Avinash Jhangiani is the Chief Innovation Officer at Omnicom Media Group. He is on IMPACT’s Digital Power 100 list of most influential icons in India. A trend spotter, digital transformer and marketing technologist with more than 16 years of global digital strategy and technology consulting experience, his relentless focus on innovation for clients resulted in record-breaking number of awards in the past 3 years, including 2 Gold Lions at the prestigious CANNES festival in 2014. And he will be at Click Asia Summit 2016.

We caught up with him for a quick interview on current digital transformation trends and here’s what he had answered.

1. CIO vs CMOs vs CEOs. Who is going to survive the digital transformation war?

Digital transformation drives growth for the organization and considering the growing demands needs to be a priority on any CEO’s agenda. There are basically 3 areas where growth can be hacked with digital technologies – customer experience, sales & operations, and business model.

Today it is no more the responsibility of the CMO alone to drive growth and customer centricity in a company. While the CIO plays a crucial role of implementing the right technology (social, mobile, analytics, cloud) strategies, the marketing department now needs to break down enterprise silos and integrate functions for better customer experience and product innovation.

A seat at the CEO’s table is necessary to drive customer-centric changes from the top. In a digitally-led India today, where startups are disrupting industries with superior customer service and redefining Marketing as we know it, brick-and-mortar businesses are left with no choice but to transform themselves in the new digital era. It is time to rethink customer experience and adopt digital technologies for higher returns on marketing investments.

2. What is your recommendation for organizations implementing digital initiative?

2016 will the year of Customer Experience.

Experience will become the primary basis of competition. Today people buy experiences, not just products or services. Make it about the experience and let humanize technology when providing the experience. It’s not about the technology, it’s about the right application of digital technology to connect with people in moments that matter to them.

3. If you were to look into the digital future, which is at most a couple of years from now, what would you consider to a must have in a digital marketer’s’ tool kit?

4 skill sets: Strategists (for holistic customer experience), Storybuilders (to create compelling stories based on demographic, psychographic and behavioural insights), Socialisers (to socialise new experiences – content and ideas – externally and internally), and Scientists (for consumer data and analytics).

4.What are the key differences in the digital transformation road map between the US and Asia?

NA

5. One reason we should not miss your session at Click Asia Summit 2016?

Because we will be experiencing “what’s next for digital” and hacking growth for brands with digital transformation.