Paul Wallbank – Brilliant Communications

Tag: business

  • Rethinking business IT

    Rethinking business IT

    Last week at the AWS:Reinvent conference in Las Vegas, I had the opportunity to interview the company’s Global Head of Enterprise Strategy, Stephen Orban about where he and Amazon see the direction of the cloud computing market and how business practices are being reinvented.

    Among the things we discussed was Orban’s seven best practices for a company’s journey to the cloud, gleaned from his own experiences in his AWS role of advising clients on adopting and his previous experiences as a technology officer at Dow Jones and Bloomberg.

    Orban laid out what he thinks are the keys to success in a company heading to the cloud in his own blog post and during our conversation he expanded on his ideas which also very much reflect the changing role of the CIO or IT manager.

    Supporting the C-suite

    The first point is the IT department has to understand the business and align technology with the organisation’s objectives.

    “Somebody who understands technology who can merge technology with the business needs” will be better able to win the confidence of management says Orban.

    Doing that is the key to winning support from the executive suite Orban believes. Once CIOs have that trust from senior management it gives their teams the space to experiment with new ways of delivering value to their companies.

    Education 

    “The second thing is to provide training and education,” Orban says. “People tend to get a bit anxious of what they don’t know, particularly when it affects their jobs.”

    In Orban’s experience, having informed staff makes them more open to change within the business, “with the transformation I went through at Dow Jones, most of what we accomplished was because of the people who’d been there a long term. They had the institutional memory but they were very open minded.”

    Foster a Culture of Experimentation

    One of the great benefits of cloud computing is how it lowers the costs of experimentation and development, “gone are the days when it cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, even millions, to try something.” Orban says.

    Learning what works and fails is essential, he believes. But as long as there is executive support then a tolerance towards unsuccessful experiments will develop in the organisation.

    Working with partners

    Outside parties are essential to most organisation’s IT systems and Orban believes partner ecosystems have changed with the advent of cloud computing. “There’s a whole new breed of partners that have been going through this,” he says in citing ‘born in the cloud’ software developers and systems integrators who are changing how projects are being delivered.

    Build a Center of Excellence

    “Creating a center of excellence is, I think, one of the key practices any organisation should invest in. You want a body of people who can institutionalise best practice within an organisation,” observes Orban.

    As cloud services take away the complexity of computer systems it becomes an opportunity for organizations to rethink boundaries between the IT department and business operations.

    Move to the cloud

    Given Orban’s employer it’s not surprising he sees cloud computing as key to a company’s transformation however he admits that few organisations will make the jump straight into cloud services.

    “Hybrid will be a part of every enterprise’s journey. Any company who’s been doing IT for any period of time will have existing investments,” he says. “Our view is that we will make it as easy as possible to create that bridge.”

    “We do believe in the long run that enterprises will find they become so much more effective over here (in the cloud) they will move in that direction.

    A Cloud-First Policy

    Once an organisation has its cloud strategy and experimentation culture in place then having a ‘cloud first’ policy, “it reverses the burden of proof away from ‘why would you use the cloud?’ to ‘why wouldn’t you?’”

    While Orban is emphasising the Amazon Web Services view of the world where ultimately all business computing will be done on the cloud – preferably their cloud – his views illustrates the change facing businesses as they implement online technologies.

    For most, the availability of easily accessible cloud computing services is an opportunity to rethink their business processes and how organisations can deliver the best products quickly to their customers.

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  • Rethinking customer service in the connected age

    Rethinking customer service in the connected age

    Businesses would be wise to stop telling people what they should want and let customers tell them what want says Shel Israel in his latest book, Lethal Generosity.

    In this book, Israel’s previous works include Naked Conversations and Age of Context which were both written in collaboration with Robert Scoble, he looks at the technological and social changes affecting business and how they can adapt to a rapidly evolving marketplace.

    Key to that evolving marketplace is the explosion of data offering businesses deep insight into their customers. as Scoble describes in Lethal Generosity’s introduction in talking about social analytics service Vintank;

    VinTank was acquired by a big PR agency that wants VinTank to do for all sorts of industries what it has done for the wine industry. Are you a restaurant or a winery ignoring that data? Go ahead and keep doing that for a decade. Your competition won’t.

    Israel illustrates the need to watch the marketplace in citing a campaign where Canadian brewer Molsons completely wrong footed an oblivious competitor, something similar to how one bank discovered a rival’s successful marketing campaign through real time bank deposits data described  at the recent Splunk conference.

    Focusing on the customers

    A customer centric outlook, not looking at competitors but focusing on what consumers want is key to success in the new economy, Israel believes. This is enhanced by technologies that allow both products and marketing to be personalised as shown in the chapter detailing how retailers and airports are using beacons and data analytics in their operations.

    One good example is AirBnB, while Israel trots out the ‘biggest hotel chain’ in the world fallacy that’s pervasive among commentators, its effects on the established industry has been profound and have forced hospitality operators around the world to re-evaluate their business models.

    Israel suggests the best response for businesses affected by the ‘Uberization’ of their industries is to adopt the social and analytic tools and strategies being used the upstart businesses and he provides a wealth of examples.

    Seamless sales

    Tapingo, the food ordering service for US college students, illustrates the seamless experience that consumers are increasingly demanding in their shopping, business and leisure activities. Israel cites how Tapingo’s merchant partners are seeing an in-store traffic boost of 7 percent and a gross profit rise of 11 percent as a result of using the service.

    Shel also illustrates some of the failures in deploying new technologies, specifically London’s Regent Street Alliance that failed due to poor execution and a failure to engage the marketplace.

    One of the weakness in the book – which Israel acknowledges – is its focus on US, and specifically Bay Area, case studies. While there are some non-North American examples such as Australia’s Telstra and China’s Alipay, most of the examples cited are of companies based in or around San Francisco and Silicon Valley.

    Focus on Millennials

    Another weakness of the book is the over-focus on Millennials or Digital Natives. While this group is important that obsession risks Israel’s message being pigeonholed amongst the noise of poorly thought out pop demographics and poor analysis that marks much of the discussion around changing tastes and habits between generations.

    Israel’s point that the post 1982 generation will soon outnumber older cohorts in both the workforce and the marketplace in the near future though is an important aspect for businesses to keep in mind with the safe certainties and predictable customer behaviour of the baby boom era being long gone.

    However the shift in consumer and workplace behaviour is just as pronounced among all the post World War II generations as technology and the economy evolves in the early 21st Century. Focusing on the younger groups risks missing similar shifts among older members of the community.

    The value of customer service

    Ultimately though, Israel’s message is about customer service. Shel himself flags this is not new, in describing the competition between hiking goods suppliers The North Face and Sierra Designs in 1970s Berkeley.

    What is different between today’s businesses and those of forty years ago is technology now allows companies to deeply understand their customers and provide customised marketing, products and experiences to the connected consumer.

    For the business owner, manager or entrepreneur, Lethal Generosity is a good starting point to understand the forces changing today’s marketplace. The case studies alone are worth considering for how an organisation can adapt to a rapidly evolving world with radically shifting customer behaviour.

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  • Opportunities in broken systems

    Opportunities in broken systems

    “Taxi drivers are good people, they are just treated badly”, Uber founder Travis Kalanick told Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff at Dreamforce last week.

    Kalanick flagged how in most cities around the world the taxi industry is broken. Nowhere is that more true than in Australia and a piece I wrote for Business Spectator about the disruption to the nation’s taxi industry illustrates that well.

    The success of Uber in disrupting those markets – although it should be noted the company is far from becoming profitable – shows the real opportunities lie where existing markets are broken or distorted.

    If you’re benefiting from a broken market then this is a risk to your business. For outsiders, it’s an opportunity.

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  • How design will change the world of business

    How design will change the world of business

    “I always believe small companies usually illustrate big shifts faster than larger companies. In many ways big companies are responding to the shifts being driven by smaller businesses,” says Andrew Anagnost, the Senior Vice President of Industry Strategy and Marketing at Autodesk.

    Anagnost was talking the Dreamforce media contingent after a tour of his company’s San Francisco Gallery where possibilities of today’s design and manufacturing tools are displayed.

    Those possibilities are changing business, not just in design but across most industries as the means of financing and building new projects changes along with consumer demand as production methods change.

    Anagnost breaks these changes into four major trends – the way things are designed, how they are produced, the nature of demand in a world where things can personalised and the very notion of what a product is.

    “What people expect in from products today is very different.”

    A supercomputer at your fingertips

    “Every generation brings something new to design,” says Anagnost. “Imagine the generation that grew up with social media, online gaming, all the things that previous generations did not grow up with.”

    This generation will be more collaborative and the idea of working in fluid, unstructured groups where many of the members will never physically meet anywhere.

    Cloud computing is the other factor Anagnost sees as changing design as “it puts a supercomputer behind every screen”, which brings to the desktop great power in testing designs. “The designer gets a chance to explore options they couldn’t access before.”

    That supercomputer at your fingertips changes all businesses, giving them processing power to carry out complex analytical tasks and modelling in all industries.

    Financing the change

    Another change to the production process is how people are financing their products. Increasingly platforms like Kickstarter are creating new ways for entrepreneurs to raise funds and also to test the market for a product before investing money and time.

    “Before people would have to pitch their ideas to a larger manufacturer, an investor or a VC but now they can pitch it to anyone,” says Anagnost. “The means of financing products is now changing.”

    The new means of production

    ‘Fabless manufacturing’ promises to change manufacturing by reducing the need for massive factories as micr0-factories start to change the economics of making products. These miniaturised robot factories are easily configurable and can be located locally rather than across the country of oceans.

    Coupled with 3D printing, again it becomes cheaper and quicker to bring products to market and changes the dynamics of getting goods to market. “When it gets cheaper to deliver a complex product, the field gets levelled and more people can deliver innovative products to market,” says Anagnost.

    The other trend within manufacturing is prefabricated assembly. While nothing new, improved design tools and manufacturing methods are making it easier and more efficient to assemble things like buildings onsite, coupled with 3D printing this is going to see massive changes in sectors like the construction industry.

    Generational changes

    Changing manufacturing and designs creates changed consumer expectations, as design becomes more accessible and personalisations easier customers are increasingly going to want products that meet their specific tastes and needs.

    Another aspect to this is generational change, where younger consumers expect personalised products and don’t identify the same way with major brands as their grandparents and parents did.

    “We’re going to see a move from rampant consumerism to a more selective consumerism,” says Anagnost.

    This means markets are going to be far more volatile as the brand loyalty erodes in the face of a demanding customer. You’re only as good as the last conversation you had with your customer and if they aren’t happy they’ll go elsewhere.

    Connected devices

    The final factor Anagnost sees is the world of connected devices, increasingly consumers will demand products that have online functionality built in.

    Increasingly we’re seeing this with motor cars and in the near future we’ll be seeing devices as diverse as motorcycle helmets and light bulbs being shipped with networked capabilities.

    “Everything in your home is going to be connected in some way and people are going to have that expectation they will be,” says Anagnost. “Sensors are getting cheaper and cheaper and cheaper. There’s an assumption of connectivity.”

    What Anagnost and Autodesk are flagging is business is changing, barriers we thought were unsurmountable are increasingly falling. For every industry, easily accessible computing and manufacturing power is changing the competitive landscape.

    Paul travelled to San Francisco as guest of Salesforce.

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  • Pricing the friendly skies

    Pricing the friendly skies

    Possibly the holy grail of business is to find a product that your customers will pay almost anything for.

    In flight Wi-Fi service provider GoGo may be close to achieving that with a product that business customers depend upon. The New York Times describes how the company has found it can use dynamic pricing to customise its prices for each flight.

    One of the limitations GoGo faces is the connections between the aircraft and the ground stations is narrow so a plane full of bandwidth hungry travellers will quickly bring everyone’s service to a crawl.

    To overcome this – and to make more money – the service has developed algorithms to anticipate the demand on each flight and then customise the charges to suit.

    In many respects what we’re seeing with GoGo is similar to services like Uber where fast, intelligent systems can analyse traffic patterns and use the predicted demand to set prices. It’s the ultimate demand driven economy.

    Over time, this model is going to flow out across many industries – the airline industry leads the way in pricing around demand management – and consumers need to get used to the idea of a fixed price tag being a quaint memory.

     

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