Companies transforming to become customer-obsessed are using journey analytics to help them become customer-led, insights-driven, fast, and connected. Forrester defines journey analytics as:"An analytics practice that combines quantitative and qualitative data to analyze customer behaviors and motivations across touchpoints and over time to optimize customer interactions and predict future behavior."
By using data to look at high-level journeys and to zoom in on microjourneys and the defining moments within them, journey analytics helps companies isolate, quantify, model, and track opportunities to improve CX, operational efficiency, and business results. Journey analytics stitches together data horizontally, across silos, to provide an integrated view of the customer and enable companies to test a wide variety of journey hypotheses in near real time to determine which combinations of interactions will yield the desired business results.
Journey analytics involves four core capabilities, and we have segmented the space into two categories:
Journey visioning, which focuses on data fusion, journey design and planning, and journey testing and optimization.
Journey orchestration, which includes the journey visioning capabilities but also delivers — and places a greater emphasis on — journey automation and orchestration.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY IT MATTERS : this is a new category of products that I was unaware of before now. With the importance of customer centricity in the digital transformation, I expect these tools to be very useful in large organizations.
Now there’s Robomart, which wants to bring the groceries, baked goods and prepared foods of the supermarket aisle to your doorstep with a white-labeled service for wholesalers and big box retailers.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY IT MATTERS: retailers beware. Or maybe not. I've seen trucks come to parking lots of warehouses where I worked summer jobs for years - they also cover garage and other locations where there are workers but no time or no convenience store close by. This robomart may replace those and expand to convenience store after...
Dave Mercer has been driving trucks across America since 1986. He has hauled ice cream to Nevada, burgers to Oregon, and trailers to Baltimore. “It can be a rough life,” he says. “You’re away from…
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY IT MATTERS: self-driving cars may actually impact the truck transportation industry in a huge way. The papers explores how it will do so.
Livestock Labs is getting bio-monitors under cows’ skin in hopes of helping farmers spot disease earlier, and it wants to bring its tech to people, too.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY IT MATTERS: we often think of fitbits as gadgets. They are but are also paving the way for future products that have huge potential.
This report from leading global research and advisory firm, Forrester, identifies the 12 most significant customer journey analytics platform providers today, and reveals how each measures up based on 26 different evaluation criteria, to help you make the right choice for your organization. You'll get a complete overview of the current customer journey analytics market, including:
The two primary journey analytics provider categories, visioning and orchestration, and four core capabilities: (1) data fusion, (2) journey design & planning, (3) journey testing & optimization, and (4) journey automation & orchestration
The 2018 Forrester Wave Journey Visioning Platform rankings and scorecard
A breakdown of each journey analytics provider’s offering, strengths, specialties, and customer base
Key criteria that helps leaders stand out from the pack
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY IT MATTERS : this is a new category of products that I was unaware of before now. With the importance of customer centricity in the digital transformation, I expect these tools to be very useful in large organizations.
In the short term, SCALE AI will adopt and scale existing supply chain (SC) solutions implemented by members to drive immediate benefits.
SCALE AI will identify SC challenges and needs, agree on core requirements and drive towards common standards and processes. Moreover, it will encourage SC/AI/digital providers to collaborate, extend existing AI-based offerings, and share data. This will result in facilitated connections between supply chain users and SC/AI/digital providers to accelerate adoption of existing solutions.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY IT MATTERS: the website provides a number of use case and examples of the use of AI in supply chain, along with a very comprehensive framework to put the pieces together.
WHY IT MATTERS: the website provides a number of use case and examples of the use of AI in supply chain, along with a very comprehensive framework to put the pieces together.
A powerhouse squad of members of the Wikibrands Collective discussing some of the general discussions and debates on business and digital transformation.
What is “business transformation”?
What’s the role of technology?
What is business transformation trying to achieve?
What is the biggest success factor of business transformation?
What is the top barrier to transformation?
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY IT MATTERS: a shameless bit of self promotion for our first webcast on digital transformation with other members of the wikibrands collective that is starting to take shape. Short, 20 minutes discussion on important topics to consider regarding digital transformation
In our 26-criterion evaluation of web content management system (web CMS) providers, we identified the 15 most significant ones — Acquia, Adobe, Amplience, Automattic, BloomReach, Contentful, CoreMedia, Crownpeak, Episerver, Kentico Software, Magnolia, OpenText, Progress, SDL, and Sitecore — and researched, analyzed, and scored them. This report shows how each provider measures up and helps digital experience (DX) and strategy professionals make the right choice.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY IT MATTERS: most recent review of top technologies for web specialists. Always good reference to check out first.
Retailers at the Future Stores event in Seattle had a lot to say about where they thought the future of the store is headed. Here are some of the top takeaways.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY IT MATTERS: I read and research this topic *a lot* and find this summary is capturing some of the key issues retailers face today in their digital transformation. Must read.
With such fast-paced change in the technology landscape it's impossible for us to keep everything in view on the latest Radar. Using this A-Z you can browse everything that has ever been featured on the Radar, as well as search for specific technologies that you're interested in.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY IT MATTERS: this is a great reference when you are considering a software development technology and would like to know where it places with experts in terms of adoption maturity.
The Technology Radar is our thoughts on emerging technology trends in the industry. Read the latest here.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY IT MATTERS: technology moves fast and the tech radar is a great reference for technology practitioners. Not for the faith at heart because it is full of acronyms and product names.
The future of retail by Trendwatching: "Because while consumers may not care about the future of retail, they’re still busy creating that future. They’re fueled by a set of unchanging human needs. And their expectations never stand still. They want greater convenience. They want better value. They want excitement, meaning, status, relevance, authenticity, social connection and more."
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY IT MATTERS: retail is being disrupted and nobody knows what to do, what works and what doesn't. Here's a run down of 9 trends to help you sort it out.
At a glance: IoT in 2017 IoT is at the core of digital transformation in the enterprise. It’s changing the playing field for organizations in every sector—helping them increase operational efficiency and grow their businesses. Organizations have so far focused on simple use cases to track data and send status alerts. But, in 2017, IoT has become enterprise-grade. IoT platforms are providing a single environment for developing and managing applications. New low-power networks are enabling organizations to deploy IoT quicker—helping lower costs.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY IT MATTERS: this report presents useful framework and use cases for IOT in retail. Moreover it highlights the importance of communications networks in the deployment and operations of IOT solutions.
IoT in Retail Market size was valued at over USD 9 billion in 2016 and will grow at more than 19% CAGR to 2024 led by digital signage, payments and supply chain management applications.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY IT MATTERS: internet connected objects will impact the retail industry and make possible the new shopping experience that has been put forward by marketers and innovative store owners. Here the report proposes a framework to consider when preparing an IOT strategy.
Deliveroo has now opened the doors for big-name restaurants to cook offsite in the new Editions ‘super kitchen’ where food is made specifically for delivery orders only.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY IT MATTERS: food distribution and food service is being disrupted by new concepts such as prepared meals (ie. missFresh with Metro), UBEReats and now deliveroo super kitchen. It addresses one of the biggest issue in eCommerce today: delivery. By rethinking the process of preparing meals around the customer needs (here eat at home) and taking advantage of digital technologies it is possible to transform the process to personalize the experience while keeping costs to a minimum.
So instead of trying to battle Amazon using the legacy inventory model — hoping that whatever is in stores will compel customers to make purchases — retailers are focusing experience driven through convenience. To do that, retailers are reducing friction at checkout, giving customers to options to pick up or ship items to stores, and adding digital tools to help find products either in the store or online, if they’re out of stock.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY IT MATTERS: this short article is very clear: retailers are changing the "function" of their stores from inventory display to service + experience. This is made possible by large investments in technology to enable mobility in store (wifi, tablet to employees, software for employees) and links to backoffice and online systems (ERP for inventory and order management, eCommerce for online availability, same-day shipping). Of course this means huge investments that have traditionally not been made as they were considered "not useful" because not necessary in the legacy operating model.
Securitas 2018 investor update conference presents the strategy for the future.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY IT MATTERS: the security industry will be transformed with digital technologies, sensors, big data, drones, AI and other disruptive technologies. Start the video around 1:20:00 in the section #3
Ocado's new warehouse has thousands of robots zooming around a grid system to pack groceries. The thousands of robots can process 65,000 orders every week. They communicate on a 4G network to avoid bumping into each other. Is this the future of retail?
As the API or "application programming interface" becomes the primary interface for business (in much the same way physical storefronts gave way to applications and websites), we're seeing a new chapter in the story of software emerge. While it's playing out against the backdrop of other trends (microservices, software-defined networking, developers as buyers, and connectivity as a utility), the big idea here is that traditional, large programs are being broken down into and being offered as -- or with data exposed to -- services. But more importantly, these pieces and services are being recombined by other companies to create something new... it’s combinatorial innovation in action. In this talk (originally delivered at our most recent annual a16z Summit in November 2017), general partner Martin Casado describes the evolution of "the API economy" in the context of the history of computing; shares examples of companies whose entire business is based on or around APIs; considers implications for future infrastructure, IT business leaders, and others; and shares how APIs are already fueling the expansion of software eating the world.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY IT MATTERS: a short video from well-know investors that explain the importance of APIs and the opportunities it provides.
Shimona Mehta, Head of Revenue Acceleration for Shopify Plus, talks about the future of e-commerce and the key trends that are shaping the space. She talks about the three key trends shaping e-commerce today: Constantly shifting consumer behaviour, the need for retailers to innovate, and the rapid growth of direct-to-consumer sales. Watch the video for insights from Mehta on what these trends mean for your business.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY IT MATTERS: another point of view from an ecommerce pure play shopify. Interesting tidbits although there are a few commons grounds.
This chart shows a distribution of worldwide downstream traffic, by web application in 2018.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY IT MATTERS: I reported in 2015 that Netflix + YouTube accounted for 55% of web traffic. Their share is down only because the other streaming video services are growing. Also interesting from this chart that HTTP (good old web browsing), now only accounts for less than 10%. This means video is the medium of choice, cable TV is on it's way out (so expect more growth) and 5G mobile coverage will be in high demand when it becomes available soon...
In this article, we cover a variety of examples in which AI is being integrated in the retail industry, broken down into the following sub-categories: Sales and CRM Applications, Customer Recommendations, Manufacturing, Logistics and Delivery, Payments and Payment Services
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY IT MATTERS: some of the use cases may be far fetched but still give a good idea of what is possible (not necessarily what is useful...). Good to know nevertheless.
If you’re new to this, a “marketing stack” is the collection of software that a marketing team uses to ply their trade. The Stackies is a fun awards program at the MarTech conference where we invite marketers to send in a single slide that illustrates their marketing stack in some conceptual way.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY IT MATTERS: learning from what best in class companies do is always good thing. This award from chiefmartech surfaces the best marketing technology "Stacks" - the list of technologies and solutions that marketing team at Cisco, IBM and others use to do their work - provides insights into the tools that companies leverage to do their work. And with over 6500 solutions in the marketing horizon, finding the "right" set of tools is so difficult that mapping yourself to what others are doing may be a good starting point!
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WHY IT MATTERS : this is a new category of products that I was unaware of before now. With the importance of customer centricity in the digital transformation, I expect these tools to be very useful in large organizations.