#smartercommerce

What do eggs have to do with saving the planet?

GreenWheels 2 - The Shop.org demonstration from the IBM booth #smartercommerce

This was the live demonstration we gave at Shop.org for the enhanced greenwheels demonstration. The focus of the demonstration was to show the different organization imperatives the greenwheels brand is attempting to carry out:

Execute Cross-Channel Marketing Campaigns

Create Behavior Based Rewards Program

Enhance Customer Engagement, Loyalty and Insight

Extend the Digital Experience to the Store

The landline phone dominated communication for nearly 90 years with no significant technology advancement. Consumers were largely dependent upon voice as the primary means of communication. Service was provided by large corporations and the barrier to entry for alternatives was so high as to essentially result in a monopoly.

But, the last 20 years has seen an unprecedented advancement in technology, and the communications world has forever changed. The proliferation of cellular devices and the broad adoption of the Internet were points of origin for new ideas, and the vision of pioneering players like Skype and Apple threw gasoline on the burning embers of change creating a firestorm of innovation that would eventually bring us to where we are today – living in a world where what I think of as traditional telephone services may no longer be provided by a traditional communications service provider.

In 1998 nearly all US households used a landline phone, and now it is under 50% and falling. It’s not just cellular taking over, because we are seeing cellular voice services in steady decline too. Grabbing market share today are new voice, messaging and content services – once considered the domain of the telephone company — being offered up by a new breed:  the digital service provider (DSP).

The convergence of over-the-top (OTT), telecommunications and media companies into DSPs is being driven by the expectations and needs of the socially connected consumer.  The proliferation of high speed mobile data, internet-based media delivery and cloud services has begun in earnest. As media, cable and telecommunications companies drive toward non-traditional direct-to-consumer products and services through growth channels like mobile and social, and OTT providers expand to offer traditional communications services like voice and messaging, we are experiencing the birth of the Customer-Activated DSP. This new organization thrives in the burgeoning “API economy” and utilizes rich customer insight and experience management to offer an ever-widening array of digital products and services provided by new relationships with partners and competitors alike.

So are the traditional telephone companies simply out of the picture now, unable to compete in the new world of digital? Absolutely not – or at least not if they are smart and decisive about their commitment to remain relevant to their customers. Traditional CSPs are sitting on a tremendous amount of information and data from a network that makes them very relevant to their customers – as long as they know how to use it. The ability to analyze and personalize offers and experiences relevant to their customers is not the future anymore, it’s the now, and the expectation of all their customers who have been spoiled by innovative retail experiences with Amazon, Apple and LL Bean and the free OTT offerings of companies like Google and Yahoo.

  This past February in Barcelona, Spain, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and founder of Facebook, got up in front of a room full of telephone company executives to say they should provide free data access to services like Facebook and that he intended to offer 450 million users around the world traditional voice services through recent acquisition WhatsApp. This proclamation represented the final proof that in an industry no longer bound by the traditional barriers to entry, if today’s CSPs wish to succeed, they will have to do so by becoming a utility to provide data connections or by evolving into a diverse DSP themselves offering  non-traditional services and partnering with OTT providers. And as communications providers evolve their services and solutions, their engagement systems are going to have to change as well to provide omni-channel issues across mobile, social and physical. The ability to understand and have a meaningful dialogue with their customers is the key to transforming themselves from a historically antagonistic relationship with their customers to one of advocacy.

Mobile World Congress started this week — and again it will bring over 40,000 telecommunications CxO’s to Spain from all over the world.

Every year there seems to be a dominant theme for the industry as this iconic event dawns over the beautiful city of Barcelona. 2013 was the year of ‘Big Data;’ it was everywhere and on everyone’s lips. For 2014, based upon my experiences in the industry and perusing the exhibition booths here I believe the focus this year will be solidly on ‘Customer Experience.’

The continual increasing pressure of over-the-top (OTT) services providers, saturated markets and increasing costs to acquire new subscribers and the increased expectations of the connected consumer have forced communications service providers (CSP) to follow the retail world into the realm of extreme customer experiences creating what we at IBM call the Customer Activated Telecom Provider.

In the fall of 2013, IBM surveyed over 200 telecommunications CxOs from around the world and 9 out of 10 responded they need the ability to quickly deliver new offerings while 71% said they are more concerned with competition from OTT providers than other telecoms. As a result of this pressure, 65% are now focused on customers as individuals instead of segments and 82% are focused on digital and social interactions with customers while only 12% are focused on face-to-face interactions in 2014.

Close collaboration with customers is indeed a dominant focus for telecom executives at the start of 2014. Why? Because as an industry, we have finally realized the impact a customer can have on our organization. Over 60% of respondents said that customers already influence their organizations to a ‘large extent’ and as a result 4 out of 5 industry leaders are looking to ‘digitize’ their front office operations— the systems that touch the customer experience.