Darren Thayre | Head of Digital Transformation, Asia-Pacific, Japan and China at Google

About our guest: Darren is a digital transformation subject matter expert. He has worked with large enterprises all over the world on their digital plans and change programmes. He heads up Digital Transformation and Digital Ventures for Google across Asia-Pacific, Japan and China. Darren can now call upon the vast Google and Alphabet resources to help customers with their transformation journey. Previously Darren led a consulting transformation team in Amazon Web Services, where he was responsible for some of their largest digital transformations globally. In this episode, I'll get to jam with him on topics ranging from #customerexperience #CX #digitaltransformation #trust #in #technology #digitalbanking #superapps ##google #company #culture #workfromhome He shares with us: - Why #superapps are gaining popularity in Asia and building their own “Google Play Store” experience - Whether super apps with bigger platforms, more channels, user segments and more apps in the ecosystem with optimal integration OR standalone/ separate apps like Facebook Messenger, Amazon Prime will enhance brand, loyalty and CX - How do Brands and businesses in East implement CX vs the West that brings the innovation and blueprint - What are you some successful verticals and companies that outperform those in the west - What can the East teach the West? - Why #retailbanking is an area he think is right in the middle of that disruptive storm? - Bill Gates famously said “Banking is necessary, banks are not” back in 1994 - Is he right? - Who are banks looking to target with digital solutions? Do they look at gen Z and millennial or are they sticking to gen X and baby boomers who have more money and greater life commitments (need for loans, mortgages etc) than say millennials - While digitalisation has arguably never been more important than it is today, is there enough buy-in from businesses especially in Asia? - How much of digital transformation is technology and how much of it is about culture and mindset - Whether the right balance can be found in Governments’ encouragement of contact tracing apps in the fight against COVID-19, which has thrown open the question of public health versus data privacy - Does he expect, Post-COVID, trust in technology to increase - What are his thoughts on flexible working becoming a salient feature of the new normal? How does Google and the employees adapt to WFH (P.S. Alphabet Inc's Google announcend it would allow employees, who do not need to be in the office, to work from home until the end of June 2021)