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Were in an age where AI-fueled rapid prototyping and sleek direct-to-consumer startups seem to capture all the attention. But some of the most profound design disruptions didnt start in a founders garage or in the algorithms of artificial intelligence; they were born in the aisles of mainstream consumer stores like Target. In the late 1990s, my company, Michael Graves Design changed the conversation around design with a teakettle that was joyful, affordable, and elegant. It didnt just sit on a stove, it stood for a new idea: Good design was not a luxury, but a right. Targets Design for All programs went on to define America’s expectation that great design should be available to everyone. Design evolved from a styling afterthought into a corporate strategy, and the democratization of design was born. Today, democratic design ethos feels more urgent than ever. As consumers increasingly expect thoughtfulness, beauty, and accessibility from the products they buy, heritage brands have a chance to reclaim center stage. To do that, they need to go beyond nostalgia, and beyond quips like design thinking. They need to lean into design as disruption, using proven frameworks like participatory design, value-sensitive development, and service ecosystems to create meaningful, mass-market innovation. Lets break that down. THE NEW COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE: LET THE CONSUMER LEAD The notion of democratic product design is simple: Give consumers a genuine voice in the design process. Many brands have shown that when you allow customers to vote on product features, brands send the powerful signal, were building this with you, which can shift loyalty to your brand and deter competitors from catching up. But the magic only works when the vote is real, shaping what comes next. For legacy brands, this is a powerful opportunity. You dont need to reinvent yourself to resonate; you need to open the design conversation. To us, this means engaging our community to test prototypes to evaluate proposed functional enhancements, to choose colors and finishes, and to ask customers for product categories to explore. DESIGN WITH, NOT FOR: COCREATION AS BRAND STRATEGY The next layer is cocreation, a participatory design methodology drawing from users lived experiences to inform what gets designed and manufactured. Consumers are hyper-attuned to authenticity. Cocreation does more than generate goodwill. It transfers creative ownership, builds emotional stakes, and cultivates a tribe, not just a customer base. Recently, our community helped choose between different finish options for a new teakettle design. Their choice, brushed brass, wasnt what we expected. That insight is shaping our launch and will deepen customer buy-in. When evaluating your own product development process, think of it in four pillars: Dialogue: Do we invite open, two-way feedback? Access: Are we sharing tools and context with users? Transparency: Do users know how their input affects outcomes? Shared risk/reward: Are they more than just participants? By deploying this framework, our community shares product ideas and their own life hacks for existing items, and this helps shape mass produced designs. THE CASE FOR VALUE-SENSITIVE DESIGN Design isnt neutral. It carries implicit signals about who its for, what it enables, and what it assumes. Thats where value sensitive design (VSD) comes in: an ethical design approach adapted from technology design, embedding values like accessibility at every phase of development. VSD begins with a set of human values. From there, you iterate: Conceptual investigation: What values are at play? Empirical research: What do users want or need? Technical exploration: How can we embed these values in the final design? We used VSD to create a line of bathroom safety products for Pottery Barn. These product types, including grab bars, are often stigmatized and overlooked. No one necessarily wants a grab bar. VSD helped us turn these functional aids into affirming, well-crafted objects with functional enhancements, like combining them with a toilet paper or towel holder. The designs reflect other consumer fixtures, with materials, proportions, and lines reflecting style, cache, and aspiration. Customers shared that these aids dont scream medical. They look like they belong in a thoughtfully designed home, not a hospital. People can finally choose to equally value safety and style. Thats VSD in actiondesigning dignity into daily life. THINK ECOSYSTEM, NOT ENDCAP Brands must recognize that products are no longer isolated SKUs, theyre part of a broader service ecosystem. A teakettle isnt just a tool. It starts your morning ritual, fills your kitchen with sound and steam, and maybe even appears in your next Instagram story. Understanding that web, and intentionally designing within it, multiplies product resonance. A product lives in routines, rituals, and spaces. When we honor that, we make more than goods. We make meaning. Legacy brands can lead hereby connecting thee dots into a more cohesive user experience. THE PLAYBOOK: FROM LEGACY TO LOYALTY Democratizing design isnt a campaign, its a commitment. Heres how legacy brands can turn that into a strategy: Step 1: Run consumer-driven design sprints, votes, submissions, and A/B tests early in the product development cycle. Step 2: Activate cocreation programs with transparency and shared creative ownership. Step 3: Integrate values mapping and empathy interviews into the design brief generation stage. Step 4: Position each product within a lifestyle ecosystem: rituals, routines, and cultural meaning. Step 5: Measure not just sales, but sentiment, engagement, loyalty, and brand pride. HERITAGE ISNT A HURDLE, ITS A LAUNCHPAD The best design doesnt demand attention, it earns it over time through usefulness, delight, and emotional clarity. Legacy brands are uniquely poised to champion that mission by doubling down on the radical idea that good design belongs to everyone. Design isnt the garnish, its the strategy. And legacy brands that democratize that strategy by inviting their customers in wont just stay relevant, theyll take advantage of their inherent scale to lead again. Ben Wintner is CEO of Michael Graves Design.
Category:
E-Commerce
Culture does not scale linearly with revenue or headcount it requires intentionality the faster you grow. When I joined DPR Construction in the early 1990s, we were a small startup with a shared vision. Today, we have over 13,000 employees worldwide. Along the way, weve learned that sustaining culture through growth isnt automaticit takes clarity, intention, and continual reinforcement. With growth, we faced a familiar challenge many companies do: How could we preserve the cultural core we started with as a smaller company as we grew to an organization of thousands of people spread across the globe? Company culture is often described as intangible; however, like it or not, the actions we take every day, how we collaborate, and show up to work shape our culture. Heres what weve learned. START WITH STRATEGY When you start with a common, agreed-upon purpose and strategies, and work toward an aligned vision, culture can thrive as the company scales. We saw this as we moved through the 2000s, implementing strategies to drive focus and create more predictability rather than simply growing for growths sake. We sought alignment on clients in specific core markets to strengthen resiliency amid market flux. We found that concentrating on our markets allowed us to stay true to our culture by working with clients who value what we bring. We also continued to build a deeper understanding of our customers business and highly technical projects. This focus on customer relationships, markets, and complex projects, not growth is what continues to fuel us. It’s important to lean into your strengths and protect the spirit of innovation that shaped you from the start. LISTEN WHILE YOU LEAD To scale culture is to remember that it isnt a top-down directive. It takes real dialogue because culture is embedded in the conversations employees have and how those conversations inform decisions. In 2022, after years of strategic focus, we realized there was a deep need to reconnect our culture with how we led. It was a year of change: a collective moment of reckoning. Our leadership team planned something simple, but transformative. We packed our bags, rolled up our sleeves, and took a road trip for what we call Culture Connot to deliver a message, but to listen and receive feedback. Senior leaders met face-to-face with all teams across all offices, including the craft workforce in the field. We didn’t come with all the answers. We came with open ears. What unfolded was a uniquely human journey. We met with thousands of employees. We laughed, cried, and got asked hard questions, but most of all we listened. Culture Con gave us a clear lens into what our employees needed and what our company stands for. We hired simultaneous translators so employees could participate in real time. We created open, unscripted events for employees to converse directly with us, and with each other. REINFORCE THROUGH ACTION As companies scale, culture risks becoming only words on a wall. Growth adds complexity, and with it, the distance between leadership and teams closer to the work expands. To maintain culture, leaders must show it through actions, not just words. This means leading and reacting in ways people can see and feel. Through Culture Con conversations, five distinct themes emerged: A need for a deeper understanding of our vision, purpose, and values. Clearer paths for career growth. Stronger strategic alignment for all roles. The importance of leading compensation and benefits. A call to prioritize a culture of building teams by fostering more inclusive and integrated environments. We got to work and now have in place a new benefits package for our skilled craftspeople, tailored to meet their needs. We also introduced internal development programs to support career growth and help individuals see a long-term future with the company. To strengthen strategic alignment, we rolled out new communication tools that link everyday work to company-wide objectives. And to deepen the connection to our values, we expanded efforts to share stories and celebrate work that reflects our purpose in action. Each of these steps helps keep culture focused and makes it real for people across every role and region. We lead by example and reinforce our culture with the changes we make and the actions we take. Its not about having all the answers right away; its about listening and bringing employees along on the journey. WHY COMPANY CULTURE MATTERS MORE THAN EVER Culture requires active commitment every day. It is not staticto stay relevant it must evolve and grow through listening, responding, and building anew without losing what grounds you. Culture demands more of us as leaders: more empathy, agility, and aligned action. The commitment is worth it: Companies grounded in strong cultures and values attract top talent and fuel resilience in the face of change and adversity. When your culture becomes your competitive edge, you build a company that can thrive through anything. George Pfeffer is the CEO of DPR Construction.
Category:
E-Commerce
Cybercrime is a serious threat to the global economy, destroying livelihoods, sowing distrust, and undermining growth. One forecast has it costing more than $15 trillion annually by the end of the decade. If so, only the GDPs of the U.S. and China are bigger. Theres cause for hope, though. As cyberthreats evolve, innovation is meeting the challenge. New solutions are leveraging AI, real-time threat intelligence, collaborative networks, and advanced authentication technologies. A GROWING PROBLEM Consider the figures. Malicious bots may now account for a third of internet traffic. AI-generated phishing attacks have multiplied tenfold in just a year, and a quarter of cryptocurrency transactions are due to criminal activity. In some parts of the world entire cities have been drawn into the scamming industry, while a black market in stolen data and hacking tools is tightening its hold on the dark web. Here are four reasons digital crime is booming: 1. Hyperconnectivity: More ways in More connected devices, interdependent systems, and endpoints mean a more exposed digital ecosystem. In the U.S., the number of cyber-vulnerabilities catalogued in the National Institute of Standards and Technology database increases yearly, currently standing at over 315,000. Due to a backlog, over 25,000 of those vulnerabilities currently await processing. 2. Hostile agents: Autonomous threats AI is rapidly scaling cybercrime by enhancing attacks with increasing sophistication. Chief information security officers are reporting a surge in AI-driven criminal phenomenadeepfake fraud has quadrupled in a year, for example. The rapid introduction of AI to the workplace is also creating vulnerabilities. The World Economic Foundation reports that most organizations have no process in place to assess the risk of this transformation. 3. Democratization: Cybercrime as a service The boom is accompanied by a burgeoning industry in tools and services that are lowering the barriers to entry for aspiring cybercriminals. Most cyberthreats are now generated by off-the-shelf toolkits that sell for as little as $25 on the dark web. Recent high-profile attacks on UK retailers were facilitated by the ransomware as a service platform DragonForce. 4. Money laundering: High-speed rinse AI helps money launderers scale their operations with remarkable efficiency, automating complex transactions across accounts and jurisdictions.According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime the amount of money laundered each year is equivalent to 2-5% of global GDP. Earlier this year the worlds biggest crypto heist saw $1.5 billion stolen and laundered within minutes, using thousands of accounts across multiple blockchains and cryptocurrencies. HOW INNOVATION IS REINVENTING CYBERDEFENSE The good news is were seeing unprecedented levels of innovation in cybersecurity and fraud prevention. Four trends stand out. 1. Real-time intel: Early warning systems The demand for real-time automated threat intelligence is surging as companies offer services leveraging AI to predict and mitigate risks. Threat intelligence platforms enhance decision making by correlating vast amounts of data about emerging threats, attack methodologies, and vulnerabilities. Threat intelligence encompasses malware analysis, vulnerability assessment, and malicious actor monitoring on both the surface web and dark web. 2. The agentic age: Proactive security Cybersecurity is evolving from reactive threat mitigation to autonomous, proactive defense systems that leverage agentic AI to predict, detect, and neutralize threats before they cause damage. Automated security tools continuously analyze network traffic, endpoint activities, and system behavior to identify anomalies indicative of cyberattacks. These solutions can examine the parties in a financial transaction and assess risk for the likelihood of scamming or other criminality. It can also map those behaviors and relationships to high-risk or suspect accounts, all within a second. This gives banks the opportunity to block payments before they leave accounts. 3. Sharing: Insights, not data Collaboration is increasingly becoming the norm, with organizations forming alliances to exchange threat data, fraud news, insights, best practices, and defensive techniques, strengthening collective resilience against cyberattacks. Trust networks using privacy-enhancing technologies are one way of ensuring that intelligence sharing is configured for specific activities, such as fraud or identity theft, without sharing underlying data. Another model for sharing insights, not data, is federated learning. One estimate says the market for these platforms, which use privacy-enhancing technology to improve fraud detection accuracy, will double by the end of the decade. 4. Continuous authentication: 24/7 validation The commoditization of personal data, fuele by dark web marketplaces and AI-driven fraud tactics, is being met by innovation in identity verification and authentication. Continuous, or always-on, authentication offers dynamic security in a rapidly changing threat environment. It leverages behavioral analytics, biometrics, and identity networks to determine on a rolling basis whether devices and users should be trusted. Meanwhile, tokens and passkeys have become the twin turbo of fraud prevention, minimizing the exposure of sensitive data while creating new opportunities for exchange. TOWARD A SAFER FUTURE Cybersecurity is often cast as an arms race, in which threat and response evolve in tandem and in tension. Even as emergent technologies create new opportunities for cybercriminals, theyre offering more effective ways of thwarting them. Agentic AI, real-time threat intelligence, behavioral analytics, and advanced identity technologies offer the prospect of a cybersecurity thats smarter, faster, and more resilient. This means countering autonomous threats with more vigilant agentic defenses. It means countering identity fraud with smarter verification and money laundering with more discerning intelligence. Thats how we turn a string of scary headlines into a healthy digital ecosystem. Ken Moore is chief innovation officer at Mastercard.
Category:
E-Commerce
As the founder, chair, and CEO of the Exceptional Women Alliance, I am privileged to work alongside extraordinary women leaders who reshape industries and redefine what leadership looks like. Within this sisterhood, we challenge, support, and elevate one another, sharing not just professional expertise but a commitment to lead with impact. Nicole Brownell is one of those leaders. She is a COO and growth strategist whose work sits at the intersection of digital transformation, product innovation, and behavioral intelligence. She has guided companies through scaling, designed GTM strategies that combine creativity with analytics, and she focuses on using data to deepen connections with both customers and teams. Her perspective is clear:Digital transformation only matters if it creates human connection. Q: You say digital transformation isnt just about technology. What do companies often get wrong? Brownell: Too often, organizations confuse transformation with digitization like migrating systems, adding dashboards, or adopting AI tools. Technology alone doesnt drive growth; people do. True transformation comes when data is elevated into performance intelligence to predict needs, when it creates seamless experiences, and when it fosters connections. The same principle applies to leadership. Data can track KPI performance, plus people are more engaged when leaders pair analytics with recognition and understanding. Whether motivating a team member or a customer, the equation is the same: Intelligence + humanity creates impact. Q: What role does data play in understanding and connecting with customers? Brownell: Consumer data is often treated as a compliance exercise of counting clicks, tracking transactions, and slicing demographics. Thats not intelligence, thats inventory. Intelligence surfaces in patterns: how a traveler chooses, movement from discovery to purchase, loyalty motivators. Translating these patterns into insight gains us connection at scale. Personalization increases conversion by deepening the touchpoint. Q: You focus on behavioral research. How do generational differences affect personalization strategies? Brownell: Gen X is often overlooked, but they control nearly a third of U.S. household income. They value efficiency and trust and are brand loyal, but expect respect for their time. Contrast that with millennials, who are more likely to buy from brands aligned with social and environmental values. And then Gen Z, who expect instant, personalized interaction and are quick to move on if brands feel generic or disconnected. One-size-fits-all marketing is obsolete. If youre not tailoring your message, youre leaving growth on the table. When brands get it right, its significant value Q: Youve said the future of advertising is less about media buys and more about messaging management. What do you mean? Brownell: Advertising used to be about reach. Today the advantage is relevance. Messaging management is orchestrating the content across channels (paid, owned, and earned) in a way that feels anchored and consistent to the consumer. Future-ready organizations will treat data as the fuel for message intelligence, moving beyond campaign reporting into predictive personalization, anticipating not just what a customer did, but what they are likely to do next. Advertising becomes transformative when every message feels less like a pitch and more like a conversation Q: Whats the risk if companies dont embrace personalization now? Brownell: Irrelevance. Consumers today have more choices than ever before, and know it. If your messaging feels generic, disconnected, or poorly timed, someone else is ready to step in with a brand experience that feels authentic and aligned with their needs. The cost of inaction is slower growth through churn, declining loyalty and missed opportunity. The brands that hesitate today will find themselves playing catch-up tomorrow, and thats costly. Q: Looking ahead, what excites you most about this shift? Brownell: The potential of rehumanizing technology for impact. While tech can sometimes feel like it creates distance, when applied well it enables connection at scale without sacrificing authenticity. It accelerates the outcomes we create. Thats powerful. This applies inside companies too. Technology should be our accelerant, not our substitute. Our role is to use it to amplify human judgment, creativity, and innovation alongside efficiency. Otherwise, what are we really building? The future of growth wont be decided by who has the most data, but by who turns data into intelligence that builds trust, loyalty, and connection. Those companies wont just compete, theyll endure. Nicole reminds us that digital transformation is not defined by the tools we adopt, but by the trust we create. Her clarity in datas elevation into performance intelligence, which is the connective tissue across customers and teams, offers a roadmap for leaders who want to keep pace and drive growth that endures. Larraine Segil is founder, chair, and CEO of the Exceptional Women Alliance.
Category:
E-Commerce
Last week, Fast Company reported that regional banking giant TD Bank is planning to close more than 50 U.S. locations by the end of January. But TD Bank isnt the only regional bank closing branches. In October, Citizens Bank disclosed that at least 14 branches throughout the United States will shutter, according to public filings. Heres what to know and where they are located. Why is Citizens Bank closing branches? Reached for comment by Fast Company, a Citizens Bank spokesperson said that its retail footprint is constantly changing along with people’s banking habits. “We regularly review customer banking patterns and make thoughtful adjustments, opening new locations, modernizing existing branches, and consolidating where usage has shifted, to meet customers needs in the most effective way,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “As part of this ongoing process, we will be closing select locations in early 2026.” The bank says customers in each of the affected markets will continue to have additional choices, such as “nearby branches, as well as our robust online mobile banking platforms.” It further said that its retail operations have grown 14% since 2020. For several years now, national and regional banking chains have been reevaluating, and in many cases scaling back, their physical footprints for multiple reasons. These reasons include falling foot traffic to branch locations as customers increasingly shift to online banking and mobile apps. As foot traffic falls, those branches tend to generate fewer new customers, so banks stand to make a lower return on the investment in running those physical locations. According to Citizens Banks website, the bank had 1,000 branches and 3,100 ATMs as of June 30 of this year. (For context, its parent company said it had “more than 1,100 locations” in an earnings report two years earlier.) In July, Citizens Bank announced a slew of new features to bolster its mobile offerings, including a refreshed direct deposit experience and the ability to update payment methods for online retailers and subscriptions. The company also maintains a dedicated web page titled Citizens Bank Branch Closures, which appears designed to give customers information on digital methods they can use if their local branch has closed. However, the page does not yet list the closures planned for 2026. How many locations are closing? Citizens Bank operates branches in 14 states and the District of Columbia. The 14 closures disclosed in two recent filings will impact branches in half of those states: Ohio (5 closures) Massachusetts (2 closures) New Hampshire (2 closures) New York (2 closures) Michigan (1 closure) Pennsylvania (1 closure) Vermont (1 closure) The company did not say if additional closures are forthcoming. Which Citizens Bank branches are closing? According to data published in two different tranches by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Citizens Bank in October disclosed that it will shutter at least 14 locations. The bank told Fast Company that the closures are expected early next year. They include: Ohio 9231 Chillicothe Road, Kirtland, OH 8806 Ohio River Road, Wheelersburg, OH 3528 Tuscarawas St. W., Canton, OH 1460 S. Byrne Road, Toledo, OH 1165 E. Waterloo Road, Akron, OH Massachusetts 225 Cambridge St., Cambridge, MA 673 VFW Parkway, West Roxbury, MA Michigan 100 W. Broad St., Chesaning, MI New Hampshire 581 Franklin Pierce Highway, Barrington, NH One Constitutional Way, Somersworth, NH New York 131 East 57th St., New York City, NY 6708 Route 9, Rhinebeck, NY Pennsylvania 101 Commonwealth Drive, Warrendale, PA Vermont 1108 Vt Rt. 149, West Pawlet, VT How is Citizens Financial Groups stock doing? Citizens Bank is owned by Citizens Financial Group (NYSE: CFG), which is headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island, and was founded nearly 200 years ago. In its most recent financial report, for Q3 2025, the company reported a net income of $494 million and an earnings per share (EPS) of $1.05. As of yesterdays market close, CFG shares were trading at $52.24. That represents a nearly 20% increase since the year began. Over the past 12 months, CFG shares have risen more than 12%. Citizens Bank says it currently has total assets of nearly $220 billion and total deposits of around $175 billion.
Category:
E-Commerce