Infosys BrandEdge - Cloud-based Digital Marketing Platform

In my last post I presented our Digital Revolution infographic. As I was pondering some of the data points it covers, I got to thinking about their implications for the fields of marketing and commerce, and their enabling technologies. Most of the obvious implications have been written about at length elsewhere, but today I'd like to take a look at some of the not-so-obvious ones:

• New mobile customers: Everyone talks about the mobile web surpassing the fixed web, but it pays to look at the customers who are driving this. According to the International Telecommunications Union, this year mobile broadband subscriptions in developing countries surpassed subscriptions in developed countries. Beyond that, there's lots more headroom for growth and the mobile web is cheaper and easier to access than the fixed web in the developing world. The implication? While it's critical for global brands to have a mobile strategy, it's equally critical that that strategy comprehend the huge opportunity web-enabled phones are bringing to developing countries, and the challenges that accompany that opportunity: supporting price points that are affordable to these new customers, processing their payments, even the packaging and supply chain strategies required to ensure they get the right product at the right place and time.

• The true power (consumption) of the cloud: We have good reason to have our heads in the cloud -- by virtualizing our infrastructure and hiring specialist providers to manage it we will reap enormous economies of scale, lower costs, and realize better scalability versus the old model of owned, physical infrastructure. On the downside, however, the geographic consolidation of physical infrastructure that comes with the shift to the cloud also implies more concentrated areas of increased power consumption. Luckily companies like Calxeda are beginning to address the power consumption challenge via innovative ultra-low-power servers. This may seem more like an issue for the CIO than the CMO, but CMOs who want to cultivate an earth-friendly image may want to make sure their CIOs are aligned to the marketing value of energy efficient compute cycles.

• The Big in Big Data: Big Data holds enormous promise for marketers (and just about everyone else), but we have to put it someplace, and today that means hard drives. Lots of them. But unfortunately our storage needs are increasing much faster than the capacities of our devices. According to Forbes, by 2020 our data storage needs will increase 50 fold while hard drive capacity will only increase 15 fold. While we can place our bets on emerging storage technologies like bacteria, holograms, and diamonds, the reality is we will probably be stuck with hard drives -- and their significant space and power requirements -- well into the zettabyte era. For anyone trying to understand this data (e.g. marketers), the implication is that we will have to get much smarter about what data to collect. The seemingly cheap, limitless storage we took for granted until now will, over the next few years, become much more precious, driving up demand for data scientists who can optimize data collection schemes to exclude superfluous bits (pun intended), thereby making the most out of our old-fashioned storage devices until those hologram, diamond, and bacteria drives are online.

• Cross-channel table stakes: Nearly everyone who can shop in the US is now shopping online, and while just about every major US retailer is there to sell to them, there are plenty of leading retailers and brands that still aren't taking any form of cross-channel seriously. With traditionally online-only retailers like Amazon and eBay (and non-retailers like google) quickly moving to provide same-day delivery, ignoring cross-channel is suicide. Single channel retailers who don't quickly take the big leap into cross-channel (or better yet, omni-channel) will have to be satisfied with becoming niche players -- or worse, showrooms for competitors.

How are these digital trends affecting your business? What other trends are you seeing that have not-so-obvious implications? Go ahead--hit "reply" and let's discuss!

Have you seen our Digital Revolution infographic? It first appeared on the cover of volume 2 of our management consulting practice's journal, Art & Science, which is well worth checking out online if you are interested in things digital (full disclosure: I edited this issue and if you called this shameless self-promotion I would not protest:^). Here it is:

The immediate implications of these stats are obvious: marketers and sellers better be thinking about mobility, sociality, the cloud, big data, online commerce. But there are a lot of subtler points buried in these and other digital trends. In my next post I'll delve into some of these subtler implications; in the meantime, what digital trends are most important to your business? Please share.

Continue reading "Infographic: The Digital Enterprise Revolution" »

In my last post I discussed how specific channels blend and morph in the omni-channel world. But when they do, what do they create?

Much has been written in an attempt to define the concept of omni-channel: Some descriptions focus on customers using multiple channels at once; some focus on integrating cross-channel data to get a seamless view of customer behavior which can then be analyzed to improve messaging and conversion. Like my description of channels morphing like wax in a lavalamp, these are necessary components of "omniness". But none of them singularly define it.

I think the main ingredient our definitions are missing is immersiveness.

You can wash your hands at the sink; you can take a shower and wash your various body parts. Those are two clearly distinct washing experiences -- but if you've used a sink, stepping into a shower is pretty easy to grasp. However, climbing into a tub is a significantly different tactile experience that involves a whole new way of interacting with the same medium (water).

In the tub, the spigot becomes irrelevant to the washing experience -- the water completely surrounds you. In the omni-channel world, individual channels will cease to be relevant -- the brand will completely surround us.

Brands that want to succeed in leaving behind the sinks of multi-channel and the showers of cross-channel must do the following:

• Nurture customer Fanatics who want to be immersed in the brand -- customers who derive as much value from associating themselves with the brand as they derive from using the company's products or services.

• Create a brand identity that is consistent across all customer interactions but that leverages each interaction moment to its fullest potential. Focus on interaction moments rather than channels because remember, in the omni-channel  world, the channel becomes irrelevant (think about Google Glasses).

• Throw out the old customer llifecycle. In the omni-channel world, the concept of Awareness>Engagement>Transaction>Fulfillment>Retention lifecycle phases is replaced by a continuum that ranges from Nonfanatic to Fanatic. Focus your efforts on converting the former into the latter and the rest will take care of itself.

In order to make your channels "omni" -- and therefore irrelevant -- you must understand them intimately, leverage them brilliantly, and evolve them constantly, as I touched on in my last post. You must also, of course, do the very hard work of getting the technology and organizational infrastructure right:

• Develop unified and comprehensive views of all data from all channels: customer (Nonfanatic and Fanatic alike), product, inventory, digital assets, baskets, orders. Expose these views appropriately to customers.
• Develop the real-time analytical capabilities required to constantly improve your understanding of customer behavior and sentiment in order to continuously improve the customer experience at every interaction (thereby converting more and more Nonfanatics into Fanatics).
• Break down organizational walls -- for example, between IT and business, or marketing and commerce -- to create an organization that is as seamless and integrated as the omni-channel experience you are trying to create.

I assert that no company is fully omni-channel yet, and the above advice is a tall order even for those that are pioneering in the space. I have my own list of these, but I'm curious to learn what you think; is omni-channel just another incremental step in the ways customers interact with companies -- or something more like the revolution I describe above? In either case, what are today's most omni-channel companies? I'd love to hear your ideas.

Image: Georges-Pierre Seurat, Baigneurs a Asnieres (public domain)

Continue reading "Creating Consumer Connections: The Omni-Channel Bath" »

One of the major topics of conversation in our recent Creating Consumer Connections executive roundtable was related to the emergence of a tablet channel--independent from the mobile channel that many companies have viewed tablets as a part of since their introduction. This is unsurprising given tablet adoption trends: according to a recent Gartner report, Tablet shipments are growing at a CAGR of 32% vs. mobile phone growth of only 4%.

While the history of digital technologies is full of similar channel formations, it's equally full of channel combinations--a bit like the wax blobs in a lava lamp, which form, separate, and reform constantly. Okay, maybe that's a bit of a stretch, but you get my drift. :^)

In today's "omni-channel" world we find that the rate of emergence of distinct new channels is equaled only by the rate of innovation in combining them. Some examples:

• Social is now its own channel, distinct from but strongly affiliated with online--and agnostic of physical medium, even migrating into physical channels via wearable devices (see below), and of course apps like foursquare, yelp, and meetup.

• Physical channels are converging with digital channels in ways that range from obvious (QR codes) to innovative. At the innovative end are efforts such as Tesco's virtual stores and Diageo's Brazil pilot of technology that ties a unique, personalized online message to a bottle of booze.

• The rapidly evolving wearable channels which currently don't even carry outbound messages but are more about brand experience and gathering data to create deeper customer connections. Think about Nike's Fuel Band, which Mark Parker hints is just the tip of the iceberg of ways Nike will be digitally interacting with their customers in the future. Customers love its functional and community aspects; Nike loves the customer insights it gives them and the intimacy it creates--both of which will only increase as the device evolves.

• The embedded channels, which hold perhaps even greater potential for gathering marketing data. For example, the potential marketing value of automotive telemetry--via which terabytes of information per day are already transmitted from cars to their makers-- is staggering and auto makers have barely scratched its surface (for more on this, see this article in our latest issue of Art & Science).

While this is far from a comprehensive list, even more channels and more interesting convergences are on the way. Google Glasses, for example, are expected to be released by the end of this year. These clearly represent the most advanced wearable channel, and perhaps the most impressive example yet of convergence--of the physical world with multi-way communication, search, storage, reality augmentation, and location awareness--all of which have significant business value potential on their own. It seems almost inevitable that wearable "experience enhancing devices" like google glasses will soon be seen as a "distinct channel" for marketing and selling purposes.

In my next post I'll further explore the omni-channel concept, and some key attributes of omni-channel organizations. In the mean time, what current and emerging channels are important to your business? In what ways are you using them and what kind of value are you realizing? Please post a comment and join the conversation.

Continue reading "Creating Consumer Connections: The Omni-Channel Lava Lamp" »

Recently, Infosys hosted a dinner event in New York on the topic "Creating New Consumer Connections: The Digital Way," which looked at how to drive brand advantage through innovative digital marketing.

The guest speakers were Rob Brosnan, Senior Analyst, Forrester, and Markell Bridges, Director, Information Systems, Global Marketing, Mondelēz International (formerly Kraft Global).

Seventeen executives from leading Consumer Packaged Goods and Life Sciences organizations were in attendance. The agenda included presentations from Rob and Markell, dinner, and a lively roundtable discussion moderated by Peter Sieyes, Head of Consumer Marketing and Innovation--Retail, CPG, Logistics, and Life Sciences, Infosys Europe.

The roundtable discussion yielded some fascinating insights into the worlds of CPG and Pharmaceutical marketing--and significant overlap in the opportunities and challenges being addressed by both groups. Some of the more interesting industry-agnostic discussion points included:

• The growth of mobile channels globally, the emergence of the tablet channel as distinct from the mobile channel, the proliferation of possibilities for leveraging various kinds of mobile devices for customer engagement--even in emerging economies, and the untapped value that these channels hold

• The opportunities created by the proliferation of digital channels, the new customer interaction models they facilitate, and the increasing quantity and specificity of customer data they provide--along with, of course, the challenges associated with making sense of that customer data

• The rapidly--and radically--evolving structure of the digital marketing organization. Perhaps the topic the group spent the most time discussing, this covered:

• The increasing prevalence of cross-functional digital marketing teams which blend strategy, technology, and channel-specific competencies that have historically been organizationally separate

• The specific example  of Mondelez's International Front Office organization which brings together marketing and IT expertise to drive top-line revenue growth.

• The need for marketing-related IT groups to evolve away from focusing on process management and cost reduction, toward  promoting ideas that drive agility and improving readiness to meet the business's constant, often unpredictable innovation needs--and ultimately to become innovation partners with the business

• Some ideas on how IT organizations can respond to the emerging challenges of the digital world

CPG companies are specifically interested in the increasing opportunities offered by emerging digital channels and technologies to facilitate a better view of the customer, to distinguish between consumers and shoppers, and to more accurately (and profitably) target customers based on their position in the purchase path.

Over the next few posts we will be exploring each of the above points in more depth, by looking both at more of the details discussed during the dinner, and other sources of current thinking on the topics. Please stay tuned.

Continue reading "Creating Consumer Connections" »

Continue reading "Digital Asset Management - A must have for your organization" »

Research from the Gallup Organization shows that employees with at least one strong relationship at work feel more fulfilled and accomplish much more than those with none. Strong office relationships are hard to come by, however, and developing systems to promote them can create many pitfalls. Despite this, employee collaboration brings with it a berth of benefits, so it's worth implementing and nourishing.

First and foremost, it allows employees to complement each other's strengths and weaknesses. Collaborators spend more time working on things they are exceptional at, while delegating their inefficient tasks to others who have better-suited skill sets. Collaboration also allows for increased knowledge-sharing, ensuring that the swells of information coming in from customer communication, social media, and other sources are actually utilized, rather than sitting unused, gathering dust in a department silo.

There are challenges to implementing good collaboration, however. One of the largest issues that marketers run into is finding a place in the workflow to promote communication. Telling employees to collaborate is a good first step. If you don't provide the tools needed to easily exchange information and don't communicate the value of collaboration, however, employees are going to fall back into old work habits. If employees don't also share short-term goals or don't trust each other, their partnerships can quickly degenerate into animosity.

To ensure your employees collaborate well, team people with complementary strengths and a common mission. It's more important that they share a desired goal than having similar motives. Also, ensure that your employees trust each other, communicate on a regular basis, and are unselfish. If they continuously second-guess each other's work and motives while collaborating, they'll never truly accomplish their full potential.

Efficient collaboration isn't the easiest thing to accomplish. If implemented well, however, it can be extremely helpful to your business. With some guidance and the right tools, your company can help your employees communicate more efficiently, share knowledge, and do their best work.

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Continue reading "Bridging the Gap between Offline and Online Marketing" »

In today's fast paced world, multitasking has become the norm. Corporate executives juggle multiple projects, mothers cook dinner while helping children with homework and a nine-to-five worker can update their Facebook status while watching American Idol in the evenings. Each of these scenarios is an example of how modern life has created a need to be constantly connected and constantly moving.

In fact, a 2011 Nielsen survey showed 70 percent of tablet owners and 68 percent of smartphone owners use their devices while watching television.  Although many would assume the use of multiple devices detracts from the ability to focus sufficient attention on one task, it appears the two actually supplement each other.

Nielsen calls this phenomenon cross-platforming and has found that viewers who are also using the Internet tend to be more engaged in television programming. For example, someone watching the start of baseball season may find themselves logging in to learn more about new players on their favorite team. Nielsen also found that television viewers commenting on television shows in real time on social media sites provides useful insight to advertisers.

GoDaddy.com, notorious for its provocative Super Bowl ad campaigns, capitalized on this very trend, incorporating Quick Response (QR) codes into its 2012 campaign. GoDaddy reports setting sales records from its mobile site after smartphone and tablet users scanned the code while watching the commercial. Additionally, GoDaddy saw record traffic to its website after enticing viewers to two Internet-only commercials via their television ads.

GoDaddy isn't the only company taking advantage of media multitasking. Several other major retailers, including the Home Shopping Network (HSN), are including QR codes into their broadcasts to help consumers quickly place orders via their smartphones or tablets. In October 2011, HSN launched its campaign and saw fourth quarter digital sales grow by 19 percent, indicating, at least in part, that consumers were using their mobile devices to access ordering information while watching the network channel.

GoDaddy and HSN are just beginning to scratch the surface. With tablet users admitting to Nielsen that they are spending 30 percent of their usage time also watching TV, there is an untapped market many companies have yet to explore. Taking advantage of cross-platforming  enables companies to engage with their target customers through more channels than ever before. Marketing executives should consider this new trend as an open door to call consumers to action.

Continue reading "The Digital Marketer's Toolbox" »