At a recent briefing IBM raised the idea that in any number of ways the Internet, Web—online computing—badly needs refreshing. Just look at what you are doing with online. Does it seem stale?
Consider this: the online experience now encompasses mobile, cloud, big data, social networking, and gamification. You probably didn’t deal with any of that when you initially got online. Then consider the devices connecting today, 15 billion mobile devices alone expected by 2015, estimates Cisco, plus the usual array of laptops, netbooks, desktops, thin devices. And who is connecting: Hispanics spent 5.15 billion through mobile devices this past holiday shopping season, according to Zpryme, a research firm. Did you get much of that?
Here are two more reasons the CFO might consider: online retailers may have lost $44.6B in 2010 due to online customer experience problems (Harris Interactive) or another—disengaged workers cost U.S. businesses as much as $350 billion a year (Gallup Research). It makes sense at least to revitalize the online experience for customers, workers, and partners.
Refreshing your online experience starts with a fresh strategy. You need to revisit the basics: your objectives, your various audiences, what they do with you online now and what more they could do. The recent trend is to do as much as possible online and to do it through multiple channels, such as mobile devices, social media, and online application services. Think beyond customers and workers to partners, suppliers, and other stakeholders.
Consider this: the online experience now encompasses mobile, cloud, big data, social networking, and gamification. You probably didn’t deal with any of that when you initially got online. Then consider the devices connecting today, 15 billion mobile devices alone expected by 2015, estimates Cisco, plus the usual array of laptops, netbooks, desktops, thin devices. And who is connecting: Hispanics spent 5.15 billion through mobile devices this past holiday shopping season, according to Zpryme, a research firm. Did you get much of that?
Here are two more reasons the CFO might consider: online retailers may have lost $44.6B in 2010 due to online customer experience problems (Harris Interactive) or another—disengaged workers cost U.S. businesses as much as $350 billion a year (Gallup Research). It makes sense at least to revitalize the online experience for customers, workers, and partners.
Refreshing your online experience starts with a fresh strategy. You need to revisit the basics: your objectives, your various audiences, what they do with you online now and what more they could do. The recent trend is to do as much as possible online and to do it through multiple channels, such as mobile devices, social media, and online application services. Think beyond customers and workers to partners, suppliers, and other stakeholders.
Then talk with marketing and IT. Marketing needs to update its strategies, and IT must open up the range of devices that connect with you and what they can do. This will entail rethinking and bolstering security.
Even look at finance. Can you extend billing and payment using different devices? Can you accept mobile payment and orders? Can you process orders through Facebook or respond to issues through Twitter?
To create exceptional overall customer and worker online experiences IBM recommends bringing together the necessary capabilities to create, manage, and deliver engaging multi-channel web experiences. To that end, it has pulled together a set of tools addressing both external customers and internal workers and partners. You can check out the IBM Customer Experience Tool Suite and its Intranet Experience Tool Suite.
Cisco’s Internet Business Solutions Group recently published a paper titled My Shopping My Way about the changing online experience. Check it out here.
Deloitte, the global consulting firm, also is getting into the act. Earlier this week it introduced Deloitte Digital, a network of digital studios that provides clients with a full suite of digital services covering strategy, user experience, content, creative, engineering, and implementation across mobile, web, social and digital channels.
The Internet has moved into the age of hybrid computing, public/private/hybrid clouds, and constant mobility and social networking. If that’s not good enough reason to revamp your organization’s online experience try this: organizations that have optimized engagement, according to Gallup Research, outperformed their competitors by 26% in gross margin and experienced 85% sales growth.
No comments:
Post a Comment