MIT Sloan Management Review Article on Creating Collaborative Ecosystems to Transform Customer Experience

Forward-thinking banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI) companies worldwide are leveraging collaborative ecosystems to greatly improve both customer experience and competitive differentiation. But while the concept is rooted in the natural world, ecosystems don’t happen naturally in business. Particularly in the BFSI industry, they require extensive human effort and expertise to help achieve their potential for breaking down boundaries between industry sectors and providing transparent, efficient value exchange between organizations and people. Put another way, they’re based on strategy, design, and conscious continuous improvement, rather than chance.

In this exchange, an MIT scholar and a TCS executive share individual perspectives on creating strong, reliable ecosystems. The scholar, MIT faculty member and researcher Renée Richardson Gosline, opens the discussion with a big-picture look at why effective ecosystems are critical for organizations serious about business transformation. K. Krithivasan, president and global head, Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance for TCS, provides a deeper dive into why BFSI companies in particular need to build, maintain, and expand their ecosystems to better navigate the current COVID-19 crisis and to excel in the post-pandemic new normal. Both offer insights on the importance of creating hyper-personalized customer experiences, along with expert advice for harnessing an ecosystem’s power to accelerate growth and drive genuine competitive advantage.

About the Author

Renée Richardson Gosline is a senior lecturer in the Management Science Group at the MIT Sloan School of Management and a principal research scientist at MIT’s Initiative on the Digital Economy, where she leads the Human-Centered AI pillar. She is also a Digital Fellow at Stanford’s Digital Economy Lab. Previously, she was a marketing practitioner at LVMH Moet Hennessy and Leo Burnett. Among other honors, she was named to Thinkers50 Radar List of management thought leaders and the Poets and Quants list of the World’s Top 40 Professors Under 40. She received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in sociology from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in consumer behavior from Harvard Business School.

K. Krithivasan (Krithi) is president and global head of the Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance (BFSI) Business Unit at Tata Consultancy Services. In this role, he is responsible for planning and executing growth strategies, improving financial performance, and enhancing customer mindshare and market positioning. He has helped key clients with digital transformation, change management cycle acceleration, achieving value beyond cost optimization, and establishing IT program governance. Earlier in his 30-year global IT career, he held various positions in delivery, relationship management, large-program management, and sales. He received a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Madras and a master’s degree in industrial and management engineering from IIT Kanpur.

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