Author: Martin
Cookson, Director of Mobility at Oracle EMEA
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Digital is throwing up new challenges
and opportunities for businesses. On the one hand companies face challenges
from disruptive ‘digitally native’ competitors, rapidly taking significant
market share, or worse: redefining the traditional market entirely. Take that
now classic example of Amazon, which revolutionized online retail with 1-Click Ordering
and has subsequently launched Amazon Web Services. On the other hand, companies
are finding that they can create significant new revenue streams and enter new
markets through the use of digital technologies within their traditional
businesses. Chemicals company Monsanto, for example, has branched out into the
delivery of data science technologies for the agriculture sector.
The digital revolution is also an
opportunity for any business to transform its own operations and in doing so,
find new markets, develop new business models, and engage with consumers in
innovative ways. To do this, however, companies must understand the nature of digital
engagement and the possibilities that it affords.
Digital
engagement in action
Digital engagement is of course driven
by leveraging technology but success is about ensuring positive outcomes. It
encompasses creating new revenue streams, seeking out new business
opportunities, finding a competitive edge, creating efficiencies, and better serving
customers.
One great example of an established
business benefiting from digital engagement is Floyd Medical Center in the US,
which is using its new web experience management platform to improve the way it
communicates. Floyd Medical Centre today uses its web presence as an important
community resource and marketing tool as it faces up to the challenge of increased
competition in the region.
The healthcare system also includes an
intranet that provides important information and resources for employees across
the organization, as well as for departmental teams. Employees can now securely
access the intranet, which is updated with new content daily, either in the
office or remotely; while improved search and segmentation capabilities
enable employees to find internal content more quickly. The result is a
more effective workforce better able to service customers and deliver a
competitive edge.
One of Europe’s largest and busiest
airports, meanwhile, is using beacon technology to track travellers across its
premises. Not only can the airport know exactly where an individual is at any
time, but it can use the data it gathers to have new interactions with people
at every stage of their journey. This enables it to target people with tailored
information, whether it’s marketing messages in duty free, hotel and taxi
recommendations at arrivals, or relevant advice at check-in or immigration.
Finally, News Limited in Australia has
overhauled its publication systems and processes to remain competitive in the
digital age; particularly to provide content designed for mobile devices and to
introduce new services, such as paywalls for premium content. Its new digital
content management platform allows the company to publish stories in less than
90 seconds, compared to 15 minutes in the past, allowing the company to stay on
top of breaking news in real-time. News Limited has also added new features,
such as story and gallery wizards and intelligent, internal search and
automated editorial-content enhancement functions that have increased the
quality of content and enabled greater customer satisfaction and higher
subscription numbers.
Intelligent,
in-the-moment customer experiences
So what are these businesses doing
that sets them apart from their competitors? Or to put this question another
way: what can businesses do to ensure their digital engagement strategies are
successful?
First, businesses must adopt a mobile
first strategy and engineer their services from the outside in (i.e. think with
mobile devices and end user needs in mind). Businesses
should then look to create value and loyalty while reducing the cost of
operations by building intelligent, in-the-moment experiences across different
channels simultaneously, in-context and collaboratively. This is all about
knowing the user; not just about who they are and what they like etc., but what
they are doing now; where they are and who and what they are near.
This is why the above-mentioned airport
is enjoying such success from its beacon technology – it enables a service that
is all about the customer at a precise moment in time, it meets a need, in
context and through the perfect engagement channel. This is what digital
engagement is all about – exceptional customer experiences through
intuitive services that build customer engagement and loyalty.
Enabling
digital engagement
Any business serious about creating
disruptive digital engagement needs to adopt a mature digital engagement
platform. The agile nature of digital engagement means that any such platform
must be based on cloud computing technology. This is because only the cloud can
deliver the flexibility, integration capabilities and speed businesses need to
innovate and take engagement models to market before their competitors.
The cloud is also where many of the
services digital engagement platforms leverage are based – such as Facebook,
Google Maps and Apple Notifications and Twitter – and it makes sense to build
the platform as close to these services as possible. Finally, the cloud
delivers the cost-effective business models and appropriate operations models
(for example, DevOps), required to make digital engagement a success.
Today’s
cloud for tomorrow’s needs
However, cloud platforms are not all
created equal. As businesses look to enable digital engagement, they must select
cloud platforms capable of accelerating their digital transformation,
integrating core business systems with modern engagement and delivery
platforms, and giving them a competitive edge. This requires a holistic digital
engagement platform comprising middleware and database software that delivers
against the core areas of digital engagement, such as mobile, the Internet of
Things, content and collaboration, digital web experience and business process
agility. These are all elements that tie directly to building and deploying
transformational omni-channel customer experiences.
It is crucial to point out that the
right digital engagement platform is not simply an enabling technology - it is
a strategic engine of innovation and absolutely essential to creating
compelling customer services. The right cloud platform provides application
developers within businesses with the ability to test and develop new and
innovative customer services in low-cost, intuitive cloud environments, using
pre-configured development tools. This approach dramatically reduces the cost
and time associated with innovation.
Moreover, a hybrid cloud approach,
which brings together both public and private cloud elements in combination
with on-premises systems, enable businesses to rapidly scale up applications
that have been proven to be successful within the test environment. It is an
ideal approach for businesses that due to regulatory or policy reasons have not
been able to move to the public cloud as fast as they would like. In today’s
environment all businesses need to think of themselves as start-ups and look to
deploy cloud platforms that help them innovate at speed and low cost – whether
that is public, private or hybrid solutions.
No-one has a natural right to the
digital future. Businesses will have to fight hard, be brave and experiment.
The rewards are there to be won, but those who have no stomach digital
transformation will find themselves in a fight for survival.
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