Connect with us

Politics

Integrating Cross-Functional Teams into Your Growth Marketing Strategy

Published

on

Abeer Raza


A one-size fits all approach is, to say the least, outdated, and so are teams that follow this approach. To create efficient, growth-oriented teams, you need a diverse set of skills, and cross-functional collaborations provide you with just that opportunity. Being one of the growing teamwork trends that impact businesses, such teams bring new ideas, varying perspectives, and a broader skill set to the table, leading to greater adaptability and fostering innovation.

With how fast technology is developing, so are consumer expectations, and no functional team can respond to these changes quickly. Cross-functional teams are a great way to deliver what consumers are asking for in a short amount of time. A Deloitte survey reported that 83% of digitally maturing companies in their survey use cross-functional teams, compared with 71% of developing companies on the digital maturity spectrum and 55% of early-stage organizations.

Suppose you’re looking for effective marketing strategies to drive sustainable and scalable growth. In that case, integrating cross-functional teams into your business model can be a great starting point to ensure a seamless customer experience. In this guide, I’ll give you a breakdown of how you can elevate your growth marketing strategy with the help of cross-functional teams. Let’s get into it!

1. Outline your goals

Cross-functional teams are usually best for solving complex problems that a single-function team can’t handle or achieving ambitious, long-term goals. Projects that require a diverse set of skills and expertise are usually where cross-functional teams can shine the most.

One of the biggest companies in the world, Apple, has been using a functional organizational structure since 1997 – the year co-founder Steve Jobs returned and took over as CEO. The structure enabled the whole organization to work in close collaboration with one another. Apple’s signature piece of tech, which revolutionized smartphones as we know them today – the iPhone, was also developed using cross-functional collaboration. And Apple is nearly 40 times larger than it was then, but it still utilizes the same structure.

If your business has long-term projects and goals, then developing cross-functional teams to leverage different skills is your best bet. Some projects that are well-suited for cross-functional teams include:

  1. Product development: By bringing together people from product management, engineering, design, and data analytics teams, you can help ensure that a new product is developed with a thorough understanding of market needs, technical feasibility, and user experience.
  2. Marketing campaigns: Have teams from marketing, design, and data analytics work together to plan, execute, and measure the success of marketing campaigns.
  3. Customer experience improvement: You can Identify opportunities for improving customer experience and implement changes by having customer service, product management, and design teams work together.

2. Focus on diversity

When creating a cross-functional team, the most important thing is that you want the team to be as diverse as possible. Start by determining which teams and individuals will play key roles in helping you achieve your goals. Put them in a single team together to work on a project.

Apart from focusing on diversity within teams, it is also a good idea to incorporate diverse individuals. This may include diversity in age, race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and more. Diversity is overall, extremely beneficial for the workplace, with a McKinsey study proving that companies with a diverse workforce experience 35% greater financial gains than their counterparts.

By having diverse individuals together in a team, it will be open to varying perspectives stemming from different experiences and new ideas. It can also bring potential concerns to light that certain team members may not think about.  This will help create a more inclusive user experience for the product.

Diverse teams are also better at decision-making. A study of approximately 600 business decisions made by 200 different business teams in a variety of companies over two years, showed that inclusive teams make better decisions up to 87% of the time, with decisions being executed by such teams delivering 60% better results. With a diverse, cross-functional team consisting of subject matter experts from various areas, the chances of success go up significantly.

3. Build a team identity

Just creating a cross-functional team isn’t enough. You also need to ensure that it’s operating smoothly and members are getting along so it maximizes efficiency. A Harvard Business Review study of 95 teams in 25 leading corporations showed that nearly 75% of cross-functional teams were dysfunctional. So, the big question is, what can you do to prevent this from happening?

The optimal answer is to foster collaboration among team members, which you can achieve by building a separate team identity. Team members should be comfortable with each other, just like they would feel back on their respective teams. A good way to do this is by hosting an ice-breaker to introduce the members to each other. This can help build trust and connections before the work starts.

Regular team-building activities, joint project planning sessions, and open communication channels are also great for encouraging collaboration. With a team identity, members will feel belonging and loyalty to the team they work with.

4. Develop a project timeline and ways of working

Once the team is established, it’s time to focus on the project at hand. The first thing that you have to do is establish a project timeline. This is great for establishing clear expectations, effective resource allocation, facilitating communication, and increasing accountability. A project timeline can help the team manage and execute the project well.

To develop a timeline, visualize the project from start to finish, and give everyone a clear idea of what is a must. Project management tools are a great way to simplify the entire process and streamline reporting, making life easier for everyone on your team.

Using the Scrum framework allows you to establish a way of working, including agile practices, that keeps everyone in the loop. It also helps you be up to date with everything that is going on with the project. You can use Scrum board to keep individual tasks organized in various lists and display the workflow into separate stages. Regular Scrum meetings should also be a norm to go over challenges and address concerns that the team may have.

5. Be ready for conflict and difficult situations

A Myers-Briggs study found that 85% of employees face conflict to some degree in the workplace. It’s inevitable for conflicts to arise, especially in a team full of diverse individuals from different teams and backgrounds.

Often, creating cross-functional teams means that you will be bringing together teams that are traditionally at odds with one another, like sales and marketing, for example. While aligning members of the two teams may prove beneficial for both, the dynamics between their members may be such that they spend a lot of time competing with one another over power, recognition, and resources.

When you’re putting together a team for your growth marketing strategy, you have to face such conflicts and difficult situations. However, it’s also crucial to resolve conflicts in cross-functional teams to maintain a positive and productive working environment.

This can be done by emphasizing the shared goal of the team and seeking common ground. Remind team members that everyone is working towards the same goal and that resolving the conflict is in everyone’s best interest. Focus on finding a solution that meets the needs of all parties involved.

What cross-functional teams can do for your growth marketing strategy

Cross-functional teams can bring a wealth of benefits to your growth marketing strategy. This includes improved goal alignment, increased creativity, and more efficient decision-making, among others. By leveraging the strengths and perspectives of individuals from different departments, cross-functional teams can drive more effective growth marketing efforts and achieve better results.

Cross-functional teams are chaotic and may be difficult to manage. But if done right, they can be a game changer for your business. By incorporating them into your growth marketing strategy, you can maximize the resources available to complete difficult projects and achieve ambitious, long-term goals.

 Featured Image Credit: Photo by Fauxels; Pexels; Thank you!

Abeer Raza

Founding Partner

A Serial Entrepreneur, Author, Growth Hacker, Business Consultant and Keynote Speaker.
I’m on a mission to revolutionize the world by helping other entrepreneurs disrupt their domains using emerging technology solutions. I enjoy guiding today’s leaders and revolutionary thinkers by making sure their visions are brought to life in the most effective way possible.

Politics

Fintech Kennek raises $12.5M seed round to digitize lending

Published

on

Google eyed for $2 billion Anthropic deal after major Amazon play


London-based fintech startup Kennek has raised $12.5 million in seed funding to expand its lending operating system.

According to an Oct. 10 tech.eu report, the round was led by HV Capital and included participation from Dutch Founders Fund, AlbionVC, FFVC, Plug & Play Ventures, and Syndicate One. Kennek offers software-as-a-service tools to help non-bank lenders streamline their operations using open banking, open finance, and payments.

The platform aims to automate time-consuming manual tasks and consolidate fragmented data to simplify lending. Xavier De Pauw, founder of Kennek said:

“Until kennek, lenders had to devote countless hours to menial operational tasks and deal with jumbled and hard-coded data – which makes every other part of lending a headache. As former lenders ourselves, we lived and breathed these frustrations, and built kennek to make them a thing of the past.”

The company said the latest funding round was oversubscribed and closed quickly despite the challenging fundraising environment. The new capital will be used to expand Kennek’s engineering team and strengthen its market position in the UK while exploring expansion into other European markets. Barbod Namini, Partner at lead investor HV Capital, commented on the investment:

“Kennek has developed an ambitious and genuinely unique proposition which we think can be the foundation of the entire alternative lending space. […] It is a complicated market and a solution that brings together all information and stakeholders onto a single platform is highly compelling for both lenders & the ecosystem as a whole.”

The fintech lending space has grown rapidly in recent years, but many lenders still rely on legacy systems and manual processes that limit efficiency and scalability. Kennek aims to leverage open banking and data integration to provide lenders with a more streamlined, automated lending experience.

The seed funding will allow the London-based startup to continue developing its platform and expanding its team to meet demand from non-bank lenders looking to digitize operations. Kennek’s focus on the UK and Europe also comes amid rising adoption of open banking and open finance in the regions.

Featured Image Credit: Photo from Kennek.io; Thank you!

Radek Zielinski

Radek Zielinski is an experienced technology and financial journalist with a passion for cybersecurity and futurology.

Continue Reading

Politics

Fortune 500’s race for generative AI breakthroughs

Published

on

Deanna Ritchie


As excitement around generative AI grows, Fortune 500 companies, including Goldman Sachs, are carefully examining the possible applications of this technology. A recent survey of U.S. executives indicated that 60% believe generative AI will substantially impact their businesses in the long term. However, they anticipate a one to two-year timeframe before implementing their initial solutions. This optimism stems from the potential of generative AI to revolutionize various aspects of businesses, from enhancing customer experiences to optimizing internal processes. In the short term, companies will likely focus on pilot projects and experimentation, gradually integrating generative AI into their operations as they witness its positive influence on efficiency and profitability.

Goldman Sachs’ Cautious Approach to Implementing Generative AI

In a recent interview, Goldman Sachs CIO Marco Argenti revealed that the firm has not yet implemented any generative AI use cases. Instead, the company focuses on experimentation and setting high standards before adopting the technology. Argenti recognized the desire for outcomes in areas like developer and operational efficiency but emphasized ensuring precision before putting experimental AI use cases into production.

According to Argenti, striking the right balance between driving innovation and maintaining accuracy is crucial for successfully integrating generative AI within the firm. Goldman Sachs intends to continue exploring this emerging technology’s potential benefits and applications while diligently assessing risks to ensure it meets the company’s stringent quality standards.

One possible application for Goldman Sachs is in software development, where the company has observed a 20-40% productivity increase during its trials. The goal is for 1,000 developers to utilize generative AI tools by year’s end. However, Argenti emphasized that a well-defined expectation of return on investment is necessary before fully integrating generative AI into production.

To achieve this, the company plans to implement a systematic and strategic approach to adopting generative AI, ensuring that it complements and enhances the skills of its developers. Additionally, Goldman Sachs intends to evaluate the long-term impact of generative AI on their software development processes and the overall quality of the applications being developed.

Goldman Sachs’ approach to AI implementation goes beyond merely executing models. The firm has created a platform encompassing technical, legal, and compliance assessments to filter out improper content and keep track of all interactions. This comprehensive system ensures seamless integration of artificial intelligence in operations while adhering to regulatory standards and maintaining client confidentiality. Moreover, the platform continuously improves and adapts its algorithms, allowing Goldman Sachs to stay at the forefront of technology and offer its clients the most efficient and secure services.

Featured Image Credit: Photo by Google DeepMind; Pexels; Thank you!

Deanna Ritchie

Managing Editor at ReadWrite

Deanna is the Managing Editor at ReadWrite. Previously she worked as the Editor in Chief for Startup Grind and has over 20+ years of experience in content management and content development.

Continue Reading

Politics

UK seizes web3 opportunity simplifying crypto regulations

Published

on

Deanna Ritchie


As Web3 companies increasingly consider leaving the United States due to regulatory ambiguity, the United Kingdom must simplify its cryptocurrency regulations to attract these businesses. The conservative think tank Policy Exchange recently released a report detailing ten suggestions for improving Web3 regulation in the country. Among the recommendations are reducing liability for token holders in decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) and encouraging the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to adopt alternative Know Your Customer (KYC) methodologies, such as digital identities and blockchain analytics tools. These suggestions aim to position the UK as a hub for Web3 innovation and attract blockchain-based businesses looking for a more conducive regulatory environment.

Streamlining Cryptocurrency Regulations for Innovation

To make it easier for emerging Web3 companies to navigate existing legal frameworks and contribute to the UK’s digital economy growth, the government must streamline cryptocurrency regulations and adopt forward-looking approaches. By making the regulatory landscape clear and straightforward, the UK can create an environment that fosters innovation, growth, and competitiveness in the global fintech industry.

The Policy Exchange report also recommends not weakening self-hosted wallets or treating proof-of-stake (PoS) services as financial services. This approach aims to protect the fundamental principles of decentralization and user autonomy while strongly emphasizing security and regulatory compliance. By doing so, the UK can nurture an environment that encourages innovation and the continued growth of blockchain technology.

Despite recent strict measures by UK authorities, such as His Majesty’s Treasury and the FCA, toward the digital assets sector, the proposed changes in the Policy Exchange report strive to make the UK a more attractive location for Web3 enterprises. By adopting these suggestions, the UK can demonstrate its commitment to fostering innovation in the rapidly evolving blockchain and cryptocurrency industries while ensuring a robust and transparent regulatory environment.

The ongoing uncertainty surrounding cryptocurrency regulations in various countries has prompted Web3 companies to explore alternative jurisdictions with more precise legal frameworks. As the United States grapples with regulatory ambiguity, the United Kingdom can position itself as a hub for Web3 innovation by simplifying and streamlining its cryptocurrency regulations.

Featured Image Credit: Photo by Jonathan Borba; Pexels; Thank you!

Deanna Ritchie

Managing Editor at ReadWrite

Deanna is the Managing Editor at ReadWrite. Previously she worked as the Editor in Chief for Startup Grind and has over 20+ years of experience in content management and content development.

Continue Reading

Copyright © 2021 Seminole Press.