Chapter 12Converting Data to Money

One of Canada’s largest banks is on a path to truly be a global organization with acquired banks in different countries and expanded divisions within the bank serving a global market.

Recently, the bank conducted a global leaders meeting at its headquarters in Toronto where the heads of the banking units and banks around the world discussed a variety of strategy and leadership topics. The talent development team saw this as an opportunity to enhance networking. Executives had always thought executives could benefit by working together, perhaps sharing some of the same clients and expanding specialized services to other countries. Some units offer services that could be purchased by other parts of the bank. With the urging of executives, the team decided to track the success of the networking and develop the actual monetary value.

The bank used innovative technology where the name tags of individuals could electronically track networking. The devices tracked which executives met other participants, how long they met, and how many times they met. Participants were asked to keep their name badges with them at all times with this message, “We want to try an experiment to see how much networking actually occurs and the value of that networking. This is not a performance issue. It’s just an attempt to understand the value of networking.” The bank engaged the services of external consultants to measure the monetary value of the networking.

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