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Capgemini’s Bill Sullivan on how the finserv market has changed over the past 7 years and where it’s headed

Bill Sullivan is the Global Head of Market Intelligence at Capgemini
Bill Sullivan, Capgemini[/caption]
For Brand Enhancement, my team is focused on developing thought leadership to help our clients maneuver through this incredibly challenging environment. I believe we are uniquely positioned as a truly global organization covering the full gamut of business consulting, technology, and business services. Our major FS thought leadership (e.g., World Wealth Report, World Retail Banking Report, World Payments, Report, and World Insurance Report) is all developed by my team (with strong collaboration with our global network).
The real differentiated value comes from the power of that global expert network, input from our clients, and the primary research which feeds into it. For each report, our global network of domain experts (typically across 15 to 20 countries) run up to 200 CxO interviews (per Report) to discuss burning platforms facing our clients (and prospects) and to dive into that year’s specific topic. We also run some of the most extensive, broad reaching Voice of the Customer surveys in the industry, annually covering over 35,000 financial services customers in 30 countries to directly capture their experiences and expectations of financial institutions. Lastly, we are able to tap into our nearly 25k professionals who work with our FS clients by holding regular workshops with our global domain experts (both during the scoping/hypothesis generation stage and key findings development). We typically have a dozen countries represented by their top domain experts providing personal expertise, as well as leading practices they are seeing with our clients.
Also relatively unique to Capgemini is that our Global Sales and Global Marketing teams sit under the same leader to enable our ~2 billion Euro FS business. This allows us to ensure all of our marketing and thought leadership activities are closely aligned with our core business objectives and client agendas. While we never push our offerings or solutions in our thought leadership, the CxO interviews we conduct and the report findings briefings we share with our clients are all invaluable to building our client relationships and to opening new doors. This helps position Capgemini’s brand as a firm that fully understands the industry (both the business and technology side), that we are at the cutting edge of where it is going, and we know how to help our clients through their transformation journey.
Lastly, the role that social media and new channels provide is also exciting (and complicated). We no longer just release a report and send out a press release. All of our content has to be customized for each channel - tier 1/trade media, social media (Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook Slideshare, Youtube), video, infographics, microsites, an app for our thought leadership, by-line articles, and the list goes on.
As for Growth Enablement, my team is also responsible for developing all of our external intelligence to support our financial services business growth with actionable insights to guide strategic vision, thinking, and planning. This covers the full spectrum of tracking key trends in the industry, what’s happening with our competition, and key insights into our top (and prospect) accounts, and tracking the growth of the professional services market.
What role does market intelligence play in Capgemini's business?
I see Market Intelligence addressing two primary roles in Capgemini. The first is more externally focused on Brand Enhancement. The second is more internally focused on Growth Enablement. [caption id="attachment_6565" align="alignright" width="204"]
You've been recognized by various sources as an influencer within the financial services sphere. Why do you think that is and how did you build your personal brand?
I have to admit, it has been a humbling experience and an incredible honor to be recognized by numerous lists as a key influencer in the financial services space. To be completely candid, I believe much of the credit goes to a combination of- Capgemini and our incredible team of domain experts which I learn from on a daily basis
- a phenomenal network of fintech influencers who graciously share their insights on the industry via social media
- some real commitment and dedication to taking a proactive effort to take social approach in monitoring the space and to curating and sharing content and insights (both our own great Capgemini insights, but even more so the great content from my own influencer list).