Mobile Insights - Feeling the Force (Force Touch) with iOS 9

My friend and Cognizant's mobile and digital technical guru, Peter Rogers, has been playing again. In this "must read" article he shares how iOS9 handles touch and sensing.   Enjoy!
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Every time there is a new games console release (especially when Nintendo is involved) rumours are always floating abound of a technological support for textures that you can actually feel on your touch screen. Basically the ability to sense different materials through the screen. It is a lovely idea and the closest we have come yet is probably haptics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haptic_technology) and electric shock feedback (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRQAijNKSEs).

Well, we are not there quite yet but Apple certainly came close with the iPhone 6S announcement of 3D Touch (http://www.apple.com/iphone-6s/3d-touch/). After revolutionising the touch screen world with multi-touch, it then made perfect sense to add a force element to the touches in order to offer different types of touch depending on the applied pressure. In fact, there was something called Force Touch which was already available on the Apple Watch however it had less capability to measure your touches and doesn’t react as quickly to your input. This is because the new 3D touch can instantly measure microscopic changes and feed them back from the hardware to the software in real-time. 3D Touch is highly sensitive and reacts immediately, it also allowing different types (or level) of press depending on the pressure applied. Apple have included this feature in iOS 9 but the hardware is only released in the 6S devices.

“When you press the display, capacitive sensors instantly measure microscopic changes in the distance between the cover glass and the backlight. iOS uses these measurements to provide fast, accurate, and continuous response to finger pressure, which could only happen with deep integration between software and hardware. iPhone 6s also provides you with responsive feedback in the form of subtle taps, letting you know that it’s sensing the pressure you’re applying.” [Apple]

I have already fallen in love with 3D Touch but we have to remember that it is only available on 3D Touch devices and the feature may also be turned off by the user. Currently the only devices supporting this are the 6S and 6S Plus, which is surprising given that the new iPad Pro would be perfect for pressure sensitive art packages. The Apple Human Interface Guidelines state that “When 3D Touch is available, take advantage of its capabilities. When it is not available, provide alternatives such as by employing touch and hold. To ensure that all your users can access your app’s features, branch your code depending on whether 3D Touch is available.” This gives a glimpse of a future whereby most Apps are using 3D Touch even if it is faked on non-3D Touch devices.

As well as being built into some preinstalled applications.  You can also use it within third party applications. The 3D Touch enables three new types of capability:
  1. Pressure sensitive applications, such as art packages
  2. Peek and pop, to preview content without opening it
  3. Quick actions, to offer a short cut to different services offered by the same App
Mobile & Gaming Expert
Cognizant's Peter Rogers
The first is realised by two new properties in the UITouch class: ‘force’ and ‘maximumPossibleForce’. These properties allow ‘UIEvent’ events to convey touch pressure information to the App. A typical example is an art package whereby you press harder to get a thicker line.

The second is true genius in my opinion. The UIViewController class can respond to three phases of applied pressure to offer ‘Peek and Pop’ functionality. When you first apply a little bit of pressure then a visual indication appears  (the rest of the content blurs) to show if a content preview is available. If it is then a little bit more pressure then you will be shown a preview of the content called a ‘Peek’. If you release your finger at this stage then the content preview is hidden and you return back to the original user interface without having wasted your time loading content that was needlessly time consuming. The email client is a perfect use case as you can imagine. If however you swipe upwards on the Peek then you are shown the ‘Peek Quick Actions’ which allow you to perform quick actions associated with it – this will be explained in the Quick Actions section later on. If you apply the final level of pressure then the you can optionally navigate to the preview content and this is referred to as a ‘Pop’. The analogy here is of a stack of visual elements that allows you to peek at an element before popping it off the stack.

This is where Apple have been really clever in iOS 9 and their rollout of information, as we had previously seen the capability to switch between Apps transparently, but it becomes very clear why this is so useful when we see ‘Peek and Pop’. For example the new Safari View Controller actually uses Safari to do the new rendering without launching it. Likewise the new hot-linking between Web Browser and Apps is seamless without any App loading or closing. This enables the Peak Preview to show you the a preview of a Web URL or Apple Map contained in an email, without having to clumsily swap between applications. This is built into a few of the native applications: email; web links in email; locations in email; and the camera.

The third is probably the most contentious. By clicking on an App icon within a 3D Touch device then you will be presented with a menu of options called Quick Actions. These actions allow you to use the App to quickly perform a given service – for example “Take a Selfie” is supported in the pre-installed Camera App. If you can anticipate between three and five common tasks that your App performs (typically the items within a menu shown in the first screen are good candidates) then you can offer these as Quick Actions either statically (in your app’s Info.plist file) or dynamically (using UIApplicationShortcutItem). A Quick Action can return a small amount of text and an optional icon.

The only downside to all of this wonderfulness is how Xcode 7 supports 3D Touch development. Sadly the Simulator in Xcode 7 does not support 3D Touch and neither does Interface Builder. That pretty much means you need to develop on the device for testing 3D Touch. It also adds a whole layer of entropy for automated testing using systems like Calabash.

As wonderful as iOS 9 is, and I truly believe it is wonderful now, the bottom line is that developers are going to face three issues:
  1. They will need to be doing a lot more on-device testing for 3D Touch and Multi-Tasking
  2. They will be increasingly going in different directions for iOS and Android development
  3. They will be increasingly waiting for cutting edge features to be supported in cross-platform solutions 
iOS 9 may go down in history as the operating system that finally broke cross platform development and actually differentiated between native Apps and HTML 5.

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Kevin Benedict
Writer, Speaker, Senior Analyst
The Center for the Future of Work, Cognizant
View my profile on LinkedIn
Read more at Future of Work
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and digital transformation analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

The Digital Transformation Imperative

Rahul Tyagi
It is my belief that mobile technologies drive the train of digital transformation.  It is the effort of supporting a real-time mobile user that is forcing enterprises to rethink business processes, IT environments, budget priorities and business strategies.

In this article my colleague and digital transformation strategies expert Rahul Tyagi, shares his insights on digital transformation.  He is an alumnus of Harvard Business School and IIT, Roorkee, India.  Enjoy!
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The dictionary meaning of digital is anything that has digits [not helpful]. The software industry has been dealing with digital for the past five decades via mainframe software, PC software, client-server software etc. So why we are talking about digital now? I recently conducted a Google search to find what the world is saying about digital. I looked at the Federal Government Digital Strategy, I skimmed thru Cisco’s Digital Point-of-View, reviewed MIT Sloan's digital perspective and many more. I found no satisfactory insights.

I will share my point of view now.  Let's look at the key drivers of Digital.

DIGITAL DRIVER – INNOVATION AND ITS PROLIFERATION

We looked at innovation happening in organizations, and how it proliferates across industries over last 100+ years. Here are few examples
  1. Ford perfected assembly line concept (circa 1910) that helped produce economical cars for broader demographics. Over next 5 + decades the assembly line concept was gradually adopted by other manufacturing industries e.g. steel mills, food and beverages and cloth manufacturers etc.
  2. Motorola invented concept of Six Sigma (circa 1970) to produce high quality electronic components. Over next 3+ decades Six Sigma is adopted by thousands of organization across many industries e.g. telecom, software, manufacturing etc.
  3. IBM created Eclipse in year 1998 and later open sourced it. Over last 1+ decade Eclipse is adopted by software developers across industries.
  4. Google invented Map Reduce concept (circa 2001) to process large size data sets. Over last decade Map Reduce is widely adopted by IT departments across many industries.
We observed innovation typically follows a path from inside organizations to industry (or industries). Proliferation of innovation takes time e.g. the use of assembly line concepts took a few decades to proliferate, Six Sigma took 1+ decade to proliferate.

Today we observe a huge amount of innovation happening around personalized user engagements in various form factors, the micro measurement of user behaviors, advanced analytics and social aspects, cloud etc. We believe today that user centric innovation is ripe for adoption across industries to provide more meaningful user engagements.

DIGITAL DRIVER – SUNDAY NIGHT AND MONDAY MORNING USER EXPERIENCE

Today we can use many engaging tools which are available for free in the public domain e.g. Facebook, Google search, email and calendar etc. On Sunday nights we use engaging tools available in the public domain for free to get work done, e.g. Google search to get answers, Facebook to catch up with friends, public emails and apps to communicate, mobile apps etc. On Monday mornings, however, we start working with tools provided by our employer to get work done, e.g. information portal with inferior search capability, Timesheet applications that may have poor usability, archaic support systems etc. On Mondays if we reach out to our personal or business service providers, e.g. home utility service provider, cable provider, IRS etc., we are mostly dissatisfied with the quality of the customer engagement. Here are some examples:
  1. The user engagement (e.g. information relevance, information organization, communication etc.) with my service providers seems archaic
  2. Why doesn't the IRS provide easy access to my past tax returns on a portal?  
  3. Why do I have to struggle to get answers to my questions from my employer, when Google has all the answers outside of work?
The tools we use for free in our personal life on Sunday night have raised user expectations higher. There is huge gap between available user engagement experience from service providers and users expectations. The service providers (as well as employers) need to catch up to be relevant and to meet or exceed consumers’ expectations.

DIGITAL DRIVER – CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENTS ARE GETTING MORE AND MORE VIRTUAL

More customers are purchasing online.  In fact online retail sales grew 6 times faster than all other retail sales in US in year 2014. Increasingly, customers are engaging with service providers via e-channels e.g. mobile, social, online portals etc. At physical retail locations, consumers are finding basket assortments themselves and doing self checkouts. This indicates customer engagement is becoming increasingly virtual, where fewer customers are interacting in person with humans. In person engagement, although costly, gives service providers opportunities to identify customer issues and solve them.

In an era of virtual customer engagement, service providers should look for opportunities to identify customer issues digitally and proactively resolve them to minimize churn and attract more customers. Savings should be routed to measure, analyze and act on customer engagement statistics.

DIGITAL DRIVER – THE AGE OF THE CUSTOMER

Jim Blasingame the author of “The AGE of the CUSTOMER” says, ”An epochal marketplace shift is causing the 10,000-year-old Age of the Seller to be replaced by the Age of the Customer.”  In the Age of Seller - competitiveness can take a holiday.  In the Age of the Customer, your brand does not have that luxury. Your brand is under microscope 24/7/365, on Main Street or Cyber Street”.
Today's customers are empowered by information. Your site (eCommerce or physical) is probably the last place a customer goes in a path to purchase journey. Customers are making product purchase decision outside of your visibility and influence.

Per US census demographics, 41%+ of US population is under age 35 (Gen Y). Gen Y is natural adopters for new digital processes, newer tools and technologies. Gen Y uses extensively tools available in public domain. Gen Y has higher expectations for better user engagement. Organizations should adopt to meet and exceed expectations of their key constituents (Gen Y).

WHAT IS DIGITAL?

In our current context, digital means "providing always meaningful engagement to your key constituents," e.g. customers, partners and employees. To provide always meaningful engagement we will need to make changes to People, Processes and Tools.

Always meaningful engagement also encompasses continuously innovating products and services to meet and exceed customer’s current and near future needs. For example customer engagement in personal banking industry has evolved with online bill pay, email/text based payment, check submission over mobile etc.

Here are some quotes about Digital:
  • President Obama wrote following statement to set Digital Government vision “I want us to ask ourselves every day, how are we using technology to make a real difference in people’s lives.”
  • Robert McDonald P&G CEO talks about use of digital to build customer relationship “P&G’s purpose is to touch and improve lives…Digital technologies enable us to build indispensable relationship with our customers.”
  • Stefan Olander Nike’s VP Digital Sports Division talks about use of digital to improve products “[using digital,] How can we understand more about you…your motivation…[to make] better products.”
All of above quotes are about using digital technologies to provide value to customers.

WHY NOW?

If you are reading this section (Thank You!), by now you should have some idea about Why Digital and Why Digital Now.  Businesses will face a number of imminent challenges if they don't implement digital transformation.
  • They will have less relevant customer engagements, which will cause a poor customer experience and most likely reduce Net Promoters Scores.  
  • They will also see a higher customer churn rate, which impacts both top line and bottom line.
  • They will not know their customers' current and near future needs. It will be harder to launch creative products and services for customers. 
The cost of not digitally transforming is huge. Your business will become irrelevant. You will become the Blackberry of your industry. Now is the time to digitally transform.

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Kevin Benedict
Writer, Speaker, Senior Analyst
The Center for the Future of Work, Cognizant
View my profile on LinkedIn
Read more at Future of Work
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and digital transformation analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Mobile Expert Interviews: Apperian's CEO Brian Day

The enterprise mobility marketplace is changing rapidly as companies consolidate and transform.  While some enterprise mobility vendors disappear and leave the market, Apperian continues to grow and take on additional investment.  This week they announced a C level round of investment for $12 million.  I wanted to learn more about their strategies and why VCs continue to bet on them.  Enjoy!

Video link: https://youtu.be/0CBf-qwnbVc


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Kevin Benedict
Writer, Speaker, Senior Analyst
The Center for the Future of Work, Cognizant
View my profile on LinkedIn
Read more at Future of Work
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and digital transformation analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Mobile Commerce Strategies and CROME Triggers

In my research on mobile commerce and mobile consumers' behaviors this year, the need to personalize a user's mobile/digital experiences always comes up as a top priority.  Everyone wants an experience that is relevant. However, as I pondered these studies, it occurred to me that personalization is only a part of the solution. If you received an SMS message on your smartphone about a shoe sales (your favorite brand and style), that ended yesterday, at a location hundreds of miles away, the personalization would be without value.  Yes, it is your preferred brand and style, but not in your location or at a relevant time.  So there is something missing.

We, at Cognizant's Center for the Future of Work, have identified through our research the need for CROME (contextually relevant, opportunities, moments and environments) triggers.  CROME triggers are bits of data that provide context, which can be used to provide relevant personalization at a specific time and place. For example, you buy concert tickets on a mobile app.  When the event ends, the app automatically shows you (based on CROME triggers) available car services and public transportation close to your location with an option to order a pick-up with one click.  The CROME triggers in this example are:
  • The purchase of concert tickets
  • Known date and time of concert
  • Known location and venue
  • Recognized distance from your home address
  • Your movement which predicts the concert has ended
  • Your physical location
  • Weather conditions
  • Visibility into the locations of available cars
These CROME triggers provided the data that when analyzed, understood and integrated with relevant personalization engines, can optimize the user's experience.

There are at least six challenges when implementing a CROME strategies:
  1. Identify the required CROME triggers
  2. Understand what specific CROME triggers mean
  3. Understand where and how CROME triggers can be placed, collected and transmitted
  4. Monitor and analyze CROME triggers in real-time
  5. Connect specific CROME triggers to specific personalization options
  6. Provide CROME powered personalization in mobile experiences
CROME triggers inform you something different and perhaps significant is happening.  Finding the meaning, and then relating it to a need for personalization is the topic of my next article.

Stay tuned for my new report, Cutting Through Chaos in the Age of "Mobile Me".

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Kevin Benedict
Writer, Speaker, Senior Analyst
The Center for the Future of Work, Cognizant
View my profile on LinkedIn
Read more at Future of Work
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and digital transformation analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

How Do Mobile Experts Use Mobility and What Does it Mean for Retailers?


One hundred percent of mobile experts in our recent survey of 108 mobile experts purchase products online.  Ninety percent have purchased products and services using mobile devices, but only 13% use mobile devices exclusively for purchasing products. Forty-five percent typically use only desktops/laptops, and 40% use both equally.  These are some of the findings from the survey we conducted in May of 2015.

How often do mobile experts purchase products and services using their mobile devices?  Only 1% purchase products using mobile devices daily, 30% weekly, 43% monthly and 20% once every three months.

Wow!  I am a one-percenter!!!  I use my Starbuck's app and Apple Pay often multiple times in a day.

In another recent survey of 5,000 people in North America that I was involved in titled Cognizant's 2015 Shopper's Survey, we found 73% still prefer using desktops/laptops for online purchases. This does not mean mobile devices were not used in the path-to-purchase journey, rather desktops/laptops are often preferred for payments.

Our findings also reveal a typical path-to-purchase journey involves multiple platforms and devices. Often smartphones are used for quick searches and discovery, tablets are used for in-depth immersive product research, and desktops/laptops for purchases.  People even change their device preferences depending on the time of day.  Mobile devices are popular in the morning, at lunch and in the late afternoon.  Desktops and laptops are popular during business hours, while tablets are popular in the early to late evenings.  This points to the popularity of living room and in-bed shopping.  When asked where they are located when making online purchases they answered:
  • 46% in the living room
  • 36% at work
  • 29% in the bedroom
  • 24% in the TV room
  • 20% in coffee shops or restaurants
The use of multiple devices and platforms at different times of the day makes it challenging for online retailers and marketers to track consumer interests.  When asked the time of day when they make most of their online purchases, mobile experts listed the times in the following order by popularity:
  1. Early morning
  2. Mid-morning/Early afternoon
  3. Noon
  4. Late night
Our findings reveal that the retail strategies of yesteryear are insufficient for future success.  Today those involved in mobile commerce have many new challenges.  Mobile users follow different path-to-purchase journeys across multiple devices, times and locations.  These journeys look different for different demographics, categories of products and products with different price points as well. Context is mandatory today to understand how to personalize a digital experience.  Recommending places to eat in San Francisco based on my past preferences, when I am in Boston isn't useful.

Collecting greater quantities of data with users' permission in order to provide a contextually relevant and personalized experience is a hurdle retailers must overcome.  I have some thoughts.  Stay tuned for my new report, "Cutting Through Chaos in the Age of "Mobile Me."

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Kevin Benedict
Writer, Speaker, Senior Analyst
The Center for the Future of Work, Cognizant
View my profile on LinkedIn
Read more at Future of Work
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and digital transformation analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Mobile Commerce Strategies - Contextually Relevant Opportunities, Moments and Environments

In the early 1990s major retailers began investing in data analytics to better manage their stores and warehouses by analyzing individual store sales.  This insight gave them a perspective on the needs of the local market.

Retailers soon advanced in their use of analytics and added external factors for consideration and planning like demographics, weather, geography, local events and competitor's promotions and campaigns.

When customer loyalty programs tied to POS (point of sale) systems were implemented, retailers were able to start understanding individual customers through their transaction histories - at least what individuals bought from their stores.  The limitation, however, was this data was known and analyzed post-sales. There were no mechanisms in place to alert retailers to help customers during their path-to-purchase journeys.

Mobile computing technologies and wireless internet access introduced the age of mobile commerce. Mobile commerce enables retailers unprecedented capabilities to collect and analyze data from a wide array of sensors embedded in mobile devices.  The challenge then shifted from how to collect data, to how to get the user's permission and approval to collect and use data.  This is not always easy.

When asked in surveys, customers voice opposition to retailer's collecting data on them.  This, however, does not align with other survey results that show customers value a personalized digital experience.  You cannot personalize a digital experience based on data without data.  This dichotomy must be recognized by retailers and incorporated into their customer education plans and strategies.

Personalized digital experiences show respect and professionalism to customers.  Treating
individuals as if they belong to one homogeneous market is a recipe for failure.  It reflects an attitude that getting to know you is not worth the time or investment.  As more commerce moves from face-to-face interactions to mobile commerce, service and support can easily be lost in the bits and bytes. Retailers that try to offer mobile commerce without relevant personalization are short sighted and will ultimately fail.

Winners in mobile commerce will implement Code Halos (the data available about every person, object and organization) business strategies to find business meaning in data and to provide beautiful customer experiences.  They will also seek to triangulate three sources of data:
  1. Digital data from online and mobile activities
  2. Physical data from sensors and the IoT (internet of things, wearables, telematics, etc.)
  3. Customer loyalty and rewards programs data
Mobile commerce winners will seek contextually relevant opportunities, moments and environments (CROME) that can trigger personalized content at exactly the right time.  Alerting me to available food options in a city I left yesterday is not useful.  I need food options in the city I am in now. Context is time and location sensitive.

The competitive field in mobile commerce tomorrow will be around personalization, context and real-time operational tempos.  Can your legacy IT environment be upgraded to compete in the world of tomorrow?

Stay tuned for a major report I am writing on this subject to be published soon.

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Kevin Benedict
Writer, Speaker, Senior Analyst
The Center for the Future of Work, Cognizant
View my profile on LinkedIn
Read more at Future of Work
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and digital transformation analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Retail Evolution and Mobility

Farmers once sold their harvest bounty directly to their customers from beneath the branches of their fruit trees.  Customers had a direct face-to-face relationship with the farmer and could express their preferences and demonstrate their buying patterns to the farmer.  Over time farmers developed means to preserve and package their products, and to sell them through retail stores with large customer bases.  Sales expanded, but the personal relationship between the farmers and their customers, and an intimate understanding of each of their customers’ preferences was lost behind the retail shelves of big box stores.

Over time retail stores seeking market expansion and competitive differentiators developed mobile commerce apps that enabled them to sell products across a much wider geographic area, and to larger markets at any time of the day or night. This expanded sales potential, but in the process disconnected customers from the retailer’s physical store and location.

Mass marketing to mass audiences depersonalized the shopping experience.  It reduced the farmer’s products to mere commodities, and retail stores to logistic, warehouse and delivery centers.  It shifted competitive differentiators from customer service, retail locations, store layouts, local product selections and building designs to the designs of mobile commerce apps and websites, their performance and ease of navigation.  In addition, shipping costs and post-sales return policies moved from afterthoughts in fine print, to major competitive differentiators. Few were satisfied with these developments.  Customer service, brand loyalty and the consumer’s retail experience suffered.

Today, however, technologies and business strategies are converging again to offer hope these relationships can be restored, and the quality of the consumer’s mobile commerce experience improved.  The development of MyX (My Experience) personalization strategies and technologies are promising highly personalized digital experiences for consumers, and competitive advantages for businesses that can support them.

Creating highly personalized MyX mobile commerce apps for thousands and even millions of consumers requires business process re-engineering, new IT strategies, technologies, intelligent process automation and upgraded legacy systems and real-time personalized experiences. The competitive battlefields of retail are moving fast and demand urgent action today.

As consumers shift more of their work and personal time to mobile devices, we see rapid growth in both mobile marketing investments and the numbers of mobile commerce transactions.  Today 34 percent of global e-commerce transactions are mobile, even though 73 percent of survey participants continue to use desktop/laptops for most of their online shopping activities.  Mobile shoppers (those that shop online regularly using a smartphone or tablet) shop online more frequently than computer shoppers (those mostly using computers for online shopping activities), and as shoppers continue to migrate to mobile commerce these transaction numbers will see continuing growth.  The bottom line, mobile commerce is growing fast across all demographics and represents the future of retailing. Developing a strategy for personalizing users' experience is the key component.

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Kevin Benedict
Writer, Speaker, Senior Analyst
The Center for the Future of Work, Cognizant
View my profile on LinkedIn
Read more at Future of Work
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and digital transformation analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Mobility, Sensors, Robotic Process Automation and the Principle of Acceleration

If you have spent any time working on IT projects you would have heard the comment, "The system is only as good as the data." It's an accurate and necessary statement, as it describes a prerequisite for many technological innovations. Many system designs fail in the face of reality. Reality is often a cloaked term for implementing a digital solution in a physical world without a sufficient understanding of how the physical world operates. This is one problem where sensors can really help.

Sensors fill in the blind spots in our systems and operations by measuring the physical world and providing us with the data. Where previously we operated on conjecture or false assumptions, sensors provide real data on how the real world functions. Operating on real data allows for new and different approaches and IT strategies. Strategies that utilize artificial intelligence or in more complex environments robotic process automation solutions. These automated processes or solutions know exactly what to do in a complex process given specific data. Robotic process automation offers operational speeds and levels of accuracy never before possible with humans alone.

In a world of ubiquitous mobility, businesses must learn to operate in real-time. Marketing, sales and commerce must all evolve to operate in real-time. Think about a LBS (location based service) where retailers want to inform their customers, via SMS, of nearby discounts or special offers. If the SMS is delayed, the customer will likely have moved on and the SMS will be irrelevant. Payments must operate in real-time. Real-time is a speed deemed impossible just a few years ago and remains a future goal for most companies. Today, however, with mobile devices and real-time wireless sensors updating complex systems, it is often the humans in a process that are the sources and causes of bottlenecks. Think about how slow a credit or debit card transaction would be if every transaction ended up in a human's inbox to review and approve before it could be completed. Global and mobile commerce would stop. The credit and debit card processes have long ago been automated. Enterprises are now feeling the pressure to automate more processes to enable an operational tempo than runs at the speed of mobility.

What does it take to automate and run at real-time operational tempos? First, it takes accurate data that has not expired on the shelf. Data that has expired on the shelf means the value it once had, no longer remains.  For example, the weather forecast for last weekend, is not useful for this weekend.  The value of the data has expired. Second, it takes IT infrastructures capable of supporting real-time transactions and processing speeds. Thirdly, it takes defining decision trees, business rules and processes to the level where they can be coded and automated. This will then enable artificial intelligence to be added and utilized. Once enough artificial intelligence is supported it can be connected together into a complete process for RPA (robotic process automation) to be supported. Now you have a chance at real-time speeds.

In summary, accurate and real-time data, especially in a physical environment, will require sensors to fill data blind spots and replace data that has expired on the shelf. This is just one of the many ways enterprises can take advantage of the IoT (Internet of Things).

Mobile apps are driving the demand for real-time interactions and information.  Real-time demand drives a need to change business processes and IT (digital transformations). Digital transformation increases the demand for real-time IT infrastructures and processes, which in turn will increase the demand for IoT and robotic process automations. In economic circles this is known as the principle of acceleration. If demand for a product or solution increases, then the production capabilities for supplying the demand increases at an even greater amount. What does that mean for us?  Mobile is going to drive all kinds of increasing changes in business and IT. Mobile technologies are having an acceleration effect across enterprises and IT today. This effect is driving digital transformation initiatives toward reaching the "real-time" benchmark that will require more enterprise IoT and robotic process automations to achieve real-time speeds.

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Kevin Benedict
Writer, Speaker, Senior Analyst
Digital Transformation, EBA, Center for the Future of Work Cognizant
View my profile on LinkedIn
Read more at Future of Work
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and digital transformation analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Laws for Mobility, IoT, Artificial Intelligence and Intelligent Process Automation

If you are the VP of Sales, it is quite likely you want and need to know up to date sales numbers, pipeline status and forecasts.  If you are meeting with a prospect to close a deal, it is quite likely that having up to date business intelligence and CRM information would be useful.  Likewise traveling to a remote job site to check on the progress of an engineering project is also an obvious trigger that you will need the latest project information.  Developing solutions integrated with mobile applications that can anticipate your needs based upon your Code Halo data, the information that surrounds people, organizations, projects, activities and devices, and acting upon it automatically is where a large amount of productivity gains will be found in the future.

There needs to be a law, like Moore's infamous law, that states, "The more data that is collected and analyzed, the greater the economic value it has in aggregate," i.e. as Aristotle is credited with saying, "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts." This law I believe is accurate and my colleagues at the Center for the Future of Work, wrote a book titled Code Halos that documents evidence of its truthfulness as well.  I would also like to submit an additional law, "Data has a shelf-life and the economic value of data diminishes over time."  In other words, if I am negotiating a deal today, but can't get the critical business data I need for another week, the data will not be as valuable to me then.  The same is true if I am trying to optimize, in real-time, the schedules of 5,000 service techs, but don't have up to date job status information. Receiving job status information tomorrow, does not help me optimize schedules today.

Mobile devices are powerful sensor platforms.  They capture, through their many integrated sensors, information useful to establishing context.  Capturing GPS coordinates for example, enables managers to see the location of their workforce.  Using GPS coordinates and geo-fencing techniques enables a software solution to identify the job site where a team is located.  The job site is associated with a project, budget, P&L, schedule and customer.  Using this captured sensor data and merging it with an understanding of the needs of each supervisor based upon their title and role on the project enables context to be established.  If supervisor A is responsible for electrical, then configure the software systems to recognize his/her physical approach to a jobsite and automatically send the latest information on the relevant component of the project.

I submit for your consideration yet another law, "The economic value of information multiplies when combined with context, meaning and right time delivery."  As we have seen, mobile technologies are critical for all of the laws discussed so far in this article.

Once sensors are deployed, sensor measurements captured, data wirelessly uploaded, and context understood, then business rules can be developed whereby intelligent processes can be automated. Here is an example, workers arrive at a jobsite and this data is captured via GPS sensors in their smartphones and their arrival automatically registers in the timesheet app and their supervisor is notified.  As they near the jobsite in the morning, using geo-fencing rules, each worker is wirelessly sent their work assignments, instructions and project schedules for the day.  The right data is sent to the right person on the right device at the right time.

The IoT (Internet of Things) is a world of connected sensors.  These sensors feed more sources of captured data into the analytics engine that is used to find meaning and to provide situational awareness.  If smartphones are mobile sensor platforms, then smartphones and IoT are both peas in the same pod.

Intelligent automated processes, like the ones mentioned above, are called "software robots" by some. These are "aware" processes acting upon real-time data in a manner that supports human activities and increases productivity.  Here is what we all need to recognize - mobile applications and solutions are just the beginning in this value chain.  Rule: Mobile apps provide only as much value as the systems behind them.  Recognizing mobile devices are sensor and reporting platforms that front systems utilizing artificial intelligence and automated processes to optimize human productivity is where the giant leaps in productivity will be found.

If you agree with my premises, then you will understand the urgency to move beyond the simple testing and deployment of basic mobile apps and jump into building the real value in the intelligent systems behind them.

Summary of Laws:
  • The more data that is collected and analyzed, the greater the economic value it has in aggregate
  • Data has a shelf-life and the economic value of data diminishes over time
  • The economic value of information multiplies when combined with context, meaning and right time delivery
  • Mobile apps provide only as much value as the systems and intelligent processes behind them
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Kevin Benedict
Writer, Speaker, Senior Analyst
Digital Transformation, EBA, Center for the Future of Work Cognizant
View my profile on LinkedIn
Read more at Future of Work
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and digital transformation analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Mobile Commerce, Speed, Operational Tempos and the Real-Time Enterprise, Part 3

This is part 3 in the article series.  Read part 1 and part 2 here.

The Shelf Life of Data and the Need for Speed

Today enterprises are facing a massive challenge that will require new strategies and investment. In fact, 80 percent of survey participants reported that increasing demand for mobile apps is forcing IT departments to rethink and change how they have designed IT environments.  Rethinking and changing IT environments requires investment and budget, and 83 percent believe the demand for mobile applications will force enterprises to make major investments in their IT environments to better support real-time interactions with mobile apps and to remain competitive.

Our survey reveals that real-time mobile data is critical for personalizing and optimizing the mobile user’s experience and promoting the adoption and utilization of mobile applications and websites. We have also found that organizations, IT environments, and business processes will require changes in order to support a faster operational tempo. One of the key reasons these changes are necessary is the shelf life of data. Data has greater economic value the faster it can be collected, transmitted, analyzed, consumed, and utilized. This brings us back to the speed requirement. If the mobile user can instantly be presented with a personalized and contextually relevant experience based on real-time and previously collected and analyzed data, then the user will realize the greatest value and utility.

Situational Awareness and Information Dominance

Military strategists today believe the size of opponents and their weapons platforms are less representative of military power than the quality of their sensors systems, mobile communication links, and their ability to utilize information to their advantage. We believe these same conclusions are also relevant in the commercial sector.

An enterprise’s ability to use information as a competitive advantage is central to a successful business strategy today. If a manager has the responsibility of optimizing the schedules of 5,000 service technicians during an ice storm, or routing 10,000 delivery trucks, then the faster they receive accurate data from the field - the better they can perform their jobs.

Information advantages often involve improving situational awareness — the ability to understand events and actions around you. This takes visibility and data. Visibility happens when people, mobile, and sensor data collection technologies are integrated with IT systems and processes that enable the measurement, collection, transmission, analysis, and reporting of remote activities and events. The faster this can be accomplished, the faster data-driven decisions can be made and tactics deployed.

Historically, it has been difficult to manage remote workforces due to a lack of visibility. There are too many unknowns and a lack of accountability, which forces managers to make decisions based upon conjecture, rather than on real-time data analysis. Robert L. Bateman writes in his book Digital War, “The three questions that have befuddled soldiers since the beginning of human history are:
  1. Where am I?
  2. Where are my buddies?
  3. Where is the enemy?" 
Bateman speaks to the difficulty of managing from afar. The lack of real-time visibility often means critical operational decisions and optimized scheduling choices are delayed, which results in the inefficient utilization of resources and assets. Today technologies exist to eliminate many of those operational blind spots.

Network-Centric Operations and Data Collection
The problem: Technology [used between WWI and WWII] was viewed in discrete packets as it applied to narrowly defined areas. As a result the US military did not fully develop the possible combinations of technology with tactics.” –Robert L. Bateman, Digital War
Many commercial organizations today retain the narrow view and strategy that Bateman wrote about. They continue to think about and deploy mobile and sensor technologies in line-of-business (LOB) silos. They believe in the utility of these technologies, but have no enterprise-wide strategy for combining mobile and sensor technologies with tactics to achieve an overall information advantage across the enterprise.

Modern military organizations use the term Network Centric Warfare strategies to describe an information-based strategy for winning wars. These strategies have been taught in military organizations for decades, but are less understood in the commercial sector, where these strategies can be found with names such as Network Centric Operations or Networked Field Services. Military organizations that have implemented Network Centric strategies are accustomed to using a wide range of mobile devices and sensors to create a web or grid of data collection capabilities that are all wirelessly networked together for the purpose of enhancing real-time situational awareness, organizational agility, collaboration, and decision-making. Commercial enterprises share many of the same requirements, but as our survey data shows, they have yet to adopt the necessary enterprise-wide strategies or IT systems with enough speed to support real-time interactions.

Given the importance of an information advantage, what should commercial organizations focus on in 2015 and beyond? Broadly the answers are:
  • Recognizing that information can be used as a competitive advantage
  • Recognizing the importance of achieving real-time operational tempos
  • Developing and implementing enterprise-wide network centric operational strategies
  • Utilizing mobile applications and sensors to reduce operational blind spots and improve situational awareness
  • Personalizing and contextualizing the mobile user experience using real-time data and Code Halos strategies
  • Employing artificial intelligence and machine learning to improve the speed of decision-making and the execution of tactics
An organization’s ability to be competitive now and in the future largely depends on its ability to successfully navigate the process of digital and organizational transformation to achieve an information advantage.  If you would like to brainstorm these issues and discuss your specific business environment please contact us.

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Kevin Benedict
Writer, Speaker, Senior Analyst
Digital Transformation, EBA, Center for the Future of Work Cognizant
View my profile on LinkedIn
Read more at Future of Work
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and digital transformation analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Mobile Commerce, Speed, Operational Tempos and the Real-Time Enterprise, Part 2

This article is part 2 in a series I wrote and published in an intelligence and defense industry trade journal.  You can read Part 1 and Part 3 here.

Operational Tempos and Mobility

Supporting real-time mobility is more than just a technology issue. It also requires companies to support real-time operational tempos. An operational tempo, in the context of this article, is defined as the speed or pace of business operations. Achieving a satisfactory operational tempo in order to support real-time mobility is a significant challenge and extends far beyond the IT environment and deep into decision-making and business processes.

Changing an enterprise’s operational tempo requires strong leadership that can transform the entire organization. It often requires significant IT updates and upgrades, organizational changes, and reengineering business processes and decision-making matrixes to align with real-time demands.
The military strategist and U.S. Air Force Colonel John Boyd taught that in order to win or gain superiority over an opponent, one should operate at a faster tempo than the opponent. Today competition is increasingly around the quality of mobile users’ experiences, data management, integrated IT systems, and the speed with which data can be collected, analyzed, and utilized. Robert Leonhard in the book The Art of Maneuver writes on the role of tempo and speed, “If I can develop and pursue my plan to defeat you faster than you can execute your plan to defeat me, then your plan is unimportant.” The words “faster than you can execute” in Leonhard’s context refer to the tempo of operations.

In a fast changing world, mobile applications are competing for users and acceptance against the
status quo (traditional paper or desktop processes) and competitors’ apps. In order for organizations to be successful, they must deliver mobile applications that will meet the expectations of mobile users. A key component of a good mobile user experience, as we previously identified, is the speed with which it can load and respond to clicks, swipes, taps, commands, and queries. When asked in a survey how significant speed is to a user’s overall mobile application experience, 80 percent answered “very important."

Contextually Relevant Mobile Apps

It is well known that the more personalized and contextually relevant a mobile application or website is to the user, the more successful it will be at delivering a good user experience. Mobile apps and websites by their very nature are used on the move. That means the context in which a mobile device is being used changes rapidly. This data can be about locations, time, activities, history, and behaviors. This important data must quickly be collected, analyzed, and consumed by the mobile application fast enough to personalize the user’s experience before the context changes. Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work calls this Code Halos.  This refers to all the data about a person, object, or organization that can be used to personalize and contextualize a mobile and digital experience.

The data required to personalize and contextualize an experience takes time to process and utilize. It often requires many different integrated IT systems. It needs to be captured, transmitted, analyzed, and shared in real time with the mobile application and used to personalize the user experience. The speed with which all of these steps can be executed is important. No matter how great a mobile application’s design, delays in retrieving or interacting with back-office business or IT systems equate to negative user experiences. This is true for business-to-business, business-to-employee, or business-to-consumer mobile applications. In order to be successful, IT systems must operate at speeds quick enough to satisfy all of these different categories of mobile users. This requires a serious review of every IT, operational, and business process component that ultimately impacts the speed of mobile applications.

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Kevin Benedict
Writer, Speaker, Senior Analyst
Digital Transformation, EBA, Center for the Future of Work Cognizant
View my profile on LinkedIn
Read more at Future of Work
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and digital transformation analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Mobile Commerce, Speed, Operational Tempos and the Real-Time Enterprise, Part 1

In a recent survey of eighty IT and business professionals, 73 percent responded that having optimized mobile applications and user experiences was “very important to critical” to their company’s future success.  In the same survey however, 78 percent reported their mobile strategies and plans were inhibited or limited by their existing IT environment. These results reveal a critical gap between the requirements for success and the reality of the obstacles enterprises are facing. Overcoming these challenges is the strategic imperative facing large enterprises today.

Enterprises understand that digital transformations being driven by mobile technologies and the Internet of Things (IoT) are changing their industries and markets. Consumer behaviors are changing at speeds never before seen, which impacts how businesses operate and bring products to market. These rapid changes are forcing enterprises to change their strategies in R&D, manufacturing, distribution, marketing, and sales. They are being forced to reconsider budget priorities and plans. They feel uneasiness. They are concerned with their ability to remain competitive, to understand real-time market trends, and to be agile and flexible enough to respond in time. They do know, however, that mobile technologies, sensors, and information management are at the forefront of these changes and are key components of any plans and strategies.

As organizations begin developing mobile strategies and implementing mobile apps, they quickly realize that simply developing and deploying basic mobile apps, infrastructure, and frameworks are not enough. They must push further and implement a real-time enterprise to remain competitive. This real-time requirement is at the root of many additional challenges. Eighty-four percent of survey participants reported they have IT systems too slow or incapable of supporting real-time mobility, which negatively impacts mobile app performance and user experiences.

Jonathan Gabbai, Head of International Mobile Product at eBay, recently reported almost half of eBay’s transactions globally are now touched by mobile.  Users conduct product research, create wish lists, and complete transactions using mobile applications. With so much business now depending on mobile device, application, and website performance, the user experience must be outstanding in order to be competitive. An October 2014 Harris Poll survey found that 37 percent of U.S. smartphone and tablet owners now favor mobile shopping over in-store shopping, and Google reports that 79 percent of consumers now say they use a smartphone to help with shopping.  These numbers alone should move mobile technologies up the priority list of any business.

Although an increasing number of shoppers prefer the convenience of mobile shopping, they still remain hard to please. Forty-six percent of mobile shoppers say they will leave a mobile app or mobile site if it fails to load in three seconds or less, while 80 percent will leave if the mobile app or site is buggy or slow.  Consumers’ expectations on what defines a good user experience are changing fast, but seem always to begin and end with speed.

Continue to Part 2 and Part 3 in this series.

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Kevin Benedict
Writer, Speaker, Senior Analyst
Digital Transformation, EBA, Center for the Future of Work Cognizant
View my profile on LinkedIn
Read more at Future of Work
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and digital transformation analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

The New Mobile Shopper - Latest Research

I am deep into researching mobile consumer behaviors at this time, and am amazed at the impact that mobile technologies are having on us - especially millennials.

Here are some examples from my research:

  • People that use mobile devices to purchase products and services online, shop online far more frequently than those using only desktop/laptops.  In fact, mobile shoppers purchase online once or more a week at a rate 82% higher than desktop/laptop online shoppers.
  • People that use mobile devices to purchase products and services online, conduct research late at night, at a rate 46.1% higher than desktop/laptop online shoppers.
  • People that use mobile devices to purchase products and services online, check store inventories late at night at a rate 66.7% higher than desktop/laptop online shoppers. 
  • People that use mobile devices to purchase products and services online selected "ease of navigating the website or mobile app" as a top factor that influenced their decision to purchase online from a particular retailer/website at a rate 42.2% higher than desktop/laptop online shoppers. 
  • People that use mobile devices to purchase products and services online selected "the ability to buy/reserve online and pick-up in store" as a top factor that influenced their decision to purchase online from a particular retailer/website at a rate 53.4% greater than desktop/laptop online shoppers.
  • People that use mobile devices to purchase products and services online, report they have shopped for an item in a store, but purchased it online from a different retailer, at a rate 22% higher than desktop/laptop online shoppers.

  • This data came from Cognizant's 2015 Shoppers survey of 5,000 people.  It shows that people accustomed to using mobile devices to shop online for products and services represent a category of shopper that behaves very differently than traditional desktop/laptop online shoppers.  Retailers and etailers that don't account for these differences with customized/personalized digital experiences will lose to competitors that do.
    I will be finishing this research and publishing a major study on this data in the next few months.

    ************************************************************************
    Kevin Benedict
    Writer, Speaker, Senior Analyst
    Digital Transformation, EBA, Center for the Future of Work Cognizant
    View my profile on LinkedIn
    Read more at Future of Work
    Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
    Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
    Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel
    Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
    Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

    ***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and digital transformation analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

    Mobile Consumer Behaviors - The Seven Essential Questions

    Digital Transformation is the process of updating your business and IT infrastructure to align with today's and tomorrow's consumers.  Today that is important, but hard to do.  Mobile consumer behaviors are changing far faster than most IT budgets and initiatives and that can cause problems.  If your customers are adopting technologies and changing their path-to-purchase journeys at a pace that is faster than you can deliver, then you are opening up an opportunity gap for a more nimble competitor.

    Do your internal sales and executive strategy sessions begin with these questions:
    1. Where are our customers to be found?  
    2. What technologies are our customers using?  
    3. How are our customers' path-to-purchase journeys' changing?  
    4. Are we meeting our customers along their path-to-purchase journeys and supporting them?
    5. Are we digitally transforming at a pace that will keep us aligned with our customers' pace of change?  
    6. Is our IT budget aligned with the required pace of change?  
    7. Are we re-engineering business processes to align with required digital transformations and mobile consumer behaviors?
    According to comScore's quarterly State Of Retail report, in the first quarter of 2014, 78 percent of the U.S. population age 15 and above bought something online.  That percentage is expected to continue to grow.  In addition, BusinessInsider.com reports the key age group of 18-34 year olds spend nearly $2,000 per year online now. In addition, in a recent Experian survey 55 percent of e-commerce shoppers in the U.S. live in households with incomes above $75,000 (40 percent were in households earning $100,000 and above). We are into serious numbers worthy of our attention.

    The point has been made.  We all recognize there is a lot of money to be made catering to online shoppers.  The problem is - just when many companies thought they had their e-commerce capabilities and strategies under control, consumer behaviors change.  How?  They jumped to mobile devices in the form of smartphones and tablets for much of the path-to-purchase journey.  In fact, in our analysis over three-quarters of path-to-purchase journeys are already completed before vendors are contacted, and much of it was completed using mobile devices.   If a retailer waits to be contacted before attempting to influence, they have missed the boat.  If marketing campaigns are desktop/laptop centric, they have missed key opportunities and demographics to influence.  If customers don't contact vendors until late in the path-to-purchase journey, then how can retailers effectively influence buying decisions?  They need to understand consumer behaviors in general, and mobile consumer behaviors in particular.

    In a recent survey I conducted of 108 business and IT professionals, all purchased products and services online.  Of those, eighty-nine percent purchase products and services online using mobile devices (smartphones and/or tablets).  However, when asked what means they typically use for online purchases, thirty-nine percent answered desktops/tablets, twelve percent mobile devices, and forty-eight percent answered both desktop/laptop and mobile devices regularly.  This data highlights the fact that many mobile consumers still wait to purchase products online using desktops/laptops even if they researched the products on smartphones and tablets.  The use of multiple devices and computers in the path-to-purchase process highlights the need to support customers across all channels to ensure they have a beautiful and consistent customer experience.   This is not easy as there are a lot of moving parts and technologies involved.

    To add to the complexity retailers face, different parts of the path-to-purchase journey are favored on different devices.  Yikes!  On-the-go searches and quick information discoveries are favored for smartphones.  Just search for a product or service and save the link.  In-depth research and rich product comparisons are often done on tablets with bigger screens.  For online purchases, consumers still overwhelmingly use desktops/laptops as they are assumed to be more secure.  Understood?  Don't, however, forget that many consumers still only use desktop/laptops and their behavior is different.  In fact, Cognizant just completed its 2015 Shoppers Survey of 5,000 people and forty-three percent typically only use computers for online shopping activities.

    How often do people use mobile devices to make online purchases?  From my recent survey (108 business and IT professionals):
    • Daily 1.8%
    • Weekly 28.7%
    • Monthly 43.5%
    • Quarterly 19.4%
    • Yearly 5.5%
    What time of day do consumers shop using mobile devices?  Here are the top three times from my recent survey ranked in order:
    1. Early morning
    2. Mid morning
    3. Early afternoon
    Seems simple. Focus from 6 AM to 2 PM in each time zone, right?  Wrong!  When you look at different mobile consumer behaviors by age, there are considerable differences.  That means if you are selling to an older age group, they have very different online and mobile consumer behaviors than 18-24 year olds. The younger age groups spike upward in online shopping late at night, after all of us old people are asleep in bed.  Besides, desktop users find shopping in bed quite painful after a few minutes.

    What location are mobile consumers at when they shop online?  That depends on what stage in the path-to-purchase they are in.  Here are the most popular locations for mobile consumer shopping from my recent survey ranked in order of popularity:
    1. Home - living room
    2. Work - desk
    3. Home - bedroom
    4. Home - TV room
    5. Coffee Shop/Restaurant
    6. Commuting - automobile/taxi/train/airplane/subway
    If this mix is not rich enough, let's add gender differences!  In a November 2014 study conducted by Burst Media and Rhythm NewMedia titled Online Insights - Mobile Shopping Behaviors, it was found that among respondents who use mobile device(s) inside a physical retail location to help with the shopping experience, 58.3 percent were women and 47.7 percent were men.  That difference is meaningful.

    I will stop here for today.  I am writing a lengthy report now on all the details of these studies.  If you would like to review these findings in detail and arrange a briefing, please contact me.  The bottom line is that consumers' path-to-purchase has been significantly impacted by mobile devices and if retailers and etailers are not in step with these changes, they will lose to competitors that are.

    ************************************************************************
    Kevin Benedict
    Writer, Speaker, Senior Analyst
    Digital Transformation, EBA, Center for the Future of Work Cognizant
    View my profile on LinkedIn
    Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
    Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
    Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel
    Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
    Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

    ***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and digital transformation analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

    Interview: Robots, Digital Transformation and Intelligent Process Automation

    Robots bring to our minds images of dangerous humanoids, but business process robots look different and behave in very positive ways.  In this important conversation with three robot and automation experts, they reveal the presence of robots all around us, and their expanding roles in companies today.  Enjoy!

    Read the report - The Robot and I: How New Digital Technologies Are Making Smart People and Businesses Smarter. ************************************************************************
    Kevin Benedict
    Writer, Speaker, Senior Analyst
    Digital Transformation, EBA, Center for the Future of Work Cognizant
    View my profile on LinkedIn
    Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
    Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
    Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel
    Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
    Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

    ***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and digital transformation analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

    Interviews with Kevin Benedict