Mobile Expert Video Series: Damien Moriarty

I am in Sydney, Australia speaking at the Cognizant Community Sydney 2013 conference and meeting with companies and SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud) experts this week.  In this short video, I interview veteran mobility expert and International Delivery Manager for Retriever Communications, Damien Moriarty about how their roots in industrial grade mobility give them a unique approach to mobility.

Keep your ears open for the unique way Australian children's voices can carry throughout an entire hotel.

Video Link: http://youtu.be/jB32iQC9Etc




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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant
View Linkedin Profile
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and SMAC analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Digital Transformations - The Crossroads Model: Winning with Code Halos

Books and Reviews
Three of my colleagues here at Cognizant, Malcolm Frank, Paul Roehrig and Ben Pring, are writing a new book on the subjects of SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud), digital and business transformations, and successful strategies for navigating through them.  The concepts in this book resonate with me.  I see enterprise mobility and B2C mobile app strategies as key components.  In this article, we get a sneak preview from the book.  

Several weeks ago we outlined the concept  of “Code Halos™” – aka our digital fingerprint – and discussed how   “personal” Code Halos are migrating into enterprise computing. We also analyzed the areas in which “organizational” Code Halos are changing what businesses do and how they do it.
In this post we advocate how Code Halos create a repeatable pattern of disruption across a wide range of industries; by studying this pattern we have developed a business model – the Crossroads Model™ – to help business and technology leaders understand the impact Code Halos have on winning and losing in today’s fast digitizing global markets. We also provide a “playbook” for executives to win in the new “code rush” and avoid the “extinction events” that so many once great corporations, from Kodak to Newsweek, have experienced in recent years.

A New Prism for Understanding Digital Disruption Has Emerged 

In studying the rise and impact of Code Halos, we’ve recognize that vast industry transformations – and the resulting violent value migrations – in books, movie rentals, mobile phones, insurance, consumer goods, newspapers and travel services have all followed a similar pattern. This pattern is what we call the Crossroads Model. As companies and industries have experienced events explained by the Crossroads Model, three key events have occurred.
  • The winners built Code Halos at an “atomic” level — oriented around people, processes, products and organizations — to create new value and experiences. The losers largely ignored the possibilities of deriving meaning from data, customer intimacy and the value of code, and instead continued to work on creating economic value primarily through the leverage of physical assets.
  • Once Code Halos formed and grew in value with more data, they led to industry transformations that followed a very consistent pattern. Each industry shift has particular distinctions — whether in timing or the formation of particular Code Halos — but in each case, roughly 80% of the same model has remained consistent.
  • The shift happened quickly. Once these trends were underway, the industry landscape shifted very quickly; there was almost no way back for companies that overlooked opportunities leading up to their particular Crossroads decision.

The Crossroads Model consists of five key stages:

  • Ionization: A fertile context for innovation. The combination of changing economic pressures, enhanced customer expecta¬tions and new technologies creates a context and environment for the establishment of Code Halos and related new business models.
  • The Spark: Where Code Halos collide and business changes. Once Code Halos emerge, associated algorithms are then developed. New ideas and offerings are then formed, based on the intersection of Code Halos. An innovative “Spark” then quickly reshapes processes inside the enterprise, as well as at the customer interface.
  • Enrichment: Turning a Spark into a blaze. This is the period where Code Halos — if created and managed correctly — grow in both the numbers of users and the value of data by orders of magnitude, giving rise to new products, processes and models for value creation.
  • The Crossroads: Where markets flip. This is a compressed period of time — often between one and three years — where industry leadership shifts. At the Crossroads, Code Halos have reached critical mass and are creating new customer expectations and economic models. This drives a rapid, sometimes violent, swing in reputation, revenue and market value.
  • The New Code Rush (or Extinction Event). No going back. After the Crossroads, companies have two widely divergent paths, with significant momentum (both positive and negative) that is extremely difficult to reverse.
The Crossroads Model — Ionization, Spark, Enrichment and the Crossroads — has played out in a dozen-plus major industries, and we believe it will play out in many others in the coming years. . For example, upon Amazon’s IPO in 1997 — in spite of the lofty valuation that the consumer e-commerce pioneer achieved amid the Internet bubble and its resulting over-inflation of value — Borders and Barnes & Noble were collectively eight times the value of the online retail giant, with roughly 50 times the revenue and 100 times the customer base. As Amazon quickly enriched its understanding of Code Halos, consumer e-commerce entered the Crossroads in 2002. By 2005, Amazon was worth twice as much as Borders and Barnes & Noble combined, and had equaled both retailers’ customer count (in similar markets such as book, movie and music retailing) and associated revenues. Just five years later, Amazon was worth 100 times more than Borders and Barnes & Noble combined, and had driven Borders to bankruptcy. Barnes & Nobles’ struggles, meanwhile, recently deepened amid the sudden resignation of its CEO (who championed its underperforming Nook e-book reader) and word that the company is pursuing a radical restructuring.

In this period of generational transformative change more and more leaders concur: They see enormous opportunities for organizations that get Code Halos right (Apple, Google, GE, Disney, etc.); and feel pain for those whose leaders get it wrong (Borders, HMV, Blockbuster, etc.).Organizations that optimize their Code Halos across all dimensions and permutations will more effectively negotiate the Crossroads divide, heading onward and upward toward market prosperity. 

Read more about Code Halos and the rules for successfully managing the Crossroads at www.unevenlydistributed.com.
*************************************************************
Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant
View Linkedin Profile
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and SMAC analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Mobile Expert Video Series: Greg Donaldson

I had the honor of interviewing a brilliant entrepreneur and SAP mobility expert, Greg Donaldson yesterday in Sydney.  I love his thinking.  He doesn't need to conquer the world, he just wants to provide SAP users with great mobile apps, in the cloud, for a low cost.

Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDC1WQrRFuE&feature=share&list=UUGizQCw2Zbs3eTLwp7icoqw


Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant
View Linkedin Profile
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and SMAC analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Kevin Benedict on Enterprise Collaboration and Business Transformation

I am in Australia this week speaking SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud) and meeting with companies to discuss their strategies.  In this short video, filmed on the beautiful beach in Manly, Australia, I share on enterprise collaboration strategies.

Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fofJ4FhAbMc&feature=share&list=UUGizQCw2Zbs3eTLwp7icoqw



*************************************************************
Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant
View Linkedin Profile
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and SMAC analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

The Eight Rs of Enterprise Mobility, Opportunity Costs and Strategic Investments

It is true that enterprise mobility is about the eight Rs - getting the right information, to the right person, at the right time, in the right place, in the right amount, on the right device, in the right format so they can make right decisions, but there are even more benefits.  Enterprise mobility can also be about saving money that can be invested more profitably in other places.  Let me share a real-life scenario:

A large distributor of consumer package goods and fresh food, with many delivery trucks would often run out of inventory that customers along their routes would request when the drivers arrived.  These requests represented potential sales that could not be captured because the products were not available in the trucks.  The end result was sales were not being maximized.

What were some possible ways to solve this problem?
  1. The distributor could reroute the delivery trucks back to the warehouse to load more product, but that would delay deliveries to other customers, potentially reducing both service quality and sales while increasing costs (time, labor, fuel, maintenance).  
  2. The distributor could open more warehouses so inventory would be available closer to routes and customers.  The challenge would be increased costs.
  3. A process of delivering (with more trucks and drivers) unscheduled orders could be developed.  The problem, however, would be the additional expense to set-up and operate it.
  4. The distributor could ignore their customers' request for last-minute product sales, and open up an opportunity for competitors to capture this business.
How did enterprise mobility solutions help solve this challenge?  We helped the distributor by implementing real-time communications and inventory systems on their mobile devices, GPS tracking and real-time scheduling solutions that enabled a few roving trucks full of commonly needed inventory to meet-up with multiple delivery drivers and top-off their inventories (JIT, just-in-time) along their routes without delaying them from their scheduled deliveries.

The distributor improved customer service and sales with limited investment.  They also prevented their competition from making inroads.  They used a limited investment in technologies (enterprise mobility solutions) to get products to the right customers at the right time without spending all of their investment funds.  The mobile solutions enabled them to NOT have to make massive investments in more warehouses, trucks, labor and infrastructure so they could make smarter investments in other places.
*************************************************************
Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant
View Linkedin Profile
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and SMAC analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Wearable Devices, Mobile Apps, Sensors and Clothing Companies

Nike FuelBand
As I was working this morning I become annoyed that my Nike FuelBand kept rubbing against my MacBook Pro keyboard while I was typing.  The Nike FuelBand is my first wearable (M2M or IoT) device.  It is a bluetooth enabled sensor inside a wristband.  The sensor has an accelerometer that records the level of activities you participate in during a 24 hour period.  When you press a button it syncs its recorded data with your iPhone.  The iPhone in turn uploads the FuelBand data into your Nike account in the cloud.

Once the data enters your mobile app on the iPhone and/or your account in the cloud, it analyzes it against past and future activities, recorded goals and other measurements.  On nearly every screen you are encouraged to be social, and to share your activity data with friends, family and the Nike social family.  There is also a whole lot of gamification going on.  You can escape and survive all kinds of dangers presented in a game on the Nike cloud site by keeping your activities up and meeting your goals.

One of the challenges, however, is the Nike FuelBand does not have a GPS tracking system (although your iPhone does), nor does it know you are engaged in certain activities like riding a bike, either on the road or a stationary one.  There is no method for manually entering activities that are not easily monitored by the Nike FuelBand.  I solved a few of those problems, after a little research, by integrating the Nike FuelBand app and account, with my Nike Running app (which uses my iPhone GPS capability).  I could then precisely track times, distances, paces and routes. Both the FuelBand and the Running app are integrated through my Nike cloud account so they can both access the same data and monitor my activities accurately.

I was, however, still faced with the problem of recording and tracking exercises and activities that are not accurately captured by the Nike FuelBand or the Nike Running app on my iPhone.  I eventually discovered a solution, however, by finding that I could integrate my Lose It! mobile app with my Nike cloud account as well.  Lose It! is a great app for manually tracking calories consumed and exercises completed.  Lose It! does not have its own hardware or sensors, but integrating it (a simple check box) with my Nike cloud based account enabled it to share data I manually entered, and for the Lose It! app to read and integrate sensor data from my Nike Running app and my Nike FuelBand (wearable sensor).

Let's review the components:
  • iPhone and GPS sensor
  • Nike FuelBand (bluetooth enabled accelerometer sensor in a wristband that communicates with your iPhone) to monitor activity levels
  • Nike Running iPhone app that uses the iPhone GPS to track distance, speed, pace, etc.
  • Nike cloud based account to aggregate, analyze, report on and archive the data
  • Lose It! iPhone app that enables you to manually enter foods/calories and exercises.  It can be integrated with your Nike cloud based account so exercises, activity levels and running data can be more accurate and shared.
I believe the wearable mobile device and exercise/activity apps market will mature and these disparate capabilities will soon converge into a single wearable device and a full functional app.  Today, however, us early adopters have the fun of discovering their limitations, reviewing each update, and finding work-a-rounds.

It is quite interesting to me, that a clothing/shoe company, Nike in this case, is so involved in high tech sensors, mobile hardware, cloud based solutions, social and gaming platforms and analytics.  It is the beginnings of the digitization of clothing.  I know Under Armor is also deeply involved in these digital transformations.

These clothing companies understand that their brands are increasingly going to be judged by the quality of their digital presence, rather than just the quality of their physical designs and materials.  It is a different world that we live in today.   One that we should all be pondering.



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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant
View Linkedin Profile
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and SMAC analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Personal SMAC Strategies in Action!!

I took inventory of my personal SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud) environment this morning while sitting in a coffee shop next to the Boise river.  On Tuesday I recorded and published my first Google+ Hangout On Air.  I interviewed mobility expert Bob Egan using our MacBook Pro video cameras and Hangout On Air, YouTube streamed it live and then automatically posted the recorded version to my YouTube channel.  Wow!  Implementing SMAC strategies, even at the micro-level, is empowering!

Boise foothills
I am reading a book on military strategies now called Maneuver.  In this book it identifies "force projection" as one of the benefits of workforce mobility and maneuvering.  Force projection means the ability to extend one's influence over great distances.  This is often enabled through the strategic use of high tech assets.  I would add to that personal SMAC assets.

While sitting in my office in beautiful Boise, Idaho, I used a social platform, Google+, their social collaboration and web conferencing platform Hangout, plus its integration with YouTube (Hangout On Air) to stream live all around the globe.  The cost of all these capabilities - free!

That is cost effective "force projection" from Boise and Cape Cod.  Bob and I were able to share our experiences worldwide using cloud based tools.  These tools are all connected to Google Analytics, Blogger Analytics, YouTube Analytics, etc.  Google+, Hangout, YouTube and Blogger all have mobile apps.  Our work was all mobilized without any effort on our part.  These kinds of tools allow even the smallest businesses to expand and project their force/influence globally.

I am spending much of my time these days discussing mobile and SMAC strategies with business leaders.  If I, sitting in my little office in Boise, Idaho, can benefit from SMAC strategies, just think how large multinational companies can!



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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant
View Linkedin Profile
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and SMAC analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Mobile Banking, Mobile Payments and Digital Transformations

I read with interest (no pun intended) an article today titled, The Future of Mobile Payments and Banking, from Cognizant's banking and financial services expert Tony Virdi.  In the article he identifies a number of mobile and digital trends he is seeing in 2013 including:
  • Changing consumers behaviors and demands are driving transformation within the banking and payment processing industries
  • The volume of digital (mobile and Internet) banking transactions is growing exponentially
  • The role of the bank as a physical venue or outlet has changed as most transactions are moving online or mobile
  • Digital bankers [I read mobile/Internet bankers] are rapidly becoming the new power base
  • Retail banks are increasingly dedicating discretionary budgets to investments in digital solutions
  • Banks can increase their wallet share and income by offering more and better digital services
  • Banks are increasingly focused on m-commerce as a means of both providing better customer service as well as enhancing their top lines
  • Smartphones are now payment acceptance device (via Square, PayPal, etc), which reduce the time to bring on board new merchants and also reduces the cost of transaction
  • Customers expect to instantly personalize banking products (via mobile apps and the Internet)
  • More UK online shoppers are using debit cards than credit cards in 2013 according to the UK Cards Association.  That is a significant industry change that banks need to ponder.
  • New mobile payment services will enable instant, secure payments from bank accounts via apps, bridging ecommerce, mCommerce and extending into payments made directly in a retail environment
  • New UK service in 2014 to enable people to send money via smartphone to anyone holding a bank account in one of eight participating banks. Payments will be routed via their mobile number linked to their sort code and account number in a database. 
  • Smartphones used as payment acceptance devices provide an entirely new platform for loyalty-based programs to be developed and implemented
For more on digital transformations in the banking industry read http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/2013/07/banks-mobile-technologies-and-smac-part.html.


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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant
View Linkedin Profile
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and SMAC analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Mobility, The Internet of Things and Code Halos

Each of us are surrounded by our digital choices, preferences, activities, history and experiences that are captured as data and analyzed by the systems and websites we use.  Why did Google, a company known for its search engine, develop a mobile operating system?  They recognized the importance of mobility, and the fact that we would be accessing all things digital through these devices.  They wanted to optimize their ability to collect data and analyze it through mobile devices and the mobile web.

Here is a recent excerpt from an article written by Ben Pring on this subject, "What one key characteristic separates today’s high-flying outperformers – such as Apple, Google, Amazon, Netflix and Pandora – from fast-followers, wannabes, and laggards? It’s a precision focus on the information that surrounds people, organizations, products and processes – what we call Code Halos ™."

My colleagues Malcolm Frank, Ben Pring and Paul Roehrig recently recorded an excellent short video on this subject to help us understand the role of "Code Halos" on the web, in mobility and the Internet of Things.

Video Link: http://youtu.be/XYwiDJ7UWHo



To read more about SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud) strategies and trends, Code Halos and other mega-trends click here, or visit my article library on these subjects here.



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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant
View Linkedin Profile
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and SMAC analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Banks, Mobile Technologies and SMAC, Part 3

This article is Part 3 in a series on Banks, Mobile Technologies and SMAC.  Click here to read Part 1 and Part 2.

In this article my colleague Peter Abatan, a Mobile Technology Consultant and banking expert with Cognizant, shares his insights into the digital transformation happening in the banking industry.  This transformation reflects new and innovative business models, the rapid adoption of mobile apps for banking, social media and other cloud based solutions.  In this article Peter and I discuss P2P (peer-to-peer) lending services and their potential integration with Internet based and mobile banks.

P2P lending sites are part of the emerging digital transformation happening in the banking industry. Their purpose is to provide higher returns for investors/savers, while using SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud) based technologies to help find lenders for people/companies that may not meet a traditional bank’s criteria for lending.  They are a in effect, match makers.  They are the match.com for people wanting to lend money for higher returns, and people or companies wanting to borrow it.

P2P lending sites can be risky, however.  There is little protection for investments.  If you invest and a borrower defaults on their loan, your money is at risk.

According to the P2P Finance Association this market sector is growing at a rate of 250% per year, but not all are successful. In December of 2011, P2P lender Quakle became insolvent and many lost their investments.

I believe the logical evolution of this market is for P2P lenders to evolve into, or integrate with Internet/mobile banks.  As an Internet/mobile bank, P2P lenders would be able to expand their products  and services into things like mortgages and insurance to compliment money lending services.

P2P lenders as Internet/mobile banks, will be in a good position to compete with traditional brick and mortar banks as they can offer better rates on savings and other investment tools, plus they will likely have a lower operational cost.   Lower operational costs are the result of not needing to maintain traditional banking processes like check processing, money handling and logistics, large numbers of employees, bank branches and physical security services.


*************************************************************
Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant
View Linkedin Profile
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and SMAC analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

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