Transformation in business, conditions for success, reasons for failure, understanding of the company’s purpose and more were the components of the stimulating presentation and thought-provoking conversation that took place in the context of the SEV Center of Excellence in Creative Leadership event. Here’s the lowdown.

“Do Transformations Really Fail?” asked Mr. Antreas Athanassopoulos, , Deputy CEO and Group Chief Transformation Officer, Digital & Retail, Eurobank S.A., in his role as keynote speaker of the online event from the SEV Center of Excellence in Creative Leadership. The discussion explored the role of transformation in business, the reasons for failure, and conditions for success..

In their welcome address,  Dean Kostas Axarloglou, Dean of Alba, and Alexandros Chatzopoulos, General Manager of SEV, pointed out the difficult times we are living with war in Ukraine.

Dr. Axarloglou, referring to Mr. Athanasopoulos, mentioned that he embodies “Alba ethics: academic excellence and business relevance.”

Changing to survive and flourish

Mr. Chatzopoulos discussed how a business must constantly change to survive and flourish. He pointed out that although many companies have attempted to transform worldwide and in Greece, their success rate is relatively low. According to a survey conducted in 2020 in the U.S., only 22% of companies have successfully transformed monetarily or improved their reputation. According to the research, those who achieved success did so because of some common features, particularly the workforce, technological development, and corporate culture of innovation.

Mr. Chatzopoulos concluded that SEV works systematically to empower businesses to help them create value, make better use of opportunities and more effectively address the challenges of the required rapid turnaround and transformation. It is a challenging but necessary process in which leadership becomes creative, open and innovative. The company has an important role and responsibility to organize and manage every transformation, integrate appropriate technologies, inspire and convince the employees that it means it, and above all, invest in human resources, perhaps the most critical factor. Success is the journey for continuous change.”

Understanding the company’s purpose as a prerequisite for successful transformation

Drawing from his vast experience, Mr. Athanasopoulos discussed how a company should implement transformation by reviewing its pre-existing problems and not finding technological solutions that seek a problem. Usually, he said, an external threat or internal crisis initiates the transformation, as “fear reduces resistance to change and unreasonable pluralism.” According to Mr. Athanasopoulos, for any transformation to succeed, it is necessary that before any implementation begins, the company should have identified and understood its “purpose,” which is much different from its “mission” and “vision.”

He also referred to the six factors that are crucial for the success of transformation: (1) Craft a clear, integrated strategy, (2) Commit to leadership from senior to middle management, (3) Put the best people in the right places, (4) Adopt an agile governance mindset, (5) Continuous monitoring and measurement of progress and (6) Create a business-led tech and data.

Mr. Athanasopoulos emphasized the need to transform the system and the need for the system to help transform society. “Change should not concern the few within the body but the whole body,” he said, adding that “once the transformation begins, we must never look back.” According to Mr. Athanasopoulos, a successful transformation provides a solution to real problems perceived by everyone, both employees and customers of a company.

The event closed with a Q&A session for Nikos Mylonopoulos and Andreas Athanasopoulos from online participants who are academics and business executives. In fact, a previous SEV speaker, Mr. Trapezanoglou, also posed a question to the speakers, as did other members of the SEV community.

You can  watch the discussion in its entirety below.

About the speaker

Mr. Athanasopoulos has worked for over 20 years in the banking and retail sectors. During the Greek economic crisis, he was General Manager of Retail Banking at the National Bank of Greece. As CEO of Kotsovolos, he implemented the company’s turnaround in Greece before taking over as Group Chief Customer Officer at Dixons headquarters in London. Prior to this, he was a professor at Warwick Business School and Alba Graduate Business School, The American College of Greece. His significant research work has been published in leading scientific journals on decision-making and business research, customer satisfaction, marketing, and strategy.