FinTech Influence on Today’s Generation

PLEASE share and like my entry submitted to the FINTECH Book, the world’s 1st globally crowd-sourced book on FINTECH. Readers that enjoyed this initial abstract are invited to share and like it so that it may be featured in a longer version that will published in the FINTECH Book due to be released November. 

Perhaps it’s time for incumbents in traditional banking institutions to ease the fear towards FinTech, and embrace the strong positive social impact that it radiates.

https://medium.com/the-fintech-book/fintech-influence-on-today-s-generation-e899639dbfd3

MIT CIO Symposium - INVENTING YOUR FUTURE: ACCELERATING SUCCESS THROUGH TECHNOLOGY

CIO Symposium Contributor
http://www.mitcio.com/felipe-daguila-everis-consulting-ntt-data-company

YI Incubator - The Spirit of Innovation

World-class executives contribute to the YI Incubator, mentoring companies and providing subject matter expertise, helping our companies bring products to market faster and position themselves for the next stage of growth.

http://interactive.yodlee.com/programs/yi-incubator/mentors-experts

Omni-Channel Strategies and Online-Offline Integration

Consumers are using multiple devices and channels to make their purchases, but you know this already.

“Tell me something I don't know”, you would say.

There was so much hoo-ha on the topic of ‘omni-channel’ in the retail world in 2014. Big word it is. The words social media and cross-device technology start to surface so often that everyone is talking about it – sounds like Citizen Kane!

Although we have seen fast growth in mobile, programmatic display and video ad spending, the quickest-growing category in digital advertising is actually social and we recognize this treasure trove of demographic data that social provides by leveraging it in our social marketing efforts and other channels as well. Did you notice who and what are we targeting? Target audience! We are hungry to find out consumer behaviour, consumer experience and consumer preferences. Indeed, audience is the name of the game and as we learn how to collect and act on audience data across channels, it opens up exciting new opportunities to test different strategies.

The famous US department store, Macy’s, has been experimenting with iBeacons which is a micro-location technology in mobile app that is transmitted using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). Customers who enter Macy’s with the Shopkick app installed on their iPhones will be alerted about details of location-specific rewards, deals, discounts and how many products they have ‘liked’ in that store without them needing to open the app. When customers pass by any items they had ‘liked’ previously on the app, Shopkick app will remind them as well.

Customers are using mobile and tablets in a number of different ways to supplement and enhance their shopping behaviours whether they are for brand research, social validation prior to purchase or even for transactional purposes. However, the ultimate conversion more often than not happen in-store. Hence, retailers and marketers need to seize this opportunity and take advantage of the crucial moments to connect with customers as they are making decisions.

Another retail and ecommerce store that integrates online and offline is IKEA.

IKEA introduced an AR app to enhance its 2014 catalogue, all the customers need to do is place the 2014 catalogue in any space within their home, activate the app and they can see exactly how a virtual Billy bookcase or Ektorp sofa fits into the real-time environment.

It is crucial that marketers understand the factors or events that influence the consumers to decide on their purchase and to quantify the influence as well. Hence, the importance of attribution model in Marketing. However in the world of digitisation, marketers need to constantly improve their attribution model.

I have to admit improving attribution model is not an easy task and regardless of how sophisticated the model will be, it will never be able to keep pace with increasingly sophisticated customer behavior.

Yet, this step is essential. Algorithmic attribution modeling may or may not be worth the investment but even getting started with a basic version of multi-touch attribution modeling is better than continuing to rely on last-click attribution.

And that’s my 2c.

Delivering DIGITAL Business. Master before being dominated.

      

• How can I be agile and innovative yet maintain my corporate process?
• What about the risks, regulators and the compliance policies and procedures?    
• What about my competitive advantage and intellectual property? What if my competitors will steal my ideas?

In this post, we review how using world class project management frameworks can help you to adapt your business strategy to deliver better results for your digital business initiatives, independently of your company size or business sector – Keep in mind that the definition of digital business is fluid and in constant state of evolution.

We have an avalanche of information that demonstrates how the digital business is changing, creating and destroying some companies (in all sectors), and it is very clear that if you don’t adapt your traditional mindset, strategy, people, operations, process and methods, you may become that MBA case of how a company did not survive one more change in the new business ecosystem.

The digital transformation change can happen in the blink of an eye. Several years ago, the changes and innovations came from the inside to the outside (companies -> customer). When new products were created their movement into the market involved a slow process and the customer input was not considered to be important.

However, now changes and innovation come from the customer to the companies (customer -> companies) in a crowdsourcing is a customer driven model and from creation to launch happens in the blink of an eye.

According to Mr. Peter Sondergaard, Senior Vice President at Gartner and Global Head of Research: “Every Business Unit is a Technology Startup”.

 “38% of total IT spend is outside of IT already, with a disproportionate amount in digital. By 2017, it will be over 50%,” Mr. Sondergaard said. “Digital startups sit inside your own organization, in your marketing department, in HR, in logistics and in sales. Your business units are acting as technology startups.”

Gartner estimates that 50% of all technology sales people are actively selling directly to business units, not IT departments. Millions of sales people, and hundreds of thousands of resellers and channel partners are looking for new money flows in the fluid digital world, and they are finding eager buyers. Although most of the information that we read and receive from digital business is focused in two main areas:

1.       Strategy: The model below is one good example of how to drive and build a digital strategy plan by Forrester Research.

2.       Execution Level: Agile methods are not new and agile project management, lean product management and agile software development practices must be applied to drive innovation and constantly renew your business model. The image below represents one example.

From digital strategy to agile execution we must include one important piece; how to manage projects and programs for digital businesses. The key question is how to create the bridge between this TOP (Strategy) -> DOWN (Agile) and maintain the digital transformation initiatives running (projects and product development).

We work in a world of change and reinvention, more so than creation. As digital business demands that professionals and companies adapt quickly, we too should be able to transform our classic ideas and methodologies in order to deliver products and services that will delight our customers.

But how do we deliver digital business projects using the best practices of project management? How do we connect the pieces? STRATEGY -> PLANNING AND CONTROL -> EXECUTION.

Considering the main areas for any project, let’s evaluate some important points for digital business initiatives.

1.       Project Integration Management :

a.       Definition: Processes and activities needed to identify, define, combine, unify, and coordinate the various processes and project management activities within the Project Management Process Groups.

b.      Digital Business Nuances:  Digital business projects demand two key actors; customers and companies that engage in the delivery and provision of continuous feedback. Your integration process should exploit the boundaries of your company. The link between the internal company value chain, digital value chain and your ecosystem is crucial.

2.       Project Scope Management :

a.       Definition: Project Scope Management includes the processes required to ensure that the project includes all the work required, and only the work required, to complete the project successfully.

b.      Digital Business Nuances: The goal is to plan and design change continuously and in small cycles by using the adaptive project life cycle, also known as change-driven or agile methods. These concepts are intended to facilitate change, but require a high degree of ongoing stakeholder and customer involvement. The scope priority must be to use a mix of customer value added benefits (not product features), customer journeys, innovation and technology disruption.

3.       Project Time Management :

a.       Definition: Project Time Management includes the processes required to manage the timely completion of the project.

b.      Digital Business Nuances:  It is fundamental to establish small cycles for project completion. Most of the components of your project will not have a clear timeline or a deadline, so define a control mechanism that will identify the next customer interactions based on the feedback.

4.       Project Cost Management :

a.       Definition: Project Cost Management includes the processes involved in planning, estimating, budgeting, financing, funding, managing, and controlling costs so that the project can be completed within the approved budget.

b.      Digital Business Nuances:  The cost is a complex aspect and must be considered in methods of pricing, buying integrated in your project / product. You can have SaaS platform to deliver your project (i.e. slack). On the other hand, PaaS platform is crucial to deliver your product / service. A mix of several pricing and purchasing models must be considered, such as: T&M, Value Added, Fixed Price, Pay Per Use, etc.

5.       Project Quality Management :

a.       Definition: Project Quality Management includes the processes and activities of the performing organization that determine quality policies, objectives, and responsibilities so that the project will satisfy the needs for which it was undertaken.

b.      Digital Business Nuances: Quality is the key pillar. Time is negotiable, but quality never is. It is fundamental to define quality with our final customer and expect continuous change in the quality criteria, as soon as your product begins to evolve. It is crucial to be outstanding in your user experience and customer journey in all channels.

6.       Project Human Resource Management :

a.       Definition: Project Human Resource Management includes the processes that organize, manage, and lead the project team.

b.      Digital Business Nuances: In the digital business world, the traditional organizational charts are not enough. Informal and social connections maps play a key role. You have to consider these connections as you develop your project.

7.       Project Communications Management :

a.       Definition: Project Communications Management includes the processes that are required to ensure timely and appropriate planning, collection, creation, distribution, storage, retrieval, management, control, monitoring, and the ultimate disposition of project information.

b.      Digital Business Nuances: Feedback and small cycles of communication should involve visual interactive material rather than e-mails, long presentations (be simple). Tools such as SLACK will help to consolidate all the tools that a digital team will demand for project.

8.       Project Risk Management :

a.       Definition: Project Risk Management includes the processes of conducting risk management planning, identification, analysis, response planning, and controlling risk on a project.

b.      Digital Business Nuances:  Risk must be evaluated from the perspective of an opportunity, lesson or at least a possibility. Create risk cycles to reevaluate the project, deliveries and products. You must integrate the risk of the customer expectations.

9.       Project Procurement Management :

a.       Definition: Project Procurement Management includes the processes necessary to purchase or acquire products, services, or results needed from outside the project team

b.      Digital Business Nuances: The procurement process must be incremental and defined in small cycles according to what you are planning to deliver. You could have mixed models such as: SAAS, premises, startup and revenue share.

10.   Project Stakeholders Management :

a.       Definition: Project Stakeholder Management includes the processes required to identify all people or organizations impacted by the project, analyzing stakeholder expectations and impact on the project, and developing appropriate management strategies for effectively engaging stakeholders in project decisions and execution.

b.      Digital Business Nuances:  Includes one-on-one interviews and focus groups with a company's external stakeholders, with a goal of understanding external stakeholders behaviors, needs, goals and perceptions of the company and their industry both in the broadest business context as well as specifically online. In addition to standard marketing strategy methodologies and questions, external stakeholder interviews for Digital Strategy may include usability testing, an analysis of how effectively external stakeholders can use the online assets developed by a company for their intended purposes. In digital strategy this is used to uncover usability barriers that may prevent the online vision being achieved.

In the past we created methods, procedures and control processes to govern and mitigate the risk of big company projects and operations. The digital business is not intended to crash these methods, but the companies and professionals will be challenged to adapt faster these models in increasingly smaller periods of time, so we must build new communication processes and frameworks that are tailored to change at a speed of a chameleon, not in speed of a snail.

Adapt or die? or Die fast and learn?

 "Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see."

 Rene Magritte.

I will enjoy hearing from the LinkedIn community about their digital business initiatives.

It is an enormous pleasure to have you read our post and provide some feedback. Please feel free to connect.

 [Photos and References: Forrester, Gartner, The Dictator, ThoughtWorks]