the metaverse from digital twin because digital twins are absolutely the most import thing for us to grasp and to recognize. They belong in our homes. A digital twin is really that relationship between the digitization of the physical environment.” 
Poppy Crum, Adjunct Professor, Stanford University 

“In times of crises or in times of challenges, we should use the resources to put our heads down and into the day today and help our workers, our sales, and different teams that are into the day-to-day operations to be even smarter.” 
Christian Saclier, VP Design Innovation, PepsiCo. 

Access the Report now.

Each page features key thoughts from our community. No matter where you are on the spectrum of outcome, you’ll be able to find likeminded insight along with counter-point-of-view.  One key reason that we fused thoughts from our innovation and insights communities was the bi-lateral feedback coming out of our respective Spend & Trends Reports. Per our Insights Spend & Trends Report, when asked for their “current area of focus,” our insights community’s highest response was to “support the product development & innovation teams.” When asked, “for the next six months, how do you expect ‘innovation spend’ to change?” the top answer was to increase spend on “Insights.”

And so, please enjoy…and use the 2023 Outlook on Insights and Innovation.

Fostering Innovation

Reuter believes that corporations and startups alike have to focus on the people that they engage with everyday and making sure they feel safe in their environment. When talk about a “safe environment” comes about, this includes companies not only supporting their workers but also encouraging them to think about change. That is how you foster innovation within a workplace. When workers feel secure enough to take risks, that’s when innovation occurs. 

When speaking on not being able to fix everything all at once, Reuter states that it is critical that companies identify their assets as a company and build off of those assets first. When you focus on something that you do well and work on it, it gives a more positive effect than worrying about fixing everything that is wrong in a company. 

Claudia goes on to relate this concept with performance reviews. If we focus on why someone is a six and not a ten and what is so wrong with them, we don’t see the potential. Claudia poses a very good question, “What if you flip that and say, what makes them a six and not a zero?” When you reverse that thinking, you are focused on assets, not the liabilities you are facing. You can then build on that and get that six up to a ten. When companies have leaders that take this initiative when it comes to innovation, it helps facilitate that safe environment for others to feel safe enough to take risks. When discussing investing, Claudia Reuter states that investors should be asking why they are engaging with the startups. Find a reason as to why you want to work with this company and what you all can do to effect change in the world. 

Claudia Reuter raises a good point when discussing engaging with startups. She discusses that sometimes, when companies engage with startups, their goals are not aligned and end up wasting a startup’s time and therefore the company’s money. When you go into a partnership sharing similar goals, much more change can occur in a more positive setting. Claudia ends her interview with a resounding statement: “I think intention is really important for the relationship to be successful.” When investing in a startup, don’t just throw money at them and expect them to be successful. When partners work together towards a common goal, that’s where the success lies. 

Breakthrough Innovation

Moyes states that Dominion’s innovation team is encouraged to foster change and that one key component in that is getting the leadership to recognize that change is a good thing. “It’s the job of our innovation team to not only foster a culture that embraces a lot of these innovations, but we have a big job to do on convincing our current leadership that it’s ok to change and that we need to embrace the change,” he says.

Sustainability is an initiative happening worldwide, and Dominion recognizes that its company is building the type of energy that every industry needs. Alex Moyes asserts, “There’s not a single industry that can move forward without energy.” He goes on to say, “You can’t open up your news app today without seeing the kind of intersection of climate change, and policy, and energy, and how on earth can we continue to grow and evolve as a society while also mitigating our environmental impact, whether that’s carbon emissions, direct environmental impact through land disturbance, ecosystem destruction, etc.”

At a time when we used fossil fuels as a single source of energy, we now realize the usefulness of intermittent energy sources like wind and solar, which only currently operate at 30% annually. Moyes suggests that 70% of the time, no energy is being produced from intermittent sources, further solidifying the need for innovations. “What if we could take the excess energy that wind and solar are producing at times of the day when we don’t need it, and we might be able to lift big blocks of concrete…and with that excess energy, we’re lifting those blocks of concrete, and then all of a sudden, when we need the energy, we lower those blocks of concrete and spin a turbine,” Alex Moyes illustrates.

Although the company works with various startups, Moyes says that the best innovative ideas come from Dominion’s 17,000 employees. He believes that having the right innovation team in place is necessary to give their customers what they want. Moyes states, “We have a lot of customers that are coming to us all the time saying – we want to decarbonize, we want to have clean energy, and not only do we want clean energy, we want it to be local, we want to see the clean energy that we’re investing in, and we want to make sure we’re getting it 24/7.” 

The innovation momentum will continue in 2023, with the biggest focus will be on scaling all of the significant internal ideas. However, even with plans in place for testing ideas, scaling is a hurdle. Moyers asserts, “But I think that the challenge that a lot of big corporations have, not just at Dominion, is once we’ve proved the use-case, we’ve proved the pilot successful, how do we then hand that off to a business unit and scale it.” Taking the innovations into 2023 is the next chapter for Dominion Energy.

Innovation Reality

Within the VR environment, you can work together and collaborate in an office environment. You literally have a personal avatar that interacts with the VR, and your name hovers over your avatar so team members can identify you. You can have discussions with team members and interact in the virtual office environment, which actually feels like you’re having a real-world experience.

The characters can stand, sit, and interact as if they were in a real office environment. This is to help co-workers bond and discuss pretty much anything (even if they are not related to work). You can also go into isolated rooms for privacy purposes and for those who need to complete tasks in a quiet environment. When a session is complete, team members can have parties and celebrations. 

The VR environment literally allows team members to get connected and experience physically interacting. VR allows you to optimize time & increase team engagement.

The fully immersive platform helps you optimize your time by helping you increase focus and keep your audience engaged. Because you have your team’s full collaboration, you reduce the risk of missing anything critical in your business. You can streamline meetings and presentations effortlessly. Tablets are also available for your avatar to present material and take notes without having to waste paper.

The VR environment allows you to share files and any other material that you need during presentations, just as you would in real life. There are whiteboards and screen shares on software to teach and present to team members. Lastly, another asset the VR environment has, is the simulation of developing 3D models. Teammates can create and discuss the 3D models, physically see the animation of the 3D model, and actively make changes/uploads while interacting in the environment.