To cloud or not to cloud

I guess by now you're used to the term cloud and if you're not: hey don't worry, experts are still uncertain what exactly defines the cloud so you should be good.

What however seems to be inevitable in the IT industry is that you are moving to the cloud, again a lot of discussion about at which exact pace this will be, and probably nobody will know before it really happens, but it is inevitable. 
But do you need to care? And what is the impact? How about the (IT) business partners you work with, will the way you work with them change? Will it impact the way you do business? I guess in a sense the answer to all of the above questions is: Yes!

Obviously one of the main advantages of cloud, and than I mean enterprise software delivered through the cloud or Software-As-A-Service is that you do not have to worry about keeping your software version up-to-date, and you can always benefit from new features added in a short amount of time.

But how about your business, how can it affect the way you do business? Well there's a huge variety of possibilities there, even some that you might not be aware of yet... For instance how internet of things could play a role in your customers purchasing your products and services. Cloud will allow you to react much quicker and probably smoother to changes in digital  than any enterprise software application running in your own datacenter or server farm will ever allow you.

Implementing cloud solutions however requires a quite drastic other approach to elements like developing, maintaining and releasing. One of the buzz-words in that respect is DevOps and without dwelling into the actual definition, what DevOps brings organizations, is the correct combination of people and capabilities required to implement, develop and maintain solutions in one team. Why is this so crucial specifically with cloud? That's simple, as cloud solutions are being implemented and taken into production, the next release of the software is already available in most cases and hence this needs to be validated and put live as soon as possible as well as working on the next sprint of functionality to be taken into production. A faster time-to-market requiring everyone's contribution: administrators, developers, product owners, etc. And of course this impacts the way you work with you IT business partners.

So to summarize by more or less quoting a senior business leader I was listening to just a couple of weeks ago: "Cloud really has impact and we need to take action on it!" So what are you waiting for? Figure out how your business can benefit from the cloud and go for it!

Digital Marketing: born in the cloud or...

In my work for a global retail company recently, I came across something I believe is common to lots of multinational / large enterprises that are utilizing digital marketing to reach out to consumers and their customers.

After defining the best strategy for their marketing, including digital marketing companies decide which tools they will use for the actual execution of their marketing campaigns. If your strategy is to have a focus on digital marketing then the obvious choice for a marketing execution or marketing automation tool is a cloud based one. Simply because of a couple of factors:

it's close to where your customers are: social, mobile and always online
a wide variety of digital channels available which can easily be mixed
low or short learning curve for business people to adapt
If that is the case life is simple you would say, just swipe your creditcard and purchase  access to the cloud based tool, like Eloqua, ExactTarget or Responsys and off you go. And yes, if all you want to do is take your customer base, do lightweight segmentation based on basic customer information, like age for instance you're completely right.
However when you want to provide real personalized and targeted content to your customers, based on a breadth of data, coming from a variety of data-sources you will run short with these cloud based marketing automation tools. Why? Because they're not up to it yet:

Handling large volumes of data to and from the cloud > think for instance you're online sales transactions
Ability to integrate multiple sources of data
Ability to properly analyze, segment and prepare data for personalized targeting
So if you're looking for an end-2-end marketing automation solution, capable of handling your advanced personalization and data requirements, currently you will end up with a hybrid digital marketing solution comprised of a cloud based marketing tool supported by an on premise data analytics environment.

So moving your digital marketing to the cloud? Yes please! 
But consider how you will cater for the necessary analytics and persoanlization that modern digital marketing requires!

B2B Digital CX is the tsunami...

Although NRF’s Big Show is most about B2C cases here’s one to chew on when you are a B2B company (as well). 

If you would rank all of what has been going on around Digital Customer Experience in the B2C market space as an earthquake, then definitely Digital CX in B2B would rank as a tsunami. Of course one can argue what is worse, tsunami or earthquake, but in the core the disruption Digital CX brings to the B2B space is enormous.

Let me tell you why...
Obviously we’re all human and that doesn’t change when we drive to the office. And obviously our manager in the organization we work for can be as demanding as our manager at home… :-) Or maybe even more demanding. So the customer experience we have when interacting with the companies and organizations in our private lives, we more and more expect in our business live as well. Not only because we are used to it, but also from an efficiency point of view: it shouldn’t take any longer and be more difficult to order and receive something we order in our B2B role than it takes in our private live. The offers we get, personalized to our profile should be available both in our private situation as well as in our professional one. So why is the Digital disruption a tsunami in the B2B area, in other words why is this such a big change in B2B? Probably the answer to that is probably best described by a real-life example.

A couple of years back Desigual, a colourful fashion brand from Spain, operated with a B2B sales only strategy. This meant that as a manufacturer they were not selling their clothes themselves, but instead relied on other retailers selling their products. Realizing the strong dependency on their B2B partners, Desigual started defining a clear Digital strategy how to engage with these “customers” and basically this came down to applying some rules earlier found more or even only in the B2C space. Things like building a B2B e-commerce webshop, applying personalization of the offers in this environment, utilizing analytics of earlier purchases and applying these learning as well as personal preferences to provide offers. Also applying direct marketing as if it was a B2C situation. And guess what happened? Yes Desigual started to improve sales figures year-over-year just by applying these B2C customer interaction techniques in their B2B environment.

Does this mean that there is a one-to-one relationship between B2C and B2B then? No, there isn’t, and that’s what actually makes it a tsunami. First of all for a lot of B2B companies this means a huge shift in their strategy of how they engage with their customers. Secondly it highly influences how the business processes are aligned with this strategy and last but not least in the way they apply IT or Digital capabilities. In the Desigual case, this shift meant moving from paper orders and visiting sales reps to almost solely selling through their e-Commerce channel. So: huge impact on the way of working of the Desigual people and their customers (more efficient), a big change to their IT landscape both driven from a clear strategy and roadmap towards this new customer & sales approach. In summary it is a bigger change for B2B as these companies in general have been stuck with “old ways”, already for a longer period and the change has not been applied as gradually as in B2C.

So are you a B2B company (as well)? And are you looking for the right priorities for the new year? Go digital now, before it’s too late!

Cloud: the fundament for a strong Digital Transformation

During Oracle OpenWorld 2014, one word you could not escape from was Cloud. Obviously Cloud is a big deal for Oracle. Why? well they invested heavily in it in the last couple of years especially 2013 and 2014. Not only in software and platform but even in the underlying hardware.

So as a business person, why should you care about cloud? Well to tell you the truth… I do not know either. Of course cloud enables you to act quickly in certain situations, like allowing you to easily setup a marketing campaign or launch a nice microsite for that product launch you have coming. In the long run it has to connect to the systems and processes you already have in place in your organization.

Your cloud or mine?
So what did Oracle do that you might benefit from? Well with their investments there are three key elements that they worked on:
- Breadth of capabilities: other than any of the competitor Cloud software providers (SAAS) Oracle doesn’t focus on a single business process or silo (like Salesforce.com or Workday), but invests and implements a full range of enterprise wide capabilities: ERP, CRM, HCM. This allows business to choose from a variety of capabilities to be fulfilled in the Cloud, and even have a Cloud only strategy if desired. Not making it necessary to switch to a different vendor for yet another capability.
- Integration: The Integration Cloud as announced last week obviously is a bare necessity when several business capabilities are hosted in the cloud (either provided by Oracle or by others) and some are, still, in your own datacenter.
A hidden gem in the keynote by Thomas Kurian, was probably the annunciation of Process Cloud. A gem indeed, because it allows Oracle’s cloud solutions to be glued together and form end-to-end business processes. I’ll come back to this in one of my next blogs.
- Platform: the platform Oracle provides and actually uses themselves to provide their own Cloud services is broader and the most standard based then any other platform. Think of proprietary technologies like Salesforce’s APEX and force.com as well as SAP’s Hana, and compare that with Oracle Weblogic and Oracle Webcenter to name a few provided as PAAS.
And this platform approach is definitely key in allowing organisations to choose, between hosting of application in the public cloud or in their own “cloud”: if you apply Oracle’s platform in your own data center it will enable you to quite easily switch between one or the other.

So is it new, well to be honest, no: In the last couple of years we’ve seen Oracle present on what was first called Fusion Applications and everything EXA (-Data, - Logic , etc.) Now the buzz word is obviously Cloud with the Infrastructure, Platform and Services as specific denotation.
What is new however is that I believe that Oracle’s Cloud portfolio is getting to a degree of maturity that it becomes valuable to by far a wider audience than it had been ever before. The breadth of capabilities, the integrations between components and any backend landscape and specifically also a platform to amend the functionality.

A Fundament for Digital Transformation
As such it forms a strong fundament for what we call Digital Transformation. Obviously it is one of the elements, as our research together with MIT shows that only if you combine appliance of Digital capabilities like Oracle’s Cloud products with strong Digital Leadership you will really benefit from it.
Specifically in the space of Customer Experience, Digital is very important. Allowing customers to access your company and open up your company to your customers, differentiating as much as possible to the needs of that customer, or to put it short: take an outside-in approach.
Obviously a buzz word, but it is definitely true, start with why you are selling, serving, creating products, building the experience, or making you company and products available to customer the way you do it?

So to cut things short, yes Cloud and definitely Oracle’s cloud portfolio is a strong basis for Digital Transformation, however just like with a “traditional” IT approach you should always think of why your customers should choose you first! And how should your organisation be amended to support this.

And Larry, well Larry is Larry and doesn’t really change even not in his new role of CTO and chairman.

Originally posted on Capgemini Technology Blog: Capping IT Off

Oracle Open World 2014: Are you ready for a Modern Customer Experience?

This year’s edition of Oracle Open World is going to be all about Modern. Modern Technology, Modern User Experience, Modern HCM, Internet of Things obviously, you know, the things that we like today and do want to have tomorrow! So thinking about Digital Customer Experience what does that mean do you think?

How big is your data?
Well obviously a modern Digital Customer Experience (DCX) has a basis in intelligent handling of large amounts of information, or Big Data as this is called. The way you are able to make sense of all this information and really utilize it in the interactions you have with this customer is obviously key to a modern DCX. This years Oracle Open World will, again… bring us a lot of infiniband, terabytes and peta bytes, processing power and columnar data storage., etc., etc. All to accommodate the actual handling and correct processing of these amounts of data.

Your User Experience
Secondly a modern Customer experience is obviously about the user experience your customers have. The user experience when they interact through a mobile device, a website, a kiosk inside your store or even a staff member pulling up their customer details on an iPad in the store. Or the user experience of the business user setting up the marketing content on the microsite on that new product launch. And also the user experience of the person that is finally handling the financial side of an order placed on the eCommerce site by the customer. A modern user experience in these cases means that in all these situations relevant and personalized information is available to customers and employees are empowered to provide a great customer experience. At this Oracle Open World there is a specific stream focusing on this user experience for Oracle’s (Cloud) applications and even their integration solutions and engineered systems.

Your cloud or mine?
The third piece I’d like to highlight is obviously cloud. And pay close attention, I’m not saying cloud equals modern, so that all of your IT should go into the cloud… No Modern cloud appliance is about seamless switching between public cloud and private cloud as well as any appliances you might still have in your datacenter that are less capable out-of-the-box for connecting with the cloud. Being able to freely choose based on the way an application can support you in your vision on digital customer experience where you host an application or store data that’s a modern cloud approach.

Capgemini is a Diamond level sponsor this year for Oracle Open World, expressing our strong partnership with Oracle and highlighting our believe in the fact that the strength of Oracle Applications and Technology can help you realize Digital strategies for your organization. Come and see our sessions and meet us at our booth (#911, whenever you’re in #Digital distress)
Here are just a few of our sessions to highlight our presence specifically from a Digital Customer Experience perspective:

“Why Digital Transformation Is the Future”
Simon Short, VP Digital Customer Experience, Capgemini and Arjan Kramer, Global Digital Solution Architect, Capgemini will present Capgemini’s unique Digital Customer Experience approach and the value it brings. As well as presenting some real-life customer cases and also our OCommerce, Oracle CX solution offering.
Monday, September 29, 2:45 - 3:30 pm
Moscone West – 3002

“Leading Digital Transformation Now—No Matter What Business You’re In”
Didier Bonnet, Senior Vice President & Global Practice Leader Digital Transformation, Capgemini Consulting will be keynoting in Tuesday morning keynote together with Thomas Kurian.
Tuesday 30 September, 8:30-9:00 am
Moscone North Hall D

“The Digital Explosion—Driven by the Cloud: What’s Your Enterprise Strategy?”
Pierre Hessler, Capgemini Fellow, will be presenting on how to make cloud become part of your Enterprise strategy and it can help to realize this strategy.
Wednesday, October 1, 2:00 – 2:45pm
Lam Research Theater (Yerba Buena Center for the Arts)

Looking forward to meet you there!

Originally posted on the Capgemini Technology Blog: Capping IT Off

Great experiences require good decisions!

During the day we as humans make millions of decisions. For example when two people talk to each other we have a large amount of thoughts and make hundreds of decisions to correctly guide us through the conversation.
Some of these are small, like “I don’t like to go out now, because it’s raining” others might have more impact and require proper consideration, like “I know you lost a close relative last month, so I need and want to be easy on you”.

And obviously getting better in conversations requires practicing and learning. The decision making process is fluid: learning from the feedback of the people you are talking to, seeing reactions alters what we say and how we say it.
The same thing holds for the interactions between organizations and their customers.

In this Digital age, the interactions and decisions are not only handled by the people in your organization, but can increasingly be handled by IT systems. Imagine a customer browsing your web shop, trying to find that one particular product. Or a customer going through your knowledge base, who is trying to find the answer to her particular question.  In both examples good, real-time decisions about what is the best thing to do, say or show to a customer will make the difference between a good experience and a great experience!

In a split second, in real-time these IT solutions must be capable of learning: what are bad offers? What works well? What is a great decision or offer? Then the solution can act instantly on what it has ‘learned’.

So wouldn’t it be good to have an IT solution that learns and adapts itself to customer behavior then takes those little decisions away and saves your staff time? But how to get there?

Start small, maybe with just one area, like your webshop or just a limited set of use cases like just specific customer care processes. That’s where you’ll get the biggest benefit first.

Then, when you actually start looking for a technical solution think hard about which domain you’d like to use the decision engine in. Is it primarily online, through the web or would you like an enterprise decision engine that can be used throughout your organization, business processes and multiple channels?

So what could automated, real-time decisioning do for your organization, how much could it save you, how much could it earn?  If you want to talk it through, I’d love to hear.

Originally posted on the Capgemini Technology Blog: Capping IT Off

Webrooming, the next big thing in All-Channel Retailing

Webrooming is the new showrooming, meaning customers will do their research online but ultimately buy products offline or in-store (ROPO). The ability of retailers to identify customers in their offline environment based on their behaviour and information online is crucial in order to close deals and provide a connected customer experience.

Today traditional retailers reportedly suffer from a phenomenon called showrooming. The core issue of showrooming is that retailers lack information about their potential customers and the offers their competitors have currently either on or offline. Or if they have the information, they do not have the ability to properly use it in their offerings on the spot for customers who are visiting their store.
Now a new phenomenon enters the stage: Webrooming. Obviously a reaction from customers who are fed up with some bad experiences of buying a product online, which, once delivered, did not meet the expectations or at least did not fulfil the expectations that were set online.
Webrooming is the behaviour of customers doing analysis or research online (RO) but ultimately buying or purchasing offline (PO); therefore the term used for webrooming as well is ROPO. As with showrooming, one of the required capabilities to deal with webrooming is knowing exactly what information a customer has been looking for online. It is also necessary to be able to attract your customer to come to your store and finally to make him or her an offer they cannot refuse.

Marketing, Clienteling and Mobile
Capabilities that are crucial in this respect are relevant direct marketing to this customer, having agood insight into customer information in the store and “controlling" the mobile space in your store.

First of all, as mentioned earlier, it’s key to attract customers who are researching online but do not seem to have the intention to buy online to visit your store locally to buy the product. It’s important to have individual and personalised targeted offers that will attract customers to come to your store with the intention to buy. To accomplish this, it is necessary to have a marketing capability that is able to give either real-time feedback to the customer or in a later stage is able to refer again to the customer to trigger him to come to the store.
Once the customer is in the store the staff in the store should be able to easily identify the customer and pull up all relevant information. This includes information like browsing history, wish list, buying history and,probably even most important, possible non-refusable offers! These capabilities are often referred to as clienteling applications and can run either on desktop systems available at the point of sale or on a tablet, so staff can easily walk around and interact with customers.
Customers are of course easily distracted, so it is good to pay attention to the mobile devices they might have with them once they enter your store or mall. Maybe with a technique like geo-fencing, maybe by pushing offers or information directly to customers through existing mobile apps or NFC. The main point is to always keep your customer’s attention on the offers you provide him.

So you can see that if you really want to address showrooming as well as webrooming, which are actually quite similar phenomenons, there are ways to address it. The solutions however must be interconnected and should be part of an overall Digital strategy and not one-off initiatives.

As webrooming is here to stay, you, as a true all-channel retailer, should make sure to have a solution in place that can help you address it. 

With NRF’s Retail Big Show 2014 coming up a couple of blogs will be posted around the event. Next in the series will be Fulfilling the Dream.

Originally posted on Capping IT Off