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Thursday, January 31, 2008
Reports this week illustrate the yin and yang of the exploding arena of mobile payments: one study suggests that mobile payments will grow to $22 billion by 2011, thanks to technology which will turn your mobile device into a virtual ATM in your pocket; yet other reports cite significant security issues as banks scurry to protect data and dollars as more customers use mobile devices to make payments.
"We will focus on what is most important; we are committed to customer experience” was the battle cry of Howard Schultz as he addressed investors on a conference call earlier this month as he once again took the reigns of mega coffee giant Starbucks. Starbucks has long been the poster child for great customer experiences and has in fact inspired a book written by Joseph A. Michelli titled The Starbucks Experience, in which he discusses 5 key principles for turning ordinary into extraordinary.
Marketers and marketing firms are accustomed to categorizing the world of commerce into business-to-consumer (B-to-C or B2C) or business-to-business (B-to-B or B2B). All of this neatly assumes that the marketer is the sender of the brand message to a specific audience. It also assumes you can classify individuals into a giant segment of spenders called consumers.
This is old world, mass-media, marketer-in-control thinking. Today, a good portion of brand communication goes on at the individual-to-individual (I-to-I) level. Smart companies know this, but there still remains a substantial amount of marketing rooted in the antiquated command-and-control style.
The National Football League is known for its extreme restrictions on press access and video footage, but its Super Bowl media approach seems encouraging for online news organizations.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
It appears more companies are asking whether they should be hosting their own software and server solutions, and are instead looking at pay-as-you-use, web-based solutions. According to this article at TechCrunch, half of all IT spending is allocated to software and hardware purchases. That kind of money buys a lot of software services that can be accessed via the Web. It also eliminates some of the considerable costs and headaches that are associated with maintaining on-premise solutions. With many businesses concerned with the effects of a looming U.S. recession, there will be additional pressure for IT departments to find ways to provide essential services with less outlay. As a result, web-based solutions may be on the table.