Trends: [VIDEO] The Digital Business Disruption Ahead Preview - NASSCOM India Leadership Forum (#NASSCOM_ILF)

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…...

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A 10-Minute Preview Video Interview Of The Digital Business Disruption Ahead From The #NASSCOM_ILF Team

On January 17th, 2014, the NASSCOM team interviewed Constellation Research about the digital disruption ahead.  The short 10 minute video covers key topics including:

• Convergence of the five pillars of digital business drive the current digital disruption. The end of social, mobile, analytics, cloud, and UC (i.e. SMAC) as you know it.
• The new ecosystems of digital business bring new opportunities. From GE’s industrial internet to mass personalization at scale, to augmented humanity, Constellation sees a new future beyond the traditional software ecosystems.
• Everyone vs Amazon is becoming a reality. Insights on why everyone is competing with Amazon not only in retail, but also in the cloud, physical distribution, and media.
• Mergers and acquisitions in software signal a maturing industry category. Large enterprise software companies no longer innovate fast enough and have to purchase startups for IP and growth.
• Mobile first and cloud first drive key success factors. Constellation sees the need to move to mobile first in order to innovate and move at the speed of digital business change.
• Service providers must focus on a higher stack. IT services firms traditionally deliver operations, maintenance, and transfer.  However the value add and higher margins are in design and build.
• Preview of the Constellation Futurist Framework. Using a PESTEL model, Constellation provides a sneak peak in some of the big 2014 futurist trends.

VIDEO: The Digital Business Disruption Previw

Source: NASSCOM

<iframe width=”600″ height=”400″ src=”//www.youtube.com/embed/8LC_VhGSd0s” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe>

The Bottom Line: The Shift To Digital Business Disruption Will Forever Transform The Service Provider Landscape

Digital business disruption present an opportunity and threat to IT Services firms.  Many IT services providers may not move fast enough and may fail.  Others will take on the challenge to create new business models.  The shift requires IT Services firms to move in five areas from:

1. Service based businesses to IP based businesses
2. Care taker offerings to co-creation and co-innovation offerings
3. Top ranked partners of other vendors to leaders attracting partners into self-created ecosystems
4. Engineering and scientific approaches to multidisciplinary and humanities based creativity
5. Solution orientation to business model transformation

These shifts represent the basic foundation required to change the digital DNA of the company culture and also how the IT Service providers engage with their clients.  Leaders can expect 2014 to herald the beginning of the next transformation.

 

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Using Google Analytics with Siebel

Constellation Research

J. Bruce Daley is a former vice president and principal analyst at Constellation Research, Inc. &nbsp;, Title:&nbsp;Big Ideas Age Before Beauty Before there can be a wholesale conversion to the Cloud legacy applications must be converted. This will take decades and not every vendor has taken this obstacle into account when projecting growth. Professional Services Firms Need a Recurring Revenue Model The services business has a lot of advantages but one big disadvantage in that you are always going out of business. Some organizations are using the Cloud to offer clients new ways to spend money than just time-and-materials or fixed price projects. ...

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In his blog, How to Siebel?, long time consultant Jim Morse describes how to use Siebel with Google Analytics.

I have seen couple of questions regarding use of Google Analytics with Siebel CRM, but no one seems to answer completely. This article is created to answer those questions.

When it comes to web analytics there is no parallel to Google Analytics, I am not selling Google Analytics, but people who have already used GA before can understand the need of powerful web analytics tools and how Google Analytics fills the gap.

This article will give you steps to create Google Analytics account and to embed the tracking code in Siebel.

Google Analytics can be used with Siebel CRM applications for both internal like Siebel Financial Services and external customer facing applications like eService or eSales. Only requirements from Google to use tracking are:

• User must be able to reach the ga.js/analytics.js JavaScript file at http://www.google-analytics.com/ga.js or https://www.google-analytics.com/ga.js.
• Intranet Application must be accessible through a fully qualified domain name such as http://intranet.example.com, application need not to be internet hosted application to use google analytics.

If your application can satisfy these requirements then you can create GA code and embed it to the Siebel Application.Once it is setup one can report on user behaviour demographic and many more metrics in GA.

I have used GA's Universal Analytics(newer version of GA) and created custom dimensions to store Active View Name, Application Name and Login User on Google.

 

Additionally I created events to capture the user interaction application. You can create event to business specific needs like: product configurator or service request creation or tasks.

How to embed Google Analytics tracker in Siebel Open UI?

Add the following code in postload.js file under the public directory, this code will be executed always when ever view is refreshed in Open UI. Code shown in bold is added after creation of dimension shown above.

(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){ (i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o), m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m) })(window,document,'script','//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga'); ga('create', 'YOUR_CODE', 'yoursitename'); ga('send', 'pageview'); ga('set', 'dimension2', theApplication().GetProfileAttr("Login Name")); ga('set', 'dimension1', theApplication().GetProfileAttr("ActiveViewName")); ga('set', 'dimension3', theApplication().GetProfileAttr("ApplicationName")); ga('send', 'event', theApplication().GetProfileAttr("ActiveViewName"), 'click', theApplication().GetProfileAttr("Login Name"));

How to embed Google Analytics with Siebel HI?

Add following code to the swecommon.js for high interactive applications, this js is also executed allways after page refresh in HI applications.

(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){ (i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o), m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m) })(window,document,'script','//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga'); ga('create', 'YOURCODE', 'yoursitename'); ga('send', 'pageview'); ga('set', 'dimension2', theApplication().GetProfileAttr("Login Name")); ga('set', 'dimension1', theApplication().GetProfileAttr("ActiveViewName")); ga('set', 'dimension3', theApplication().GetProfileAttr("ApplicationName")); ga('send', 'event', theApplication().GetProfileAttr("ActiveViewName"), 'click', theApplication().GetProfileAttr("Login Name"));

Caution : Do not track customer information such as user details using custom dimesions and metrics as it is against the google analytics policy and could be against the organisation policy as well.

After all this is done you would be able to see the analytics information in your google account.

Now you can do full fledged analytics on your user interactions. My favorite is real time analytics, which one is your favorite?

Happy Analytics :)

Used with permission. This post originally appeared on the How to Siebel? blog.

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Trouble Following the Tech News? The Answer: Constellation Office Hours

It's crazy. I know. Balancing work, life, and the latest developments in disruptive technology is almost impossible. Keeping up with the latest developments in disruptive technology, alone, is a full time job--it's our full time job. We feel your pain. We want make your life simpler by distilling all the developments in disruptive technology into an easy-to-consume format. 

Introducing Constellation Office Hours

Constellation office hours is a monthly discussion amongst Constellation analysts about trends, developments, and events in the disruptive technology space. In this loosely formatted web meeting we'll discuss:

• Constellation happenings: new research, new analysts
• Events: conferences we're attending, takeaways from conferences we attended
• Trends, developments, mergers and acquisitions
• Big ideas
• Q&A - from the audience & Twitter via #CRchat

Join us every 4th Tuesday at 9:00a.m. PT/ 12p.m. ET

March 25 9:00a.m. PT/ 12p.m. ET: https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/426665190

April 22 9:00a.m. PT/ 12p.m. ET: https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/427363582

May 27 9:00a.m. PT/ 12p.m. ET: https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/429114062

June 24 9:00a.m. PT/ 12p.m. ET: https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/429835614

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Klout Pivots, Embraces Content Aggregation

Partner, Sensei Marketing
Partner, Sensei Marketing

Sales &amp; marketing veteran with almost 30 years’ experience and now 1800 digital projects to his credit for clients including Morgan Stanley, AOL, Hyatt Gaming Management, Snyder's of Hanover, Hitachi, the Home Depot, Kraft Foods, Drees Homes, American Idol, and hundreds more, including leading agencies around the North America. &nbsp; &nbsp; ...

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$100 million has overshadowed the pivot it made in an attempt to remain relevant.

Klout will still rank people based on their social engagement, but it will now suggest content that the game players may wish to share. Instead of creating original content that your audience wants to share, Klout will present content from others that can be shared. The hope, presumably is to increase the likelihood that users' content will be responded to or be retweeted.

Joe Fernandes, Klout's CEO, claimed in a recent interview that the change was in response to players who kept asking how they can increase their score. Klout's score is essentially based on the number of mentions and retweets a person's content receives across Twitter, and to a lesser extent, other social networks. For Klout's players, any tactic or tool that will help artificially inflate their scores is certainly a welcome addition to the game. The higher your score is, the more likely they'll receive Klout Perks, a hodgepodge of free product samples and trial offers from businesses who pay Klout for access to you.

With a few high-profile executive departures and a general waning of excitement around the brand, Klout needed something to boost interest and re-excite those interested in raising their scores. After all, the true value of Klout is a large and active player base attempting to increase their scores. Like any social media company, it's a numbers game. The more players, and the more frequently they play, the happier Klout's investors and business customers are.

Pivot or Evolution?

Essentially, Klout is becoming a content aggregation service. Content aggregation and social sharing is nothing new -- many online services provide this option -- yet that does not mean it's not a valuable tool for Klout. To its credit, Klout's interface for reviewing and sharing other's content across multiple social channels is rather slick. Thanks to its partnership with Microsoft, Klout can pull data from Bing and presents newly published content to Klout players, who, in turn, can share it directly from Klout's game board.

 

Mr. Fernandes claims this isn't a pivot; rather, it's another feature added on to the platform. It's an interesting debate. I tend to agree with him because Klout's business model remains attracting social media users to play the game in order to increase their Klout scores. This new feature is just another tactic towards that business goal. Klout's social scoring program and gamification tactics are still core to its service.

On the other hand, journalist Chris Taylor suggests Klout has moved from "playing the referee to playing the coach," which is an apt analogy. Instead of simply ranking players for their engagement levels across various social channels, it now provides a tool to help players increase their score.

Does Content Marketing Make One Influential?

I've been a vocal critic of social scoring platforms in general, and Klout in particular; however, this new content aggregation service is something that I can get behind. I applaud Klout for expanding past judging people for their social media activity and providing those users with a useful tool.

However, as a marketer, the problem for me remains the fact that this new service is wrapped up in a gamified program that encourages people to share content simply for the purpose of increasing their score. It's artificial and does nothing to help identify true influencers for brand marketers. It will certainly have an impact on the social amplification that its players can achieve but that isn't influence marketing, it's broadcasting. It will certainly have an impact on the number of users that play Klout's game, and that's good news for its new owner and a rumored IPO.

Content aggregation is a powerful tool for those focused on content marketing. It can be a time saver for social media marketers as well as a powerful educational tool for those learning how to engage in social media. Yet even those "social media experts" who actively play Klout's game will pull out the authenticity card when describing best practices in social media marketing. How authentic is it to share content for the purposes of artificially increasing an influence score? Compare that to creating original content (or sharing other's content) just because it is valuable to your audience and community building efforts. Building engagement, reputation, and eventually influence based on real communication and relationship building instead of gamified marketing tactics?

When tools like Hootsuite, Compendium or Curata provide content aggregation services, they do so for the purposes of helping marketers better manage their online engagement. Such tools are valuable because their stated goal is to help you be a better content marketer. Yes, they too are businesses and seek to make a profit just like Klout (something I would never judge a company for trying to achieve); however, from a marketer's point of view, those services are not skewed. Each is a facilitation tool designed to help you collect the right content for your audience, which, in turn, builds a stronger and more valuable community. Klout's content aggregation service, no matter how slick it may be, is designed to support Klout's business goal by keeping game players engaged in increasing their score.

Gamification Is The Achilles's Heel of Influence Marketing

Regardless of the value of Klout's new content aggregation service, gamifying engagement skews the true nature of online conversations and only serves to muddy the waters for marketers trying to cut through the clutter and identify what patterns exist that truly influence a consumer to purchase a product or not. The only winners here seem to be those trying to increase their Klout scores in order to receive swag... and Klout investors of course.

What are your thoughts? Will content aggregation make Klout's anointed influencers more influential? Or just better game players?

 

Marketing Transformation Innovation & Product-led Growth Chief Marketing Officer

Meet the Constellation Orbits Influencers - Paul Van Essche and Louis Columbus

Happy Valentines day! We're continuing to show love for our Constellation Orbits members by highlighting a few each day with our "Meet the Constellation Orbits Influencers" series. Today we'll meet change management visionary Paul Van Essche and all-things-cloud expert, Louis Columbus. Catch the latest insights from Paul and Louis right here on the Constellation blog.

Paul Van Essche is a change management expert tapped for his deft hand at successfully transforming change-resistant businesses.

Paul van Essche is the founder/owner of the independent management and tech consulting firm van Essche & Associates. He is a Swiss and South African citizen with qualifications in electronic and industrial engineering as well as project and business management. He has 29 years experience gained in over 20 countries on five continents in multiple industries, serving a range of blue-chip firms and international organizations. As a change management specialist, Van Essche has successfully effected radical change in some of the most resistant business environments. Van Essche has been independent since 1999, is an accomplished public speaker and negotiator, and is bilingual (English-French).

COORDINATES
Constellation Profile: https://www.constellationr.com/users/paulve
Twitter: @paul_vanessche
LinkedIn: ch.linkedin.com/in/paulvanessche

Louis Columbus is a Cloud Philosopher and an international business strategy professor.

Louis Columbus is a Product Marketing Executive at Plex Systems. He's focusing on how manufacturers can streamline their business strategies with cloud computing.   Previously Louis was senior manager at Cincom Systems and an industry analyst at AMR Research. He earned his MBA from Pepperdine University and completed the Strategic Marketing Management & Digital Marketing Programs at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. Louis teaches graduate-level courses in International Marketing, International Business and global competitive strategy in the MBA Program at Webster University.  When he's not teaching or writing for Forbes, he spends his time musing all aspects of the cloud-present and future.

COORDINATES
Constellation Profile: https://www.constellationr.com/users/louiscolumbus
Twitter: @louiscolumbus
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/louiscolumbus‎
 

The Constellation Orbits influencer network extends the reach of Constellation's coverage area to the bleeding edge of digital disruption, and establishes Constellation Research as the authoritative source for analysis of the latest developments in disruptive technology. Constellation hand-picked twenty thought leaders to join Constellation Orbits for their expertise, influence, and fearlessness in identifying trends, cutting through marketing hype, and informing their early adopter audience of significant developments in disruptive technology. You can find analyses from these thought leaders (along with analyses from Constellation Analysts) on the Constellation blog--the enterprise's authoritative source for disruptive technology analysis. https://www.constellationr.com/blog-news
 

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Disruptive Trends - Technology Ignorance Plagues Politics

Constellation Research

J. Bruce Daley is a former vice president and principal analyst at Constellation Research, Inc. &nbsp;, Title:&nbsp;Big Ideas Age Before Beauty Before there can be a wholesale conversion to the Cloud legacy applications must be converted. This will take decades and not every vendor has taken this obstacle into account when projecting growth. Professional Services Firms Need a Recurring Revenue Model The services business has a lot of advantages but one big disadvantage in that you are always going out of business. Some organizations are using the Cloud to offer clients new ways to spend money than just time-and-materials or fixed price projects. ...

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Constellation Research has identified a series of political, economic, societal, technological, environmental, and legislative trends that will impact your business and your career. At a high level, the noted advisory services firm has identified the following trends:

• Political issues point to a lack of digital proficiency in the political class,
• Economic trends continue to favor innovation over incremental improvement,
• Societal shifts show the impact technological innovation is having on everyone's lives,
• Technological trends continue to fuel innovation and disruption,
• Environmental factors limit the long-term possibilities,
• Legislative reform lags behind technology and loses relevancy as a result.

Here we examine the trend in politics.

Technology ignorance plagues the political class in the West.

Across the Western economies, few elected officials have science backgrounds. Meanwhile, scientists hold eight out of China’s top nine government posts. The lack of science and engineering fundamentals often hinders digital business discussions and the implications of technology policy are unclear to decision makers, who become timid and dependent on lobbyists and other influencers who don't provide unbiased information. For example, lack of scientific understanding around climate change and pollution control technology creates an emotional discussion instead of an objective scientific method approach which causes the United States not to radify the Kyoto Protocol even though 192 other countries agree to the treaty. Severe weather across the much of United States this winter starts to have political implications in cities like Atlanta where citizens start to question the wisdom of such a policy. 

On February 27th Constellation Research will be holding a free webinar titled Six Trends Influencing Digital Business Disruption in 2014 to discuss this point and more. The Webinar will be held from 10:00 AM - 10:45 AM PST

New C-Suite Tech Optimization Chief Executive Officer Chief Information Officer

Why Cloud ERP Adoption Is Faster Than Gartner Predicts

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A recent study completed by Gartner titled Survey Analysis: Adoption of Cloud ERP, 2013 Through 2023 published on January 24, 2014, written by Nigel Rayner advises CIOs and application leaders of financial services institutions to “consider cloud ERP as a potential replacement for aging core ERP systems that are out of support or running on an old technology platforms (such as mainframes).“

The methodology is based on a survey of Gartner Research Circle members from North America, EMEA, APAC and Latin America from companies that range in size from $10M to $10B.

Key take-aways of the study including the following:

• Including the 2% that already have core ERP in the cloud, a total of 47% of organizations surveyed plan to move their core ERP systems to the cloud within five years. This is because their ERP requirements tend to be focused around administrative ERP (financials, human capital management and procure-to-pay) where there is a wider range of cloud options (compared with manufacturing).

• In aggregate, 30% of respondents say that the majority of their ERP systems will be on-premises for the foreseeable future as can be seen from the following graphic.

• 30% of organizations surveyed said they planned to keep the majority of their ERP systems on-premise for the foreseeable future.  Manufacturing organizations dominated this survey segment.

Why Cloud ERP Is Accelerating Faster Than Gartner Predicts

Two-tier ERP is the Trojan Horse of cloud ERP.  If Gartner had asked their respondents about if and how cloud-based ERP systems are being considered and used in two-tier ERP strategies globally, their survey and previous forecasts would have been significantly different.

From researching and working with manufacturers where two-tier ERP strategies make perfect sense for extending their legacy ERP systems to move into new markets, the following key take-aways emerge:

• Achieving faster time-to-market while reducing cost of quality.  This is quickly turning into a year of transition for many supply chains, with the shift most noticeable in aerospace and defense.  Tighter project schedules driven by reduced budgets, coupled with more aggressive launch schedules is making this the year of the agile supplier.  Cloud-based ERP systems are essential to suppliers in this industry especially.

• Legacy ERP systems lack scalability to support 21rst century compliance. One CIO who is a good friend jokingly refers to the legacy ERP systems populating each division of the manufacturing company he works for as fuel for his silos of excellence.  His point is that legacy ERP systems don’t have the data models to support the current quality management and compliance requirements corporate-wide and are relegated to siloed roles in his organization.  Cloud-based applications, specifically designed for ISO 9100, AS9100 Rev. C can do what legacy systems can’t, which is span across the aerospace manufacturer’s entire operations.

• SaaS-based manufacturing and distribution software will increase from 22% in 2013 to 45% by 2023.  According to MintJutras, a leading research and advisory firm tracking ERP trends, a survey completed in 2013 shows SaaS-based applications will steadily grow from 22% of all manufacturing and distribution software installed to 45% within ten years.  The catalyst for much fo this growth will be two-tier ERP system adoption.

• Microsoft’s New CEO knows the enterprise and cloud’s role in it. Satya Nadella has the daunting task of bringing innovation back into Microsoft.  As Anshu Sharma writes in his blog post today Satya Nadella: Microsoft, Coffee and the Relevance Question provides an excellent analysis of the challenges and paradoxes faced by the new Microsoft CEO.  It’s common knowledge in the Microsoft Partner community that the company runs one of the largest two-tier ERP system architectures in IT today, with an SAP R/3 instance in headquarters and Microsoft Dynamics AX running in each subsidiary.

• All cloud ERP providers including Microsoft intend to monetize two-tier as much as they possibly can, architecting their respective Cloud OS strategies and enterprise suites to capitalize on it. Microsoft released an overview of their Cloud OS strategies in the following presentation, which provides a thorough overview of their perspective of the hosting market and how it relates to their apps business. Also included is the following graphic, Cloud OS: Innovation at Scale.  All of the factors taken together will drive up adoption of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 and streamline two-tier enterprise sales across all cloud ERP providers.  Last year at Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference the announcement was made that Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 would be available on Windows Azure in July, 2014.

• Mobility is unifying the manufacturing shop floor to the top floor faster than anyone thinks.  In traditional ERP systems mobile platforms are most often used for material handling, warehouse management, traceability, quality management, logistics and service tracking. From the discussions I’ve had with CIOs and a few CEOs of manufacturing companies, there’s a high level of interest in analytics, alerts and approvals on Android and Apple tablets.  These apps and the speed of results they deliver are the new corporate bling. Intuitive, integrated and fast, these mobile apps make it possible for senior managers to check up on operations for wherever they are globally, in addition to approving contracts and being notified of events via alerts.  For Gartner’s assessment of cloud ERP to have been complete in this survey, mobility also needed to be covered

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Cognitive Dissonance and Influence Marketing

Partner, Sensei Marketing
Partner, Sensei Marketing

Sales &amp; marketing veteran with almost 30 years’ experience and now 1800 digital projects to his credit for clients including Morgan Stanley, AOL, Hyatt Gaming Management, Snyder's of Hanover, Hitachi, the Home Depot, Kraft Foods, Drees Homes, American Idol, and hundreds more, including leading agencies around the North America. &nbsp; &nbsp; ...

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Despite social proof casting doubt on their veracity, it seems that social scoring platforms continue to be popular in social media marketing.

We shouldn’t be surprised; these tools offer a quick, if not effective, means of identifying those who might help brand messages cut through the growing online noise.  Despite this, I’m still rather optimistic on the future of influence marketing. 

I’ve been pleased with the changes I’ve noted while presenting our book and its methodology to clients and general audiences at conferences this past year.

While slow, there’s definitely recognition that audience segmentation and customer decision-making processes are largely ignored by marketers and platforms seeking to use influence marketing as a key business development strategy.

The Next Level of Influence – Cognitive Dissonance

A premise that seems to resonate well with audiences exploring true influence marketing is the concept of cognitive dissonance, which social scientists explain as a feeling of discomfort that results from holding two conflicting beliefs.

In terms of influence marketing we can think of it this way: What transpires in the minds of potential consumers when a product recommendation offered by socially popular personalities or media outlets, conflicts with preconceived notations or previous experiences with that product?

Similarly, what occurs in the purchase decision process when online social recommendations conflict with the consumer’s social, political, or religious views?

A popular example is cigarette marketing during the 1960s, which positioned smoking as healthy when early medical evidence demonstrated a link between smoking and cancer.

This is a good example of cognitive dissonance: Through various media channels, celebrities were used to advocate the smoking of cigarettes, yet consumers were – often subconsciously – aware that cigarettes were bad for their health.  A conflict existed.

 

Similarly, we can look to those advocating boycotts of brands like Chic-fil-A for speaking out against gay rights. The desire to eat at the popular fast food establishment may conflict with moral, social, and political views in many.

Which conflicting side wins when consumers make a decision, and how do marketers use influence marketing to sway those decisions?

Creating Cognitive Dissonance

It’s important to note that often the dissonance that exists in consumers’ minds is created by conflicting social commentary or opposing recommendations. A prime example is the battle occurring between Android and iOS mobile operating systems.

Consumers are faced with conflicting messages from influencers, media, and advertising that promote one over the other. Consumers, whose personal preferences and experiences match those shared by a large online community, find their decision-making process conflicted when faced with overwhelming social advocacy for the alternative.

When marketers understand the logistics of cognitive dissonance, it can be used as an effective marketing strategy.

For example, Android-based mobile phone manufacturers can use monitoring software and natural language processing to discover online conversations that would indicate which groups of consumers are experiencing cognitive dissonance that would negatively affect purchase decisions to their favor.

From this base, marketers can realign both content marketing and influencer identification efforts to support those whose decision to buy an Android-based device is conflicted or to insert conflict into the decision-making process of those whose instinct is to purchase an iOS-based device.

Understanding the effects of cognitive dissonance on consumer behavior is a new frontier for influence marketing and can be used offensively as well as defensively.

Managing Existing Customers

Of course, this dissonance occurs post-purchase as well, and so it’s critical to apply this thinking to existing customers. Just as prospects experience cognitive dissonance when making a purchase decision, social science and psychology has proven the concept of “buyer’s remorse” in customers.

Most consumers experience some cognitive dissonance, even if just momentarily, after purchasing a product.

• “Did I make the right decision?”
• “Did I shop around enough?”
• “Was there a better price available elsewhere?”

The existence of this conflict can be damaging towards a brand’s efforts to build repeat business and brand advocates. We discuss this in Influence Marketing:

Influence marketing is often relegated to customer acquisition efforts, yet the need to create advocates and social proof around a brand necessitates better engagement with existing customers. Identifying cognitive dissonance in existing customers allows marketers to pinpoint the micro-influencers that may help alleviate the tension and sway their belief towards a feeling of satisfaction with the purchase and possibly even advocacy. Left alone, consumers with these feelings may return the product, or worse, turn to social channels to complain about it. The returns and online negativity can be curbed when true influence marketing techniques are applied to this consumer segment.

Be it defensive or offensive sales strategy, or customer satisfaction efforts, the use of influence marketing to offset cognitive dissonance in prospects and customers is a science that marketers must quickly become adept at.

Marketing Transformation Next-Generation Customer Experience Innovation & Product-led Growth Chief Customer Officer Chief Marketing Officer

Meet the Constellation Orbits Influencers - Sholto Macpherson and Theo Priestley

Today in the latest installment of our "Meet the Constellation Orbits Influencers" series we'll meet Sholto Macpherson and Theo Priestley - two influencers known for their objective analysis of enterprise disruption. Read the latest insights from Sholto and Theo right here on the Constellation blog.

Sholto Macpherson is an award-winning business technology journalist and expert on cloud software and services.

Since June 2011 he has published http://BoxFreeIT.com.au, Australia’s only news website dedicated to cloud software for Australian and New Zealand businesses. In 2012, Macpherson won the national IT Journalism award for Best Columnist for his Cloud Channel column in CRN Australia magazine on the transition from server software to cloud software. Macpherson possesses 11 years of experience contributing to magazines and websites, radio and TV segments, webinars and conferences on enterprise and SMB technology and the cloud-led productivity revolution. His stories have appeared in the Australian and Sydney Morning Herald newspapers and industry websites such as CRN.com.au and iTnews.com.au.

COORDINATES
Constellation Profile: https://www.constellationr.com/users/sholtomacpherson
Twitter: @sholtomac
LinkedIn: au.linkedin.com/in/sholtomacpherson

Theo Priestley is a Business Process Management thought leader and Chief Evangelist at Software AG.  
Globally responsible for enabling the brand and technology awareness strategy at Software AG, Priestley is regarded as one of the top thought leaders in Business Process Management and was recently featured in Analytics Week's Top 200 Big Data influencers. He possesses a keen sense for understanding disruptive trends affecting the enterprise and consumer world.
Prior to joining Software AG Theo spent over a decade as a successful business transformation consultant. During that time he also became an advisor to enterprise software companies, conducting independent industry analysis on the top technology trends and client-based attitudes towards software implementation and business change projects. Priestley is known for his strong and honest opinions.

COORDINATES
Constellation Profile: https://www.constellationr.com/users/tpriestley
Twitter: @ITredux
LinkedIn: uk.linkedin.com/in/theopriestley‎
 

The Constellation Orbits influencer network extends the reach of Constellation's coverage area to the bleeding edge of digital disruption, and establishes Constellation Research as the authoritative source for analysis of the latest developments in disruptive technology. Constellation hand-picked twenty thought leaders to join Constellation Orbits for their expertise, influence, and fearlessness in identifying trends, cutting through marketing hype, and informing their early adopter audience of significant developments in disruptive technology. You can find analyses from these thought leaders (along with analyses from Constellation Analysts) on the Constellation blog--the enterprise's authoritative source for disruptive technology analysis. https://www.constellationr.com/blog-news
 

New C-Suite Future of Work Tech Optimization Innovation & Product-led Growth SaaS PaaS IaaS Cloud Digital Transformation Disruptive Technology Enterprise IT Enterprise Acceleration Enterprise Software Next Gen Apps IoT Blockchain CRM ERP CCaaS UCaaS Collaboration Enterprise Service Chief Customer Officer Chief Executive Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Marketing Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Data Officer

Mobile isn’t a device. It’s a state of mind!

Brian Katz

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Brian Katz is a director at pharmaceutical company&nbsp;Sanofi, where he manages mobile initiatives, including mobilizing the salesforce, building best practices for developing apps, handling BYOD initiatives, enabling new devices and form factors for success, and looking at ways to innovate in the mobile space for Sanofi. He started his career working with a multi-national New York financial company as an email architect, designing and maintaining their email and communications systems, which also involved supporting their mobile computing platforms. ...

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I seem to get into a debate every single day at work. Then it spills over to twitter or someone who is asking me for advice or just pontificating. It starts out innocuously at first. People want to talk about mobile. They dive into smartphones and eventually end up at tablets and then stop. That’s their definition of mobile. It’s either a smartphone or a tablet. Then someone from down the hall or somewhere on twitter pipes up, well I have a laptop and isn’t that mobile? So the debate starts.

The problem with this type of thinking is that people are focused on the device. Who cares? So what if it’s a smartphone or tablet? What’s the difference if it’s a laptop? Let’s not forget there is this new category called wearables that may fit this definition as well. Why waste all this time talking about the device? There’s more than enough hot air in the world and not enough time to debate what is or isn’t mobile.

It’s time to realize that mobile isn’t a device, it’s a state of mind. People need to adopt a mobile mindset. It’s not about the specific device that you use but what you are able to do with it. A device itself isn’t a tool either. It’s just one piece of the puzzle that fits together in this landscape of enablement.

A tool is some piece of technology that you use to accomplish some goal. An axe is a tool that allows you to cut down a tree/gather wood as a resource (unless in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, where it makes a great weapon). A smartphone or a tablet doesn’t allow you to do anything with it except use it as projectile to hurt someone or something. What makes these devices powerful is the combination of the utility of the device with the app on it that you use to accomplish something. A smartphone running a navigation app is a tool that helps you get somewhere. A tablet with an educational app allows you to learn something. The tool enables you to accomplish a goal. Having a great app without a good device to run it on is worth just as much as having a great device without any apps – absolutely nothing.

In this mindset, we are focused on enabling our people to get stuff done, which is all they really care about. It’s not a question of phone, tablet, laptop, desktop or wearable, but what they enable you to do. A desktop or a laptop can be considered mobile if they enable you to get your job done when and where you need to while being more productive and agile. Maybe it’s a kiosk in a mall, a laptop at the local coffee shop, a smartphone while at your kid’s ball game, or a tablet while sitting on the subway, it’s all about having the right set of tools at the right time in the right place. That’s what mobile is about.

I can’t tell you how many arguments I hear about iOS versus Android, Samsung versus Apple, or Windows Phone versus Blackberry. The point isn’t that one of these devices or OSes is better than the others. They aren’t unless the use case exists. There’s nothing wrong with having a preference for one or the other but it certainly shouldn’t devolve into a holy war. IT shouldn’t be in the business of providing solutions but instead providing right time experiences that enable users to be more flexible and agile while being more productive and efficient when and where they need to be. Since IT is in the experience business (or at least should be), we pick the best tool sets for our users so that they can become enabled. We look at devices, ecosystems and applications that make our users want to be effective. We Focus on their needs (FUN principle) and meeting their expectations. We are (or should be) turning their work into a thing they do while integrating their work and personal life. We are striving to give them the moments that they need to make their time valuable. In that view, does it matter what the specific device is?

It’s time to stop the silliness of which device is mobile and which isn’t. As my good friend Philippe Winthrop likes to say, “I can bring my 24 pound Osborne portable with me, it’s mobile!” The fact that he doesn’t have the arm strength to carry it more than a block doesn’t mean much if it allows him to do what he needs to when he requires it. Mobile has nothing to do with the devices people are using and everything to do with the mindset of enablement. You just need to decide whether it’s a mindset you’re going to support by providing the right tools to your people because I guarantee you that your competitors will.

New C-Suite Innovation & Product-led Growth Chief Information Officer