Industry news

Better mobile customer experience is driving m-commerce

By Alastair Cole, Chief Innovation Officer at Partners Andrews Aldridge

It was always on the cards, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise – but the time is now. Customer experience on mobiles has eclipsed desktop. M-commerce has finally taken over from ecommerce.

For several years, we’ve seen a gradual shift towards mobile becoming the primary channel for retail sales. It was predicted that there would be an eventual tipping point, where online retail commerce would take place primarily on mobile devices as opposed to desktops. 2016 has proved to be that moment.

In a recent study of fashion Ecommerce customer experience, users were found to be 2.6% more likely to successfully complete a transaction on a mobile than on a desktop. The result is close, with 82% for desktop and 84.6% for mobile, but it’s a clear indication that change is happening - right now.

Changing shopping behaviours

The prevalence of downtime browsing on mobile devices can’t be ignored as a factor. Whether it’s on the Tube or on the sofa during an ad-break, people are increasingly using their free time to have a look at what’s out there. Say you’re browsing outfit inspiration for the summer. You’ve likely got a board on Pinterest dedicated to your new season wardrobe. And when you’ve added a product you like, it takes just one click to get you to the product’s website.

The retailer websites which provide the best customer experiences are taking the lead in converting browsers to buyers. Generating retail sales requires understanding how customers use popular browsing sites like Pinterest and Instagram, and providing click-through content that brings them directly to your site.

Customers are also using their devices for on-the-go browsing. With retailer websites so readily accessible, consumers are frequently using their devices to look for deals, research products, and compare prices. The immediacy of mobile browsing means the transition from ‘want’ to ‘buy’ can be shorter than ever.

M-commerce vs. the real world

So, which brands need to think about m-commerce? We know how easily mobile browsing can convert to sales, and brands need to recognise that an increasing number of consumers are using their devices to shop and to buy.

Mobile customer experience is absolutely vital for online-only retailers whose traffic will primarily come from online browsing. For these brands, it’s crucial that the transaction process on a mobile is as quick and seamless as possible. How often do we put an item in a basket on a mobile, get to the ‘checkout’, and give up once it’s asked for the 3rd line of your address? An online-only brand cannot afford to lose the customer at any point in the purchasing process.

Interacting with a brand through your device is just one of the multiple touchpoints which all brands now have available to them. It is now almost impossible for a consumer to solely engage with a brand through one point of contact, making it even more important that m-commerce is optimised to drive sales.

The net is wider, but the holes are bigger. So whilst a far-reaching approach may create more ways to engage and communicate with customers, it can also generate more ways to lose them.

What are customers looking for?

As more and more brands invest in mobile friendly sites, it’s becoming clearer what consumers are looking for and what exactly has pushed m-commerce to take the lead over ecommerce on sales. Best-in-class customer experience requires clean design with simple navigation, minimal clicks and form fields, and pop-up free browsing. No one wants to think their personal details are at risk thanks to a load of spammy pop-ups and hundreds of pages to work through.

So what’s the future? We know that too much complexity alienates customers and that great customer experience had a direct impact on the bottom line. The potential for m-commerce to help simplify and streamline the retail process is constantly growing. Seamless payment services such as Apple Pay make the physical transaction quicker than ever, while devices like beacons are merging the physical and digital world to mean m-commerce will also become the most enjoyable retail experience.

And quantifying customer experience on mobile is critical — until you know what’s underperforming, you don’t know where to invest. To report on this, organisations should also be measuring the channels that intersect with mobile, namely the offline/in-store experience and customer service channels. Only then can brands really understand the impact of their mobile customer experience on m-commerce.

To find out more about transforming customer experience, contact alastair.cole@enginegroup.com

Find out more at EXCELLENCE IN CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE with CXScore on Thursday 16th February 2017.

The sourcing world is changing fast, embracing new technology and ideas while transforming business models. 2017 will be another twelve months of evolution in the industry. Sourcingfocus.com has been asking what people predict for the industry in 2017.

“Organisations will be forced to think more radically about how they source services for their organisations. The blistering pace of technologically driven change means that the status quo that has been accepted for many years will now be challenged. The digital and automation revolution will continue to accelerate and impact more organisations in more significant ways.

In practice this means long standing outsourcing arrangements changing – outsource to in-house, in-house to outsource, changes in 3rd party supplier – with a view to transforming the capability of organisations. Decision makers who in the past often extended contracts as the most risk averse choice will now need to bite the bullet and change to alternative suppliers. The will expose poor Exit planning and inadequate knowledge management processes and systems.

For some organisations 2017 will be a year where that take off, for others it will be the year they start their terminal decline.” said Chris Halward, Global Standards Director of the Global Sourcing Association.

With that in mind it may be time to upskill with a GSA workshop, you can find out more here.

“2017 will continue to see an expansion of cloud and digital transformation initiatives. Many deals which might historically have been done as a form of outsourcing transaction will instead be recrafted as a cloud services arrangement” says Kit Burden of law firm DLA Piper.

Movement towards the cloud and digital services will continue to transform not just business life but home life as well. The introduction of technologies that utilise the cloud into all aspects of our lives is on the rise with devices such as Amazon’s Alexa a key example.

“Process standardisation through the cloud may be the single most important element for CFOs to put into action. The agility, dynamism and standardisation of cloud-based applications give companies the means to continually innovate, a competitive necessity in a business world that is constantly changing” says Andy Bottrill, Regional Vice President of BlackLine.

Benson Schliesser of Brocade says “Research into machine learning (ML) algorithms has been advancing for many years, but in 2016 we saw it storm onto the mainstream stage. ML algorithms can now be trained on all sorts of data, thanks to the availability of high-powered processors, “big data” collection architectures, and open source software implementations. And in 2017 we will continue to see ML expand in importance as a fundamental technology driving innovation in every industry.”

Robotics and AI also feature heavily in predictions for the industry in 2017. “AI has gradually been creeping into the business landscape for a couple of years now. In 2017 there will be a noticeable shift towards a broader incorporation of the technology. The latest robots have the ability to learn how to complete multiple jobs, so they can be plugged in practically anywhere along the supply chain” says Wendy Kent, COO at Matrix.

“The impact that Robotic Process Automation (RPA) will have on sourcing in 2017 should not be underestimated. According to intelligence firm, Research and Markets, the global RPA market is expected to reach $8.75 billion by 2024 (up from $0.183 billion in 2013), as companies increasingly scramble to take advantage of the enhanced accuracy, cost savings and scalability that RPA promises to deliver” notes Laurie Padua, Director of Technology and Operations Consulting, Alexander Mann Solutions.

The GSA is running a ‘How to make RPA and AI work’ workshop in London on 22/02/2017. Click here to find out more.

“Customer service has become an integral part of creating a successful brand and, as a result, many companies are placing customer experience at the heart of their business. This means that we have seen a shift in the relationship between brands and third-party BPOs. Rather than acting as an external service provider, BPOs now work closely with their customers to becoming a truly collaborative partner - one that can transform business processes and introduce innovation to better serve the company and customers. It is likely that this close collaboration will continue in 2017 and beyond.” says David Potter, SVP – Business Development at Firstsource Solutions.

You can learn more on how to improve the customer experience your organisation offers at ‘Excellence in Customer Experience’.

Tom Kemp, CEO of Centrify notes how cyber security will change over 2017. “In 2017, we’ll see a renewed effort by government regulators to accelerate the implementation of security technologies. Ignoring the regulations or inching toward adherence will no longer be acceptable. Extensive progress will be expected – and required.”

“Brexit has brought upon many uncertainties to European outsourcing, especially in relation to IT staff augmentation. Ultimately, it depends on what trade and immigration agreements are made between the UK and other EU countries. If they remain similar to the current EU agreements, then the level of skills provided by non-UK EU workers will remain broadly the same. However, if EU workers have to re-apply for visas or are limited in numbers, this is when we will see a massive skills gap develop” says Robert Barbus, Operations Director of Soitron Group on the future of Britain outside the EU.

Britain’s trade deficit widened to £4.2 billion in November as imports grew rapidly before the Christmas period. The weaker pound meant imports were priced higher however retailers have so far managed to shield consumers from the price rises. 2017 is likely to see a squeeze on consumer spending, as pointed out by retail giant Next last week. Exports grew by £700 million providing some relief to the government ahead of Brexit negotiations. Click here to find out more.

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Trustmarque Solutions Limited (part of Capita PLC) have announced an expansion to its multi-million-pound managed services contract with learndirect, the UK’s largest provider of skills, training and employment services. This second phase of the contract will see Trustmarque transform and deliver learndirect’s technology architecture, property IT services, software development and testing, project management and service management over the next five years. You can learn more here.

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An interesting article on the future of procurement and sourcing from betterbuyingconcepts.com. The digital revolution is quickly changing the objectives of a Chief Sourcing Officer as procurement must play a larger role in sourcing new solutions and service offerings. This article from betterbuyingconcepts.com looks at the changes that the profession is undergoing and the new priorities that are emerging in the sector.

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Jim Hemmington, Procurement Director at the BBC tells us about how sourcing and the Global Sourcing Standard has helped the BBC and saved the organisation millions.

"With the Digital age coming, competition is growing for the BBC – we had fixed income via the Licence Fee income but big competitors with big bags of cash were coming thick and fast from places we never even expected - today Netflix is one of our most feared competitors.

So we needed drastic action. Part of that action was this - a programme of rapid outsourcing. That started in 1996 with Finance and now includes activities like collection of the Licence fee, audience services, technology, playout of our channels, and transmission.

Because we did so much outsourcing relatively quickly we learned quickly and now some of our contracts are 2nd even 3rd generation. We have found and, still find, incidences where we didn’t really know best practice, or how to get to it. It can be very confusing – for example we have seen suppliers in the same market telling us to measure different things and consequently some contracts having 100s of KPIs and others having just a handful. And in the same vein in the area of risk, we found some suppliers enthusiastically taking on risk, like volume risk, while others told us it would be cheaper to manage the risk itself. But while we continued to address these types of issues and thought we had become excellent at outsourcing, we didn’t really know how good we were, so I wanted to find experts that could check our work and appraise what we were doing objectively. That brought us to the NOA (now GSA).

So first what was the process? What did we find in going through accreditation and achieving the standard?

The benefits are compelling. For the BBC if we can achieve the improvements identified from the accreditation process, and I am confident we will, I expect to see not only better and more collaborative relationships emerging as a result, but reduced acquisition costs of between 4-7%, that could convert across our entire outsourced portfolio into annual savings of £24m (4%) or £42m (7%) for the BBC, or 5 quality dramas (Night Manager or Poldark, Happy Valley), at a time when we are having to cut services.

But, also, I’m so pleased to have the opportunity to be a part of the Standards Advisory Group, promoting the standard and the accreditation process, to achieve it, because it would be fantastic to see it in action and help establish the obvious benefits that could be played out right across the industry for buyers and service providers alike.

I’m already supporting Kerry Hallard in discussions with the UK’s National Audit Office, to implement the standard across the public sector. Imagine the impact of a 4-7% across the UK Government’s outsourced spend of £15b pa (£1b over in savings), plus what could be a near to equivalent saving on the supply side. But it’s not just applicable to the big organisations doing big deals, it will give equally give buyers and suppliers of all sizes, especially smaller organisations where cost is such a huge driver, a means to create value and help sustain their business relationships more efficiently and make these organisations more competitive. The impact globally of course could be breath-taking! The GSA standard is a development with which the future must reckon and reckon seriously! Why would you not take part!"

If you want to learn more about best practice in sourcing why not attend the GSA workshop Outsourcing lifecycle and best practice.

Accenture and Blue Prism, a leading provider of enterprise robotic process automation (RPA) software, are working together to provide RPA solutions to help organizations across industries automate a wide range of business processes for reduced costs, improved compliance and increased productivity. More than 40 organizations have already selected Accenture and Blue Prism to help achieve this, including international retailer Circle K and Raiffeisen Bank International. The alliance combines Accenture’s global reach and cross industry expertise with Blue Prism’s RPA software robots to provide the next generation of the “digital workforce”.

To read more, click here.

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The car industry is seemingly bowing to pressure from the President-Elect with Fiat-Chrysler and Ford changing investment plans, focusing on US manufacturing as oppose to factories in Mexico. Many will see this as the beginning of a more inward-looking America which could spell problems for the sourcing industry. Maybe the offshoring industry will take a hit as the US looks to focus on ‘made in the USA’ but domestic providers could see real growth. Adapting to the market is one of the sourcing industries most valuable characteristics, it may need it to face a future with Mr Trump.

To read more, click here.

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2016 was a record year for new car sales according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) with sales 2% higher than in 2015, the previous high. However, the SMMT are predicting a weaker performance this year thanks in part to the falling value of the pound pushing up domestic prices. More than 85% of UK cars are imported, the loss of access to the single market could see some cars gain over £1,500 in price.

To read the report by the SMMT, please click here.

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IBM has released predictions for five scientific advancements and changes that will affect our lives in the next five years. IBM have based their predictions around changing market and social trends beside research from IBM’s own research labs. The five predictions include the effects of AI in combating mental health issues, hyperimaging, macroscopes, smart sensors and medical labs “on a chip” that will serve as nanotechnology health detectives.

To read the full report on the predictions from IBM, click here.

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