Digital Business

Accenture: six clear trends drive digital business power shift

THE days of innovative, technology-focused start-ups being the only market disrupters and growing faster than their larger, more established competitors may be coming to an end, according to a new report by Accenture.

Large enterprises are starting to take advantage of their size, skills and scale to transform into truly digital businesses.

The Accenture Technology Vision 2014 identifies six information Paul Daugherty, Accenture chief technology officer.technology (IT) technology trends that are enabling large enterprises to join those start-ups previously recognised as market disrupters in pushing the boundaries of innovation and taking advantage of digital technologies for competitive advantage.

The report finds leading enterprises are pursuing digital strategies that leverage mobility, analytics, and cloud to improve business processes, take advantage of real-time intelligence, expand the boundaries of traditional workforces, and transform the way data is managed and used.

“We’re seeing large enterprises – armed with the resources, scale and drive to reinvent themselves through digital transformation – reasserting leadership in their markets,” said Accenture chief technology officer, Paul Daugherty.

“Leading companies are adopting digital to drive their processes more effectively and transform how they go to market, collaborate with partners, engage with customers, and manage transactions. Digital is rapidly becoming part of the fabric of their operating DNA and they are poised to become the digital power brokers of tomorrow.”

The six IT trends identified as driving the digital power shift are:

Digital-Physical Blur – Extending intelligence to the edge:

The real world is coming online as wearable devices, smart objects and machines provide us with real-time intelligence, changing how we live and how businesses operate. This new layer of connected intelligence augments workforce capabilities, automates processes, and incorporates machines into our lives. For consumers, this provides new levels of empowerment, and for organisations, getting real-time, relevant data means both machines and employees can act and react faster and more intelligently in virtually any situation. In healthcare, for example, Koninklijke Philips N.V. is running a pilot Google Glass application that allows physicians wearing the display to simultaneously monitor a patient’s vital signs and react to surgical procedural developments, without needing to turn away from the patient or procedure.

The rise of the borderless enterprise:

 

Picture a workforce that extends beyond its employees, consisting of any willing individual connected to the internet. Technology now allows organisations to tap into vast pools of resources around the world, just as companies like MasterCard Incorporated and Facebook Inc. do through organisations such as Kaggle Inc, a global network of computer scientists, mathematicians, and data scientists who compete to solve problems ranging from finding the best airline flights to optimising retail-store locations. Channelling such efforts to achieve business goals is a challenge, but the opportunity is enormous: tapping an immense, agile workforce that is not only well-suited to solving some of today’s toughest business problems, but also, in many cases, is motivated enough to do it for free.

Data supply chain – Changing the way data is handled to put information into broader circulation:

Data technologies are evolving rapidly, but most have been adopted in a piecemeal fashion. As a result, enterprise data is vastly underutilised. Currently, just one in five organisations integrates data across the enterprise. To truly unlock data’s potential value, companies must start treating it more as a supply chain, enabling its easy and useful flow through their entire organisations, and eventually throughout their ecosystems, too. Companies such as Google Inc. and Walgreens Co. have adopted this approach by opening up APIs; more than 800,000 websites now use Google Maps data, and third-party developers are able to include the ability to scan barcodes from Walgreens’ prescription bottles into their apps to make it easier for people to refill prescriptions.

Hardware is back (and never really went away):

The hardware world is now a hotbed of innovation as demand soars for bigger and faster data centres. Advances in areas such as power consumption, processers, solid state memory, and infrastructure architectures are giving enterprises new opportunities to massively scale, increase efficiency, drive down costs, and enable their systems to perform at higher levels than ever before. As companies digitise their businesses, more and more will see hardware as essential to enabling their next wave of growth.

Business of Applications – Software as a core competency in the digital world:

Mimicking the shift in the consumer world, enterprises are rapidly adopting apps in a push for greater operational agility. According to Accenture research, 54 percent of the highest-performing IT teams have already deployed enterprise app stores, facilitating this shift towards simple, modular apps for employees. IT leaders and business leaders must establish who plays what role in app development in their new digital organisations, as pressure for change is driven by the business. They must also transform the app development process itself, in order to take advantage of new technologies quickly, support regular software iterations, and, ultimately accelerate business growth.

Architecting Resilience – ‘Built to survive failure’ is the mantra of the non-stop business:

In the digital era, businesses are expected to support the non-stop demands placed on their processes, services and systems. This has ripple effects throughout an organisation, especially in the CIO’s office where the need for ‘always on’ infrastructure can mean the difference between ‘business as usual’ and the erosion of brand value. Companies such as Netflix, Inc., which uses automated testing tools to deliberately attack its systems as a means to increase resiliency, are among today’s IT leaders. These companies ensure that their systems are designed and built for failure, taking advantage of modular technologies and advanced testing processes rather than designing to specifications.

“These key trends build on those we have seen over the past couple of years,” Mr Daugherty said.

“Last year, we declared that every business is a digital business, whether its leaders acknowledged that or not. Now, we see that digital technologies run through every facet of the highest-performing businesses.

“Looking at the shifts in technology and the impact they’re having on the strategies and operational priorities of organisations around the world, we believe there are tremendous opportunities for every C-suite executive to be a digital disruptor – to reinvent and redefine their business to create lasting competitive advantage.”

For nearly 15 years, Accenture has taken a systematic look across the enterprise landscape to identify emerging IT trends that hold the greatest potential to disrupt businesses and industries.

Accenture’s Technology Vision is developed annually by the Accenture Technology Labs. For the 2014 report, Accenture researchers and scientists developed hypotheses about information technology developments that they expect to have a significant impact on businesses over the next three to five years. 

Accenture also employed social collaboration techniques and crowdsourcing to solicit input and suggestions from thousands of its own employees. Other sources used for the report include trends identified by industry analysts, themes at conferences, academic literature, and Accenture’s original research into the characteristics of high-performing IT organisations.

Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, with 281,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Accenture focuses on collaboration with clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. The company generated net revenues of US$28.6 billion for its fiscal year ended August 31, 2013. 

http://www.accenture.com/home.asp

www.accenture.com/technologyvision

#TechVision2014

 

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E-entrepreneurs are revolutionising everyone’s business landscape

THE E-ENTREPRENEUR revolution is coming to a business like yours and it will happen sooner than you are prepared for, if people like Glen Carlson have anything to do with it.

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Glen Carlson.

 

Mr Carlson is a leader in the new business of nurturing e-business entrepreneurs. His company, Key Person of Influence, has focussed since it began in London three years ago on the infinite potential of the service industry – and enabling its up-and-coming leaders.

He calls it “the entrepreneur revolution” and it comes to you from the other side of the world, or from a remote farm or, perhaps, from a suburban kitchen.

Mr Carlson is unusual in that he is one such modern-era, tech-led business entrepreneur who is actually in the business of assessing, nurturing and training entrepreneurship in others.

He describes the e-entrepreneur revolution as the third great shift in the world’s progressive culture of employment:

There was the agricultural revolution, when a man worked the land; then with technology came the industrial revolution and its multiplication of factories and machinery; and now, thanks to the internet boom, the world is in the grip of the entrepreneur revolution.

“Business used to be geographically constrained, now it’s not,” Mr Carlson said. “You can have a global business from your kitchen table.

“We live in a time when it is entirely possible to repackage and reposition our skills and expertise so that it is accessible to anyone who is looking for what you have to offer.”

Mr Carlson warned, of course, that success “doesn’t just fall into an inbox”. Just as in the physical world of small business, factors such as having the right thing to sell, an appropriate business plan, and a deep understanding of what you’re getting yourself in for all play a role.

“There is plenty to get excited about the role of tech incubators in the entrepreneur revolution,” Mr Carlson said. At age 32, he is CEO of a company that, taking its own advice, is currently spreading its influence across the globe and expects to quadruple its turnover in the next three years.

After starting and selling a series of internet-enabled businesses, mainly in the training sector, Mr Carlson and business partner Daniel Priestly founded Entrevo, an international training company operating in the UK, US and Australia. 

In recent years Mr Carlson has probably become best known as the CEO of the popular 40 week Key Person of Influence (KPI) Growth Accelerator Program, in which he and his team specialise in helping fellow entrepreneurs and business leaders become more valuable, visible and connected in their industries. /2…

“We like working with service based business owners who want to develop their skills and talents into a really great company,” Mr Carlson said. “They love what they do, and they want to be well rewarded for doing it.”

KPI helps these businesses implement global best practices through workshops, webinars, and a cloud-based learning management system which Mr Carlson said is used by prestigious schools and universities around the world. The KPI program is already operating in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, London and Tampa (Florida), with expansion to Perth later this year and plans beyond for other cities in the US and UK. 

“World-renowned tech incubators have incubated some of the most successful web companies in the world,” Mr Carlson said.

“They started in a Petri dish of leadership, mentoring and resources. Those little tech incubators have spawned an internet revolution and that has spawned its own revolution in the service space.”

Mr Carlson practically works from a laptop in Port Melbourne and the odd café around town, forgoing the need to endlessly criss-cross the globe while rolling out training courses that give birth to e-businesses from the east coast of Australia, London and the US.

He’s both passionate and savvy about being at the forefront of this revolution and genuinely thrilled as he sifts through the ideas that people present to him.

“We modelled all those things that do well with tech incubators and applied it to the service industry – doctors, lawyers, financial planners, coaches, architects, pilots, personal trainers, horse massage therapists; any one delivering a service of some kind,” Mr Carlson said.

“We are training people across 50 different industries.”

But Mr Carlson warned that even in this unprecedented era, service industry entrepreneurs still needed the fundamentals of good business, including experience in their specialised fields, to seek success.

“The thing you absolutely need is enough experience in your industry to have an opinion, and to specialise with that,” he said.

“You need existing skills, talents, expertise; a track record doing what you do – you can’t be a newbie, this isn’t some magic way to success.

“This is about taking your existing skills and expertise and packaging them, then repackaging them, in such a way that they become more attractive to people and hence a lot more valuable.

“Plus, it’s very difficult to make something successful that you don’t really deeply love. It has to be close to your heart.”

He said in an era of dramatic technological change, never has there been such potential for a person who has a great business idea and practical expertise to easily reach the hugest market imaginable, “thanks, of course, to the internet”.

Mr Carlson is the keynote speaker at a series of Key Person of Influence events around Australia this month: Melbourne February 7, Sydney February 13 and Brisbane February 28. He is presenting alongside well-known business builders Michael Micalewicz, Andrew Grifiths, Tim Dwyer and Valerie Khoo.

http://www.keypersonofinfluence.com.au/

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Mobile tech drives collaboration between small businesses and their accountants

AUSTRALIAN small businesses will up the ante on cloud and mobile technology solutions in 2014 – and benefit from unprecedented collaborative opportunities with their accountants as a result – according to research by financial management system provider, Intuit.

Intuit APAC vice president and managing director, Brad Paterson said in 2013 there had been an “astronomical increase” in uptake of mobile and cloud technologies by Australian small businesses.

Mr Paterson said information technology (IT) upgrades and innovative software developments, driven by customer demand for more productive financial management solutions, will also be on the agenda for small businesses in 2014.

“With high expectations of productivity increases, nearly 40 percent of SMBs (small and medium businesses) are planning to buy or upgrade iPad and tablet technologies over the next year, with those businesses of 10 employees or more having an even higher planned adoption rate, according to the 2013 TechAisle Australia SMB Mobility Adoption and Trends report,” Mr Paterson said.

He predicted small businesses would be set to benefit from unprecedented access to timely data, professional advice and technological support with increasingly powerful cloud and mobile solutions facilitating faster, more collaborative ways of working in 2014.

While the trend was strong in medium and larger businesses, the action was at the SMB level.

“We’ve seen greater than anticipated usage of mobile devices by small businesses, with Australia now ranked second in the world for smartphone usage,” Mr Paterson said.

“According to a recent TechAisle study, telecommuting has also become the norm, with 72 percent of employees in smaller companies taking advantage of the latest mobility devices and working from home.

“In addition to access, small businesses and their trusted advisors including accountants and bookkeepers are also increasingly looking for ways to save time. Intuit’s 2013 research with 1000 small businesses in Australia showed that owners could save, on average, an hour each day by being able to complete business tasks on the go – this equates to an entire month’s holiday.”

Mr Paterson predicted 2014 would see increasing levels of collaboration enabled by cloud and mobile technologies and a deepening of the relationship between small businesses and accounting practitioners.

“Our customers tell us they love flexible, scalable online platforms and the sophistication of software which enables those with financial responsibilities to have access to their accountant’s expertise anywhere, at any time and from any device. As such, we are seeing the concept of having an ‘accountant in your pocket’ become a reality,” Mr Paterson said.

“The shift in the role of the accountant, from ‘number cruncher’ to trusted financial advisor, will only continue, meaning accountants will have to step up to the plate and differentiate themselves by offering value-added consultative services 1.

“Small businesses, accountants and bookkeepers also need software that simply works and is intuitive so application suites will have to integrate the products and services that address the entire workflow and enable better communication and collaboration.”

Mr Paterson said Intuit’s focus in 2014 would be to bring together small business and accounting offerings with the power of the cloud and mobile, rolling out a ‘virtual office’ solution to streamline the entire end-to-end financial process, and introducing the power that will enable Intuit to be the operating system, or platform, behind small business success.

“We believe the interests of our small business customers and their accounting practitioners are now one and the same – the focus is on time saving, growth and service,” he said.

“To thrive in this environment, they need solutions that are built from the ground up for a mobile environment and contain the same powerful features as their desktop counterparts. We knew mobile would lead with customers and we’ve been preparing for it.”

Paterson said that this year, more than ever, Intuit was set to put customers in the driver’s seat, enabling participation-driven innovation.  

“Customers will continue to drive innovation as we dramatically increase the number of updates to the Australian business,” Mr Paterson said.

“Partnering with bookkeepers, accountants, developers and industry bodies, we expect to see some really exciting growth and platform developments in 2014 and beyond.”

www.intuit.com.au 

 

[1]The Intuit 2013 Future of Accountancy Report found these services were being impacted by significant changes in the global business environment, online and mobile technologies, social networks and the rise of Gen Y and Millennial.

 

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Online shopping clicks into second wave of growth across Australia

ONLINE shopping in Australia is enjoying a strong second wave of growth, according to Swinburne University of Technology researchers.

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More Australians are stepping out to shop - after online research

 

More Australian consumers seem to be building internet browsing, purchasing and financial transactions into their everyday lives.

A study of online retail in Australia from 2007-13, part of the World Internet Project (WIP) reveals a consistent pattern of large increases in the number of online purchases made by Australian consumers, reaching an average expenditure of $2616 a year.

"After an apparent plateau between 2009 and 2011, our latest survey confirms that online shopping by Australian consumers grew strongly again between 2011 and 2013,” said Scott Ewing of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation and Swinburne University of Technology.

"The good news for Australian businesses is that local retailers are maintaining their share of this growth, as Australian consumers maintain their strong preference for shopping with domestically-based websites,” Dr Ewing said.

"Three out of 10 Australians now shop online every week, or more often, compared with two in ten New Zealanders and one in 10 Swiss.”

The mean value of monthly online purchases by Australians grew by 5.8 percent to $218 from 2011-13, while the actual number of internet purchases grew by 46.2 percent. Men are still the internet shopping kings, buying $229 in online goods a month, compared to women’s purchases of $204.

"There has also been a continued major upsurge in the number of Aussies using the internet for financial transactions,” Dr Ewing said.

"For example people making travel bookings online grew from 49 percent in 2007 to 73 percent in 2013, those paying bills grew from 43 percent to 72 percent and those purchasing event tickets from 36 percent to 65 percent.”

The latest survey also reveals renewed growth in Australians buying digital content – movies, books, music, games etc – online rather than in-store.

The WIP is conducted in 30 countries round the world to compare internet use and behaviour. In Australia it consists of an annual survey of 1000 people aged 18 or older and has been running since 2007.

"In 2007 we found 73 percent of Australians were using the internet,” Dr Ewing said.

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Scott Ewing is tracking online shopping behaviour in Australia.

 

"This grew to 81 percent in 2009, to 87 percent in 2011 and in 2013 it reached 91 percent.

"So internet shopping in this country is growing for two reasons – first because more people are using the internet, and second because more internet users are purchasing online. It is important to bear these two factors in mind when considering the growth in online activity.”

To gauge how the internet has affected businesses, in 2007 around 40 percent of Australians never looked for product information online – but by 2013, this had dropped to 16 percent.

"Basically, five Australians in every six are now seeking information about intended purchases online before they buy, and this underlines the importance of having an internet sales presence.”

At the same time more than a quarter of the population is buying something online at least once a week, Dr Ewing said. About 69 percent look up items online before buying at the store.

Buying online is still strongly driven by price, consumers say – but they continue to find it hard to assess product quality online.

The proportion of internet users who shop online in Australia is very similar to comparable countries. Australia, New Zealand, Sweden and the UK have almost identical rates of online shopping at 85, 86, 85 and 87 percent respectively. This compares with 76 percent of Americans and 68 percent of Swiss.

Travel is an area where the internet plays a big role with 74 percent of Australians making an online booking at least once a month, while 79 percent now pay their bills online. However one area of online activity that continues to languish is buying stocks and shares – only 8 percent of people use the internet regularly for securities trading.

While 87 percent of Australians use the internet to compare prices, fewer than 13 percent use it to sell things regularly. Also 79 percent expressed a strong preference for buying goods from an Australian website.

Resistance to buying digital content online is decreasing, with consumers indicating they are more prepared to buy music or newspapers online: a slim majority are now prepared to download music but 61 percent are still opposed to online newspapers.

Full report at: http://www.cci.edu.au/sites/default/files/retailreport2014.pdf

http://www.swin.edu.au/

 

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Retail is now a 'two-track' market, physical and digital - and here comes 'clientelling'

A GLOBAL retail industry specialist believes the most successful retailers in European and US markets have now evolved what he calls ‘two-track’ engagement with customers – melding physical and digital – and Australian companies need to take notice. He has also flagged the rapid emergence of so-called ‘clientelling’ digital retailing support systems.

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Dan Wagner, Powa Technologies. Image: WWPR.

Retail and mobile payment entrepreneur Dan Wagner, CEO of Powa Technologies, said the record levels of online sales throughout the latest Christmas holiday season has highlighted the ‘two-track’ nature of retailing. He calls it “a new paradigm where traders with a higher commitment to technology and a multichannel approach are in the fast lane”.

On the way is a new system to boost customer engagement, labelled ‘clientelling’.

“A new concept known as clientelling is another way physical shops can offer something more to the customer,” Mr Wagner said.

“Using clientelling techniques, when a staff member serves a customer the IT (information technology) systems can bring up the individual customer’s engagement record and automatically flag if they have ordered something online that they could be collecting from the store.

“The shop worker, even if it’s their first day on the job, has all the information they need to assist the customer, extend the engagement in a number of ways and perhaps identify otherwise unexploited opportunities to up-sell.”

Mr Wagner said slick multichannel retail operators offering consumers the flexibility to shop how and when they like have clearly been the most successful this holiday season.

Even though extreme weather in many parts of Europe and North America dampened the usual end of year shopping activity, online sales accounted for their highest share of the spend ever.

Mr Wagner said with distinct winners and losers there was now a clear ‘two-track’ situation in retail and those traders with the highest commitment to their online operations are in the ‘fast track’.

Retailers that have invested significantly in their websites and improving their delivery times have struck a chord with customers who value flexibility, choice and convenience whenever and wherever they do their shopping.
 
Mr Wagner said it was now “make or break for Main Street” with retailers needing to leverage online-style technologies in a converged multichannel model to survive.

“Traditional Main Street stores really need to up their game to compete in the new shopping era that we are entering,” Mr Wagner said.

“They need a multichannel approach that adopts best practice from online and adapts its techniques and technologies to traditional brick and mortar retail.”

Mobile technologies are now coming into their own in retailer relationships with customers.
 
“Smartphones are becoming the focus for customer engagement with shops and retailers should be employing mobile app technologies to improve the customer experience and transforming their premises into data-rich browsing environments,” Mr Wagner said.

“For example, low-energy Bluetooth beacons can be strategically placed around stores, messaging shoppers as they approach special offers. In this way shopping becomes a more interactive and personalised experience.

“The technology also has the additional bonus of adding value by retaining valuable data about shopping behaviour.”

Often an extensive network of shops and distribution centres is seen as a massive overhead for retailers, but a national footprint can offer big benefits in the multichannel paradigm, Mr Wagner is finding.

“Retailers with a network of stores and distribution centres should be using this to their advantage by offering immediate delivery for online orders,” he said.

“They could use geolocation information about where orders are being placed and contact the customer by text to suggest a visit to the nearest store to their current location to pick up their shopping, or perhaps to suggest delivery in the next half hour. This contact also offers another valuable opportunity for engagement and up-selling.”
 
Mr Wagner said retailers who focused on using the technologies to help build relationships with their customers would succeed, making best utilisation of their existing brands and physical assets.

 “Mobile technologies along with clientelling and the use of local stores as delivery/distribution points, in concert with developments in the design and layout of shops offer more convenience and a customer experience that is on a par with and often richer than the online alternatives,” Mr Wagner said.

“Traditional retailers now have no excuses not to up their game and adopt online techniques.

“The number of ways that they can engage with their customers is increasing but they urgently need to adopt a more technology-led, multichannel approach to get them coming back in through their doors.”

Mr Wagner has developed Powa Technologies as an international commerce specialist that creates technologies to integrate the physical and digital world. Previously he established Venda – which developed into one of the world’s largest on-demand ecommerce providers – and Locayta, a sophisticated search and profiling technology.

http://www.powa.com/

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Facebook heads technology coalition to make internet access available to everyone

FACEBOOK founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is leading a coalition of global technology companies that want to make internet access available to "the next five billion people". Founding partners in the organisation, Internet.org, are Facebook, Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Opera, Qualcom and Samsung.

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Internet.org wants to bring the worldwide web to another five billion people. Image: Internet.org.

 

"Everything Facebook has done has been about giving all people around the world the power to connect," Mr Zuckerberg said. "There are huge barriers in developing countries to connecting and joining the knowledge economy. Internet.org brings together a global partnership that will work to overcome these challenges, including making internet access available to those who cannot currently afford it."

Mr Zuckerberg said at present only 2.7 billion people - just over one-third of the world's population - have access to the internet. He warned that internet adoption is growing by less than 9 percent each year, "which is slow considering how early we are in its development".

"The goal of Internet.org is to make internet access available to the two-thirds of the world who are not yet connected, and to bring the same opportunities to everyone that the connected third of the world has today."

The founding members of internet.org have pledged to develop joint projects, share knowledge, and mobilise industry and governments to bring the world online.

In his statement, Mr Zuckerberg said the founding companies "have a long history of working closely with mobile operators and expect them to play leading roles within the initiative, which over time will also include NGOs, academics and experts as well".

Internet.org has been influenced by the successful Open Compute Project, an industry-wide initiative that has lowered the costs of ‘cloud' computing by making hardware designs more efficient and innovative.

By reducing the cost and amount of data required for most apps and enabling new business models, Internet.org is focused on enabling the next five billion people to come online.

Facebook, Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Opera, Qualcomm, Samsung and other partners have pledged to build on existing partnerships and explore new ways to collaborate to solve these problems.

"For more than 100 years, Ericsson has been enabling communications for all and today more than six billion people in the world have access to mobile communications," said Hans Vestberg, president and CEO of Ericsson.

"We are committed to shaping the ‘networked society' - where everyone and everything will be connected in real time; creating the freedom, empowerment and opportunity to transform society. We believe affordable connectivity and internet access improves people's lives and helps build a more sustainable planet and therefore we are excited to participate in the internet.org initiative."

Nokia president and CEO Stephen Elop said, "Nokia is deeply passionate about connecting people - to one another and the world around them. Over the years, Nokia has connected well over a billion people.

"Our industry is now at an exciting inflection point where Internet connectivity is becoming more affordable and efficient for consumers while still offering them great experiences. Universal internet access will be the next great industrial revolution."

CEO and president of the IT & Mobile Communications Division at Samsung Electronics, JK Shin said, "This new initiative has big potential to help accelerate access to the internet for everyone. We're focused on delivering high quality mobile devices to ensure that the next five billion people have great mobile internet experiences."

MediaTek chairman MK Tsai said, "As a world leader in mobile solutions for emerging markets having powered more than 300 million smart devices within two years, MediaTek whole heartedly supports the Internet.org initiative. Global Internet and social media access represent the biggest shift since the industrial revolution, and we want to make it all-inclusive."

Lars Boilesen, the CEO of Opera Software said, "Today, more than 300 million people use Opera every month to access the internet. Tomorrow, we have a chance to serve the next five billion people connecting on mobile devices in developing countries. It's in Opera's DNA to save people time, money and data, and through Internet.org we think we can help advance these goals."

Qualcomm Incorporated CEO and chairman Paul Jacobs agreed.

"Mobile has helped to transform many people's lives in the emerging regions where often a computing device will be the first and only mobile experience they'll ever have" Mr Jacobs said.

 "Having shipped more than 11 billion chips, Qualcomm is a market leader that is committed to the goal of bridging the digital divide. We're pleased to be a part of Internet.org and to be working with key ecosystem players to drive this initiative forward."

 

 

INTERNET.ORG GOALS

In order to achieve its goal of connecting the two-thirds of the world who are not yet online, Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg said Internet.org would focus on three key challenges in developing countries:

  • Making access affordable: Partners will collaborate to develop and adopt technologies that make mobile connectivity more affordable and decrease the cost of delivering data to people worldwide. Potential projects include collaborations to develop lower-cost, higher-quality smartphones and partnerships to more broadly deploy internet access in underserved communities. Mobile operators will play a central role in this effort by driving initiatives that benefit the entire ecosystem.
  • Using data more efficiently: Partners will invest in tools that dramatically reduce the amount of data required to use most apps and internet experiences. Potential projects include developing data compression tools, enhancing network capabilities to more efficiently handle data, building systems to cache data efficiently and creating frameworks for apps to reduce data usage.
  • Helping businesses drive access: Partners will support development of sustainable new business models and services that make it easier for people to access the internet. This includes testing new models that align incentives for mobile operators, device manufacturers, developers and other businesses to provide more affordable access than has previously been possible. Other efforts will focus on localising services - working with operating system providers and other partners to enable more languages on mobile devices. 

http://www.internet.org/

 

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Digital Business insights: Email and Google are still your best friends

 

FOR HUNDREDS of years, powerful sales and marketing people have been pushing products and services at customers. Possibly even thousands of years.

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Digital Business insights CEO John Sheridan.

 

Then along came Google. And changed the game.

"Push" moved to "pull".

All those millions and billions and trillions of dollars invested in "push" and suddenly it doesn't work any more. Not in the way it used to.

When I say suddenly, I mean in a major historical revolutionary sense, so I actually mean about two decades in a couple of hundred years worth of revolution - the digital revolution.

But the impact is already plain to see.

Google is the customer's best friend. And Google is the vendor's best friend.

It costs something to be Google's friend if you are a vendor, but the rewards are more than worth the investment and totally justify Google's current share price.

Will anything much come from the effort being poured into other customer relationship tools?

Email marketing is still worth your time and investment.

Email marketing targets your existing customers. And Google picks up anybody new looking for whatever you might sell.

Email for the already engaged and Google for leads generation. What else do you need?

Not a lot. This is the main game at this stage.

But talk to your customers and see if the 20% that generate 80% of your income would prefer anything else, or would like to use any other platforms and channels for engagement with you. They are important to your business bottom line, so listen to what they say.

If so, give them what they want - Blogs, YouTube, Facebook, Podcasts, whatever. But be very clear that in general Google and Email should dominate your ROI.

It is not difficult.

If you run events, expos or workshops, or you are a celebrity, then add Twitter to the mix. But otherwise don't bother.

Remember, 92% of people don't look at online adverts. And only a miniscule number actually click to find out more. If you own one of the very small number of websites that has hundreds of thousands of visitors every day, then you can play the numbers game.

If not, you have to get smart. Use the tools that work. And use the tools that you know work for you and your business. Don't guess. Find out.

Then spend your funds wisely.

- John Sheridan, December 2013.

John Sheridan is CEO of Digital Business insights, an organisation based in Brisbane, Australia, which focuses on helping organisations and communities adapt to, and flourish in, the new digital world. He is the author of Connecting the Dots and getting more out of the digital revolution. Digital Business insights has been researching and analysing the digital revolution for more than 12 years and has surveyed more than 50,000 businesses, conducting in-depth case study analysis on more than 350 organisations and digital entrepreneurs.

http://www.db-insights.com/

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