Companies Have to Learn to Say No to Adventures Beyond Their Scope, Says Nice CEO

In 2014, Nasdaq-listed software company Nice Ltd. experienced an identity crisis and had to reevaluate its entire business strategy, according to CEO Barak Eilam, who spoke at Calcalist’s Forecasts 2020 conference held Tuesday in Tel Aviv in collaboration with Bank Hapoalim and Israel-based Psagot Investment House Ltd.

The crisis was caused by a lack of focus, Eilam said. The company was dabbling in too many fields, making it difficult to form a coherent strategic plan. Today Nice focuses on just two sectors—customer engagement and financial fraud prevention, he said.

At the time, Nice set out to identify what transformations will shape the world in the near future and upcoming decade and adjust its strategy accordingly, Eilam said. The company came up with four elements driving innovation in the business world: the emergence of a digital generation; the sheer volume of digital data; the growing importance of artificial intelligence; and the cloud computing revolution.

Nice had to stop being opportunistic and learn to say no to business adventures that were beyond its newly defined scope of just several fields on which it wanted to focus, Eilam said. It also had to get every employee involved, connecting their personal goals with those of the company’s strategy, he added.