I say no, because I think China’s government wants to do two things very badly: first, for its economy to remain on an even keel, keeping growth and employment high. Second, for its currency, the renminbi, to become globally pre-eminent, helping promote the country’s diplomatic goals and solidifying the country’s centrality to the global economy. A currency devalues when its value declines in relation to one or more other currencies. Let’s say that on Monday $1 bought five rubles and that today, after the devaluation, it buys 10 rubles (not actual figures). Under this scenario, the ruble has devalued by 50%. Why do countries let their currency fall in value? Well, some do it on purpose, usually to try to boost their exports and decrease their imports. How does that work? Let’s imagine I’m a Russian vodka exporter and I charge 100 rubles per bottle. On Monday, one bottle cost foreigners $20 (100 divided by five). Today, at the new exchange rate, one bottle costs $10 (100 divided by 10). In theory, Russia sells a lot more vodka and other goods because they are cheaper in dollar terms — and exports go up. At the same time, foreign goods become more expensive to locals with rubles, so imports go down. However, sometimes devaluations are forced on a country when it can no longer defend its exchange rate. Russia, before its devaluation, was spending dollars and buying rubles to try to keep the ruble at the rate it wanted. But, the market kept selling rubles, and the government was in danger of running out of dollars. Therefore, it gave up and let the ruble-selling continue unabated, and, of course, its exchange rate to the dollar decreased. Devaluations can have a lot of negative affects. Inflation...

This (1997) dissertation  byDr. Jeffrey James  describes the process kids go through when they convert to being sports fans. Only when kids are around 8 or 9 years old, after they’ve developed the skill of concrete operational thinking; they’re capable of developing an emotional, long-term attachment to a sport, team, or particular athlete. Usually kids would first get attached to a particular sport, then to a team and then to a player. A child’s main influences (socializing agents) throughout this process include their family (father, mother, or an older sibling), media and their personal sports participation (playing with friends, at school or at their local club). Federations, leagues and teams should prioritize facilitating the (digital / social) interaction between these socializing agents and the 7, 8 and 9 years olds around them. Considering the enormous lifetime value of every ‘new fan’; developing experiences, competitions, applications and social media networks specifically targeting this particular demographic, will certainly be worth the investment. Source: Sports Networker Share this:GoogleTwitterLinkedInFacebookTumblrRedditPinterestLike this:Like...

In China, there is market instability, the absence of transparency and limits on foreign participation. That leave U.S. bonds and stocks as the last, best alternative for private investors, central banks and sovereign wealth funds. U.S. Treasury data on net capital inflows indicate rising global demand for U.S. government securities and corporate bonds. Consequently, as the Fed slowly pushes up short-term interest rates starting this fall, returns on 10 and 20 years securities will not rise nearly as much — closely mirroring 2004-2006, when the Fed last pushed up short rates. Currently, the average rate of profits for the S&P 500, which comprises about 80 percent of the publicly-traded U.S. companies by value, is 4.7 percent and that compares favorably with the 2.3 percent paid on 10-year Treasurys. Even as the Fed raises short-term rates, the above-mentioned factors will drive incoming foreign capital and U.S. investors from long bonds into equities, raising stock prices. At the same time, long-term sustainable price-earnings ratios for stocks are rising and making U.S. equities cheap. The shift to a digital economy based on more intellectual capital and less on hard assets like structures and machinery greatly reduces the amount of capital corporate America needs to create valuable products and brands—the foundations of American wealth. Google was established with only $25 million in 1999 and grew into a $23 billion enterprise at its initial public offering six years later — the story repeated at ventures like Amazon, Uber and Twitter. Similarly, as traditional powerhouses like IBM and Ford shift from hardware to more software in the value content of products they sell — and innovations like 3-D printing create flexible manufacturing assets available for new and redesigned products — the demand for private capital is falling. This is an...

Issues with User Experience (UX) of the New Starbucks’s Mobile Order Feature. Why the App does not allow the user pick another location? The APP insists on closest location, which is wrong. Most Starbuck customers have their preferred location.  If Starbucks insist on only one location, they would be better off, installing ordering kiosks, rathter than a mobile app. Why the App does not recalculate the Calories as the user Adds or Deducts options within the same drink? Plenty of drink orders are customized, thus should be the APP Where is the section whom the user can request customized orders, which are not part of the standard order, i.e. No Foam, Extra Foam, Extra Cream…? Why the App does not allow this portion to add a Tipp to the total? Share this:GoogleTwitterLinkedInFacebookTumblrRedditPinterestLike this:Like...

Greece Economical Facts, according to UN 1- Labor Participation Rate is %44, in 2005 was 64% 2 – Unemployment Rate is 24%, in 2005 was 10% 3 – GDP $230B , Population 11M , 4 – Debt $390B+ , Interest added if debt does not increase $24B  What If Greece Was a Public Company listed in NYSE, what should it happen to this company?   Share this:GoogleTwitterLinkedInFacebookTumblrRedditPinterestLike this:Like...

2001: Greece became the 12th — and last — country to join the euro-zone before the launch of the euro at the beginning of 2002.But bogus figures hid the true extent of its deficit 2002: Everyone now agrees that Greece cooked its books.Two years later, a new government came to power March 2004: In March, the center-right government of Prime Minister Konstantinos Karamanlis took power. And it took a look at the books.But as the Olympics approached, it concealed figures. August 2004: The Olympic Games were approaching — returning to Greece, the land of their birth. This was the country’s turn to shine on the international stage. 2007: The financial crisis had its roots not in Greece, but in the United States, 5,000 miles away.And Greece was hit far harder than many other countries. 2008: But few countries were less prepared to deal with an economic downturn than Greece. With a yawning gap between revenues and expenditures, it was vulnerable. 2010: In 2009, international investors, understandably spooked by the revelation that Greece’s previously announced debt and deficit figures were inaccurate, became worried about the country’s ability to pay its debts. 2010: In May 2010, leaders of the eurozone and the Greek government agreed on the conditions for a 110 billion-euro bailout loan. But the bailout came with strict conditions — among them that the government had to improve its tax collection and save money in an effort to bring its budget into balance. 2011: Greece Borrowing new money to pay old debts. 2010-2012 Protests grew. The country tossed out the government of social democratic Prime Minister George Papandreou and ran through two provisional Prime Ministers — all in 2011 — before turning to the conservative party of Antonis Samaras. But the country ran out...

Should Greece default on the bonds held by the European and national central banks, Germany would face a hit of up to €7.1 billion. It also has a €29 billion exposure to Greece through the eurozone’s Target2 interbank payment system, which would be crystallized only if Greece exited the euro-zone.  Without a deal on more bailout loans, the heavily indebted country faces looming financial hurdles Share this:GoogleTwitterLinkedInFacebookTumblrRedditPinterestLike this:Like...

#Greece is still broke, #OXI Won, and its banks are still closed.  Who is going to pay for all the unfunded pensions? Is Mr. @AlexisTsipras thinking about that? If the Europeans want to force the Greeks out of their currency club, they have the means to do it at any moment. All they have to do is turn off the credit that the European Central Bank has been providing to Greece’s banks. Indeed, the E.C.B.’s governing council will decide today what to do next. but who is next, #Portugal, #Italy or #Spain? Share this:GoogleTwitterLinkedInFacebookTumblrRedditPinterestLike this:Like...

A true CIO does the following: Think bigger: CIOs should look more often and deeply at areas outside their functions. This means understanding not only their strengths – why they are operating effectively – but areas where they may improve. “CIOs need to broaden their roles so they become proper business hybrids,” Holley says. Don’t be afraid to reach high: Many CIOs shy away from alliance building that leads to opportunity. “CIOs are less embroiled in (corporate) politics),” Holley says. She advises potential candidates “to embrace their ambition.” But don’t be selfish: Many CIOs relish change. Change leads to projects with definable goals and gives CIOs the opportunity “to reshape business processes,” Holley says. But they must also embrace quieter periods. “The excitement has to sometimes be doing what’s right for the company, not for their careers,” Holley says, adding: “You can’t be in a state of transformation 24 hours, forever and ever.” Have a sense of humor: Technocrats have their place but true leaders aren’t afraid to show some personality, or at least be themselves. “Being engaging is absolutely crucial,” Holley says. “CIOs are high in intelligence quotient but not so high in their emotional quotient. Share this:GoogleTwitterLinkedInFacebookTumblrRedditPinterestLike this:Like...

Smartphones and their associated apps have become a necessary part of our everyday life. If you are in the CIO position, you have a big problem on your hands when it comes to ensuring the security and reliability of the apps that the people in your company are using. That’s why opening your own app store might be the right thing to do. Creating your own app store will allow you to improve app quality control. You’ll be able to gather user feedback and impress senior executives. Running your own app store may reduce the support burden on the IT department and will make everyone’s smartphone more secure. Opening your own app store is not something that you can do overnight. You’ll need to ease into this. You’ll also have to sell the idea to the rest of the company and make sure that you have the apps that they want. Take the time to do this right and you just might be running the app store that everyone wants to shop at! Share this:GoogleTwitterLinkedInFacebookTumblrRedditPinterestLike this:Like...

We have entered an age where all of a sudden CIOs are discovering that their IT departments are no long limited by the amount of computing power that their budget can purchase. With the arrival of cloud computing, an almost unlimited amount of processing power is now available to process the enormous amount of data that every company is collecting. What this means is that in order to be able to deliver to the company what they are expecting to get out of their big data, if you are sitting in the CIO position then you are going to have to first solve some big data related problems. These include making sure that they have the right data to process, finding the right IT staff to do the work, organizing the data, resolving differences between data owners, and making sure that the IT department does not over promise. Yes, great things can come from finally having the computing horsepower needed to process enormous amounts of data. However, before you can deliver to the company the useful results that they are looking for, you are first going to have to solve the big problems that come along with your big data. Share this:GoogleTwitterLinkedInFacebookTumblrRedditPinterestLike this:Like...

I define a CIO as: The person responsible for driving business value through the use of technology.  Acts as a consultant and leader at the intersections of technology, business and customer value. How do you define the term CIO? Share this:GoogleTwitterLinkedInFacebookTumblrRedditPinterestLike this:Like...

If the relationship between developers and business users is like a marriage, sometimes the CIO’s job is akin to a marriage counselor. In a marriage, one spouse often wants the other to change. In the market, business executives want change, too; changes in the way systems operate so they can capitalize on new opportunities. And often the complaints in both situations are the same. It’s taking too long. I don’t see any progress. They don’t understand what’s really important. We’re not communicating. CIOs who can help guide both parties in a business towards mutual understanding and common goals are delivering real value: projects delivered on time, on budget with the functionality the company needs to compete. And one of the best tools at his or her disposal to create that value can be agile delivery models. The mutual accountability, shared responsibility and direct communication at the heart of agile methods could be the recipe for success at home or in the workplace. If you find yourself in the role of counselor, here are some lessons I’ve learned working with agile development models that might help keep the business/IT marriage on solid ground: New information surfaces frequently during the agile process, driving the need to adjust on the fly. Both sides need to be responsive. The iterative nature of agile can support a rapid test and learn cycle, so that you can quickly tune the customer experience towards optimal business outcomes. Like mature couples who know their strengths and weaknesses, mature agile teams know both their team capacity and target velocity. That knowledge can build confidence and trust about meeting delivery dates. Agile methodology allows for initiatives to be measured in a common “points-based” currency. With a common understanding for defining and measuring what is...

The choice between using a public cloud or building your own private cloud comes down to a question of costs. Companies that have already heavily invested in virtualizing their servers won’t see much of a benefit to moving into a public cloud. Likewise, companies that have not yet made the move to virtualized servers may want to bypass building their own private cloud and instead use public cloud resources. CIOs are responsible for making the best decisions for their IT departments. What makes the job of being a CIO so challenging is clearly shown in the current era of moving to cloud computing. Technical IT knowledge is required in order to decide what type of cloud a company should choose to use, but business savvy is also required. Now that you know what to look for, go out there and choose the right cloud for your company. We have entered an age where all of a sudden CIOs are discovering that their IT departments are no long limited by the amount of computing power that their budget can purchase. With the arrival of cloud computing, an almost unlimited amount of processing power is now available to process the enormous amount of data that every company is collecting. What this means is that in order to be able to deliver to the company what they are expecting to get out of their big data, if you are sitting in the CIO position then you are going to have to first solve some big data related problems. These include making sure that they have the right data to process, finding the right IT staff to do the work, organizing the data, resolving differences between data owners, and making sure that the IT department does not over...

So why are Some IT folks still struggling to get their hands around just exactly what cloud computing is? I believe that the cause of the confusion is simply that there are a bunch of different things that have been lumped together and are now being called “cloud computing”. Let’s start with the most basic form: subscription services. In the old days, when an IT department purchased some software disks would arrive in the mail, get installed on servers, and you’d be up and running. That’s not the way that it works when you are using the cloud. When you are using cloud computing, instead of having to physically touch hardware and software in order use an application, now all you have to do is to subscribe to it and you can access it over the Internet. No disks, no servers. Great examples of these types of subscription services include Google’s Gmail email service and Salesforce.com’s CRM application. This is where things can start to get confusing. There’s more to cloud computing than just subscribing to someone else’s application. The company applications that are currently running on servers located in your data center can be moved “into the cloud”. What this means is that you can use servers and storage systems that are remotely located in a cloud provider’s data center to run your company’s applications. You would access your applications and data via your Internet connection. How Much Is All Of This Going To Cost Me? The fact that cloud computing is even an option is pretty cool. However, just being a shiny new technology is not enough – there has to be a solid business reason for moving your IT operations into the cloud. Let’s take a look at costs. First, if...

One of the most important jobs that anybody in the CIO position will perform is the interviewing of candidates who want to join the CIO’s team. Since very few of us have ever had any formal training in how best to do this, all too often we pass over good candidates and end up hiring the wrong ones. In order to prevent this from happening in the future, CIOs need to first understand that interviewing is a skill that can be developed. In order to overcome our natural tendency to favor candidates who are like us, the interview process needs to be standardized. Using a set of prepared questions and then consistently evaluating each candidate after the interview. Although learning how to interview properly may seem like yet another task on top of everything else that you have to do, the benefits far outweigh the costs. Standardizing how you conduct your interviews will allow you to both attract and retain the best IT talent. Do that well enough, often enough, and you’ll end up with the best IT department in town! Share this:GoogleTwitterLinkedInFacebookTumblrRedditPinterestLike this:Like...

CIOs have to realize that their company faces a whole host of significant risks every day. As the CIO, you play a key role in helping your company to prepare for the unknown future. You need to be the one who is helping your company to prepare today for what may come tomorrow. Risks don’t all look the same. They can come in three different varieties: preventable risks, strategy risk, and external risks. In order to deal with these different types of risks, every company has to create its own unique plan. These plans may involve independent experts, facilitators, or embedded experts. The good news about risk is that you can anticipate it and you can prepare for it. The one thing that the person in the CIO position can’t allow to happen is for an event to occur that nobody saw coming. Instead, taking the time to plan for risk today will provide you with an effective strategy for handling whatever comes your way tomorrow. Share this:GoogleTwitterLinkedInFacebookTumblrRedditPinterestLike this:Like...

My predictions on Mobile for rest of 2014 1) Competitive advantage in mobile will shift from experience design to big data and analytics. Mobile is transformative but only if you can engage your consumers in their exact moment of need with the right services, content, or information. Not only do you need to understand their context in that moment but you also need insights gleaned from data over time to know how to best serve them in that moment. 2) Mobile contextual data will offer deep customer insights — beyond mobile. Mobile is a key driver of big data. Most advanced marketers will get that mobile’s value as a marketing tool will be measured by more than just the effectiveness of marketing to people on mobile websites or apps. They will start evaluating mobile’s impact on other channels. 3) Mobile advertising will start maturing. I expect new mobile-centric ad formats to emerge, more effective mobile video inventory to grow, and more mobile ad network inventory to shift to the exchanges. Improvements in user identification will be a primary driver for these changes, but don’t get too excited yet: No industry-accepted, non-cookie standard for user ID will be developed this year, so no one solution will offer massive reach. Also, from a regional perspective, it will be extremely interesting to learn from Asia how to combine scale and innovation. Indeed, during 2014, Forrester expects China to pass the 500M smartphones mark — almost as many smartphones as the US and Western Europe combined! It will drive huge social mobile audiences on the likes of WeChat and Line. Like most Southeast Asian and emerging countries, China doesn’t have the established infrastructure within the enterprise that chains too many companies to their legacy policies, processes, or platforms....

Release Early and Incorporate User Feedback One way to manage the cost to develop your mobile application is to release a basic version with minimal functionality. Make your app available for purchase, and you will see a quick ROI. Then you can increase functionality iteratively based on user feedback. Similarly, you should think about starting simple when choosing a target platform. Consider Multi-Platform Development Construct and fine-tune your application for just one platform – even if you plan on releasing your application for multiple platforms. Release it to the public and collect user feedback to further fine-tune the application before porting it to other platforms. While there isn’t a significant cost difference in the development for different platforms, this process saves you from undergoing iterations across multiple platforms. Instead, you go through all iterations on one platform and then push the application to the next platform in one step. If you need a multi-platform application at a lower cost, consider the mobile web. Leverage the Mobile Web Another way to manage costs when developing for multiple platforms is to use HTML 5.0 and CSS3. Because HTML 5.0 and CSS3 are platform independent, the application only needs to be developed once. You can also incorporate hardware capabilities into your app, such as GPS-chips and accelerometers. This may be a better choice for cost-effective multiplatform development, but the starting cost may be higher. When it comes to rich graphics and fluid animation, native applications still outplay the web. Graphics are not the place to scrimp if you want to develop a commercially successful application. However, if your application serves a business purpose and will be consumed by internal users, then consider cutting back on graphics. You might even consider developing a web application that has some...

There is no question that cloud computing is here to stay. The economics of using cloud computing are just too compelling and it will end up boosting the importance of information technology to your company. However, since cloud computing is so new, not all of the details have been worked out yet.What this means for CIOs is that there are some important answers that need to be gathered as you plan your company’s journey into the cloud. These issues include how cloud contracts are structured, how identity is managed in the cloud, and how applications can be transferred between private and public clouds. The good news is that none of these questions are unanswerable. The bad news is that the answers don’t all exist in one place right now. It’s going to be your job to go out and get the answers that you need so that your cloud computing efforts can fly high! The financial benefits of switching from a dedicated IT infrastructure to a cloud-based infrastructure are so incredibly obvious that you won’t be keeping your CIO job for long if you don’t come up with a transition plan. What too many CIOs appear to be overlooking is that the switch to cloud computing does not make your existing security problems go away. In fact it may actually add to your IT security challenges. To deal with this you need to implement secure coding standards and ensure that you have solid service-level agreements with your cloud vendors. By itself, a cloud is not a bad thing. The problem is that it is a fat, juicy target for those people who want to do harm to your IT infrastructure. This means that as CIO you need to be sure to look before you...

I have heard in number of CIO gatherings, many CIOs say “IT and the business,” The plain truth is technology professionals have been using isolationist language for decades. I say isolationist because any time we refer to “IT and the business” as if they were two different entities, we are creating an artificial divide. As a department of the business, IT is very much part of “the business.” When technology leaders create this divide between the technology group and the rest of the business, it separates their actions from the purpose of the business. Technology professionals start to see themselves as some sort of technology service provider to the business. But the truth is that the technology team should be integral to delivering value to the customer. If “the business” wanted a technology service provider, the leadership team would outsource IT. Unfortunately, one consequence of managing IT like a vendor is that it becomes much easier for the leadership team to make that outsourcing decision.The role of technology management is not to develop applications; instead, the focus must be on using technology and information assets to deliver value to the customer and operational efficiency to the enterprise. Getting this first step right isn’t easy for many technology management organizations. It requires technology professionals to fundamentally change their thinking, and that’s a hard thing to bring about. But for CIOs willing to lead the transition, the improved recognition of the value of technology in the business will make the journey worthwhile. Share this:GoogleTwitterLinkedInFacebookTumblrRedditPinterestLike this:Like...

Innovation is the thing that allows an IT department to continue to improve. A part of every CIOs job is to find ways that will allow his or her IT department to do a better job of innovating more. It’s not easy to do all of the things that an IT department has to do and be innovative. This is where the CIO comes in. You are going to need to ask your staff for their inputs on how to do things better. Even more important, you are going to have to take action when they provide their inputs. In order to allow innovation to occur, you need to allow workers to make time for it. This may take time from other IT projects, but it will be well worth it. Once they’ve shared their ideas with you, it becomes your job to the hard work: executing on their ideas. CIOs who learn how to collect innovative ideas and then turn them into IT department improvements will have found the secret to running a successful IT department. Nobody ever said that this was going to be easy. However, learn to do it right and some of that Steve Jobs magic just might show up in your IT department. Share this:GoogleTwitterLinkedInFacebookTumblrRedditPinterestLike this:Like...

A CIO that tries to play it safe and not “rock the boat” is not going to have the CIO position for very long. Instead, when you become CIO you need to immediately start to look for ways that you can make changes that will have an impact on both the company and the IT department. A CIO needs to make the following 6 different types of changes. Many of these changes have to do with shrinking the number of different things that the IT department has to maintain. A CIO also needs to bring together his/her software experts in order to help them work together better. 1. Portfolio Management:Have formal business cases created and vetted with the business owners. 2. Data Warehouse Consolidation:Help things along by reducing the number of data marts that your company is maintaining and make all of your data easier to both access and use. 3. Software Development Centers: Help your teams create the best software possible by creating specific software development centers that they can use to come together to create the best software possible. 4. Application Consolidation: Shrink the number of applications that the company is using by standardizing on a set of applications to be used globally. 5. Data Center Consolidation: Consider consolidating all of your data centers down to just two redundant data centers and run the numbers to see if this makes sense for you 6. Insourcing: development of new applications or the customization of off-the-shelf software is something that you might want to think about bringing back in-house Nobody ever said that being CIO was going to be easy. As a CIO you are going to have to evaluate your options. You know that while you are in charge, the IT department is...

Isn’t technology a wonderful thing? As CIO you are in charge of one of the most technologically sophisticated parts of the company. It’s very easy to fill your days dealing with issues regarding servers, networks, routers, switches, firewalls, etc. However, it turns out that if you do this, then you’ll be overlooking one of the most important tasks that a CIO needs to accomplish: communication. Keeping all of the moving parts that an IT department has in alignment is a challenging task. The good news is that you don’t have to do it all – that’s what the rest of the IT department is there for. However, you do need to clearly communicate to everyone both inside and outside of the IT department what you want to have done. This is going to require you to have good communication skills.Communication skills include knowing how to ask good questions, understanding how to use social media tools like Twitter, and realizing how to apply ITIL to your IT department. All of this stuff takes time to both learn and do. Share this:GoogleTwitterLinkedInFacebookTumblrRedditPinterestLike this:Like...

In order to be a successful CIO, you have to be able to take in all of the inputs that everyone else does, but you then have to see the world differently. As a CIO you need to have the ability to process inputs in ways that will allow you to show the IT department the correct way forward. The three different ways that a CIO needs to be able to see the world includes the ability to see the resources that are available to him or her and then be able to create organizational systems that work to make organizational changes. Next the ability to move beyond being a problem solver and to become the person that creates the agenda that will be used to identify the problems that the organization needs to solve will be required. Finally, bringing an end to trying to win conflicts between the IT department and internal and external organizations and instead finding ways to broker deals that bring long term peace to all. Changing the way that you view the world is never an easy thing to do. However, as CIO you are going to have to do this in order to be successful. Take the time to make these three changes to the way that you look at your world that we’ve discussed and you’ll be ready for everything that the world throws at your IT department. Share this:GoogleTwitterLinkedInFacebookTumblrRedditPinterestLike this:Like...

  Wrong Choice Of Products Even if you have selected a great e-commerce niche, there is still one more potential trap you might fall into, selling the wrong products. There are a number of different producers in each niche. Even though they all might seem professional and all, not all products are perceived equally on the market. This is especially important in the most specialized industries / niches. When I launched The Happy Bike, I used to sell products from all bike racks producers. What I quickly discovered though was that a few of them were hurting my brand as their products weren’t perceived as top ones on the market (even though my impression was completely opposite). I removed those producers from the site only to realize an uptake in my conversions. A coincidence? Selling Too Many Products Similarly it’s easy to start selling too many products leading to too much choice for customers, overwhelming them and pushing them off your site, instead getting them to buy more. Poor Cash-Flow Management This, I have to admit, is not only an ecommerce problem, rather a trap that many business in general fall into. Cash flow is the lifeblood of any business. If you have the money to pay your suppliers, staff, cover your bills and more, everything is fine. The trouble start when you can’t and this is what often happens to smaller, new ecommerce stores (often operating on a drop-shipping model). Suddenly they realize that they can’t pay for the order from a supplier as the cash-flow isn’t there, leading to delays in order processing and other problems that only hurt their brand. Lack Of Business Planning Planning is one of the most crucial aspects of any business. And a lack of it is one of...

USE Video!!! Video is still relatively new promotional medium in E-commerce. In spite of that, I believe that more and more online retailers, and that includes small shops too, will start using it in their overall marketing mix. It’s Highly Engaging As mentioned already, video is highly engaging with the users. And engagement is something you badly need when you create content to promote your store. It Helps to Show the Product in Use It doesn’t matter how many words you write about your product, nothing will beat video in showing it to the customer. It Helps To Attract New Traffic You can reach new audiences with video through channels like YouTube, Instagram, Vimeo but also social media like Twitter and Facebook as videos can be highly viral. It Can Help With Conversions Some video types, like how to guides (we will talk about them later in this post) can help you with increasing conversions. It Can Increases Customer Loyalty Lastly, videos can also help to increase customer loyalty, mainly through aforementioned presenting a face to the person behind the store. Video Types for E-commerce How To Guides How to guides are by far the most popular video type. Such videos present a particular aspect of using a product or something related to the product and educate the audience about it. User Testimonials If you are looking to create video content to aid you with store conversions, then video testimonials are probably your best choice. Product Overview or Presentation Another well converting video type. Product overviews allow you to show the product, give your customers a real feeling of how it is to use but also to own the product. And it is the latter that is the most important aspect of this video....

For those of you that are not familiar with subcom or Subscription Commerce Model, let me give you a two second crash course. As I mentioned it is often referred to as subcom, it is a business model in which the subscriber pays a flat, monthly fee to receive some type of “box”. Such boxes can be filled in with samples or actual, full sized products. Quite often these are new products or even a random selection, whereby the receiver doesn’t know what they have got until they open the box adding a form of an element of surprise to it. Subcom companies usually target very narrowly defined customer niche, trying to cater for quite specific needs or solve very particular problem for their customers. More In-depth Relationship With Customers A subcom model allows for a much more in-depth relationship with customers since by buying they are entering a potentially longer lasting relationship with the company. It’s almost like becoming a family. Continuous Recurring Stream Of Revenue This is definitely a big thing from the business point of view. By its definition a subcom model offers a continuous and recurring stream of revenue from each subscriber without a need to influence their repeat purchase (as it is the case with more traditional ecommerce model). Easier Business Planning Lastly, a subscription commerce model allows for a much more definite business planning. The model allows to plan the customer acquisition costs, determine the lifetime value of a customer and the churn rate (the rate at which users unsubscribe from the service), allowing to improve your planning ahead your business expansion. Share this:GoogleTwitterLinkedInFacebookTumblrRedditPinterestLike this:Like...

Creating a mobile site is a big undertaking. Especially when your visitors seem to prefer your desktop site. I’ve previously written about the mobile chicken & egg… the reason you don’t have more mobile shoppers is that your current mobile experience stinks. If you build it they will come. Then there’s the issue of payments. Nobody likes thumbing the 100+ characters required to complete a transaction. The best mobile site proves impotent without viable quick-pay options. You’ve got to make it easy for your customers to pay. Speaking of mobile payment processing, two new options have come to my attention: 1) Using the phone’s camera to take a picture of your credit card. 2) Using a social risk assessment to give you instant credit. Existing customers are your best mobile shoppers. They already trust you and have already provided their shipping & payment info. I hope you haven’t been scared off by PCI Compliance and abstained from storing credit card information. Risk is one thing. Leaving a ton of money on the table is another. You can use credit card tokenization so the actual storage and risk is moved onto another company. Email marketing makes it all work. Send out a special offer and watch the mobile sales come in. By the way, you know how it’s hard to buy things from mobile devices? It’s also hard to comparison shop. If you make it simple for existing customers to buy again, you’ll have a customer for life. Share this:GoogleTwitterLinkedInFacebookTumblrRedditPinterestLike this:Like...

If you haven’t figured it by now, load speed of your website is may be the most important feature of any e-commerce site.  The following off the cuff thoughts are “some”  that you need to pay attention to. Make sure feature banners are loaded first or sooner than other content. Make sure all images are compressed (eg. use PNG formats for images). Set a benchmark of having interactive content displayed within the first 3 seconds of visiting any of your site’s webpages. Consider using a content delivery network: these providers use distributed content servers to help you reduce the strain on any one server to display your website content Test your website load time using free tools like Load Impact or webpagetest.org. Also test your top 3 or 4 competitors and compare the results. If you are unhappy with your performance responsiveness, speak with your development team or subscribe to a service like Load Impact’s on demand or server metrics agent tool in order to discover exactly where your site is slowing down so you can do something about it. Add regular load testing to your calendar of site performance maintenance activities, and especially before key sales campaigns and before key shopping dates like Black Friday (in the US) or holiday sales periods. Share this:GoogleTwitterLinkedInFacebookTumblrRedditPinterestLike this:Like...

The following 12 points are what I have learned throughout the years on the rules and methods that some of the best e-tailer use to be the best. 1. Don’t overwhelm homepage visitors One of the delights of online shopping is the sense of exploration and discovery that site visitors experience. In the desperate rush to let our customers know we probably have what they are looking for, we forget that what they really want is the sense of pride and reward they gain when they find it for themselves. 2. Reinforce your primary niche Carve out a sub-niche that is a big enough market in itself and have been able to dominate that without having the most flash website design out there. They are primarily a dog show product supplier, although you can imagine this extends to appealing to any dog owner who has a special appreciation for pedigrees, or to dog owners who are looking to give that extra TLC to man’s (and often woman’s) best friend. 3. Look for real world opportunities Sometimes, online shopping can only take you so far: some lifetime loyal customers will only come on board if they can first buy from you in person, or speak with your business directly (even over the phone). Look for trade shows, local events, or a community calendar of activities, related to your niche and consider participating. You don’t need to travel far to start giving your online business a physical presence that connects you with your customer base. 4. Include social proof and purchasing data on your product pages Consider using a recommendation engine on each product page to encourage shoppers to keep shopping Consider adding social proof signals on product pages such as Twitter feeds, or Facebook likes,...

This is something I am often asked about. How can an online store utilize social media in their marketing strategy? In fairness, there are many approaches to that. Most typical uses of social media platforms in eCommerce include: Customer Service Social media is becoming a very powerful customer service channel, especially amongst the younger portion of the client base. Young people almost literately live inside their Facebook accounts and it is quite natural to them that they can also interact with brands on the platform. However, don’t get me wrong, it is not only the younger generation that use social media as a customer service channel. It is a quite common thing to be asked support requests or even pre-sales questions on social media platforms. I have even received quote requests through Twitter and I know I am not the only one. By its quite personal nature, social media has become a major contributor to customer service inquiries online and in my view, this channel is only going to grow stronger. Entertainment Social media users want to be entertained, fact. That’s one of the top reasons why they spend their time on social networks Twitter, Facebook and other sites. They seek things that will engage them. That’s the reason why visa content, images, info graphics, memes and other media work so well. So do competitions and other engaging forms of entertainment. Information Promotion I have already wrote on this site about the importance of blogging for ecommerce. However, blogging doesn’t stop when you hit Publish on your post. Once your post is live, you need to promote it. With the demise of RSS channels, it is social media now where people look for content. Few Things to Remember About Social Media and Ecommerce With the above in...

Many business executives have not found sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Myspace, and Linkedin useful in making money. Building genuine online relationships that are also good for the bottom line is not so easy. There is a lot of trial and error. But while monetizing social media is difficult it is not impossible. There are companies that are getting the word out about their brands using social media and are turning a profit. Like many companies, your social media efforts have started small and grew organically. To capitalize on those efforts to generate sales and revenues you need to have a team of people dedicated to your social media presence. You also will need a deep understanding of your audience, a creative vision, and a way to measure results in order to execute a successful strategy, says industry experts. Here are some ways your social media can be monetized. Build Brand Awareness The first step is to use traditional media or word-of-mouth advertising to drive awareness and traffic to your Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Linkedin or Myspace pages, says Jamie Turner, author of How to Make Money with Social Media. Unless you already have a recognizable brand like Nike or Apple, your brand needs to develop social media magnetism before you can look to make any money. You also need to create circular momentum across many platforms when designing your social media campaign, says Turner. By providing multiple channels for users to talk with you, you let customers choose the channel that they are most comfortable with, he adds; and by doing that you increase the likelihood that they’ll connect with your brand in any number of ways. Engage Your Audience Social media is about having a dialogue. When you have a dialogue with...

In today’s tough marketing times, developing a strong fan base on sites like Facebook should be the key concern for online businesses. Many old school techniques like SEO no longer work as a growth engine and it seems that only by building a community around your business are you able to create a solid promotional machine. However, that’s only simple in theory. In reality, gaining Facebook Likes isn’t that easy and you need to try many different methods to yield results and constantly experiment with different approaches   Below is a list of the methods I identified so far. I am naturally using only a selection of them so far and will be gradually introducing others to my marketing mix. I will list them for you nonetheless and offer my insights where I already can. Facebook Advertising – It may be quite a logical move to start with this one. With so many targeting options it might be a good idea to drive traffic to a Facebook page through it’s own advertising platform. Having said that, I have had bad experiences with Facebook ads in the past and I am quite reluctant to use this method for now. Make the Facebook Like button prominent on the site – this one I will be implementing pretty soon (or depending how long after the publication of this post you read these words, it might already be there). Asking your network to spread the news about your company – The power of recommendation is undoubtedly incredible. Press Releases And Website Combined – At the start, no one knows about your site. It’s a sad reality but at the very beginning, your analytics software doesn’t have that much to do. What I always do is, instead of staying all the time on my live...

This great advice came from my father, I suspect that he started conveying it to me early on in my childhood though I first became aware of it in 1980s as a teenager living in France, I asked my dad why he was paying for two daily newspapers and would watch two other news shows on TV quickly after. It seemed to me that they mostly covered the same news. Wasn’t this a big waste of money and time? No, he responded quickly. The four news outlets covered almost the entire political and economical spectrum. As such, they conveyed to us much more than what had happened, why it occurred and when. In combination, they also delivered different ways to think about the same issues. My father’s simple advice — the “how” can be as important as the “what” “when” and “why” — was reinforced over the years… first by my undergraduate education at university, and then during my job at the IBM Global Services and, most recently, my tenure at Time Warner. Over the years, I have found it important to pursue more than one framework to think about some problems. And many times — though certainly not always — insights from several perspectives have dominated those offered by a single one. As a CIO you need to se serious and disciplined in pursuing more than the what, when and why. Also be curious, and think deeply about the how. In doing so, I suspect that you will come across many occasions where a range of perspectives enrich rather than confuse, thus leading to better outcomes. And don’t hesitate to let good structure to do some of the heavy lifting. Share this:GoogleTwitterLinkedInFacebookTumblrRedditPinterestLike this:Like...

Fingerprint scanning on the iPhone 5s and an activation lock in iOS7 open new doors to enterprise security. I belive the next big thing in security is Touch ID for security and biometric-based security. My take is that consumers are right to be paranoid about their personal data being snatched off a lost phone and Apple is helping solve that problem. But the payoff for business developers is that they have even more assurances that data is safe on an iPhone. If only the CEO can unlock the phone to get to the app, a CIO can rest a little easier that the financial results are safe. Share this:GoogleTwitterLinkedInFacebookTumblrRedditPinterestLike this:Like...

Have you driven in E. Berlin, Paris, Tokyo or Mexico city? Well I have!!!!! and I do not travel internationally without some of these gadgets.  The following will help your ride Nationally and Internationally to find a destination, talk over a speakerphone, and diagnose problems with your vehicle.   1. SuperTooth HD – $129 This high-end hands-free speakerphone clips to the visor in your car and connects over Bluetooth. There are two speakers and two microphones on the SuperTooth HD to pick up what you say and play audio clearly. Voice recognition software enables you to set up the Bluetooth connection and receive calls with your voice. One plus: the device supports 12 languages, including Spanish and German.   2. Griffin iTrip with Aha – $59.99 This popular transmitter, which transmits audio from your phone over an FM radio signal, now supports Aha by Harman from your phone. You can configure the app to play almost any radio station, but there’s an added bonus. Tune in to a station such as “coffee” or “hungry” and the app will provide reports on new points-of-interest. There are also stations for traffic reports and local weather.   3. Cobra iRadar Atom – $199.99 Available this spring, this improved (and 35% smaller) radar detector connects to your phone and monitors for police radars in your area. You’ll get an alert to slow down, but more importantly, you can share the location of the speed trap with other iRadar users in a community portal.   4. Garmin Nuvi 3597 LMTHD – $379.99 Garmin has an uphill climb now that so many drivers are using their phones for navigation – or the built-in sat nav system. But there is one feature on this new high-end model that could turn heads: a more natural language approach. As...

Forward-thinking CIOs and IT leaders are linking IT to business outcomes like top-line growth, bottom-line savings, return on invested capital, reputation – demonstrating tangible business outcomes and results from IT investment. Information technology is playing an increasingly critical role in achieving customer related business priorities – introducing new products and services, retaining existing customers and attracting new ones, and improving customer satisfaction. IT leaders maintain responsibility for quality, cost, availability, and performance – while building new relationships across the C-suite to define and measure IT value in business terms. Enterprise Innovators are 2x more likely to create a pervasive culture of innovation. These leaders expect their external providers to contribute – helping design and implement collaborative environments, incentives, and organizational changes that help transform the culture. As emerging technologies become increasingly important to the organization, related risk and security concerns stand in the way of full adoption. Rather than perpetuate a risk averse culture focused on narrowly assessing IT risk, leaders look to create an enterprise-wide risk aware culture. Enterprise Innovators are 2x more likely to seek partners that are leaders in driving industry standards and implementing compliance shifts – helping to build a culture of proactive risk management. Share this:GoogleTwitterLinkedInFacebookTumblrRedditPinterestLike this:Like...

We all know that there is a root cause for almost all issues in organizations and one of the major root causes is, not following correct change management processes in IT. Specifically, Change management controls we use to measure, the dependencies of all technologies used in the business. Sometimes we suffer from the unintended consequences of what appear to be not following the process. Take for example the other day an EVP of Marketing with responsibility for e-commerce sites asked about change control processes as he wanted to gain a better understanding of IT because it appeared that IT was making bad decisions. On investigation it turned out “IT” had taken the company’s websites offline in the middle of the day, much to the consternation of the e-commerce teams. To understand why IT might do this you need to understand change management controls. It turns out the help desk had received a call about a problem with SAP. In order to fix the problem with SAP, the database technician decided the fastest repair would require restarting SAP. Unfortunately the website was tied to SAP so when it went down, so too did the website. Had the help desk and the database engineer followed a good change management process and communication plan on how long it takes to repair a problem, they may have made a different decision and the company would have lost ~ $1M in revenue. Share this:GoogleTwitterLinkedInFacebookTumblrRedditPinterestLike this:Like...

The CIO should be fired if he/she is not a customer service oriented individual. In the Age Of The Customer service, technology shapes every touch point, either directly through the customer using technology at the touch point or indirectly in supporting employees engaging with the customer such as technology like product locators retail store employees use to help a customer move to the next stage on their own journey. In great customer experience companies, and I can think of dozens on top of my head, the IT organization has a significant role in designing and creating powerful customer experiences. These IT groups have organized all their customer-facing applications under one team – sometimes even creating a parallel IT organization dedicated to supporting what I call system’s of engagement. The teams are highly focused on supporting the organization’s customer experience professionals, providing expertise on how to design experiences to deliver performance at scale. Customer experience winners look to do more than stick an Elastoplast on customer service through superficial technology changes – instead they examine all the people, process and technology behind every step along each customer journey, identifying all the systems, applications and data which support the journey – optimizing each journey to deliver an amazing customer experience. Perhaps because IT has a view across the entire organization, IT becomes pivotal to achieving leadership in customer experience. Without IT, customer experience professionals resort to tinkering at the edges. With IT’s support and sometimes leadership, customer experience professionals can achieve the amazing results we see in companies. I believe CIOs and IT leaders are critical players in winning the customer experience game, and IT leaders need to understand their team’s role in customer experience. But to win, IT can’t simply pay lip service to customer...