Leader’s Blog

We have seen an explosion in the world of consumer applications on smart phone devices. Now a new trend emerges in the next generation of mobile applications – applications for enterprise businesses.

As software developers continue to concept and release business applications a new group of players will soon emerge as leaders of the business application revolution. Most likely to lead the pack will be the enterprise technology leaders – including IBM and Microsoft.

Already rich in the resources required to plan, develop, deploy, and manage enterprise systems it is a logical next step for the technology giants. Throw in the need for enterprise level security and long-term vision that is agile enough to adapt to the client’s ever changing business requirements and no other class of business is positioned as well to deliver on client’s demands for enterprise grade mobile business applications.

The real question becomes how do telecommunications companies transform their business strategies, mobile devices, and operating platforms to take full advantage of this growing opportunity. After all, businesses will be looking for solutions that offer the most flexibility – cross platform, cross operating system, and ability to run multiple applications at a time – and few companies are currently addressing enterprise client’s expectations.

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Dell’s decision to forgo the US mobile market and launch their smart phone product offering in the emerging markets the company holds its strongest brand power is a smart decision. Furthermore it is an illustration of a product launch strategy that focuses on creating competitive differentiation and uses a pre-emptive strike to further complicate competitor’s continued challenge of gaining a leading global market share in what is a crowded, competitive race.

While Android device manufacturers continue to compete in crowded markets with products that continue to fall short of consumer’s expectations, Dell positions itself in under realized markets at a time when any market advantage seized will most likely prove to be a significant one in the drive for a global market share.

As long as dell continues to bolster its brand power with a selection of devices designed to meet the needs of each geography’s proprietary needs and wants and a continued drive to improve on Android’s under currently performing functionality and usability, the company is poised to emerge as the much talked about, yet unproven iPhone alternative. And it all begins with building on the companies existing brand power – oh the power of a brand.

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Although it is true that internationalized domain names will open up the internet to billions of potential users around the globe – what remains to be seen is how enterprise marketing teams will transform to be able to efficiently create and sustain quality localized versions of their holistic global internet marketing strategy.

After all, localized access is only one consideration. Localized content delivery is another. And if a user requires localized URL entry for access to a website, it is a fair assumption to say that audience member also requires localized content delivery to be able to browse and enjoy their online interaction.

However, bottom line is that internationalized domain names are another new technology development that marketing can leverage to extend brands globally. Supported by savvy content management tools, a quality content pipeline, and segmentation of subject matter by geography, localized websites complimented by localized URL access will provide many more users a seamless way to experience an enterprise’s online destination.

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Two points of interest and inspiration were gained from this article.

One, it is good to see Wind Mobile is taking a differentiated approach to media buy and placement by investing 25% in a viral video campaign. Interactive marketing continues to overshadow traditional advertising as the preferred way to experience brands. More importantly, the increased spend in this channel catapults Wind Mobile into a space few geo-specific competitors have navigated well.

Secondly, I love the creative concept behind the campaign. It positions the company as “the people’s” carrier by connecting with the audience practically and emotionally. Throw in the aspect that the strategy involves social media and Wind Mobile empowers the audience to pass on the story to others – people spread the word and customers begin to shift.

Really great illustration of what can be achieved through an intelligent shift and use of spend.

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As more web searchers bypass the typical search destinations to utilize search engines within their social media websites, Google and Bing offset the shift by announcing plans to incorporate social search into their search tools – an excellent counter move.

Interestingly this mitigation effort will quickly turn into opportunity for Google and Bing’s online advertising products. For example, Google will begin to spider an individual’s friend’s social media posts – let’s say on Twitter. In one of those Twitter posts, a friend mentions their admiration for a new Nike shoe. Google can seize this opportunity to position its ad words advertisement product in close proximity on the page and direct browsers to the product page on the Nike e-commerce website – resulting in a paid click when the searcher click’s the link to view the product their friend adores – a profitable outcome for Google.

And an even better outcome for the brand – in this case Nike. Along with extension of the Twitter viral marketing, Google’s social media search mechanism also delivers additional advantage that the ad display was based on recommendation by a friend – an influencer. This type of referral will often result in a shorter sales cycle for Nike. Furthermore, thanks to Google’s evolved ad word placement, Nike is positioned directly where the customer is when their interest is peaked and the customer is most likely ready to interact – an absolutely incredible opportunity for a brand.

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It is never surprising to see Mozilla leading the pack in innovating customer’s online interfacing.

And although it is exciting to read that an innovative leader like Mozilla is leading the task of creating the single preferred location where people access their various digital information, we are about to see the same challenge the company is working on solving  resurface among the market of single preferred digital information locations. In other words, as Mozilla progresses this opportunity, so does Microsoft, Google, and a whole host of new product creators. So although this is good news for advancing R&D for the customer’s need for a single inbox for all their various digital communications, the news of Mozilla Raindrop confirms organizations must continue to navigate the fragmented world of digital marketing for the time being. The news also indicates organizations will need to consider and deliver against more proprietary technical considerations for deliverability and to display across these new third party consolidated communication applications like Mozilla Raindrop.

On the bright side, Raindrop’s features may also present the opportunity for organizations to embrace the application’s power of sorting and prioritizing communications to strengthen connections with customers. Organizations will be able to work toward gaining the privilege of having their communication part of the customers accepted or high priority messaging – opening up the opportunity to further build loyalty and separate the brand from the competition. 

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38 percent of LinkedIn users pull in $100,000+ per year.
23 percent of Facebook users earn $100,000+ per year.

What do those numbers tell us? In the business-to-business world it means traction continues to grow for social media amongst senior leadership. This can be attributed to the fact that more senior executives are embracing social networking – partially the result of younger executives entering leadership teams and leapfrogging social media into relevancy amongst their peers.

LinkedIn is no longer perceived as an online rolodex – today LinkedIn members are using the tool as a vast business networking opportunity – connecting with former colleagues, using peer networks to gain references for services and people, and participating in interactive peer groups – in turn providing business leaders access to a wealth of shared knowledge and thought leadership. Facebook continues to grow in popularity, although many senior business leaders tend to prefer LinkedIn as the clear business network leader. However, Facebook’s popularity and continued growth still command consideration in an organization’s digital marketing strategy.

The bottom line is that integrating LinkedIn and Facebook with your brand’s broader social media objectives has become a requirement for any business-to-business peer community.

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Many enterprise organizations have used the past few years to capture and analyze data about their business and companies. The result has created data rich organizations that are better equipped to make business decisions based on business intelligence.

We now see the logical next step surfacing within the HP and Informatica strategic alliance. Companies are next seeking fully integrated capture and reporting models that will create more holistic views of customer behavior, allowing businesses to more accurately segment customers. As a result, companies will be empowered to deliver real-time, automated services, such as rewards, cross-selling and up-selling, that are smarter, more tailored to specific individuals and groups, and better designed to be perceived as “valuable” by the customer.

This will be a quickly growing trend – many businesses have already implemented the mechanisms to capture the data – now it is just a matter of using technology to tie the data together in a way that is usable and beneficial to enhancing the customer experience.

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Although Opera appeared to be the people’s choice for mobile browsing, market share indicates the landscape is leveling.

What does this mean for online content managers and producers?

It means delivering customer experiences that include mobile components will require additional consideration to cross browser compatibility. Producers are already challenged to develop for delivery across multiple mobile operating system platforms.  Seamlessly delivering experiences across multiple browsers adds yet another layer of project management that must be considered as a standard part of all system implementation specifications. Quality assurance managers must also invest additional time for visual quality assurance in each browser type supported.

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Many companies that are leading their competitors in innovation and customer satisfaction have adopted design and development approaches that incorporate rapid prototyping, agile development, and real-time metrics capture and reporting tools. This modern day approach to creating and implementing solutions is enabling companies to more accurately deliver solutions that meet and exceed customer expectations.

The use of rapid prototyping in the design phase enables companies to specify and envision solutions in greater detail in a fraction of the time traditional approaches take. Combined with a real-time metrics capture and reporting solution, companies are able to measure customer engagement and interaction with precision right out of the gates. Using their findings and an agile development environment, companies are able to quickly optimize their solutions and improve the aspects that have low acceptance and engagement.

And as the article suggests, there are added bottom line benefits to adopting this approach. However, perhaps the most powerful outcome for these companies is the fact that their solutions ultimately end up being 100% shaped around the customers behaviors and interests without the customer being directly asked for their input – for the customer, that results in the perception that the company’s brand is most closely aligned to their needs and wants – and that is a best case scenario outcome in a landscape that is growing more competitive by the minute.

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