One in Every Five Mobile Users Actively Seeks Help While Using an App

Vice President and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research
Constellation Research

Role: Vice President and Principal Analyst focusing on the IOT of Customer Experience and how the cloud is driving more flexible, agile, and robust customer service and customer experiences. In-app or in device customer service is the future. Coverage Areas: Next Generation Customer, Digital Marketing Transformation Bio: As a Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research, Inc, Petouhoff works with Fortune 100 and 500’s Senior Leadership teams to create strategic customer experience (marketing, sales and service) solutions which engage customers, build brands and grow businesses. Combining her experience as a former Forrester software analyst, PWC systems integrator and change management consultant, Petouhoff leads executive workshops to discuss to not only…...

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Helpshift, a mobile support platform revealed new proprietary data that showed:

• One in every five mobile users actively seeks help within the apps they use.
• Of the 1.3 billion mobile devices polled, 20% percent actively sought help.
• An estimated 95% of mobile apps in the app store lack an in-app channel for customers to get immediate support.
• Of the 284 million users who actively sought help in-app, only seven percent proceeded to file a support ticket after utilizing a specific self-service FAQ provided in-app, thus proving the efficacy of proactive in-app support.

Abinash Tripathy, CEO and co-founder at Helpshift said, “At Helpshift our goal is to bring Customer Relationship Management (CRM) into the post-PC era said this data proves the value of in-app customer support. Just as other technology is evolving, so too is CRM and customer support. We must tailor our support to our customers needs and meet them in the channel they prefer which is in-app, so that brands can engage and retain mobile customers. Helpshift achieves that goal as the leading support platform built specifically for mobile. We’ll continue to help companies provide the best support we can and keep their customers returning to their apps.”

A Bit About Helpshift: Helpshift is the world’s leading customer support platform for retaining and engaging mobile customers. Through an all in one SDK, Helpshift makes it easy for businesses, large and small, to support for their customers through in-app FAQ’s, in-app Chat, a full CRM ticketing system, in app campaigns, and in app surveys, allowing companies to provide a best in class customer support experience on  mobile. Companies such as Microsoft, Target, Glu, Zynga, WordPress and others use the Helpshift platform for in-app support. To date, Helpshift has raised $13.2 million and is backed by Intel Capital, True Ventures, Visionnaire Ventures and Nexus Venture Partners. To learn more about Helpshift, visit https://www.helpshift.com and follow @helpshift on Twitter.

Mobile customer service is very important, as more and more customers are using their mobile devices. Getting help on a mobile device can be very frustrated and companies need to evaluate their ability to service their customers on this very important device / channel.

@DrNatalie Petouhoff, VP and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research

11 Types of Content to Make Your B2B Marketing Sing

Gavin Heaton

Founder
Disruptors Co

Gavin is the Founder of Disruptors Co, one of Australia’s leading independent strategy and innovation companies. Gavin advises firms on strategy, marketing, product development and innovation. He is also a member of the Orbits program, the influencer network of award winning analyst and advisory firm, Constellation Research. Gavin advises boards and leadership on innovation strategy, marketing, data-driven product development and corporate venturing. Gavin is on the board of Vibewire, a youth-led social enterprise based in Sydney, Australia and on the Technology Advisory Group for Good2Give – the workplace giving platform. ...

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Be under no illusions – content marketing is hard work. It takes planning, resources and focus. But it is also one of the most rewarding forms of marketing that you can do professionally and individually. Not only does content marketing challenge you to clearly communicate – it often brings you up close and personal with customers as well as your sales teams.

These meetings give you the chance to listen, absorb and understand the challenges that people have in their work. And if you are lucky – and creative enough – you can design content that will help them solve that problem. Or understand a solution better. Or simply just bring a smile to their face.

Content marketing is a performance

When I studied theatre I was fascinated by the way that text on a page could be brought to life by an actor. I loved listening to the way that words could be rolled around the mouth and thrown into an audience. A good text in the hands of a great performer can take your breath away. Brilliant writing when coupled with an electrifying performance can change lives.

Now, I am not saying that your content marketing needs to profoundly change lives. Done right, it can. But you do want your content marketing to stand out from the crowd. You want it to become indispensible to your audience. And for that it needs to perform.

This infographic from Feldman Creative is a great reference on the 11 types of content that can help your marketing perform better. It includes handy information on benefits, costs to outsource and even a couple of power tips.

What are you waiting for? Get planning and then producing. There’s an audience waiting.

Trusting Self-Service Analytics: Teradata and Alation Partner to Build Better Application

Vice President and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research
Constellation Research

Role: Vice President and Principal Analyst focusing on the IOT of Customer Experience and how the cloud is driving more flexible, agile, and robust customer service and customer experiences. In-app or in device customer service is the future. Coverage Areas: Next Generation Customer, Digital Marketing Transformation Bio: As a Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research, Inc, Petouhoff works with Fortune 100 and 500’s Senior Leadership teams to create strategic customer experience (marketing, sales and service) solutions which engage customers, build brands and grow businesses. Combining her experience as a former Forrester software analyst, PWC systems integrator and change management consultant, Petouhoff leads executive workshops to discuss to not only…...

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• Teradata will re-sell the Alation Data Catalog to Teradata customers and prospects struggling to achieve trust in data – in those data environments that have grown more complex with big data. 
• Alation is currently in use at several large Teradata customer organizations. For example, eBay was recently honored at Teradata PARTNERS Conference and Expo with a Teradata EPIC Award  for its self-service analytics with Alation.
• The Teradata and Alation partnership includes joint engineering, joint sales engagement and joint marketing.
• Teradata customers will be able to obtain licenses for Alation software under their existing Teradata agreement.

Facebook Audience Optimization Capabilities: What Does it Mean for You?

Vice President and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research
Constellation Research

Role: Vice President and Principal Analyst focusing on the IOT of Customer Experience and how the cloud is driving more flexible, agile, and robust customer service and customer experiences. In-app or in device customer service is the future. Coverage Areas: Next Generation Customer, Digital Marketing Transformation Bio: As a Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research, Inc, Petouhoff works with Fortune 100 and 500’s Senior Leadership teams to create strategic customer experience (marketing, sales and service) solutions which engage customers, build brands and grow businesses. Combining her experience as a former Forrester software analyst, PWC systems integrator and change management consultant, Petouhoff leads executive workshops to discuss to not only…...

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Audience Optimization is a new tool that reveals the hundreds of thousands of categories Facebook divides its users into, but also the number of people who belong to each one. The tool allows any official page manager to identify the “Preferred Audience” for a post by searching for and selecting interests relevant to the story. To help make sure these interests are just right, i.e, not too niche nor too broad, Facebook auto-completes interests and displays the total audience size for each one. This is not as a subset of your page’s followers, but as a subset of all Facebook users. Most interests are sorted into broad categories like Lifestyle and Culture, People, or News and Entertainment. It is the closest complete, ranked list of every interest on Facebook.

Facebook says there are 839 million interested in love and 571 million in happiness. These are larger compared to the 88 million interested in categories like the 28 million interested in envy, 41 million in crying, 81 million in boredom and 88 million interested sin. These categories and interests are formulated algorithmically from popular Facebook open graph pages (the articles, music, and videos being shared), Facebook Ads tags, and other Facebook data sets. The list suggests that the algorithms are scraping keywords from people’s posts. (Facebook says Messenger was not included.)

If you want more info, take a look at What the Verge did: they created the top 10 biggest audiences in a few categories: celebrities, 2016 presidential candidates, positive and negative emotions, gadgets, and a sampling of the most bespoke hipster interests with fewer than 30 followers. Note that audience size does not take into account sentiment. So just because Donald Trump has 20 million may not mean it’s all positive or flattering. They have extracted the top 2,001 interests here, or you can download the exhaustive 18.2 MB list. They even made an interactive Facebook popularity quiz.

These lists show us what Facebook is learning about people who post there. Facebook was clear that Preferred Audiences are not (necessarily) the same as its advertising tags. However, but they both rely on similar algorithms to sort users and target us with content. So if you are wondering why you see certain ads, this may help to explain some of that. Will this be helpful or hurtful to agencies? For marketers, this could be very helpful in target marketing. As a regular person, be careful what you post. You’ll probably see more of the same; these platforms we all use are definitely into collecting our data.

@DrNatalie, VP and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research

Covering Customer-Facing Applications That Deliver Better Customer Experiences

Twitter may pivot to customer service to drive revenue

Vice President and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research
Constellation Research

Role: Vice President and Principal Analyst focusing on the IOT of Customer Experience and how the cloud is driving more flexible, agile, and robust customer service and customer experiences. In-app or in device customer service is the future. Coverage Areas: Next Generation Customer, Digital Marketing Transformation Bio: As a Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research, Inc, Petouhoff works with Fortune 100 and 500’s Senior Leadership teams to create strategic customer experience (marketing, sales and service) solutions which engage customers, build brands and grow businesses. Combining her experience as a former Forrester software analyst, PWC systems integrator and change management consultant, Petouhoff leads executive workshops to discuss to not only…...

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How does Twitter make money? Good question. Many companies use it for Customer Service – as consumers have figured out it’s a great place to embrace a company into fixing a customer service issue that has not been resolved or just to get the brand’s attention. With the announcement of Silicon Valley investor Marc Andreessen and firm Silver Lake Partners, shares of Twitter jumped nearly 8%.

According to The Information, several investors in Silicon Valley are pulling together plans to buy or restructure the company. There have been conversations around an potential acquisition as some of the senior executives are changing guard, including the head of product and engineering, CEO Jack Dorsey, leaving last month.

One of the questions from investors is how quickly is Twitter adding new monthly active users? Last quarter, Twitter missed the Wall Street forecast, with only 307 M active monthly users. Twitter is used by many people to keep in touch, drive change in foreign countries, provide insights into what consumers think is value and whether they need Customer Service help. Some companies, like Dell, have used it to sell refurbished lap tops and generate revenue. Twitter also provides an invaluable source of customer data. The question for Twitter is what can they offer brands, that they would pay for? It will be interesting to see how one of the darlings of social media ends up!

@DrNatalie, VP and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research

Covering Customer-Facing Applications that Drive Better Customer Experiences

Done Right, Content Marketing is No Swindle

Gavin Heaton

Founder
Disruptors Co

Gavin is the Founder of Disruptors Co, one of Australia’s leading independent strategy and innovation companies. Gavin advises firms on strategy, marketing, product development and innovation. He is also a member of the Orbits program, the influencer network of award winning analyst and advisory firm, Constellation Research. Gavin advises boards and leadership on innovation strategy, marketing, data-driven product development and corporate venturing. Gavin is on the board of Vibewire, a youth-led social enterprise based in Sydney, Australia and on the Technology Advisory Group for Good2Give – the workplace giving platform. ...

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In my first real marketing role, I felt like a complete fraud. I had stumbled into marketing and strategy while working for IBM and had the good fortune to work with a “startup” (whatever that was) developing a platform for online communities. I was simultaneously a product manager, sales exec, marketing director, tech support and partner manager. I was the only person within IBM who knew anything much about this amazing new technology and it was my job to convince the sales teams that their media, sports and retail clients needed to learn more. The thing was, I had no idea what to do.

I needed a plan.

Each day I would arrive early and trawl the intranet. I’d find templates for presentations and customer pitches, information and technology architecture, marketing plans and branding. It seemed like there was a system to marketing that could be pieced together if I just had the time. But it was IBM. No one had the time.

So I doubled down. I chose to study late and early and put what I learned into practice. I set meetings with sales execs and asked them lots of questions. I listened, followed up and gave them what they needed. Gradually, a strategy came into view. By the time I moved to a new role, I had a mental system for sales enablement. I had a marketing plan. And I knew how the puzzle pieces connected.

Suddenly in a new role for a management consulting firm, I was amazed to learn that there were no fundamentals in place. No messaging. No positioning. No brand consistency. Certainly no aspiration. There wasn’t even a presentation template that could be used. It felt like the brand had stepped out of the 1950s and liked the cut of its own jib.

So I started planning. I needed the sales team on side. I needed the consultants to rethink the way they talked about the brand. And I needed to set an example. Most importantly, I needed to overcome the massive store of legacy collateral that consultants carried around with them. After all, our challenge was growth, and it’s hard to grow when your eye is locked on the past. The solution was staring me in the face – content. Good quality content.

Quality content is a business asset

I realised that if I wanted to get consultants to use my (and by “my” I mean “our”) new branding, case studies, templates and so on, then they needed to be better than what was already available. The presentations needed to be fresher and more direct. The case studies needed to be current and relevant to client needs. And we needed to focus on recognisable talent – CEOs of major clients, CIOs that knew how to bring business and IT together, and CFOs who wanted to prove they had business nous to take the next step.

So again, I started with a plan.

Our research and client interviews yielded vital insights. We needed data. We needed real world business problems. And we needed proof points that reinforced our new, strategic offerings and traditional service lines. So we scheduled interviews and follow-ups. We measured website traffic and downloads. I worked with my team to write dozens of new offering briefs, solution profiles, case studies and one pagers. All of these were on-brand and on-message. Then we briefed the CEO and the Board, sent out internal communications, updated the intranet, shared new templates and tools and launched the new website. We even had new plasma screens installed in the reception area to greet clients, with a customisable message and co-branding.

Pretty soon we realised that we had created a whole new class of business asset. Consultants from across the country started requesting interviews and case studies using our new formula. We produced internal podcasts – or what we now call “podcasts” – as downloadable MP3 files containing the latest news updates, client wins and thought leadership interviews. It was content marketing way before content marketing. And it worked:

• We improved our revenues
• We improved our profitability
• We launched new products and service lines in record time
• We scored new clients.

Perhaps most importantly, we gained the respect of our colleagues.

Content marketing is old school B2B marketing in a new frock

These days we have better tools and processes. We can create content much faster. We can generate whole infographics not just charts with just a few clicks. Videos can be shot, compiled and edited, uploaded and distributed right on your phone. Checklists, lists and websites can be updated more easily – and marketing automation not only sends emails but tracks, nurtures and sequences a whole customer journey.

Even still, the principles are the same. Content marketing is a lot of work. It takes effort and planning. It’s still B2B marketing, just gussied up in a new frock. But it does the heavy lifting of marketing super effectively. As Sarah Mitchell explains on LinkedIn:

When done well, content marketing turns your marketing expense into a long-term business asset. It’s a highly effective way to attract an audience and build trust with your customers and prospects. It’s less expensive than traditional marketing and advertising methods – a lot less expensive. If decision makers and budget holders think content marketing doesn’t work, they vote for the easy alternative – advertising and traditional marketing. Both are less effective and leave you with no asset from your expenditure.

Sarah also shares some great tips to help you figure out whether your content marketing team (or agency) are delivering the value you need. There’s 25 indicators that help you determine “if a swindle is in play”, but these three are my favourites. Read the full list here.

1. 1. If you’re buying into content marketing without taking the time to develop a strategy, you’re being swindled
   2. If your content marketing is focused on social media with no plan to convert or move your audience off the social channel, you’re being swindled
   3. If there’s no plan on how to measure your effectiveness, you’re being swindled.

Adobe Completes Acquisition of comScore Digital Analytix Business

Vice President and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research
Constellation Research

Role: Vice President and Principal Analyst focusing on the IOT of Customer Experience and how the cloud is driving more flexible, agile, and robust customer service and customer experiences. In-app or in device customer service is the future. Coverage Areas: Next Generation Customer, Digital Marketing Transformation Bio: As a Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research, Inc, Petouhoff works with Fortune 100 and 500’s Senior Leadership teams to create strategic customer experience (marketing, sales and service) solutions which engage customers, build brands and grow businesses. Combining her experience as a former Forrester software analyst, PWC systems integrator and change management consultant, Petouhoff leads executive workshops to discuss to not only…...

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Adobe officially closed its acquisition of the technology assets and accounts of the comScore Digital Analytix business.

What this means for you: Adobe and comScore will work together to ensure that the business-critical workflows that Digital Analytix customers rely upon are not disrupted. They welcome all Digital Analytix customers into the Adobe family and will provide clients with the exceptional innovation and customer support.

Enterprise analytics is a strong and strategic focus at Adobe. In just the last few quarters they have shipped hundreds of new analytics capabilities; you can check out some of the most impactful features in the last few releases here. Adobe delivers innovation that is fueling customer insights, driving better decisions and improving business results for organizations in every industry. In the future they are looking to continue to forge ahead and lead the next frontier in analytics — customer intelligence across the enterprise.

What Does the Acquisition Mean? The acquisition expands the Adobe Analytics footprint in the enterprise media and entertainment vertical and strengthens Adobe’s presence in the European market. Adobe also sees potential operating synergies in continuing their development of analytics capabilities for the fast-growing digital video and media space. With the growth of cross-screen content consumption, particularly through over-the-top (OTT) devices, this acquisition allows Adobe to accelerate the delivery of more robust analytics capabilities to this key growth vertical. Adobe will enable media companies to benefit from deep insights into the performance of content across screens. This will allow customers to accurately measure and monetize content across every major IP-connected device, including desktops, smartphones, tablets, game consoles and OTT boxes.

Additionally, this acquisition gives Adobe an expanded customer base in which to introduce their other Adobe Marketing Cloud solutions. To learn more about their current strategy and product offerings, you can go here: adobe.com/analytics. And for additional details about the transaction, you can review these updated FAQs.

The drive for marketing / customer analytics is one of the most important areas a company needs to consider. This acquisition will strengthen what Adobe is offering.

@DrNatalie, VP and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research

Covering Customer-Facing Applications to Drive Better Business Results

New Research: The ROI of Online Communities

Vice President and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research
Constellation Research

Role: Vice President and Principal Analyst focusing on the IOT of Customer Experience and how the cloud is driving more flexible, agile, and robust customer service and customer experiences. In-app or in device customer service is the future. Coverage Areas: Next Generation Customer, Digital Marketing Transformation Bio: As a Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research, Inc, Petouhoff works with Fortune 100 and 500’s Senior Leadership teams to create strategic customer experience (marketing, sales and service) solutions which engage customers, build brands and grow businesses. Combining her experience as a former Forrester software analyst, PWC systems integrator and change management consultant, Petouhoff leads executive workshops to discuss to not only…...

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I remember back in 2008-2009 being asked whether social / digital / communities had any business value. To me it was instinctively obvious, but I got that it was not obvious to others. In wanting others to see what I saw, I started down the road of creating ROI models for digital / social / online communities. Now many years later, I am hearing the same question so I revisited the topic in some new research, ROI of Online Cloud Communities. This report goes above and beyond what that early research I did discovered. 

I have interviewed at least 100 companies over the years and the stories all have had similar threads. While the actual use case might not have been exactly the same, they all had one similar component. That component? It was that there was a new level of open, honest, genuine and authentic communication. And note, ROI of online communities is NOT limited to customer service. That’s old news.

I remember reading about the predictions in the Cluetrain Manifesto. If you have not read that book, it is a must read. It was written in 1999-2000 time frame. It predicted where we are today in this digital / social / community oriented world. The ROI comes from better communication between all levels of employees, customers, partners – pretty much any stakeholder in a company and it’s customers. Whether B2B or B2C, B2B2C or whatever the business model is, what is true is those companies that are digitally enabled are more successful.

From Ray Wang’s book, Disrupting Digital Business By Ray Wang, the figure about shows it’s clear that digital leaders have more of the overall marketshare and percentage of profits. Why is that? Think about customers talking to companies and giving honest feedback that helps:

• Improve products and services and even helps the company innovate
• Reduces unnecessary steps or processes
• Helps executives understand what the trends are not only with their company but with others and provides that mission critical insight…

In the report, you will find 6 general areas that online communities can contribute to the two things that are very important to business – either reducing costs or increasing revenue. You can download the excerpt and learn more about what I discovered.

If you have built a community or are a community manager and have seen similar results, I’d love to hear more about them! Maybe even make it into our case study library! (And don’t forget Constellation’s SuperNova Awards for 2016!!) If you’ve done something extraordinary, I’d love to hear about it and include it in my research. There will be info on how to apply to the 2016 SuperNova Awards soon!

May you find yourself building a community — if not now, soon! Those that have can attest to the amazing value it brings to a company. And not just in soft benefits- there are many, many that I put into the ROI model that are tangible, bottom and top-line business benefits.

Download the table of contents and an excerpt of the report here

@DrNatalie Petouhoff, VP and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research

Covering Customer-facing applications and their business results!

10 Tips From The Chief Analytics Officer Forum

Doug Henschen

Former Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Doug Henschen is former Vice President and Principal Analyst where he focused on data-driven decision making. Henschen’s Data-to-Decisions research examines how organizations employ data analysis to reimagine their business models and gain a deeper understanding of their customers. Henschen's research acknowledges the fact that innovative applications of data analysis requires a multi-disciplinary approach starting with information and orchestration technologies, continuing through business intelligence, data-visualization, and analytics, and moving into NoSQL and big-data analysis, third-party data enrichment, and decision-management technologies. Insight-driven business models are of interest to the entire C-suite, but most particularly chief executive officers, chief digital officers,…...

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Chief analytics officers should be grounded in the business and deeply familiar with customer experience. From there, use more data, test, test, test and make the case for data-driven decisions.

Chief analytics officers are (or should be) just one step away from chief strategy officers.

This was just one of many pearls of wisdom heard at the January 26-27 Chief Analytics Officer Forum in New York. The event was attended by a who’s who gathering of CAOs, chief intelligence officers, analytics directors and aspirants to these roles from companies including American Express, AXA, Charles Schwab, Delta Airlines, Disney, McGraw Hill, the New York Times and State Farm Insurance.

Tips from the Chief Analytics Officer Forum

I attended only the second day of the CAOForum, but I came away with plenty of notes and my own thoughts on these 10 best practices for analytics leaders.

1. Deeply understand the customer experience to reduce friction. Keynote speaker Joe DeCosmo, CAO at global lender Enova International, said his team reviews customer website and call-center journeys on a regular basis to spot opportunities for improvement. The fix may not involve analytics, but in one instance Enova analysts found that a 50-percent reduction in page-load times led to 2.25-percent conversion-rate increase and a $1.5 million boost in incremental revenue for just one product. The lesson: great models can’t overcome bad processes.
2. Develop a test-and-learn culture. Amazon, CapitolOne and other leading companies have proven the value of testing. Andy Pulkstenis, director of analytics at State Farm Insurance, said willingness to test has a direct correlation to innovation. He encouraged CAOs to view failed tests as steps toward success. He cited the example of the highly successful product WD-40, which was invented only after the failed tests of water displacement formulas 1 through 39. 
   Most companies never progress beyond A/B or one-factor-at-a-time (OFAT) testing, Pulkstenis said. These techniques are powerful on their own, but State Farm also uses more sophisticated techniques include multivariate testing and multivariate testing with covariate analysis. In one simple A/B test of two direct-mail pieces promoting life insurance to new parents, State Farm found that a plain-text letter generated 45% higher lift than the same message and offer surrounded by baby imagery.
3. Abstract analytics from applications. In a rush to get to market, Enova built analytic models right into its transactional applications, but that’s not ideal, said DeCosmo. Removing analytics from the apps simplified ongoing analytical tuning and model swapping without disrupting the operational applications. In the bargain, Enova gained cloud-deliverable, real-time analytic services (for scoring, loan approval and more) that the company can now offer to non-competing lenders.
4. Document your work. How many analytics teams have models named after analysts that left the company years earlier? Or how often do you discover that you recreated work that was part of a previous project you didn’t know about? There were plenty of knowing smiles in the audience when DeCosmo posed these questions. To avoid do-over scenarios, DeCosmo advised teams to thoroughly document their work – analytical and otherwise. It’s a step that takes time and effort, but it pays dividends many times over as you can reuse IP, refine past work and avoid repeating mistakes.
5. Focus on “decision-time” analytics. Real-time and streaming analytics are getting lots of attention, but keep the real decision time in mind, advised Bill Franks, CAO at Teradata. The IRS, for example, doesn’t worry about real-time because it has weeks to detect fraud before it cuts refund checks. Conversely, one bank found it had to rethink overnight-batch updates when analysis revealed that three customer contacts in short succession about a single issue, like a bank fee, signal a high likelihood to churn. So if a customer’s Web query is followed by a phone call and, later that day, a branch visit, the branch manager can’t be warned to save the account if customer-service records don’t get inter-day updates.
6. Move from artisanal to automated. The science of analytics is moving into its industrial age, said Franks of Teradata, with automated options for choosing algorithms. The software-based, automated approaches may not yield a perfect model, but they’re probably good enough. “The point is to maximize the aggregate impact, not optimize every decision,” said Franks.
7. It’s not man versus machine; think man plus machine. Be open to new tools and technologies, but keep in mind that machines need human reality checks, advised Gina Papush, chief analytics and data officer at insurer QBE North America. “You sometimes have to override the model based on your own business knowledge or feedback from the business,” she said. Fellow panelists chimed in with many examples of machines turning out bad results that business-savvy analysts spotted right away. Undoubtedly necessary business rules and data inputs were lacking, but machines don’t know the difference.
8. Use more data to drive a deeper customer relationship. It’s always better to have more data and more data sources. DeCosmo of Enova said his firm added opt-in use of customer bank records to refine offers and give customers better terms. Samih Fadli, chief intelligence officer at digital agency Razorfish, encouraged attendees to enrich their first-party data to resolve to unique IDs, using third-party data and tracking of device IDs and Web cookies.
9. Be one step away from chief strategy officer. Firms start using analytics tactically, and many organization are maturing to use analytics enterprisewide. To take it level deeper, DeCosmo encouraged fellow CAOs to “put analytics at the heard of everything you do.” The aspirational goal of the analytics team at QBE, said Papush, is not just to be part of the practice, but central to the practice of identifying strategic opportunities.
10. Start with the top-five imperatives. Boiling down this advice to the basics, I’d say the imperatives for analytics leaders are to know the business, know the customer experience, use more data and test, test, test to get to superior results. Finally, and most importantly, the real challenge for analytics leaders is to sell the power of data-driven insights within the organization. “You can use the data, but you can’t hide behind it,” observed Anthony Canitano, general manager of advanced analytics at Delta Airlines. “You have to understand context of how the data can be applied in each area of the business.”

Event Report: A New Platform For The Digital Economy #Davos16 #WEF

R "Ray" Wang

Principal Analyst and Founder
Constellation Research

R “Ray” Wang is the CEO of Silicon Valley-based Constellation Research Inc. He co-hosts DisrupTV, a weekly enterprise tech and leadership webcast that averages 50,000 views per episode and blogs at www.raywang.org. His ground-breaking best-selling book on digital transformation, Disrupting Digital Business, was published by Harvard Business Review Press in 2015. Ray's new book about Digital Giants and the future of business, titled, Everybody Wants to Rule The World was released in July 2021. Wang is well-quoted and frequently interviewed by media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, Fox Business, CNBC, Yahoo Finance, Cheddar, and Bloomberg. Short Bio R “Ray” Wang (pronounced WAHNG) is the Founder, Chairman, and Principal Analyst of Silicon Valley-based Constellation Research Inc. He…...

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The Future of Digital Platforms Drive New Economies

While the regulatory pressures have not subsided for the financial sector, concerns mount legacy financial and insurance providers as fin tech startups disrupt the existing landscape.   The transformation of finance panel included insights from one mature disruptor among the panelists of traditional financial services providers (see Figure 1):

Figure 1. A New Platform For The Digital Economy

• Jonathan Zittrain, Professor of Law and Professor of Computer Science of Harvard University
• Nathan Blecharczyk, Co-founder and CTO of Airbnb, Inc.
• Pierre Nanterme, Chairman and CEO of Accenture
• Chuck Robbins, CEO of Cisco
• Arun Sundararajan, Professor of Business, Rosen Faculty Fellow of New York University
• Susan Wojcicki, CEO of YouTube, Inc.

Key takeaways from the panel include:

1. Platforms enable democratization of digital access and content creation.  The growth of common technology platforms have emerge to facilitate the value exchange of content through networks among individuals and machines.
2. Network effect drives platform adoption.   Nathan Blecharczyk shared how the new P2P models create a viral adoption and network effect by driving demand and fulfilling supply.  The platform enables any individual to use the services to deliver a room night.
3. Community engagement powered by trust and authenticity. Trust and authenticity by each platform member play a key role in ensuring fidelity of the network.
4. No longer B2B nor B2C, but P2P.  A blurring of business and consumer roles is inevitable.  Understanding context by role will be key to personalization of digital services
5. Market will set standards instead of regulators. Platforms will adopt to member needs and requirements.  Unowned platforms such as the internet and the block chain will also play in the same market as member driven platforms such as SWIFT to owned platforms by governments and corporations.  However, the evolution of these platforms must come from the market and its members to succeed.

The Bottom Line: Digital Platforms Drive Democratization Of Digital And Provide Significant Opportunities For Individuals And Organizations

New model of organizing economic activity.  Somewhere between a firm and an individual.  The new winners of the digital era have built business models that aggregate components of network economies.  The three distinct components of the network economy include:

1. Content (value):  whether a product, service, experience, outcome, or business model, the content is the value.  How that content’s value is exchanged is the core tenet of the business model.
2. Network (sourcing and distribution):  how the content is sourced and distributed is the foundation of the network.  The network is only as strong as the content and the enablers.
3. Arms dealer (enablers):  the technologies and enablers to reduce friction between content and network or improve the experience between content and network is the mission of the arms dealer.

Most organizations choose one of these components as the primary business models and partner with the others to create a network economy.  However over time, organizations realize they need to build business models that include two or even all three of these components.

In fact, successful winners of the digital era have created an asymmetrical advantage by taking over all three components.  For example, in the consumer world, four companies have the ability to deliver on these network economy: Apple, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft.  These companies have the content, the network, and the arms dealer capabilities to trade on trust and identity.  These are the new components of the digital monopolies.  Those who deliver on network economies will win when they open up their platforms for co-innovaiton and co-creation.

Your POV.

Where do you see the future of jobs?  Should we aim for decreasing populations to improve quality per capita? What are your questions from the report?

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