Simon Torrance

Location
United Kingdom
Areas of Expertise
Leadership
Transformation
Exponential Thinking

Expert Bio

Simon Torrance is a senior independent advisor to Boards and Leadership Teams specializing in business model transformation, platform strategy, and digital ventures, with over 30 years of experience in strategy, innovation, and venture creation. Recognized as one of the world's leading experts in his field, he works across multiple sectors and geographies, helping incumbent organizations define and execute breakthrough new growth opportunities. Simon is a member of the World Economic Forum's Digital Platforms & Ecosystems executive working group, co-founder and Chair of the Platform Economy Summit — the world's biggest event dedicated to platforms — and the author and presenter of the New Growth Playbook. He is also the co-author of FIGHTBACK: How to Win in the Digital Economy with Platforms, Ventures and Entrepreneurs, a definitive guide for organizations navigating digital disruption.

Sessions

Digital Platforms & Ecosystems how to harness the world's most powerful business model

99% of companies operate a linear business model: they create a product or service and sell it to customers. Digital platforms serve markets by connecting buyers and sellers of products, services, content or knowledge and orchestrate a self-reinforcing ecosystem around them. The most valuable companies in the world - such as Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Alibaba, Tencent, WeChat - combine these approaches. This session will help ambitious leaders and innovators understand how to incorporate the power of platform and ecosystem thinking into their organisations to drive new growth and value.

Based on over 15 years of research and practical implementation, this session will share the key principles of how to apply and incorporate this powerful business model. It will provide the most useful conceptual frameworks, case studies and practical steps to take, following the author's R.E.N.E.W. principle of business model innovation.

The session is for ambitious leaders and their teams looking for new ways to improve the fundamental economics of their business model.

Corporate Venture Building: How to drive high impact, breakthrough innovation

Incumbent organisations find it very hard to innovate effectively. Since so much value is wrapped up in executing against the existing business model, exploring and exploiting new, adjacent growth opportunities is rarely successful. Yet creating new businesses to complement and supplement the traditional core business is critical to the success of any organisation. Doing so fast and effectively is even more important in a hyper-connected world. The biggest danger for an incumbent is less from start-ups and more from their direct rivals creating a portfolio of new businesses at scale.

In this session we will describe the commercial rationale for corporate venture building, share examples of best and worst practices from around the world, and provide the key structures, methods and processes needed to do it well. In particular we will explain how organisational set up and governance is key to balance the tensions between "optimise the core" and "fast-track the new" in any traditional organisation.

This session is for a.) Executive Leaders who are dis-satisfied with the performance and ROI of their current innovation strategy and activity, and b.) Innovation leaders frustrated at the inability to drive breakthrough innovation through their organisation.

Embedded Finance & Insurance: A new route to new growth and value.

Financial services - payments, credit, and insurance - are critical enablers of economic innovation. Up until now they have been created, sold and managed only by financial institutions. Due to the rapid digitalisation of the financial services industry and modularisation of its capabilities, Embedded Finance & Insurance enables any non-financial organisation to cost-effectively design and incorporate financial solutions into their own propositions to solve the unmet needs of their customers.

Retailers, airlines, auto manufacturers, telcos have for a long time re-sold third party financial services. But now any company, big and small, in any sector can do so much more effectively.

For Financial institutions, Embedded Finance & Insurance opens up new sales opportunities. In insurance alone it creates the opportunity to close huge and growing "protection gaps", in so doing, create new growth for the industry.

This session will share latest forecasts about the potential size of the market and the value it can bring to all stakeholders: consumers, FS companies, brands. It will share the most compelling case studies from around the world, and describe future use cases. Finally, it will help participants understand strategic and tactical options and key do's and don'ts of a successful Embedded Finance & Insurance program.

This session is for a.) Financial Service leaders looking for new ways to grow and new distribution partners, b.) for leaders of brands (big and small, all sectors) interested in how to leverage financial services to drive new revenues, increase customer loyalty, improve overall business models.

AI Risk

AI Risk - how to understand, manage and mitigate it?

AI is the biggest technological breakthrough of a generation. As it pervades all aspects of business and society, we need to appreciate the risks it brings and manage them effectively. For enterprises there are 4 main categories of AI Risk:

1.) Strategic AI risk - eg. the risk of being out-competed in the market by others more adept at leveraging AI to serve customers.

2.) Financial AI risk - eg. the risk of making large investments in areas of the business that deliver low returns.

3.) Operational AI risk - eg. the risk of the use of AI opening up new surfaces for cyber attacks; the risk of not being able to access or attract AI talent to work for you.

4.) Regulatory AI risk - eg. the risk of not complying with laws or industry standards.

This session helps executives understand the full range of 'risk' that they face from the adoption of AI in their sectors, and provides tangible strategies for managing them: what types of systems, processes and governance are needed to compete with and realise new growth and value from AI? What are best practices from around the world? How to fully embrace and leverage the benefits of AI in a safe and trustworthy manner?

The session builds on output from an AI risk think tank that I ran in 2023 with leading global experts in this field. I now work with leadership teams on how to understand, manage and mitigate AI risk.

This session is for senior executive teams from any sector considering how to develop and deploy AI within their organisations. Typically it suits the C-suite collectively - CEO, COO, Chief Risk Officer, Chief Commercial Officer, Chief Strategy Officer, Chief Information Officer - but can also suit individual teams, functions and business units.

Expert Bio

Sessions

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