SMAC _ Can It Maximise Staff and Customer Engagement? RWTS
@DevinAkin keynote at Retail Week Technology Summit - London, UK - September 26 2013 | RWTS @retailweek
28. 28
By 2017 the marketing arm of businesses
will control more of the IT spend than IT
organizations at those companies.
- Gartner
29. 29
CMOs and CIOs Can Accomplish
the Extraordinary Together
Laura McLellan, Gartner for Marketing Leaders
laura.mclellan@gartner.com http://blogs.gartner.com/laura-mclellan/
49. Accenture found that the majority of respondents believe
that integrating in-store, online and mobile is the number
one thing that retailers can do to improve the shopping
experience.
– April 2013, Sample size = 6000
53. The New Moon Race:
Personalization and
Community
Doug Stevens @RetailProphet
http://blog.airtightnetworks.com/book-review-the-retail-revival-re-imagining-business-for-the-new-age-of-consumerism/
77. Decision Power and Budget
• Gartner predicts that by 2017 the
marketing arm of businesses will control
more of the IT spend than IT
organizations at those companies.
• Jeff Roster, research vice president at
market researcher Gartner feels that the
number of stores companies operate
could sway that a bit for the retail sector,
but the percentage of tech spending
designated for analytics in 2013 suggests
that the landscape is changing.
The S in SMAC stands for SOCIAL. Please feel free to comment on this session via your favorite social channel.
If you want, you can reference any of the following:
I’m sure that @retailweek is no stranger to any of you.
@DevinAkin is my Twitter handle and @AirTight is the handle for AirTight Networks.
Hashtag SMAC for easier reference.
I obviously won’t be able to engage you while I’m talking but know that I’ll get back to you if you have comments or question.
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If you download the material, be sure to view it in slideshow mode to benefit from the builds.
The presentation is linked back to URL source materials. Whether it’s a research study or a case study, you’ll be able to find it all in this presentation on our Slideshare channel.
Without further ado, let’s get social and talk #SMAC.
Let’s hold questions to the end of the presentation. After the session concludes, don’t be shy about sharing your business card if you want to keep the dialog going.
The are four broad objectives to our #SMAC session.
SMAC matters a lot across all industry segments – but especially in the RETAIL sector.
Our first session objective is around gaining a better understanding of SMAC and why it’s so critical to your retail success.
Secondly, we explore IT and Marketing collaboration opportunities. SMAC is a team effort.
Third: The customer experience is central to retail SMAC. You can create a compelling and engaging experience your customers will value ONLY if you LISTEN, LEARN and then ENGAGE.
There’s a reason why we have 2 ears and one mouth.
You can’t skip to ENGAGE without first doing LISTEN and LEARN.
If you’ve done that, you probably have had some success and your customers will let you know.
Fourth: Last and certainly not least, through case study examples, we discuss how you can monetise your SMAC.
The customer perspective is the most compelling way to understand SMAC.
We illustrate the power of SMAC through several customer success stories.
PDFs are available for the customers mentioned in my presentation.
BYOD recently was added to the Oxford dictionary. Next year, my money is on SMAC.
So what is SMAC?
Some of you know but some of you probably don’t know what I’m talking about even though I’ve mentioned the term several times.
SMAC stands for SOCIAL, MOBILE, ANALYICS and CLOUD.
SMAC is a term that is credited to Malcom Frank of Cognizant. Frank wrote a very compelling white paper on how SMAC is reshaping the enterprise.
Mark D. Iwanowski , the person who leads the Enterprise Business Accelerator practice at Cognizant recently told us that VC funding for a vendor or startup must meet the SMAC criteria. As he puts it, SMAC is the future.
SMAC isn’t only about you but also your partners.
Famous Silicon Valley business author Geoffrey A. Moore - “Crossing the Chasm, Inside the Tornado, Dealing with Darwin, Living On The Fault Line, and The Gorilla Game” endorses Malcom Frank’s views on SMAC.
Read about it at “When it comes to sussing out the future of enterprise IT, you’ve got to talk SMAC.”
http://www.amazon.com/Geoffrey-A.-Moore/e/B000APBO2I
The SMAC model calls for evaluating individual technology investments by how well they help you integrate social, mobile, analytics, and cloud services to transform your enterprise.
Before SMAC was SMAC, there were Gartner’s 4 forces that are shaping the future of IT. This model is quite powerful.
First, is there a access play? This is MOBILE.
Two, what is the delivery method for that play? It must be CLOUD.
Three, what are the “behavioral” implications? This is SOCIAL.
And four, CONTEXT which is derived from INFORMATION or ANALYTICS.
This is going to be the sequence of how we get acquainted with SMAC: ACCESS, DELIVERY, BEHAVIOR, and CONTEXT and why having offerings that contain elements of all four is a must for your retail future.
The convergence of SOCIAL, MOBILE, ANALYTICS, and CLOUD is the Nexus of Forces that will transform your business.
According to Gartner “Although these forces are innovative and disruptive on their own, together they are revolutionizing business and society, disrupting old business models and creating new leaders,”
This is a screenshot from a Retail Information Systems webinar with Jeff Roster who leads Gartner’s Retail practice. Jeff highlights how SMAC’s impact is felt to varying degrees across industry verticals.
Media and Retail are viewed as the 2 industries that will be most impacted by SMAC.
In fact, media and retail’s survival calls for a complete “business model redesign”.
At the heart of the SMAC model is relentless focus on the customer experience.
First there was “commerce”
Then there was e-commerce.
Now your customers are expecting “commerce-everywhere”.
Bob Willet, former CEO of big box electronics retailer Best Buy says it best: we should drop the “e” out of e-commerce and just call it what customers expect: commerce.
As you may know, Best Buy fought (and lost) a battle on the grounds of protecting itself against “showrooming”. That doesn’t make for a great business model …
In “commerce”, there’s bound to be showrooming and reverse-showrooming (researching something online and then buying it, or picking it up at a storefront). They are expected. Build a value-prop around it instead of defending against the inevitable.
Doug Stephens also known as the @RetailProphet or one of the retail industry’s futurist, predicts that retailers must position around SMAC or risk becoming fossils.
Check out this excellent blog post on the danger of “retail fossilization”.
Stephens believes that forward thinking retailers will transform – not just evolve their business models.
This view supports what Gartner’s Jeff Roster depicted in his industry 2x2 SMAC chart
Leslie Hand, one of the author’s of IDC State of the Retail Industry report states that the winners will have a “whole person” understanding of each customer
before,
during &
beyond
each shopping journey to purchase.
SMAC calls for SILO busting across lines of business. Increasingly, we’re getting called on by different stakeholders.
In some ways, we end up providing linkages between groups that should be working together.
With SMAC, there’s the emergence of different titles and functions.
We’ve met with “Chief Customer Officers”, “Chief Experience Officers”, and “Chief of Marketing Technologies”. SMAC it’s not the exclusive domain of the CIO.
The writing is on the wall. The emergence of new customer facing titles like CCO, CXO, and CMT suggest that there’s a new power broker .
CIO working for a CMO? The CIO of Marketing is a CMT?
Titles and groups are getting SMACked!
Gartner predicts that by 2017, the marketing arm of businesses will control more of the IT spend than IT organizations at those companies.
Gartner’s Laura McLellan leads a specific practice around the evolving role of the CMO; underscoring that it’s not about whether it’s Marketing or IT, but that collaboration is the key to success.
The rate of change will not accommodate or reward SILOed empires within the enterprise.
For more on this subject, you can follow Laura McLellan at http://blogs.gartner.com/laura-mclellan/
To win at retail SMAC is to pick collaboration for the sake of customer advocacy.
The alternative is to pick fossilization as your goal.
Remember that blue triangle, Gartner’s top 4 forces of IT?
Let’s start with ACCESS by looking at mobile.
In-room Wi-Fi is overwhelmingly the most important factor that influences a booking decision.
Wi-Fi is something you can improve on that will directly impact the customer experience.
How much better can you make a “mini-bar”?
Travelers are well connected and carry up to 4 web-enabled devices.
Extrapolate the notion of Wi-Fi and web-enabled devices beyond the travel industry.
An individual is likely to “travel” from home to work, stop by the coffee shop on the way to the office, post an update on Facebook or Twitter, grab lunch during the day and possibly go shopping on the way home, surf the web while watching TV … you get the picture.
Always-on customers will be the norm … why not start by giving them something the value – even prize about all else connectivity
Pinkberry is a franchise of upscale frozen dessert restaurants headquartered in Los Angeles, California.
At the heart of what makes Pinkberry unique is the Pinkberry promise:
“We believe in the power of human connection and service”
The marketing organization at Pinkberry contacted AirTight about a loyalty card program idea.
Having clear goals helps: Increase Customer Engagement with loyalty program and drive adoption of the Pinkberry mobile app.
BUSINESS DRIVERS
Pinkcard customer loyalty program and mobile app
Improve customer experience
Increase in repeat customer visits
SUCCESS FOR PINKBERRY
Success of the Pinkcard program beyond expectations
Swift rollout of secure Wi-Fi across 170+ stores worldwide
No need to add any IT staff
Built-in automated security simplified PCI compliance
Notice that the stated goal was never something like “deploy Wi-Fi in our stores”. Rather, on the customer journey to signing up for a Pinkcard Internet connectivity was viewed as an enabler thereby increasing the probability of a conversion i.e. sign up for the card while in the store.
Adoption goals were exceeded in the first month.
Noodles & Company, sometimes referred to as Noodles, is a chain of fast casual restaurants located in the United States specializing in proprietary and regionally popular pasta bowls inspired from worldwide cuisine all made-to-order.
To date, Colorado based Noodles is the most successful US IPO of 2013.
Providing a reliable, secure in-store Wi-Fi experience while minimizing operational capex and opex were top of mind in light of their upcoming IPO.
SUCCESS FOR NOODLES
“3-in-1” Wi-Fi solution delivers significant cost savings
4 person IT support team can manage 300+ restaurants
Built-in wireless IPS and reporting automates PCI compliance
In the case of Garden Fresh Restaurant Corporation, their goal was to improve employee training with the use of tablets and to make managers mobile and able to work from anywhere in the store.
Employee turnover is higher in QSR and developing effective tablets based training programs lead to a quicker path to productivity which is essential to the bottom line.
Garden Fresh managers were once tethered to their desk thereby limiting their effectiveness within their storefront.
BUSINESS DRIVERS
Reliable, secure in-store Wi-Fi to improve employee work experience
Maintain Level-1 PCI compliance
SUCCESS FOR GARDEN FRESH
Store managers and district officers can work from anywhere in the store
Automated wireless security across 130 distributed locations
Built-in wireless security and reporting simplified PCI compliance
Now that we’ve looked at “access” through mobile, let’s turn our attention to “Delivery” through CLOUD.
Large distributed enterprise that’s growing.
YUM! Brands is the umbrealla brand for QSR’s that include Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, KFC, A&W and Long John Silver.
Stated differently, we’re taking about pizza, tacos, chicken, burgers and fish wich covers all the fast food groups!
BRIC (pronounced ‘brick’) countries will fuel growth on a global scale. Specifically, KFC will see most of its growth come from China.
AirTight Wi-Fi is being rolled out to over 17,000 locations across North America. YUM meets and exceeds security compliance standards and enables store operations across brand families and geographic territories. There’s a minimal IT staff as a result of the cloud and plug-and-play aspects f AirTight’s solution. YUM opted for a pure OPEX play thereby avoiding any CAPEX budget charges.
Special features were even designed to support the QSR business model. Depending on the nature of your business, you either want customers to have a short or long stay.
In the case of QSR, it’s an in-and-out model. It managers can centrally set Wi-Fi surfing thresholds to influence traffic patterns in their restaurants.
We’ve covered access with mobile, delivery with cloud, let’s move on to “behavior” with social.
The Syncapse study captures the value of what a Facebook like is worth to a B2C brand.
If 2 customers buy the same amount of product, let’s say Subway s/w to use another AirTight customer, the customer that likes Subway on FB is worth more to the company.
That extra worth come from social reference and earned media in the form of an endorsement.
From a SMAC point of view, you want to ensure that your business meets or exceeds security standards : to protect your business and your customer’s data.
As for “privacy”, many studies show that your customers are willing to share some personal info in return for value and engagement.
OPT-in is the key in unlocking the information that leads to meaningful excanges.
A recent Harvard Business Review blog article reports that despite highly publicized case around abuses of private information, 35% of buyers are willing to share personal info in return for meaningful offers such as a promotional coupon.
For a sample size of 25,000 over 18 countries, IBM reported in its 2013 Retail Study report that :
Customers want a personalized in-store experience that mirrors what they get online, and
That it seamlessly integrated across channels or OMNI in its approach.
The IBM report findings show that shoppers are willing to contribute up to 20 miutes of their time to “educate” a retailer on how to best engage with them.
Meaningful offers based on past purchases
Accenture, with a sample size of 6000 over 8 countries, reports that 80% of customers welcome that special coupons be sent to their mobile phones.
Still in the Accenture study, 47% of shoppers reported better shopping experiences with store associates that consulted technology tools for product info.
As for Millenials – or digital natives – they’re willing to spend up to 26 minutes of their time to “teach” retailers’ how to better interact with them.
Your customers are a social bunch.
They care that financial transaction data be safeguarded.
They also will forgo some level of privacy in exchange for something of value
The key is that this exchange needs to be up-front and consentual i.e. OPT-in and not OPT-out
Doug Stephens, author of Retail Revival thinks that the new moon race – or the singular target and focus of retail – needs to be personalization and community.
Last but not least, the fourth component of SMAC is context of information which is ANALYTICS.
Most everyone understands the basic “coupon” offer flow as shown in these mobile screens.
But think a bit more broadly what can be achieved by coupling presence data with the weather forecast and the offer that you can push to your customers.
In one part of the country it’s blistering hot, you offer up cold beverage options instead of hot ones.
In another part of the country, it’s raining or snowing and umbrellas and shovels might be more a propos …
Want to unload inventory based on it’s actual location and proximity to your customers, have a flash sale. Or better yet, stage a flash sale given that a nearby festival is taking place near your store front.
Every time Stanford University has a home football game, it’s no accident that thousands of shoppers descend on nearby Stanford shopping center.
Social Wi-Fi and Analytics is where the clicks meet the bricks.
Making sense of seemingly unrelated pieces of data, you can uncover nuggets of information that will help you better engage with your customers and your partners.
OPT-in cloud based wocial Wi-Fi will yeild valuable information that can best be obtained via Wi-Fi.
At a very basic level, anonymous or presence analytics will help you determine how many devices walk by your store or walk into your store.
From this information, you can then derive loyalty information about these visitors.
What’s the level of engagement of these vistors, and
Wi-Fi Usage analtyics.
Compare dwell times and foot traffic across groupings of stores, uncover patterns.
Would you like to offer a repeat visitor a different offer?
If your vistor accepts terms-of-use and opt-in to social Wi-Fi in your store, cull information patterns and heat maps based on gender, age, repeat visits, and preferred social channel and preferred device.
Wouldn’t you want to know what type of smart devices and social channels that your customers prefer? Wouldn’t that help you prioritize your IT investments?
Depending who your customer is will dictate the social channels of choice.
We show Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin in our examples but there’s no reason it couldn’t be Instagram or Pinterest if that’s what your customers care about and what to use as a social sign-in.
For mobile commerce or SMAC revenue, operational efficiency through employee training, floor efficiency (mobile payments and line busting), or marketing loyalty programs for better social engagement supported by customer analytics … who knew that you could fuel all that with retail SMAC.
Our customer case study examples were specific to Secure cloud Wi-Fi and Analytics .
The AirTight solution –meets the SMAC criteria.
Tell them what you told them …
Today we discussed how …
While the “moon race” for retail is about personalization and community – according to Doug Stephens @RetailProphet.
I think that it’s more appropriate to reach for the stars. They are similar yet different, each requires a unique approach which can only be achieved through retail SMAC.