Excited by talk of new digital customer experience trends, and never one to miss out on writing a good list, Capgemini decided to think about what New Year resolutions customer experience professionals should be thinking about to ensure they make 2011 a year to remember:
1) Learn something new
Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and TripAdvisor are no longer hamlets in the ‘land of the brave’ but rather regular features of day-to-day life for millions of people (for instance, did you know that Facebook has over 500million active users, 70% of which are outside the US (Facebook stats) whilst in April last year, the co-owner of Twitter announced at a press conference that the site had over 105 million registered users and was growing at 300000 a day). The past couple of years may have been spent talking about Web 2.0 but 2011 is the year for doing and organisations need to get involved sharpish if they don’t want to be left behind. Read Capgemini blog posts on foundations for success with social media, looking to implement social media in 2011and six social media lessons from businesses from 2010 to get some ideas about how you can start if you haven’t already.
2) Fight the fat
Quantity is better than quality right?Especially when it comes to channels and communicating with customers. Actually, no. Getting the right channel mix is by far more important than simply offering lots of channels, as shown by the success of First Direct, which was been named Which magazine’s ‘Best Financial Services Provider’ for the 21st year running in 2010 (quite impressive given that it has no branches and offers internet, telephone and mobile banking only). If you’re interested in trimming your channel fat I’d recommend a recent blog on Delivering high-quality, low-cost Public Services across channels (which has implications beyond the public sector) alongside blog.channelmanagement.com for some interesting points that start to de-mystify the channel challenge.
3) Spend more time with family and friends
Ok, a pretty fundamental one – it’s cheaper to retain current customers than it is to attract new ones. Whilst this isn’t new, it is a worsening problem in the age of digital media. The amount of ‘noise’ consumers are faced with everyday means organisations have to push harder to make themselves heard and even when they do win a customer, that individual is empowered to such a degree that securing loyalty is quite the battle. Organisations need to crack it though, so why not look for tips from Loyalty 360’s top loyalty trends for 2011, advice from an author on the Social Customer website or a previous Capgemini posts on what Dutch insurance firms are doing in this area?
4) Enjoy life more
Have you heard of Doritos’ ‘Crash the Superbowl’ campaign, Coke’s Expedition 206 or Jimmy Choo’s ‘Trainer Hunt’? These are prime examples of organisations understanding that customer engagement today is about more than transactions and good customer service. Today’s customers expect to be entertained and rewarded like never before and organisations need to embrace this. The usual suspects can help with this (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc) whilst less known examples like FourSquare can help you differentiate but technology’s only half the battle – creating a killer campaign is really where the challenge lies.
5) Get organised
Finally, if any organisation is to be truly customer-oriented and reap the rewards associated with this, they need to be set up accordingly. This can be scary and will often require major transformation but without it, initiatives risk being confined to limited success. Organisations need to understand that customer-centricity is not a buzz word, or the focus for one quarter, or something ‘we’ve got to do because everyone else is’ but rather a way of managing an entire business, motivating staff and delivering results. How to take 5000 people on a journey, Forrester’s case study on Cardinal Health and How to build a customer centric culture all make for interesting reading and provide a starting point for thinking about how to implement a fundamental shift to a customer-driven organisation.
All that’s left is for organisations to start implementing some of the ideas above and for spectators to see if the predictions for 2011 come true. Undoubtedly there’ll be winners and losers throughout the course of the year, now we just need to see who’ll end up where.
Thursday 17 February 2011
Digital Transformation: 2011: A round up on what’s going to be big in digi...
Digital Transformation: 2011: A round up on what’s going to be big in digi...: "2011: A round up on what’s going to be big in digital customer experience this yearAs we build momentum in 2011, there’s plenty of interesti..."
2011: A round up on what’s going to be big in digital customer experience this year
As we build momentum in 2011, there’s plenty of interesting reading out there on predictions for what will be big in digital media and customer experience this year. So, here's a simple guide to the big themes that will be prominent in Digital customer experience in 2011.
The ‘professionalisation’ of digital media: This appears in many guises throughout the different lists and I’ve chosen ‘professionalisation’ to reflect trends to do with firms understanding that ‘social’ isn’t the remit of one employee or one team but is now the nature of their business, and indeed all business. Examples to look out for include: increased demand for in-house digital talent; recognition of Facebook and Twitter as standalone channels; increased awareness of the importance of privacy, and investment to ensure this is handled appropriately; use of social feedback to inform strategic decisions; and increased maturity and use of data analytics.
Let’s go mobile: This one’s simple – it’s the importance of mobility. We’re talking mobile as a channel, mobile web and mobile apps. If the experts are to be believed, mobile will be big business in 2011. There are still loads of questions about how it’s going to work, whether solutions will be supported on all popular mobile operating systems and how ROI will be measured but we should start to see some answers emerge over the next 12 months alongside a whole host of exciting new solutions.
The human touch: For all its techie wizardry, digital media is ultimately still about people and we can expect to see more of this in 2011. Be it the ‘humanisation’ of the online user experience (through things such as live chat, virtual environments, co-browsing, streaming of live events, virtual sales characters and improved personalisation), the increased demand for full sensory experience (highlighted through the expected growth of video) or the set up of community platforms and applications that bring people together around a particular topic or context– Digital media is finding its heart.
Friday 11 February 2011
Global Innovation Survey Summary
Capgemini Global Innovation Survey 2010
Innovation is considered a top strategic priority, with a primary focus on identifying new business opportunities to take advantage of an economic upturn.
As the knowledge partner of the World Innovation Forum, Capgemini Consulting has recently completed its global innovation survey on the current state of innovation. The result is our second innovation leader versus laggard study. It covers five key areas that affect a company’s innovation success: the strategic outlook companies have with respect to innovation, their capabilities to manage the innovation process, the overall impact of technology, the innovation function, and how these factors influence companies’ spending plans.
The study offers a unique perspective by looking at the differences in behaviour of innovation leaders vis-à-vis laggards across these key areas. Finally, this report offers an overview of the most important implications for innovation executives – looking to improve the material impact of their innovation efforts on the business results.
In summary, this study reveals that given the strategic priority companies allocate to innovation and their corresponding spending plans, the maturity of their formal innovation governance structure lags behind considerably. To overcome many of the innovation bottlenecks encountered, it is time to establish an innovation function that is able to deal with this kind of innovation governance and decision-making. Furthermore, there is an enormous unlocked potential for innovation in the involvement of external parties in the innovation process. Innovation leaders may have outpaced their peers by simply being better at involving external parties, leveraging a much broader innovation network and increasing innovation potential. Also, the study shows that more value, in terms of impact on business results, is to be expected from business model innovation, than from any other form of innovation. Targeting new business opportunities in emerging markets is much more likely to be successful when approached outside of the traditional competitive landscape. These and a wide range of other relevant findings for innovation and business executives are elaborated on in this report. The most important findings per area can be summarized as follows.
- Innovation in considered a top-three strategic priority in the recent global survey by more than seventy-six percent of the respondents at Capgemini Consulting. Moreover, making innovation a top priority pays off. This is evidenced by the correlation found between ranking innovation as the top priority and its positive impact on the business results, as illustrated by the leader versus laggard comparison.
- Most innovation efforts are put into customer-focused innovation whereas fewest resources are allocated to business model innovation. Innovation leaders put relatively more effort into business model innovation, whereas innovation laggards allocate more efforts to incremental product improvement.
- As the global economy begins to rebound, identifying new business opportunities is the primary area of focus for 46 percent of respondents. In addition, innovation leaders are preparing themselves for hyper growth in a new business cycle whilst innovation laggards are focusing on increasing productivity of existing assets.
Key opportunity areas with respect to innovation management are the formalization of the innovation governance structure and the capability to engage external parties in the innovation process.
- Executive level commitment and the idea generation and enablement process are the overall best developed innovation management capabilities. Most concerns exists around the innovation governance structure among respondents.
- Most respondents – 53.5 percent – indicate they have developed relationships with third parties to support their innovation efforts on an ongoing basis.
- The large majority of 89 percent of survey respondents has made the step to somehow involve their customers in the innovation process.
- Leaders have advanced to a high level of maturity when it comes to engaging third parties. They maintain ongoing dialogue with their customers or even integrate them into their innovation project teams. On the other hand, laggards are predominantly stuck at the ad-hoc engagement of third parties for innovation and have advanced less in terms of customer involvement.
Emerging technologies are expected to have a significant impact on companies’ value chains, however few companies feel highly capable of adapting rapidly to anticipated changes.
- Technological innovation is anticipated by the majority of respondents to have an incremental (42 percent) up to fundamental (38 percent) impact on their organizations’ value chains.
- Fifty-six percent of respondents say their organization is somewhat capable of adapting rapidly to emerging technological innovations.
- Clearly, our innovation leader group is the best equipped for emerging technological innovations, scoring thirty percent higher in the category ‘highly capable and prepared’ than their lagging counterparts.
Establishing accountability for innovation through a corporate function or dedicated executive is part of the solution towards attaining innovation leadership.
- When looking at the innovation function within organizations the most frequently mentioned hurdles to innovation success are urgency of pressing day-to-day business demands (54 percent of respondents) and financial constraints (41 percent).
- There seems to be a clear relationship between the appointment of an accountable innovation executive and the innovation success rate, with 59 percent of innovation leaders having such an accountable executive versus only 32 percent of the next best performers.
- The following types of innovation decisions are mentioned most as decisions to be made by the innovation executive or the corporate innovation function: determining the focus of innovation efforts – i.e. the innovation strategy (80 percent of respondents), and the allocation of funds and innovation portfolio management (67 percent).
Companies are increasing their spending on innovation across a wide variety of areas to improve their capabilities and competitiveness.
- The large majority of our survey respondents – 63.5 percent – anticipate an increase in their innovation spending over the next 12 months.
- More than half of the respondents (56 percent) say they are planning to increase their innovation investments in rapidly developing economies.
- When it comes to innovation investment areas our respondents are not intending to change the focus of their efforts: new product development (59 percent) and customer focused innovation (54 percent) come out on top. When making the split by success rate it appears that innovation leaders tend to invest more in customer focused and business model innovation, whereas laggards invest relatively more in incremental product improvement.
- Nearly half of the respondents say they are likely to invest in M&A to improve their innovation capabilities, in particular to gain access to new markets.
Friday 4 February 2011
Digital Transformation- The way we see it
Digital Transformation – The way we see it
Digital Transformation – Stay ahead of the curve, serve the consumer, beat the competition, and drive operational efficiencies …. The world has changed and there’s no turning back.
The number of internet users will surpass two billion this year, approaching a third of the world population and the shift to the mobile internet is accelerating with mobile internet users set to exceed desktop internet users within 5 years.
In the UK today there are 40 million internet users, with close to 30 million people using the internet for at least 27 minutes a day. Between seven and nine percent of GDP is attributable to the commercial internet with close to 60 percent of adults buying goods and services online, making it the largest e-commerce market in the world on a per capita basis (British shoppers spent £4.8 billion online during September alone, the equivalent of £120 per internet user). Mobile commerce is widely adopted in the UK, with 51 percent of mobile owners (around 23 million people) using their devices to make payments, redeem coupons and to research products and services.
People who frequent the digital world, social media sites in particular (these sites now attract 11% of all UK internet visits), are the people you need to know. Consider a few facts about the “800 pound gorilla” of social media, Facebook: If it was a country, it would be the world’s fourth largest with around 125 million unique visitors a month (there are 25 million active users in the UK alone). Accessing and downloading content from Facebook while at work accounts for just over 7 percent of all corporate web activity and 5 percent of corporate bandwidth usage. Nearly 70 percent of the community is over 21 years of age, its fastest growing demographic is 34 to 55 years old with the over 55 group just behind. This online community is vast, spanning nearly every demographic imaginable.
Consumer facing organisations that learn how to exploit this vast potential will have a distinct advantage over those that don’t. This is no longer mere rhetoric as there is a wealth of research to back this up. A recent study among the Fortune 100 found that the majority of these organisations are now using social media sites (specifically, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Business Blogs) for online reputation management. The study found that among these leading organisations 65 percent use Twitter, 54 percent use Facebook, 50 percent use
YouTube and 33 percent make use of Blogs. Interestingly, the study found that among European companies, 88 percent use at least one of these channels and 15 percent use all four. From a consumer perspective, the internet has become deeply entrenched in our everyday lives. Many organisations now offer online-only discounts, we have internet-only banks, and most internet users won’t buy without having performed an online price comparison first (the average online household saves close to £1000 annually). Online shopping, booking, check-in and customer service is now widespread and for many consumers a key factor in deciding between service providers.
It’s not only consumers that are benefiting. A recent pan-European research project led by the UK Office for National Statistics looked into the economic impact of information technology and found a strong positive correlation between the use of internet technology and organisational productivity.
Although the findings vary by country and industry, they show a productivity increase of between 1 and 3 percent for every 10 percent increase in the amount spent on internet technology. Unsurprisingly, in the UK manufacturing firms benefit most from the adoption of tools linking them with their suppliers (think e-procurement), while retailers benefit most from tools that enable online customer transactions. Services firms (including those in the financial services industry) gained most from giving staff access to high-speed internet connections.
The digitisation of existing services, the creation of new services and industries, and the information explosion are all factors which are continuing to shape life as we now know it. Although estimates vary, research suggests that the digital economy could make up 10 to 15 percent of the UK GDP in five years time.
Wednesday 2 February 2011
What does Facebook and Twitter mean for my business?
As the ubiquitous world of Social Media rapidly expands and changes, so too do the challenges and opportunities that accompany it. Whilst Social Media is perpetually evolving, many business leaders can't foresee how these changes will impact their operating model. This transformation inspires us to peel away the surface of established theory in this social sphere and explore the opportunities and challenges that lie beneath.
Currently, most of the established theory around social media is in customer and channel management. There is relatively mature understanding of how to market to individuals rather than groups, how to monitor brands on Facebook and Twitter, and how to use influencers on those platforms to steer favourable perception. This type of activity is what Capgemini Consulting terms “The You Experience”. This includes managing the perception of investors and creditors - something that corporate PR departments do diligently. It also includes brand management through event driven marketing. This means that when an event occurs that has a strong customer impact, focus or draw, there is an opportunity to act on it. An example of this might be to market ‘coach services’ to train season-ticket holders in event of rail disruption. However, there are so many more opportunities to use social media management that demand exploration.
Firstly, there is a question around managing the relationship between various identities. Dichotomous identities of public and private, corporate and personal are merging and interchanging. On Twitter, many people tend to switch between posting about work and posting about social situations. Normally, no harm comes of this; however, in this dialogue, the questioned must be asked, ‘is the individual representing themselves or their company?’ Therefore, there is an increasing need for organisations to provide training guidelines on what is and isn't acceptable in terms of online social interaction. Interestingly, some experts are forecasting that by 2014, communication via social media will be preferred over e-mail. Thus, there is a real need to understand, establish and communicate the boundaries of communication through social media when it relates to corporate reputation.
Brand management is another key area of opportunity. It is imperative for organisations to manage brand image and brand value in order to retain and grow consumers. However, this can also be a potential tool for maintaining and recruiting human resources. In the same way that organisations must manage the way in which consumers view the company brand, they must also manage the way in which employees see the recruitment process in order to recruit and retain the best possible workforce. When applying for a job it is quite normal now to look up an interviewer and employer on the internet. It is also quite normal to research the opinions of current and former employees. Currently, online searches often show that people are more likely to share negative experiences than positive ones. Therefore, there is a need for employers to better manage recruitment online at all levels. There is a clear opportunity for optimising recruitment through social media, both through advertising and head-hunting for positions at all grades.
Exploring the opportunities and transformational impact of social media also highlights a correlation between digital communication and change management. Messaging, influencing, and creating a compelling narrative for change can be enhanced by the effective deployment of social media. Social media is, after all, proven to be more effective at communicating emotional content than many more traditional channels. In administering corporate change programmes, communicating emotive messages can be extremely difficult, and the deployment of power-point and left-brain argument is frequently insufficient and often inappropriate for guiding people through an emotional journey. In this circumstance, the effective utilisation of social media could prove to be a highly useful tool for communication and driving change.
One of the main challenges that accompanies the expansion of social media arises in the analysis of the effects of social media on IT functions. If the technology that people use at home is better than the technology available to them at work, there is an increasing demand for organisations to allow employees to use the best technology available. In this instance, it is necessary for an organisation to decide which components of the IT estate need to be controlled rigidly and which elements need to be given licence. Given the rapidly changing nature of the landscape, determining the right ecosystem will almost certainly prove to be problematic. This ecosystem will require the correct selection of alliances and partnerships, services and asset, as well as the creation of balance between information availability and privacy.
The nature of social media as an open share point can act as a potential threat to organisations. However, if managed effectively, it can be an incredibly effective vehicle for collaboration and exciting possibilities for working in partnership with customers on product development. Groups of consumers and suppliers can come together unexpectedly and rapidly through social media. Examples of this include occasions where consumers have come together to achieve scale for purchases. Perhaps this will lead to customers sharing their best price openly. It would certainly be interesting to see the response if the FTSE 250 shared the best consultancy rates that they achieved with the big suppliers. Within the public sector, something similar to this is already well underway.
In exploring the impact of social media, the theme of identity becomes paramount. The verification, function and legitimacy of identity are vital for both an organisation and its customers. Both intimate and unhindered, the space of social media is one in which public and private identities collide. All of the various fragments need to be macro and micro managed appropriately so that both individual and company can be coherently and effectively represented.
There are numerous examples where people have had their identity stolen, been the victims of untrue speculation, and embarrassed by incidents that happened a long time ago. The active management of identity – for consumers and businesses - reaches a whole new level in the world of social media. There are a plethora of daring challenges and exciting opportunities accompanying the organic evolution of social media, the question is, how to stay ahead of the game.
As the ubiquitous world of Social Media rapidly expands and changes, so too do the challenges and opportunities that accompany it. Whilst Social Media is perpetually evolving, many business leaders can't foresee how these changes will impact their operating model. This transformation inspires us to peel away the surface of established theory in this social sphere and explore the opportunities and challenges that lie beneath.
Currently, most of the established theory around social media is in customer and channel management. There is relatively mature understanding of how to market to individuals rather than groups, how to monitor brands on Facebook and Twitter, and how to use influencers on those platforms to steer favourable perception. This type of activity is what Capgemini Consulting terms “The You Experience”. This includes managing the perception of investors and creditors - something that corporate PR departments do diligently. It also includes brand management through event driven marketing. This means that when an event occurs that has a strong customer impact, focus or draw, there is an opportunity to act on it. An example of this might be to market ‘coach services’ to train season-ticket holders in event of rail disruption. However, there are so many more opportunities to use social media management that demand exploration.
Firstly, there is a question around managing the relationship between various identities. Dichotomous identities of public and private, corporate and personal are merging and interchanging. On Twitter, many people tend to switch between posting about work and posting about social situations. Normally, no harm comes of this; however, in this dialogue, the questioned must be asked, ‘is the individual representing themselves or their company?’ Therefore, there is an increasing need for organisations to provide training guidelines on what is and isn't acceptable in terms of online social interaction. Interestingly, some experts are forecasting that by 2014, communication via social media will be preferred over e-mail. Thus, there is a real need to understand, establish and communicate the boundaries of communication through social media when it relates to corporate reputation.
Brand management is another key area of opportunity. It is imperative for organisations to manage brand image and brand value in order to retain and grow consumers. However, this can also be a potential tool for maintaining and recruiting human resources. In the same way that organisations must manage the way in which consumers view the company brand, they must also manage the way in which employees see the recruitment process in order to recruit and retain the best possible workforce. When applying for a job it is quite normal now to look up an interviewer and employer on the internet. It is also quite normal to research the opinions of current and former employees. Currently, online searches often show that people are more likely to share negative experiences than positive ones. Therefore, there is a need for employers to better manage recruitment online at all levels. There is a clear opportunity for optimising recruitment through social media, both through advertising and head-hunting for positions at all grades.
Exploring the opportunities and transformational impact of social media also highlights a correlation between digital communication and change management. Messaging, influencing, and creating a compelling narrative for change can be enhanced by the effective deployment of social media. Social media is, after all, proven to be more effective at communicating emotional content than many more traditional channels. In administering corporate change programmes, communicating emotive messages can be extremely difficult, and the deployment of power-point and left-brain argument is frequently insufficient and often inappropriate for guiding people through an emotional journey. In this circumstance, the effective utilisation of social media could prove to be a highly useful tool for communication and driving change.
One of the main challenges that accompanies the expansion of social media arises in the analysis of the effects of social media on IT functions. If the technology that people use at home is better than the technology available to them at work, there is an increasing demand for organisations to allow employees to use the best technology available. In this instance, it is necessary for an organisation to decide which components of the IT estate need to be controlled rigidly and which elements need to be given licence. Given the rapidly changing nature of the landscape, determining the right ecosystem will almost certainly prove to be problematic. This ecosystem will require the correct selection of alliances and partnerships, services and asset, as well as the creation of balance between information availability and privacy.
The nature of social media as an open share point can act as a potential threat to organisations. However, if managed effectively, it can be an incredibly effective vehicle for collaboration and exciting possibilities for working in partnership with customers on product development. Groups of consumers and suppliers can come together unexpectedly and rapidly through social media. Examples of this include occasions where consumers have come together to achieve scale for purchases. Perhaps this will lead to customers sharing their best price openly. It would certainly be interesting to see the response if the FTSE 250 shared the best consultancy rates that they achieved with the big suppliers. Within the public sector, something similar to this is already well underway.
In exploring the impact of social media, the theme of identity becomes paramount. The verification, function and legitimacy of identity are vital for both an organisation and its customers. Both intimate and unhindered, the space of social media is one in which public and private identities collide. All of the various fragments need to be macro and micro managed appropriately so that both individual and company can be coherently and effectively represented.
There are numerous examples where people have had their identity stolen, been the victims of untrue speculation, and embarrassed by incidents that happened a long time ago. The active management of identity – for consumers and businesses - reaches a whole new level in the world of social media. There are a plethora of daring challenges and exciting opportunities accompanying the organic evolution of social media, the question is, how to stay ahead of the game.
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