SEO Blogspot,SEO Freelancer,Website Design and development Blogspot,SEO Blogger,Digital Marketing Blogspot,SEO Bloggers Bangalore India.
alt =""
Showing posts with label Digital Transformation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Digital Transformation. Show all posts

Friday 20 May 2016

A Key Element of Digital Strategy Today is Content Monetization

One global market and technology research firm is increasing revenue dramatically through innovative digital content monetization.  And by using a SaaS platform they’ve achieved this in weeks instead of months.
The company’s clients purchase high value market and tech intelligence reports and they are more than satisfied with the quality and quantity of the content they receive.  Yet there are limitless opportunities to enrich existing content in ways that add value for their clients, thereby increasing revenue.  With automated micro-segmentation, the company is also providing slimmed down reports instantly, for more price conscious clients.  This has opened up a new market segment and a completely new revenue stream.
How might your business apply these lessons and increase content-based revenue?
Here are three steps to get started. 
First, analyze the content that you generate now for different customer segments.
Second, ask yourself how you could customize content for high value customers in ways that they could realize more value and be willing to pay more.  Take advantage of a SaaS platform that can do this for you automatically.
Third, consider some cost conscious customer segments that may have an interest in your content but you’re not serving now because your initial cost is too high for them.
If so, you can offer free sample report summaries to this market segment.  And perhaps offer a discount on the first few purchases to prove your value to them.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on monetizing content.  In this fast-developing world of digital transformation, we can all benefit by sharing ideas with other people.

Sunday 13 March 2016

Top 5 Reasons for investing in Customer Experience

Gone are the days when the key to success in business is determined by a premium quality product/ service, value for money and good customer service. In this age of extreme competitiveness led by disruptive technologies and the allied digital transformation services, the key to success of any business lies in the Customer Experience that you are delivering. With the widespread reach of social media and real time interactions via the internet, the room for customer expectations has become broaden. The Customer Experience in this digital transformation era represents more of a cumulative experience of multiple touch points which results in a long term real relationship between the business and the customer. But how to create and deliver the most appealing customer experience is the question the business world is facing now.

Let us have a look at the Top 5 reasons for investing in Customer Experience
  1. Drive loyalty: Enhance brand loyalty through engaging programs and gamification
  2. Increase Revenue: Develop Omnichannel experience to create multiplier effect
  3. Improve Customer Service: Understand 360 degree customer view to contextualize interactions
  4. Reduce Customer Churn: Know how to keep your customer sticking to your brand
  5. Competitive Advantage: Enhance data capturing analyzing capabilities to gain a competitive advantage

The business value of a great customer experience is enormous which prompts the global businesses for putting the strategy, funds and processes in place to build an effective customer experience practicing. Those who are making necessary changes to strategically prioritize CX will definitely win an upper edge over the competitors.

Wednesday 18 November 2015

Store as Fulfillment Center: Omnichannel and the Future of Retail

Omnichannel has come of age for brick-and-mortar retailers.
Traditional retailers have been on a slow yet steady adoption of digital technologies over the last two decades. First arrived e-commerce, which retailers took on as another channel for customer acquisition and sales. Coupled with this emerged online-only players opening up new avenues of fulfillment. Then came smartphones, setting a new paradigm of customer experiences.
Today, with the faster evolution of technology and ever-increasing consumerization, there is a demand for ultimate flexibility and innovation. Customers expect to be recognized and pampered, and they switch loyalty for the smallest of added perceived value – be it monetary based, convenience based, or experience based.
Brick-and-mortar retailers with an established national and/or international store network are specifically suited to meet the customers of today where they are – online, on mobile, in a physical store, or even in a subway station.  These phy-digital retailers can and must strive for true omnichannel – seamless, connected, and personalized experiences irrespective of how and where their customers shop.
 Omnichannel and the Future of Retail
The Potential of a Store
Despite the increasing adoption of digital shopping, it remains a fact that, for bricks-and-clicks retailers, over 90 percent of revenues are from their physical stores and the store, therefore, continues to be nerve center of operations. It is important to realize the true potential of the huge store network for such retailers.
Stores can transform to be experience centers for omnichannel customers. Here are a few solutions that can bring transformational experiences in-store:
  • Experiential kiosks and digital displays
  •  Digital signage
  •  In-store IoT/ beacon-based personalized experiences
  •  Customer engagement driven by data insights
Stores can be mini-fulfilment hubs, offering ultimate flexibility when it comes to delivery choices and saving a potentially lost sale. Examples of such initiatives include the following:
  • Order online to pick up in store or at curb side, fulfilled from store or warehouse
  •  Order in-store for home delivery, from a warehouse, same store, or another store
  •  Order in-store for pick up from store, from same store or another store
When armed with right tools and technologies, store associates can be brand ambassadors, driving customer loyalty and improving customer retention. For example, when a store associate is asked a question about a salmon pink shirt that was found online but is not in stock in store, the store associate should be incentivized and have the tools to check inventories of nearby stores or the distribution center. Further, the associate should be empowered to take the order for shipping this product to customer’s home at no extra charge the next day.
It’s a no-brainer that omnichannel retailers must invest in technologies that deliver the data to drive store-transformation initiatives.
Implications for Brick-and-Mortar Retailers
For a complete omnichannel transformation to be successful over next two to three years, the foundation has to be strong. It starts with a data-driven, single view of the customer, orders, inventory, products, etc. and a scalable architecture to support dynamic changes in business.
  • To enable an endless aisle of products not limited to a store’s physical space, a global product catalog should be available across channels, including your extended supply network and drop-ship vendors.
  •  To enable stores to be fulfilment hubs, a real-time and reliable view of inventory data should be available across the entire supply network.
  •  And for personalization to click, a 360-degree view of customers’ online orders, store transactions, social engagement, lifetime value, loyalty history including open orders, queries, and complaints is a must.
Orchestrate transformational customer journeys. Decoding retail customer journeys is the starting point to digital transformation. In the era of design thinking and customer experience, a new paradigm of solution design is evolving. Yes, there are beacons, there is big data, there is fast data, there are mobile technologies and cloud applications that promise Nirvana. However, to get transformational business outcomes, there is a need for careful curation of experiences.
Bricks-and-clicks retailers must orchestrate an end-to-end experience that is beyond a pointed technology solution to solve a particular problem like knowing what the customer did on the website or what she purchased in a store. It is about bringing all the insights and business states about products, customers, and even assets like dressing rooms to curate a new digital journey for the customer in-store.
Empower store associates. Retailers must realize the importance of their associates as omnichannel evangelists who can make or break seamless experiences for the customer. Initiatives to incentivize cross-channel “save the sale” behavior is one key paradigm shift that retailers must consciously undergo.
The store associate must be equipped with data on products available across different distribution channels and, to be credible brand advocates, also must be as knowledgeable as her customer. She needs the right technology to have access to meaningful insights on her customer in order to offer a personalized experience. Tools and technologies that can provide data that deliver in-the-moment, 360-degree views on customers, enterprise-level inventory data, mobile point of sale, and in-built intelligence to provide the right recommendations (product recommendations, substitutes, alternate fulfillment options, dynamic offers) are critical for associate empowerment.
The benefits of executing well on all the above initiatives are increased footfalls, increased conversions with a multiplier effect across channels and, most importantly, increased customer loyalty and retention.

Why Retailers Should Recruit a Chief Omnichannel Officer Now

Thanks to modern technology and digital tools, the opportunities to interact with and buy from a brand today are ubiquitous. Customers want to shop anytime, anywhere. Omnichannel rules, and smart retailers are getting on board.
For the customer, the best of omnichannel creates a consistent and uniform experience across all touch-points — online, brick-and-mortar stores, social media, events, mobile and more — all the time. For the retailer, omnichannel reaches its pinnacle of effectiveness when each channel’s operations are connected at the back end and continuously provide integrated, customer-specific information coming into the organization. This highly valuable data can then be analyzed and acted upon, to build a sound strategy for new — and even more consistent — marketing and sales efforts going forward.
Transforming a multichannel entity into a true omnichannel organization is much easier said than done. It is a job that requires a dedicated, totally focused individual that has the responsibility — and seniority — to integrate multichannel systems (literally and figuratively) across all customer touch points: store operations, marketing, call center, and digital (which includes all forms of non-store-based commerce). This is made all the more difficult because traditionally — and naturally — most of today’s organizational structures have evolved into fairly ingrained silos.
Omnichannel

A chief omnichannel officer can help a retailer go from silos to seamless. Here are the specific responsibilities the officer should tackle:
Eliminate silos
Customer touch points today usually exist in the store as point-of-sale systems, online as e-commerce systems and on-the-go as m-commerce platforms, the contact center, and other systems. Up to now, sales and other information has been collected and stored right back within the different system silos.
Retailers still getting used to multichannel efforts have traditionally kept channels independent of one another. This approach is fine, but does it really provide a true picture of how r customer interacts with a brand all the time? A savvy chief omnichannel officer will eliminate silos and integrate all channels at the back end to then take the next step: making the most of data that is generated by the customer.
Get the most out of customer information
To turn customer data into real information assets in aggregate, a central repository that can syndicate useful product information back out to the various channels must be created, and that is one big job. Today, disparate CRM systems are left struggling to get a single, consistent view of the customer. Customer information is one of the most valuable of assets in retail but it in a multi-siloed organization this data is rarely utilized properly.
The lifeline of a truly effective omnichannel experience is data that is integrated in terms of every customer data touch point, and that means integrating existing systems without minimizing each systems’ effectiveness, which is a tricky IT challenge that should be up front and center to a chief omnichannel officer.
Get staff on the same (omnichannel) page
Technical problems apart, siloed skills among staff create their own issues. Disconnects exist between a retailer’s business and technical staff. Open conversations that focus on people, processes and technology are rare between the chief marketing officer and CIO.
Separate heads for all functions — marketing, finance, merchandising, HR, stores, etc. — all report to the CEO or president. As a result, very few people have a holistic understanding of the business, much less what it takes to create an omnichannel presence. What’s more, most high-level, C-suite executives are too tied up with other business issues to commit to the kind of focus necessary to drive the creation of a functioning omnichannel organization.
A key responsibility of an omnichannel officer should be to drive — from a senior level — a commitment to omnichannel throughout the organization, oversee accountability in that commitment, and ingrain omnichannel into the company culture. Change is hard, but breaking silos to achieve synchronization, alignment and ownership among staff is paramount.
The omnichannel chief must encourage active involvement, monitoring, facilitation and support from channel leaders. To do this and communicate effectively with function heads, the officer must have an understanding of all customer touch points, the organization’s holistic business needs, and a direct reporting status to top leadership.
Be interested in revenue generation
Transformation into an omnichannel organization might come faster if, besides managing the development of strategies that integrate the company’s systems, people and activities, the chief omnichannel officer takes on somewhat of a P&L role.
When recruiting for the position, discuss the possibility of responsibility for revenue generation activities along with a reasonable share of the profitability. In the ideal scenario, the chief omnichannel officer will look after the execution of omnichannel and will also be responsible for the ROI on marketing investment. In that way, he or she can inseminate an organic acceptance of omnichannel best practices across all departments, while at the same time encouraging digital growth in such a way that it doesn’t affect current high-performing channels.
No doubt, the idea candidate needs to be one talented and well-rounded individual. Someone with strong digital marketing experience and exposure to other key business functions is a good place to start, and should enable the individual to grow into the role properly in a short period of time.
Simply put, transforming an organization into an omnichannel powerhouse is an exercise in managing change. Placing the right person in charge near the top of your organization will make it clear to all that it is an initiative to be taken seriously. Setting the right tone with all stakeholders will speed sincere acceptance and motivate everyone to deliver. If a retailer can achieve this, the company is on its way to converting your investment in omnichannel into tangible long-term results and strategic market advantage.
Salil Godika is co-founder of Happiest Minds, a next generation digital transformation, infrastructure, security and product engineering services company. With 19 years of experience in the IT industry across global product and services companies, he previously was with Mindtree for four years as the chief strategy officer/M&A and held P&L responsibility of an Industry group. Before Mindtree, Salil gained 12 years’ experience in the United States working for various software product companies large as well as start-ups.

Thursday 5 November 2015

Web Summit 2015: The Tech World Musings From Dublin

Grown from the 400 attendees five years back to the current 22000 tech enthusiasts, the Web Summit 2015 continues to deliver innovative ideas and fascinating thoughts to the tech world gathered at the bustling RDS venue, Dublin.

Cars and technology took the center stage on day 2. Augmented reality, Virtual Reality, Drones, and Wearables were also some of the key highlight topics that seized the audience attention on day 2. Check out some of the most interesting tech talks from day 2 at Dublin. Ford chief executive Bill Ford, pointed out the promising intersection between cars – an industry that has been “revolution- resistant for a hundred years” - and technology. He added that Ford is redefining itself as a “mobility company” with an interest in autonomous driving, net-connected cars along with data collection and analytics. Sean Rad of Tinder, the CEO of location- based dating app highlighted about the data that drives it and the future of the platform. On a lighter note, he added that the Irish user base was extremely active on the app.

Web summit

The most exciting part of day 2 was the live demonstration of a drone that flew into the center stage by Randy Braun of DJI- a World Leader in Camera Drones/Quadcopters. The tech enthusiasts including me curiously heard that DJI along with Humanitarian UAV Network uses their drones or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles UAV’s for a wide range of humanitarian and development settings. Google showcased its famous virtual reality platform ‘Google Cardboard’, basically a cardboard case for smartphones that works in conjunction with compatible apps for projecting 3D images or videos. The wonders of the virtual reality did not ended with Google’s Cardboard. Columbian company Protesis Avanzadas showcased a 3D robotic prosthetic hand, an affordable multifunctional prosthetic hand that can replicate many of the grip patterns of the human hand, in the summit center stage. The Head of Adtech at Facebook, Dave Jakubowski took to the Marketing Summit- the state of the industry, FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) in the digital age.

All the tech talks surrounding Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and Machine Learning reminds us that we are swiftly moving into an age of transformation, where the bridge between the digital and the real world slowly blurs out. All these technology advancements also hold the great potential to redefine the existing business models. As a part of a digital transformation company Happiest Minds, which is strongly focused on the new age disrupting technologies including IoT, Big Data, M2M Learning, Cloud and Mobility, I strongly feel that very interesting days are coming ahead in terms of technology as well as the customer experience.

Anticipating more exciting and insightful talks and demos from the Web Summit 2015 stage, on the closing day, 5th of November. Stay tuned.

Wednesday 28 October 2015

CeBIT INDIA 2015

CeBIT INDIA 2015

Date: 29- 31 October 2015
Venue: BIEC, Bengaluru

CeBIT INDIA 2015: New Perspectives in IT Business. Discover Digital Business Solutions Marketplace.

Happiest Minds is an Exhibitor at the World’s leading Business IT and ICT show – CeBIT!

 CeBIT INDIA 2015

Business is going digital, with traditional processes and business models now undergoing massive digital transformation. At the event, experience the ‘Digital Marketplace’ and understand what new technology can do for your business, discover early, talk to technology innovators & solution providers at CeBIT INDIA 2015!

Visit us at Hall-1, Booth A-23 to experience Digital.

Puneet Jetli– CEO, Digital Transformation and Enterprise Solutions(DT&ES) Business will be in a panel discussion on "Diconomy - The shared economy - making it all work together" on 30th Oct from 11:15 AM to 15:15 AM.

For more details click here http://www.cebit-india.com/

Thursday 22 October 2015

The Critical Success Factors for Digital Transformation Programmes

Right now it feels like the whole world is moving to digital at breakneck speed. Banks, insurance companies, retailers and large manufacturers are all looking at how they can digitally transform the organisation to keep up with customer demand, business expectations and compete globally.

However, while digital transformation is becoming all-pervasive agreement on what digital transformation actually means, how to leverage its potential, and most importantly how to make a digital transformation project a success still remains elusive for many.

Digital transformation can be viewed holistically as the confluence of SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud) technologies, cutting through business processes, enabling agile & secure infrastructure, leveraging IoT & connected devises, driven by seamless integration into (and upgrading) of current IT systems and underpinned by actionable insights for sustainable differentiation across customer experience and business efficiency.

See also: Cloud strategies for digital transformation

In fact, you could argue that customer experience is a big driver for digital transformation projects and will continue to be for a long time to come. What this means is:

The personalisation of content, experience, pricing, recommendation, service and so on; the provision of real-time and aware applications that leverage preferences, insights, context and location awareness; systems or processes that enable on-going customer engagement for deeper insights that drive higher loyalty and advocacy; an omni-channel approach that provides the flexibility and choice for customers to leverage any channel they want;

The business efficiency theme driving digital transformation projects is all around creating differentiation for organisations through one or more of the following: helping an organisation to become more agile and responsive in its ability to identify either opportunities or to protect against threats; taking cost optimisation to the next level by further automating mundane and routine tasks that can be more efficiently handled by intelligent systems; creating better decision making powered by real-time data and insights, rather than by gut-feel and intuition; and unleashing the ability to innovate through the provision of new offerings or different business models.

That said, the key driver for most organisations around digital transformation primarily stems from the fact that it offers tremendous opportunity to enable business differentiation and impact in the market.

It will give many organisations the competitive edge they are looking for - and in some instances change the game in their respective sectors.

However, embarking on a digital transformation programme comes with its own set of challenges and requires an enormous amount of change to the organisation in order to bring in this new approach.

This is a complicated programme of work that involves people, process and technology, which are all equally important.

Here are four critical success factors that will help organisations tap into the tremendous potential that digital can offer:

Transformation
Like any transformation exercise, digital transformation needs to align to business vision, strategy, with the clarity of an implementation roadmap and a series of connected initiatives to achieve the goals.
A digital transformation project with no executive management commitment and support is the most common pitfall for organisations. Point solution implementation without the definition of a roadmap of connected initiatives. It requires leadership buy-in and working collaboratively with a range of key stakeholders.

Complement your capabilities

Assessing your digital capabilities is just the first stage. You then need a plan to get your project from where you are to where you need to be. As this is likely to be a large transformation programme, it is critically important that the project team keeps referring back to their original assessment and plan.
This will keep the team grounded throughout as to why they are going through the pain to get the organisation where it needs to be to advance the business in a world that has become increasingly mobile and progressively digital.

Front & back end

Any digital transformation should look to leverage your current IT investments and systems. If you only focus on digitising the front-end technologies without adequate consideration for the enablement and modernisation of your existing systems, you won’t leverage the full potential and benefits of the digital project.

Multi-functional buy-in

A fundamental review of all your business processes and capabilities is required with a view tooptimise them by leveraging digital technologies. Digital is all pervasive and not something led by IT or Marketing or independent business departments - more than ever it needs a multi-function team.
A multi-disciplinary approach is a prerequisite for a digital transformation initiative to be successful. Companies need to be careful that it does not creates silos & internal competition.

See also: 3 steps to futureproofing a business with digital transformation

Most companies tend to start small with pilots and proof of concepts. That is a good way of getting buy-in, however it needs to be aligned to an overall vison and roadmap.

In my experience if a digital transformation project lacks management or stakeholder buy-in and/or fails to adequately take into consideration its current IT landscape, then alarm bells should start ringing as these two factors are the most common cause of stress, delays and failed digital projects. And remember, timeframes for these types of projects also tend to shrink due to demands from the business.

Try to set a realistic timeframe rather than the timeframe that the business dictates and work with a digital partner that has the ability and agility to deliver what you need. Otherwise you are certain to set yourself up for failure.

Sourced from Isaac George, Senior VP and Regional Head, Happiest Minds UK


Monday 5 October 2015

Happiest Minds declared “Startup of the Year” at The Smart CEO – Startup50 Awards



Happiest Minds Technologies, the next generation Digital Transformation, Infrastructure & Security and Product Engineering Services Company, won the "The Smart CEO Startup50 - Startup of the Year Award at the prestigious  "SmartCEO Startup50 Awards 2015: Recognizing the Leaders and Change-makers of tomorrow”. Happiest Minds was among the winners in the Rapid Growth Category.

The Startup50 Conference and Awards was conceptualized with a very specific goal in mind: to recognize and reward entrepreneurs who’ve scaled up their businesses in the most strategic way and at a dynamic pace.

The Conference revolved around understanding the art and science of building long-term businesses in various sectors - including technology, healthcare, financial services, consumer, retail etc. - through discussions with venture capital investors and entrepreneurs. The summit culminated with an Awards ceremony to recognize 50 of India’s most promising startups. The nominated companies were evaluated by a jury, which comprised a leading panel of experts from the Indian entrepreneurship ecosystem, investors and top Indian business leaders.

"The Smart CEO Startup50 - Startup of the Year" Award highlighted Happiest Minds’ overall performance and track record among all the top 50 companies recognized as winners across different categories.

“The Startup of the Year” Award focused on scaling of critical parameters of Revenue and People, where Happiest Minds had already established its credentials with several international recognitions such as the Deloitte Tech Fast 50 awards etc.

“Winning two awards on the eve of our Foundation Day, is recognition of our cutting edge offerings in the sphere of Digital Transformation and allied services. As one of the fastest growing companies, we are proud to share this moment with our customers and gratefully acknowledge their steadfast support in this journey”, said Sashi Kumar – CEO & MD, Happiest Minds.

“Our philosophy is, “happiest people make happiest customers”. Our mission is a constant reminder of the fact that we are in the business of making our customers happy through happy people. Receiving such awards gives us the confidence that we are on the right track,” added Raja Shanmugam, Chief People Officer at Happiest Minds.

With a $ 50mn+ annualized revenue run rate, 100+ valued customers and a team size of more than 1500, Happiest Minds is also en route to becoming the fastest Indian IT services company aiming to achieve $100mn in revenue with a focus on going public within the next 4 years.

About Happiest Minds Technologies


Happiest Minds is a next generation digital transformation, infrastructure, security and product engineering Services Company with 100+ customers , 1500+ people and 16 locations. Happiest Minds enables Digital Transformation for enterprises and technology providers by delivering seamless customer experience, business efficiency and actionable insights through an integrated set of disruptive technologies: big data analytics, internet of things, mobility, cloud, security, unified communications, etc. Happiest Minds offers domain centric solutions applying skills, IPs and functional expertise in IT Services, Product Engineering, Infrastructure Management and Security. These services have applicability across industry sectors such as retail, consumer packaged goods, e-commerce, banking, insurance, hi-tech, engineering R&D, manufacturing, automotive and travel/transportation/hospitality. Headquartered in Bangalore, India, Happiest Minds has operations in the US, UK, Singapore, Australia and has secured $ 52.5 million Series-A funding. Its investors are JP Morgan Private Equity Group, Intel Capital and Ashok Soota.


Email : media@happiestminds.com

Source : Happiest Minds