Bringing the Left Brain and Right Brain Together within Agencies

Posted on by Antony
BORN Views
Bringing the Left Brain and Right Brain Together within Agencies

A typical digital agency contains highly diverse personnel, each with a refined set of talents, abilities, communication styles, and ways of thinking. Generally, these roles can be divided into two categories: administrative or executive roles and creative roles. The first category is often thought of as primarily organizational. They are in charge of assembling productive teams, defining the company vision, securing short and long-term funding, and planning and executing long-term goals. Such a set of tasks and responsibilities is generally considered to involve a high degree of logical and analytical thinking. Conversely, the second category of roles in an agency demands a host of creative skills such as aesthetic expression, emotional intelligence, and imagination. These attributes are often found concentrated in the roles of creative directors, copywriters, art directors, designers, web developers, production artists, and storyboard artists. 

How, then, can the differences between these two kinds of agency team members be categorized? One way of conceiving the differences between executives and creatives is through their left- brain versus right-brain dominance. This notion comes from the popular (yet largely debunked) notion that for each individual, one side of the brain is more active. Those with left-brain dominance (or simply “left-brained” individuals) often excel at logical, analytical, and objective problems. On the other hand, right-brained individuals, as the theory contends, succeed in creative tasks that demand spontaneity, visual-thinking, and invention. So-called left brain/right brain theory contends that everyone’s brain dominates in only one of these two regions. But in reality, this theory represents, at best, only half of the truth. Indeed, Nobel Prize-winning scientist Roger W. Sperry, extending from his research into epilepsy, suggested in 1981 that language is controlled primarily by the left side of the brain, while spatial information and visual thinking occur in the right hemisphere.1 Yet, while this separation can to an extent be verified, virtually all neurological activity happens across both sides of the brain. As science writer Carl Zimmer explains, “No matter how lateralized the brain can get, the two sides still work together.”2 

That being said, the separation of agencies into left-brained and right-brained remains a useful strategy to assemble more productive teams. Even though team members consistently use both sides of their brains, the kinds of personalities that gravitate toward such roles are almost guaranteed to contain the kinds of distinctions that pertain to the theory of left brain/right brain dominance. Here we can outline a series of best practices for digital agency team members that pertain to collaboration between business executives/managers and creatives. The first section begins from the perspective of the CFO and provides advice for working with creatives. 

Through a combination of disciplined management and open-ended flexibility, CFOs can get the most out of agency creatives by understanding their right-brain proclivities. The subsequent section (“Tips for Creatives”) proceeds from the vantage point of the agency creative and explains useful methodologies for working effectively with CFOs, management, and executives. By using clear communication, anticipating misunderstandings, and attending to details, creatives can continue to meet and exceed management’s expectations. All in all, each of these perspectives will take into account the practicalities of today’s agency landscape, which prioritizes on-your-feet decision making and flexible workflows. 

Cultivating the Creative

Creative types often thrive in open-ended environments in which structure and rules are undefined or perhaps do not even exist. Designers, for example, often need unstructured time to experiment with new ideas, and try out different approaches to an upcoming project deliverable. Of course, such open-ended activities must also occur within limits: a copywriter can’t spend two months brainstorming ideas for a campaign that is due to the client in two weeks. This is why many managers explicitly build in time for “discovery.” During this dedicated period, creatives can iterate over multiple versions and explore different directions before committing to specific determinations, which may be made later in consultation with the client. This way, creatives are given a kind of “sandbox” in which they can feel free to experiment and put forth their most adventurous and innovative ideas without feeling constrained, at least at this point, by impending deadlines and other restrictions In addition to cultivating flexibility within limits, effective facilitation of the work of right-brained should also include tried-and-trusted project management techniques. 

It may seem obvious to industry insiders, but it’s worth reviewing the power of good project management when it comes to working with graphic designers, copywriters, creative directors, and web developers. Most importantly, each of these team members should be aware of all of the important project dates and goals. So, how can project managers keep creatives up to date on important dates and timelines, especially when these data points often change in the middle of a project? One helpful practice is to keep a calendar, which is accessible to all team members, in a place that is centrally located. For such a location there is often a default reference page, or dashboard, on every major project management software package like WorkBook or Confluence. Another technique, which should accompany centralized date-keeping, and which is no less important, is the practice of reiterating important dates, especially those that have recently been modified, in all internal and external communication. Sending a brief check-in email to your designers? Why not include a table reminding the team of upcoming deliverables and their respective due dates? Thankfully, such information can be conveniently stored on your project management dashboard. So a quick copy and paste is all it takes. 

Executing the Design

Switching roles to the perspective of the creative, many of the same principles apply when considering the task of designers and artistic directors collaborating with CFOs and project managers. One way of describing this shift in perspective is to simply invert the advice we covered above. For instance, if managing dates in today’s agile advertising industry is a challenge for those in organizational roles, as a creative it should be considered a primary responsibility to help project managers keep track of timelines.

Imagine two designers. Both are great at their craft, but Designer A spends more time following up with the client following their design meeting. Designer A asks key questions to confirm the direction of the project, along with how the project works with the client’s overall vision. Rather than spending this time following up with the client to clarify the direction, however, Designer B immediately goes to work and spends twice as long as designer A on the initial wireframes. It should go without saying that designer A was, by far, more successful with the client. And, more importantly, designer A saved the agency a significant amount of profit by using fewer work hours while, ultimately, delivering the project ahead of schedule. The moral of the story for creatives? Communicate, communicate, communicate! Ask for clarity when anything seems less than completely transparent. Creatives should anticipate any potential misunderstandings among themselves, the rest of the team, and/or the client. Parts of the project that seem less certain in terms of the timeline should be highlighted. Where are the “known unknowns”? What are the “unknown unknowns”? No designer should be too proud to inquire and inform their team of vital information.

Synchronizing Together

The disparities between right-brained creatives and left-brained, executives, and project managers may at first seem insurmountable. These personality traits relate to cognitive abilities that become encouraged, perhaps at an early stage of life, and then become reinforced through professional specialization. Despite a lack of scientific support for the left brain/right brain theory, there is plenty of social evidence for its continued relevance—especially in today’s advertising industry. One excels in math early on and is then admitted into a fast-track MBA program, only later to become a highly successful CFO. Or, one shows a talent for drawing, is accepted into design school, and then becomes an all-star designer for a top agency. In neither of these cases is anything said about the ability of either personality type to deal effectively with the other. But when considered carefully—whether you are a creative looking to collaborate better with CFOs, or an executive looking to relate more directly to your creative team—there are specific strategies for crossing the seemingly unbridgeable divide between cognitive hemispheres.

Whether right-brained or left-brained, together we can make the digital agency world a better place to work. 

1 https://www.verywell.com/left-brain-vs-right-brain-2795005 

2 https://www.verywell.com/left-brain-vs-right-brain-2795005 

eCommerce 101

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eCommerce 101

It seems as though we’ve transacted online forever, but really it is only in the last three decades that eCommerce – that is, the buying and selling of goods via online services or the Internet – in its current form has been around.

The History of eCommerce

The germ of the concept dates back around forty years though, to well before the Internet became ubiquitous.

Encryption technology around telecommunications and the semiconductor industry advanced enough that in 1979, English inventor and entrepreneur Michael Aldrich demonstrated the first ‘online shopping system’[1] using a modified television set connected to a transaction processing computer via a telephone line in the UK. He enabled automated business-to-customer or business-to-business transactions in a closed, secure loop that could be shared by third parties, which would go on to become what we called eCommerce today.

In 1982, Boston Computer Exchange, an online market for people to sell used computers, became the first eCommerce company.

eCommerce stores and marketplaces

It took another 10 years till Book Stacks Unlimited debuted as an online bookseller, using an dial-up bulletin board. In 1994, it moved over to the Internet at books.com, today owned by Barnes & Noble.

In 1995, Amazon also launched as an online bookseller before converting into to a broad spectrum eCommerce store in 1998, and finally evolving into a marketplace that also accepted third-party sellers in 2000. Also in 1995, eBay was founded as an auction site which has gone on to become a giant of online retail globally. The takeup of broadband internet connections in the first decade of this century had a big part to play in this trend too.

Amazon set many of the standards for modern-day eCommerce by offering features that mail-order couldn’t, such as one-click shopping, comparison shopping across retailers, product reviews, quick and sometimes free delivery as well as easy returns.

In 2005, by adding a membership component with Amazon Prime that allowed for two-day shipping and later, access to its streaming service, and building warehouses across the US to be closer to the customer and cut delivery times, it revolutionized the supply chain management and fulfillment side of eCommerce. Etsy, the marketplace for crafts and small sellers, was also launched in 2000.

Membership is also how music streaming services such as Spotify and Deezer and operate – as premium subscription services – though actual streaming of music goes as far back as 1881 when the Theatrophone allowed listeners to listen to opera and theater performances via a telephone line. Netflix and Disney have, of course, done the same for video streaming, which has turned them into a club-type good.

While Amazon is the largest eCommerce store and marketplace globally in terms of revenue and market capitalization[2], Alibaba (founded 1999), Rakuten (founded 1997) in Asia and Mercado Libre (founded 1999) in Latin America are significant players in their markets.

Payment Infrastructure for eCommerce

In 1998, though, another important part of the eCommerce ecosystem, that of the payments that power it, launched when Paypal (originally Confinity) was founded. Paypal is now owned by eBay.

Since then, the proliferation of other digital wallets and peer-to-peer payment processing platforms such as Google Pay (previously Google Pay), Stripe and Apple Pay have made mobile payment even easier and more widespread.

Afterpay, Klarna and Paypal Credit are introducing customers to the idea of buy now, pay later, the practice of paying for eCommerce purchases in three or four installments like in actual retail, making it more widely accepted.

Anyone Can Have a Webshop

With customers not necessarily confined to a geographic location, there needed to be a way to reach them. Google Adwords, introduced in 2000, fulfilled that need. It allowed eCommerce businesses to advertise to people using Google search.

The arrival of Shopify in 2004 upended the till-then expensive coding and equipment necessary for the development of a webshop and point-of-sale systems and democratized it to allow anyone with an account to set one up using available templates. Shopify has built up a 20% market share in the US with WordPress plug-in WooCommerce themarket leader with 26%[3].

Types of eCommerce

Business to Business, B2b The traditional route where companies buy and sell goods and services with each other.

Business to Consumer, B2c This is the route when companies sell to consumers.

Business to Business to Customer, B2b2c A route where larger businesses sell to smaller entities who resell the product & services to a customer. A good example would be an HVAC company selling air conditioning equipment to a contractor who services the end customer.

Marketplaces This is where suppliers (business vendors and individual sellers) sell to buyers (businesses or consumers).

Consumer to Consumer (C2c) eBay is the best-known example of a platform that allows consumers to sell and buy products to each other.

Social, mobile and voice eCommerce applications

The future of eCommerce is all about shopping using mobile devices and apps and increasingly, voice. 81% of visits on Shopify sites is from mobiles[4]. SMS marketing is therefor becoming increasingly important. Social shopping has also taken off with brands using sponsored stories on Facebook and shoppable posts on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest to reach customers.

Choosing an eCommerce platform

BORN Group has been around since eCommerce was in its infancy. Today, we are integrators for the major systems including SAP Commerce, Salesforce Commerce, Adobe Commerce, BigCommerce, ShopifyPlus, Commercetools, VTEX, and Elastic Path. To make informed platform decisions, we use something called a 5C methodology as part of our technical roadmap that we call the Feature Value Matrix at BORN. These include:

Conform We identify requirements that can be supported to conform to out-of-the-box features in a platform.

Configure BORN identifies requirements that can be supported through configurations made to the platform.

Customize We determine the necessary customizations that will need to be built into the platform.

Compromise The configuration and integration of third party tool or systems such as ERP, OMS and CRM systems that cover tax systems, loyalty programs, payment gateways, fraud detection, affiliate programs, email campaign systems, and user reviews

Connect Identifying all requirements that are supported through integration and offer accelerators for a shorter time to market at a reduced cost.

Through optimization of the 5C’s BORN Group is able to pinpoint your businesses specific needs and map those requirements to the most efficient solution.

eCommerce: Even more potential

Currently, only around 14% of retail sales is e-retail[5]. Moreover, 4 in 10 people worldwide don’t have an internet connection and over half the world doesn’t have a smartphone[6], so there is still a huge amount of potential with regard to eCommerce. Expect to see more omnichannel experiences, personalization, and artificial intelligence-enabled shopping.

The situation with Covid saw eCommerce sales accelerate around the globe – the US alone saw a 30% growth[7] – and is expected to touch USD 476 billion in 2024[8].

To know more about how BORN is leading the charge to merge usability with shopability by making informed platform decisions  to drive consumers online, click here.

[1] Michael Aldrich Invents Online Shopping, Historyofinformation.com,

https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=4068

[2] Global Amazon retail e-commerce sales 2017-2021, Statista,

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1103390/amazon-retail-ecommerce-sales-global/

[3] Ecommerce Platform Marke Share in the USA, Oberlo, https://www.oberlo.com/statistics/ecommerce-platform-market-share-in-usa

[4] Shopify Announces Third-Quarter 2019 Financial Results, Shopify, https://news.shopify.com/shopify-announces-third-quarter-2019-financial-results

[5] E-commerce share of total global retail sales from 2015 to 2023, Statista, https://www.statista.com/statistics/534123/e-commerce-share-of-retail-sales-worldwide/

[6] How Many People Have Smartphones In The World?, https://www.bankmycell.com/blog/how-many-phones-are-in-the-world

[7] US Ecommerce Growth Jumps to More than 30%, Accelerating Online Shopping Shift by Nearly 2 Years, emarketer, https://www.emarketer.com/content/us-ecommerce-growth-jumps-more-than-30-accelerating-online-shopping-shift-by-nearly-2-years

[8] Retail e-commerce sales in the United States from 2017 to 2024, Statista, https://www.statista.com/statistics/272391/us-retail-e-commerce-sales-forecast/

6 Tips for the WFH Warrior

Posted on by Antony
BORN Views
6 Tips for the WFH Warrior

We’re nearing one year into the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and while in some ways we can begin to look towards an incoming ‘next normal,’ or post-pandemic world, we still must take every precaution we can to stop the spread and reach that finish line. We here at BORN are still committed to protecting our employees by enabling them to work remotely and only return to the office once it’s safe to do so.  

With over a year of remote work, the fatigue of not seeing colleagues and co-workers does take its toll. We’ve connected with BORN Group’s Director of Human Resources, Jamie Weisberg, to review some of the most effective ways to promote mental health and wellbeing while working remotely. Together, we’ve put together six tips to cultivate a better work from home experience.

  1. Remember to recharge.

“One of the best things you can do is step away from the computer and take time for yourself.” 

Working remotely often means working from home, which can create a blurred line between work and home. When coupled with the many lockdown rules and COVID-19 precautions that can create difficulties in finding daily recreation, it’s essential to remember to take time for yourself and recharge when possible. It’s perfectly healthy and expected to schedule breaks throughout the day to eat and check in on yourself. Even if travel is not available to the extent it was prior to the pandemic, it’s still important as well to take advantage of vacation time to reflect, disengage, and come back more revitalized.

  1. Connect face-to-face whenever possible.

“Not being able to see the facial expressions of co-workers can have an effect of isolation. Whenever possible, in team or client meetings, take advantage of the camera to read another’s body language while you communicate.”

The pandemic has had a sweeping effect on society by disconnecting us from one another physically. Those of us who live alone and don’t get the opportunity to see people at the same intervals as prior may especially feel a sense of isolation from work. It’s a great change from the past to be coordinating on projects and working to the degree that we do without the level of communication that body language provides. Thus, it can go a long way to utilize video conferencing wherever possible. Whether it’s a team meeting, client meeting, whenever possible, take advantage of the camera to better communicate, understand another’s tone and intent, and generally ease your conversation.

a collage of photos of a group of people posing for a photo
A snapshot from one of BORN’s virtual Town Halls. Video conferencing can go a long way toward building community!
  1. Dress for success.

“Brightening your appearance even while at home can set you in the mindset of mindful work.”

Another healthy practice that can fall into neglect via remote work is to tend to one’s appearance daily. The rituals of trimming, make-up and skincare, and the regular haircut as well as dressing presentably and geared to work all have noted effects in getting us into a mindset of work and stability. Ruts in life can be magnified by neglecting one’s appearance and it can help make you more inclined to break out of them with the sort of self-care that lets you feel eager to tackle the day and presentable to anyone you might come across. Carve out the time – work will always be there, and taking care of oneself is a key priority.

  1. Exercise throughout the day.

“A lot of real world issues have magnified the effect of the pandemic over the past year, and taking the time to remember to breath and walk can serve as an excellent stress reliever throughout the day.”

With the torrent of difficult news this past year, the effects of isolation are often magnified with malaise and frustration at the world’s problems. It’s important to take the time to avoid burnout by putting aside some time throughout the day to breath mindfully, walk mindfully, and let your mind refresh, to help mollify stress and keep health a priority. Burnout as a whole is huge, especially in the tech industry, and it’s essential for senior leaders to give their team the space to get projects done while in the best state of mind.

  1. Take advantage of office resources for wellbeing.

“Employees at BORN had already set the precedent of working remotely prior to the pandemic, but one of the challenges of building a work from home culture was reminding our team to take advantage of whatever resources they needed for wellbeing and health.”

Coming up with strategies for teams to check-in and avoid burnout has played a key role in the path of building a work from home culture here at BORN. Without the ease of interaction from physical connections, there’s an increased need for all teams to be visible with the array of resources we offer to help support our employees throughout this intensive time of their career. Being accessible and accommodating to our team is what gets us moving forward each time, and on the employee side, it can go a long way to take advantage of the office resources in context to mental health and wellbeing. Here at BORN, one program that we instituted to help decompress was a biweekly virtual yoga session. 

  1. Continue to build team culture.

“Encouraging teams to connect in a remote time can build the camaraderie that makes work so fulfilling. It’s vital to take the time to build and be creative as a unit.”

Much of our fulfillment from work comes from the work we can do together as a team. While conventional events like company-wide happy hours have proven difficult to execute on virtually, we’ve seen team leads come up with innovative and disrupting ways to keep the team culture moving forward. Scheduling one on one meetings wherever possible, going for “walk and talks” as an alternative to the happy hour, or relegating a time for social connection within the team all will yield their own returns in fostering a mindful and productive culture.

A Marketplace for All Reasons

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A Marketplace for All Reasons

Before the advent of the online retail marketplace as we know it, there were B2B marketplaces that came out of the dotcom bubble such as VerticalNet, CommerceOne and Covisint. They helped businesses with online auctions at the one end and with procurement on the other, which involved complex transactions such as requests for quotations, information and proposals. They have mainly been subsumed into and are used these days as part of complex enterprise resource planning systems in major corporations.

However, the online marketplace model has persisted, driven by consumers seeking the convenience and broad assortment that marketplaces provide. In fact, online marketplaces now represent 57% of global web sales, totaling more than $2 trillion annually[1]. B2Bs are catching onto the marketplace trend as well: Gartner says that “By 2023, at least 70% of the enterprise marketplaces launched will serve B2B transactions”[2].

The origin of the modern marketplace trend can be traced, in part, back to two companies that did survive the dot-com bubble: Amazon and eBay. Amazon was founded in 2000 originally as an online marketplace for books before expanding into multiple categories and becoming a behemoth that is one of the biggest economic forces in the world[3]. Alexa, itself an Amazon company, ranks it the third-most visited website in the United States after Google and Youtube.[4]

eBay, founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995, evolved from being an auction site to becoming an online marketplace with its ‘Buy it Now’ feature. eBay has grown to become a multibillion-dollar organization so big that the payment services provider it owned at one time, PayPal, had to be spun off.

eBay is present in over 30 countries but in China, where the consumer-to-consumer (C2C) platform Taobao – founded in 2003 by Alibaba – is the market leader, it couldn’t make a dent. Just like how eBay felt the need to own a payment services provider, Alibaba also owns Alipay, an escrow-based online payment system which is the most-widely used third-party payment solution in China.

In 2010, its service AliExpress connected Chinese manufacturers directly to international visitors, a move that would go on to radically change the offerings in many marketplaces today and give rise to retail fulfillment practices such as drop-shipping, where sellers don’t stock the product but instead buy it from a third party and have it mailed it out the customer. Taobao’s B2C platform Tmall is the third-most visited site globally.[5]

In Japan and Southeast Asia, eBay runs one of the main marketplaces Qoo10, in a joint venture together with another early C2C marketplace platform GMarket, founded in 2000 in Korea. The leader is Japan is Yahoo’s Paypay Mall, which was built on the success of the PayPay payment app and modeled on Alipay and Taobao, followed by Rakuten and then Amazon.[6]

The success of these digital giants has accelerated the adoption of the marketplace model across industries and regions, and marketplaces are being adapted to a variety of uses. We’ve begun to notice a myriad of them that can be labeled under the below categories.

Types of Marketplaces

  • Horizontal Marketplaces: where vendors offer a broad range of good and services across multiple categories, for example, Amazon or Idealo (the latter a price comparison site launched in 2000 in Germany that also offers sales of goods).
  • Vertical Marketplaces: where vendors offer products and services specific to a defined category or market. Etsy for arts, crafts and vintage items (founded 2005) or Airbnb for rentals (founded 2008) are prime examples.
  • Product Marketplaces: offering physical products such as Amazon or Walmart and even the tech marketplace Newegg.
  • Virtual Marketplaces: offering virtual products. Gaming marketplace G2G or cryptocurrency exchanges such as Binance and Coinbase fall under this category.
  • Service Marketplaces: carpooling marketplaces Didi Chuxing, Uber, Lyft Line, Waze Carpool and Blablacar are some of the most popular. TaskRabbit is a marketplace for handymen while Udemy offers online courses.
  • Hybrid Marketplaces: offering both products and services. The subscription box marketplace Cratejoy offers extra services such as subscription-specific logistics, fulfillment management and shipping, tax-smart checkout, and resource guides. Houzz connects people with interior designers but also sells products for the home.
  • Niche Marketplaces: covering only a small part of the market.

From eCommerce to Marketplaces

Traditional eCommerce websites have to deal with challenges such as a limited product range, inventory, multiple sales channels and lack of control over the customer journey. This has led to many of them converting into marketplaces, where the owner then can take over the customer journey, allowing for a seamless customer experience.

The model is also more profitable than the conventional first-party eCommerce model. Because marketplace operators do not have to source, purchase, or warehouse inventory, they mitigate the cost & risk of inventory, and can adapt and scale their assortment in response to inevitable fluctuations in consumer demand throughout the year.

Marketplaces also Offer Many Advantages for Sellers

  • Access to a Broader Customer Base: A whopping 56% of searches start on Amazon[7]. Amazon Prime has 112 million members in the US alone and over 150 million worldwide.[8] [9] In December 2019, 214.8 million users visited Amazon’s websites per month, while second-ranked Walmart could boast of 138.3 million unique visitors during the same period.[10]
  • Reduced Time to Launch: Marketplaces allow new sellers to generate revenue straight away while building awareness for their brands without worrying about driving traffic to their sites.
  • Established Infrastructure and Support: The most popular marketplaces have established programs to help sellers get their products out to customers in terms of marketing, sales and fulfillment. Amazon’s Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) and eBay’s Global Shipping are two examples of them.

The ubiquity of marketplaces has been powered by technology companies such as Mirakl, a best-of-breed marketplace technology solution on the market. Founded in France in 2012, Mirakl was built on the expertise of its co-founders, who launched, scaled, and sold Splitgames, the first omnichannel online marketplace for video games in 2005.

Retailers, manufacturers, and wholesalers have built their online marketplaces on Mirakl’s cloud-based software. Mirakl counts customers in over 40 countries, including Carrefour, H&M, the Kroger Col, Urban Outfitters, and Best Buy Canada.

They have also made a foray into B2B marketplaces for procurement or bulk buying of parts such as Astore by Accor Hotels, as well as clients such as Airbus Helicopters and Toyota Material Handling. Mirakl even runs a “marketplace of marketplaces” called Mirakl Connect, where sellers, marketplace operators, and technology partners connect to identify new opportunities in the marketplace ecosystem.

Marketplaces have changed the way we discover products and services. Indeed, they may have changed the way we live by bringing a wide range of these directly to our devices and reducing inefficiencies by lowering the cost of acquiring information about the sellers’ products.[11]

[1] What are the top online marketplaces?, Digital Commerce 360 https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/article/infographic-top-online-marketplaces/

[2] 1 Gartner, 11 Imperatives When Building an Enterprise Marketplace Business, Sandy Shen, Jason Daigler, 10 December 2019

[3] The Amazon effect on the US economy, Investopedia,  https://www.investopedia.com/insights/amazon-effect-us-economy/

[4] Top Sites in the US, Alexa.com. https://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries/US

[5] The Top 500 Sites on the Web. Alexa.com. https://www.alexa.com/topsites

[6] Online Marketplaces in Japan: Rakuten, Amazon and PayPay Mall, Webretailer,  https://www.webretailer.com/b/online-marketplaces-japan

[7] Report: Google beats Amazon for product-search reach, but rival sees greater loyalty, Searchengineland, September 2017, https://searchengineland.com/report-google-beats-amazon-product-search-reach-rival-sees-greater-loyalty-282570

[8] Statista, https://www.statista.com/statistics/546894/number-of-amazon-prime-paying-members/

[9] Amazon Prime tops 150 million Prime members https://variety.com/2020/digital/news/amazon-150-million-prime-members-1203487355/

[10] Most popular retail websites in the United States as of December 2019, ranked by visitors, Statista, https://www.statista.com/statistics/271450/monthly-unique-visitors-to-us-retail-websites/

[11] A Strategic Analysis of Electronic Marketplaces, J. Yannis Bakos, ACM Digital Library, https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/280324.280330

How Structured Archiving Delivers an Enterprise Advantage

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How Structured Archiving Delivers an Enterprise Advantage

Imagine a typical business success story: a mid-sized company built from the ground up starts by making an impressive mark on the industry. Over the years, the business improves operations while profits steadily increase. With only a few and relatively minor setbacks, the company flourishes, and business continues to grow. Concurrent with this growth are some important correlated changes. Specifically, in order to account for an expanding roster of clients, more and more database storage is required. And, in an effort to stay current technologically, new enterprise applications are brought on board while others are retired. Finally, discussions of compliance and compatibility with these new information technology components become an important part of infrastructure and development.

Everyone celebrates growth. Businesses need it. And, overall, commerce relies upon it. After all, growth is perhaps the primary goal of any business. What organization wouldn’t welcome an offer of expanded operations, broader market influence, and substantial increases among its market base? With such growth, though, businesses also see a requisite amount of change. Not only the faces of new clients and geographical environments, but shifts in technological platforms and IT infrastructure are expected parts of the success story of every business.

All firms are in the process of constantly acquiring new clients and business partners. And along with this regular accumulation of data, the question arises: where to put it for long-term storage? What happens to important archival documents when a company needs to significantly upgrade their IT infrastructure? One cannot simply discard such data—even from clients the company no longer works with. What happens, for instance, when such information is needed for litigation or an audit?

This is where structured archiving comes in. Structured archiving refers to the ability to store and catalog application data in secondary databases or standalone files for long-term retention, often by using less costly storage [1]. Such enterprise-level archival processes have a number of specific applications and related benefits that this blog post will explore in-depth. Taken together, these applications account for some of the various reasons for the increased import structured archiving has had for businesses across the board via management of data growth, application decommissioning, and compliance with enterprise IT infrastructure and legal.

Data Growth Management

Increases in data are a common part of the development of every business. Sales data, customer records, employee and HR information, client contracts, patents, project data, data from Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, and analytics are just a few of the many points of information that are crucial to businesses today. As the sheer volume of data increases, some have suggested an updated framework for conceiving of the element that many consider to be the bedrock of modern commerce.

This framework is known, of course, as big data. Big data refers to extremely large sets of data that can be used to provide predictive behavioral analysis and other kinds of analytics and metrics. The regular use of such large volumes of data has become increasingly important to businesses. Big data can improve internal communications, customer relations and experiences while providing better overall market intelligence[2]. And the reliance upon big data will only increase. As Forbes recently noted, “It doesn’t matter what field you operate in or the size of your business; as data collection, analysis, and interpretation become more readily accessible, they will have an impact on every business in several important ways”[3]. Big data will only become a bigger part of businesses everywhere.

How, then, does one approach archiving such extensive sets of data as a business matures? What happens when a business needs to store different kinds of data, for instance, or structured data versus document-centric records? Thankfully, there are different archival approaches suited for different purposes. The first, and perhaps most relevant archiving method, is known as full schema archiving. Full schema archiving takes the complex relational database format of structured data and transforms it to a structure that fits with the archival system to be used[4]. This means that the data remains “searchable” using existing business queries, which may deliver either structured or unstructured records. An important part of this archival method is the archiving of the actual meaning of the data—just how is the data structured?—not just the data itself.[5]

With table or partial schema archiving, only a specific table or part of the full database is used. Partial schema archiving can be a result of partitioning, which limits the size of what would otherwise be an inflated database with unnecessary or redundant entries. The example Paragon gives: “In supply chain manufacturing you might have an instrument calibration and maintenance system—Maximo, ProCal and other type systems. Perhaps the record is defined in terms of plant floor equipment and work orders that can be extracted from the whole and defined in a partial schema or cut of the database whole[6].” As long as the records and the data models are well-defined, this partial schema method here will suffice.

The last archiving method we’ll look at here is print streaming or report-based archiving. This technique works by archiving only the kinds of reports that are run mostly typically by a business. These can be common reports run by managers or technical queries for audits or litigation purposes.[7] A benefit of this archival approach is its potentially drastic reduction in the resulting storage size. Reducing a large database down, on the one hand, to its essential and/or commonly used elements can dramatically shrink an otherwise unwieldy dataset. On the other hand, though, this archival technique can leave a substantial amount of data out of the mix, as often critical data consists of entries not typically if ever queried in the past. As always, such techniques must be considered alongside a cost savings and benefits analysis to determine which is right for a specific business and a given application.

Application Decommissioning

During the lifespan of nearly every business, there will arise the need to retire certain applications as programs are superseded by comprehensive upgrades and other important changes to the IT environment.This process, known as application decommissioning, is a notable part of the structured archiving process. An example would be when a company adopts a new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution. Typically, with such an upgrade the older system would be completely replaced. However, there remains a storehouse of important data accumulated through the legacy ERP system.[8] Application decommissioning deals with how this data is preserved. And the process has important consequences on the life and integrity of business data, hence it is crucial for the overall goals of a business.

There are an important set of questions that any business should ask itself when considering the process of decommissioning one or more legacy applications. The first of course is: precisely which applications should be retired and which should remain in operation?[9] The answer to this question involves a number of variables and can often appear as points of controversy for companies that have invested years of time and energy learning an IT platform. At the end of the day, though, a cost-benefit analysis can resolve the set of reservations concerning the prospect of any specific piece of legacy software. Such an analysis will reveal specifically how much will be gained by implementing the new system versus the losses of having to retire the current application or environment.

 Another important consideration regarding application decommissioning is preservation of the actual data accumulated through the usage of the application in question. For many platforms, not all of the data created will need to be stored. For instance, many applications, in addition to actual document data and database entries, will create preference documents along with various technical log files and operating system records. These data, for the most part, do not need to be stored. Most businesses will want to separate out the intentionally created documents—especially those deemed important data sources—from the more trivial data during the process of archiving. This way, once the legacy system is replaced by a newer version, the business will still have access to the legacy system’s most pertinent data.

Structured archiving can offer a measured solution to many of the problems that arise during application decommissioning. Of course, some of the problems may require intuitive responses if a full plan of action has not been drafted in advance. For instance, permissions for the archived data will need to be sorted out, along with the duration of the data storage. Additionally, a business may need to consider the way specific queries appear when accessing data from legacy applications. Thankfully, the majority of these issues can be decided before the application decommissioning process. By carefully considering these and other issues ahead of time, the structured archiving process will be a smooth and productive one with lasting impact.

Compliance with Enterprise IT Infrastructure and Legal

This last section will cover some of the issues that arise pertaining to compatibility with IT infrastructure and structured archiving along with compliance with emerging legal requirements. There are several reasons to be concerned with compliance and compatibility in this context. In fact, IT infrastructure compatibility arises as both a reason to retire legacy applications and emerges as an important consequence once such changes are put into place. In addition to software compatibility issues, similar problems arise from changes, for instance, in legislation that affects the IT industry. In any structured archival process, therefore, these issues will inevitably play a key role in an effective solution.

Take a common example of IT infrastructure compatibility: a new Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system is implemented. As a result of this change, many existing CRM documents will no longer be read by the new system. Therefore, a comprehensive structured archival process must be initiated in order to account for this data. This is, indeed, another way of thinking about decommissioning legacy applications. However, in this instance, we’re considering the consequences of an upgrade as requiring structured archiving due to compatibility problems instead of a broader plan to phase out legacy applications. Either way one views it, the process should include an archival approach that accounts for the best value in terms of the data will need to be chosen.

Regulatory compliance is an area that relates closely to the problem of infrastructure compatibility. Indeed, concerns about compliance are only due to increase as more applications are added to an IT infrastructure, but also relate to shifts in legal structures and cultural norms. As Jeroen van Rotterdam writes, “Regulatory compliance requirements are increasing and undergoing rapid change with new legislation,” going on to cite legislation such as the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID), the “right to be forgotten,” and new legislation around privacy issues.[10] Taken together such changes can result in the same kinds of compatibility issues that arise from software and version problems.

We’ve now seen three different but related contexts in which structured archiving plays a crucial role for businesses today. Whether a company is managing significant data growth, decommissioning legacy applications, or working to maintain compliance with IT infrastructure or legal mandates, knowing and understanding effective approaches to structured archiving is invaluable for every business in operation today.

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Footnotes:

[1]https://www.cmswire.com/cms/information-management/these-trends-are-driving-structured-data-archiving-025614.php

[2]https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2015/09/08/4-ways-big-data-will-change-every-business/#1bbdc7c42729

[3]https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2015/09/08/4-ways-big-data-will-change-every-business/#1bbdc7c42729

[4] http://www.consultparagon.com/blog/data-archiving-structured

[5] http://www.consultparagon.com/blog/enterprise-archiving-advantages

[6] http://www.consultparagon.com/blog/data-archiving-structured

[7] http://www.consultparagon.com/blog/data-archiving-structured

[8] https://www.consultparagon.com/blog/decommissioning-legacy-applications

[9] https://www.consultparagon.com/blog/decommissioning-legacy-applications

[10]https://blog.dellemc.com/en-us/emc-named-leader-structured-data-archiving-magic-quadrant-application-retirement/

Personalization: The Key to Creating an Exceptional Customer Experience

Posted on by Antony
BORN Views
Personalization: The Key to Creating an Exceptional
Customer Experience

Personalization has come a long way from only addressing the customer by name in a direct marketing email that arrives in your inbox – of all the digital strategies being talked about in the race to better customer experience, and thereby setting your brand apart from the competitors, personalization has now grown to be the most paramount.

It has been shown time and again that personalization drives engagement and builds relationships with the customer, making it one of the most important tools in a marketer’s toolbox. A whopping 91% of consumers are more likely to shop with brands who recognize them by name, remember their preferences, and provide them with relevant offers and recommendations1. A customer that is seen and heard and feels special is one that will return.

As opposed to the customization of products or services to suit a particular individual, personalization is the tailoring of an experience based on the customer’s previous buying behavior and preferences. The holy grail is to offer the customer an intelligent and contextual, and therefore superior customer experience, which in effect creates more value for the business.

In the past, marketing communications was mostly one-way. The new approach using data to ground insights begins a conversation with the customer.

The underpinning of personalization is data. Most of this data already exists within an organization in the form of the technology that enables every sale – sales and support information can be folded into customer data platforms (CDPs) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, unstructured data in the form of positive or negative feedback, reviews and social commentary consolidated into reputation management systems – all that data just needs to be harnessed, analyzed and put to work not just as the end of the shopping funnel but throughout the customer journey.

Here are a few paths to personalization of the customer experience:

  • Personalized home page, navigation, and copy: New visitors need to be targeted with tailored messages, pages, and navigation compared to returning visitors or regular customers because they aren’t very familiar with the brand or the website. Personalized pop-ups and greetings are one way to do this. Encouraging social sign-ins are another. By understanding target customers’ pain points, interests, and problems, you can also target relevant copy for different segments, thereby increasing conversion. Knowing device types also means mobile users can be offered a different experience compared to those using a tablet or laptop.
  • Location targeting/geofencing: Visitors from different countries are segmented and these segments to allow for personalized pages and experiences. A US apparel brand could have different sizes, not to mention currencies, compared to the UK site. Geolocation targeting also enables daily or seasonal weather-related personalization. One new development is geofencing which puts a ‘virtual fence’ around a physical location. Geofencing triggers a command to the mobile phone when an individual enters or leaves a geofence. Whole Foods launched geofences around their competitors’ locations. When a customer using the Whole Foods app came into or left the geofence, they would receive ads with store-specific offers2. The campaign is said to have had a post-click conversion rate which is more than 3x the industry average. 
  • Predictive personalization: Amazon, followed by Youtube and Netflix, made the ‘Recommended for you’ feature famous. These days, many brands suggest options while the customer is buying or even at checkout to upsell their products and increase average order value. Uniqlo measures neurotransmitters in their UMood kiosks to gauge customers’ reactions as they are shown different clothing items in kiosks. The AI algorithm then uses that data to recommend products3.
  • Retargeting: Google Ads offers brands the ability to remarket their product to visitors who visit their website in other locations. Since they have already shown interest in the brand, retargeting offers another avenue to complete the sale. Conversely, personalization also means that the transition from clicking from an ad to get to your website is seamless and the text matches to suit.
  • Category specific offers: Just as with initial contact, segmentation offers a chance to target specific offers to specific customers. One effective example is how Sephora used to announce all their products to all their customers, but now they send only relevant information with their behavioral-based email program4.
  • Gamification: Using gamification in your brand marketing strategy helps brands know their customers better through features such as quizzes or creating user profiles and avatars. Awarding points is another method can keep consumers loyal. Makeups and skincare brands such Sephora’s skincare quiz or Roadrunner Sports’ “Which Nike shoe fits your personality” are great examples of gamifying your commerce experience to drive return traffic5.
  • Video tutorials and inspiration: Offering how-to videos and tutorials post-sale turns customers into repeat customers. Technology has made it easy to offer personalization even in video and editing techniques mean that text in a video can be customized for easy consumption. Inspiration areas are used by many brands’ websites to guide customers through their product line.
  • Lead generators: Displaying offers free trials or discounts tactically are a useful feature to generate customer leads and keep them on your page. An exit discount pop-up box is one way to do this.
  • Omnichannel delivery: Features such as ‘Continue watching’ and ‘Watch from the beginning’ made popular by Netflix are also being used by retail brands that have a presence on different channels. Headless CMSes can enable shoppers to switch between devices for a seamless experience while also remembering their preferences. Neiman Marcus, for example, remembers your size when you return6.
  • Chat and customer support: AI and machine learning is being used especially with chatbots which can gather data and segment customers, especially if you don’t have the resources to offer round-the-clock support. Information and predictive analysis can be pulled up for customer-facing employees for an enhanced customer service experience. 

More brands are offering hyper-personalized experiences at every customer touchpoint. With enough data, customers can be shoehorned into each segment of one. However, personalization can make the marketing mix more complex and such complexity is both time and resource intensive. Therefore, A/B testing is a key factor to check efficacy before embarking on individual personalization strategies.  

Furthermore, using customer data for the purposes of curation and interaction is treading a fine line – brands would reap the benefits if they were to make their processes transparent, respect data privacy, and safeguard customers’ data while doing so. In the end, personalization is as much about customer behavior and their needs as it is about their data.

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Footnotes

1. Accenture 2018 Personalization Pulse Check. https://www.accenture.com/_acnmedia/PDF-83/Accenture-Pulse-Check-Infographic.pdf 

2. Thinknear Location Score Index, Q4 2017. http://info.thinknear.com/rs/835-JWB-681/images/Thinknear_Location_Score_Index_Q4_2017.pdf?utm_source=&utm_medium=&utm_campaign=&utm_term=&utm_content=

3. AI In Retail: How Tech Is Changing The Customer Experience, Forbes.com, March 26, 2019. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2019/03/26/ai-in-retail-how-tech-is-changing-the-customer-experience/?sh=47f31dc1958a

4. Accelerating Agility: eCommerce Marketing Lessons from Sephora, Bluecore.com, https://www.bluecore.com/blog/accelerating-agility-ecommerce-marketing-sephora/

5. Roadrunnersports.com, https://www.roadrunnersports.com/blog/quiz-which-nike-shoe-best-fits-your-personality-free-rn-or-free-rn-flyknit/

6.  5 Outstanding Omnichannel Retail Examples In Fashion, Intelistyle.com, https://www.intelistyle.com/omnichannel-retail-best-examples-fashion/

A Bank in your (Digital) Wallet

Posted on by Antony
BORN Views
A Bank in your (Digital) Wallet

If there is a recent fintech innovation that can be compared to sliced bread, it has to be digital wallets. In less than the time that it took for people to start banking online, secure, fast and convenient digital wallets have taken over how people store and use money. 

Our physical wallets consist of a mix of cards that confirm our identity, cards issued by financial institutions allowing debit or credit as well as cards that collect loyalty points. A digital wallet seeks to combine all of the above, and then some.

A digital wallet, or an e-wallet as it sometimes called, is a software-based financial account that securely stores users’ payment information and passwords. With this technology, users can quickly complete transactions and pay for them. Digital wallets can be cloud-based or use near-field communications (NFC) technology. When used on mobile phones, they enable smartphone payments. A digital wallet can also be used to store tickets, loyalty cards, and coupon information.

It appears that while digital wallets were already becoming popular, in 2020 their growth – like with that of eCommerce – got another push. Market research firm Apptopia says that mobile app sessions on the leading money remittance apps – such as PayPal, Remitly and Xoom – surged 10.7% in the first two and half months of the year alone.

Digital cash for digital wallets

Before digital wallets, there were contactless stored value cards using RFID and NFC technologies such as the FeliCa cards in Japan, developed by a subsidiary of NTT DoCoMo and Sony. The technology is used by millions of commuters around Asia on rail networks and was used as the basis for NTT DoCoMo’s Osaifu-Keitai, Japan’s de facto mobile payment system.

The idea of digital cash – and the term eCash – however, was floated in a paper in 1983 by researcher David Chaum. Chaum tried to commercialize his concept – named eCash – in a startup that anonymized and encrypted transactions using public key digital signatures. eCash was the basis of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. However, it took until 1989 and the launch of PayPal for the idea of digital wallets to become widespread. Available for both Android and iOS users, PayPal’s relative ease of use has made it the widest used digital wallet globally. Customers have the option of paying with the app, which uses the same process as tap-to-pay options like Apple Pay, or swiping a PayPal Mastercard to make purchases in-store. PayPal also owns Venmo, the popular peer-to-peer payment app.

Technology companies were early into the payments game too. In Asia, communication apps WeChat, LINE, KakaoTalk, and Naver, all have embedded digital wallets. WhatsApp’s version is undergoing trials in India and Brazil first. Samsung Pay can not only be used with NFC but even with traditional magnetic stripe technology. Tech behemoths Google and Apple were later to the game but Google Pay – a combination of Google Wallet and Android Pay – and Apple Pay, supported on iPhones, iPads, Apple Watch, and Macs, are lumbering up to take on the competition. Apple Pay’s two-factor authentication including fingerprint (Touch ID) and Face ID means amounts that can be authorized are higher.

In the US, Walmart Pay uses QR codes – also used by Alipay in China – as opposed to tap-to-pay that relies on NFC technology. This wallet can also be used to organize Walmart gift cards, create shopping lists, store receipts, refill your prescriptions, and even find an item’s location inside your preferred store. 

Other players in the market include Cash App (released in 2014 by Square, and can only be accessed with your fingerprint for extra security), and also stores boarding passes, concert and movie tickets, loyalty cards and coupons. The app Due provides invoicing and time tracking but also offers a digital wallet and along with payment processing and banking capacities. They also happen to own the trademark on the word ‘eCash’ first promoted by Chaum.

Effects of and on eCommerce

With a boom in eCommerce this year, retailers need to keep up with their customers’ preferences for digital wallets and include all these options in their checkout. Here are some of the ways that digital wallets will impact the customer journey and the retailers’ balance sheets;

  • Customer behavior The companies offering these digital wallets – like the banks before them – have knowledge of their buying behavior in a granular sense.
  • Convenience: Not just for the customers who don’t have to open actual wallets, fill out forms or login online, retailers can also conveniently send and receive payments.
  • Reduces expenses Transfer fees and charges are much lower than on traditional banks. Some apps even allow retailers to eschew pricey POS systems.
  • Improved cash flow Credit card or check clearances can take a lot of time. Mobile eCash payments can speed up the process. Most transfers are completed within 72 hours with some even happening instantly. 
  • Conversion rates The convenience and speed while using digital wallets is one strategy that can help increase conversion rates and reduce abandoned shopping carts. Coupons, discounts, promotions can be beamed to customers in-store and loyalty points awarded.
  • More sales opportunities Since wallets are contained on phones, and most people carry their phones everywhere, location isn’t really a problem anymore. This increases sales opportunities making sales truly omnichannel.
  • Security With extra levels of authentication, a digital wallet is much more secure than a credit card. 

Digital wallets around the world

In Asia and Africa, where cash was formerly king, vast swathes of the population have sidestepped credit and debit cards to go straight to mobile payments. Alipay, offered by eCommerce giant Alibaba, and started out as an escrow service between eCommerce buyers and sellers is China’s leading third-party payment solution and digital wallet. In 2016, Alipay expanded to Europe to offer Chinese tourists traveling there a way to make in-store payments and receive offers and now has over a billion users worldwide. In India, its equivalent is PayTM. In Africa, and in particular Kenya, Vodafone M-Pesa allows users to deposit, withdraw and transfer funds, pay bills, and purchase mobile operator services. 

As eCommerce becomes more commonplace, digital wallets are starting to gain favor with customers and in turn, gain ground from banks. Square, for example, has received conditional approval to open a bank. Recognizing this propensity to transact online and on the phone, banks around the world are working on central bank digital currencies (CBDC) capabilities. 

Noting the banking-like features that digital wallets offer, Hong Kong and Singapore regulate digital wallets as stored value facilities. A new bill was tabled earlier this year in the US called the ‘Banking For All Act’ that mandates that all banks that are members of the Federal Reserve open and maintain ‘digital dollar wallets’ for all persons. The unbanked and the underbanked around the globe might fuel the next wave of digital wallets and we will be more digital money to fuel our digital lives.