thomas.wieberneit@aheadcrm.co.nz
Platform play – How everybody wants to rule the world

Platform play – How everybody wants to rule the world

The CRMKonvos gang had the pleasure to host a show with R “Ray” Wang, one of the most renowned analysts of topics Digitalisation to Digital Transformation around. Ray is the CEO of Silicon Valley based Constellation Research Inc. He co-hosts DisrupTV, a weekly enterprise tech and leadership webcast that averages 50,000 views per episode and blogs at www.raywang.org. His ground-breaking best selling book on digital transformation, Disrupting Digital Business, was published by Harvard Business Review Press in 2015. Ray’s new book about Digital Giants and the future of business titled Everybody Wants to Rule The World will be released July 2021. Ray is well quoted, one of the most regarded analysts around and frequently interviewed in media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, Fox Business, CNBC, Yahoo Finance, Cheddar, and Bloomberg. And now he participates in a CRMKonvo. With his new book about to be released, what better time is it to talk about what it takes to rule the world. Platform? Ecosystem? Guts? or just plain luck? Well, as you can expect, Ray has some very distinct answers that he presents in his usual very convincing and vivid way. The digital giants rule, unless the playing field gets changed. How does it need to get changed? Well, listen to our CRMKonvo – and later read his...
The “New Normal” and Data Driven Experiences

The “New Normal” and Data Driven Experiences

As a consequence of an organizational stuff up we had a CRMKonvo that was even better than could be expected in our wildest dreams. Our guests Sheryl Kingstone of 451 Research and Laurie McCabe of the SMB Group have a lot of data and insight to share about data driven experiences and what the digital maturity of companies small and large actually is. Do we talk digital transformation or just digitalization – even only digitization? Will, whatever changes towards digital communication and collaboration stay? Will it change back to what it was? Something in between? Sheryl and Laurie have some very interesting data points and observations on these topics. Two strong and renowned analysts – leading experts in their field – with different company focus and different approaches offer significant insight for us. Great stuff....
The Dirty Dozen of 2021 Trends

The Dirty Dozen of 2021 Trends

It’s that time of year again. And although I’m not really into trend articles, I think it’s time this year to start thinking about what’s going on in the worlds of customer experience and customer relationship management – and how it’s affecting businesses and customers. Especially since I was also asked … So here’s my list of developments that I think will be relevant in the next few years, in quite random order, and admittedly not entirely without overlap. Digitization – not Digital Transformation If there is one theme that has and continues to permeate through the Covid pandemic, it is that of digitalization. The pandemic has painfully brought to light the failure to make necessary investments in consistent processes and technologies in the past. As a result, many companies continue to have processes that are characterized by media disruptions. The need to improve here is also the overarching theme for some of the other developments and trends currently evident. Companies and their employees, as well as customers, have had to learn to deal with a highly distributed work infrastructure. Companies have responded by building communications infrastructures (zoom fatigue anyone?) and building out or rebuilding their sales and service infrastructures for increased remote capability. This is being done in 3 phases: First, as part of a stop-gap solution, an infrastructure was quickly pulled up that allowed operations to continue somehow. In the second phase, order was brought into the chaos thus produced. Now, in the third phase, more attention is being paid to integration and efficiency. As a result, we will see more end-to-end digitized processes that address the...
Digitization, Digitalization, Digital Transformation – A Stake in the Ground

Digitization, Digitalization, Digital Transformation – A Stake in the Ground

Since about February or March of Anno Domini 2020 we regularly hear about how the Covid crisis is driving “digital transformation”. You now might ask yourself why I put this term into quotes. Bear with me for a minute, it’ll be explained … For sure, this crisis is forcing many a company into enabling its employees to work remotely. It also forced some companies to at least temporarily close physical doors as supply chains and/or delivery of products and services are severely inhibited or even broken. We also see a lot of companies implement interesting hybrid strategies that bring what we thought of being decidedly offline experiences into the online world. A good example for this trend are wineries that lost an important lead generation and sales channel with their temporary inability to host wine tastings in their cellars. Till now the opinion was that nothing can beat the experience of being down there in a wine cellar, surrounded by barrels of ageing wine, musty air, like-minded people and a connoisseur that explains the wines, their provenance and their characteristics. Still, some of them have transformed the experience they deliver during wine tastings into a combination of offline and online experience. Wine gets selected by the customers, an appointment for the tasting is made, and the wine is wrapped into some nice packaging, along with some information, and sent to the customer. The tasting itself then is supported by platforms such as Virtual Wine Tasting, Tasting Room, or Cheerswithme. The experience might not be the same as at the winery, and it shouldn’t. Instead, it offers something that a...
Corona is over! And now? Trust, agility, and relevance are key

Corona is over! And now? Trust, agility, and relevance are key

Let’s fast forward about 6 months and Imagine that the Corona crisis is over. Well, not really over, but being on a way of economic and especially psychologic recovery. There will be (yet another) new normal, a new equilibrium of life, personal as well as business. Societies, governments, economies and people have learned to deal with an unprecedented situation. How will the situation look like for businesses? And how will software vendors and consultants be able to improve the situation of their customers? Businesses were forced to a grinding stop, with obvious and disastrous results not only for themselves, but in particular for their customers’ experience. They will have seen huge losses, in spite of governments providing lots of stimulus in terms of trillions of dollars. Businesses more than ever before are facing the need to look precisely at where they spend their money and how they get their restart accomplished. Many people have seen or still are in unemployment. They need and want to contain their spending, too. Business leaders know that their situation has changed. They do know that they need to make their businesses more resilient. They surely have learned that a – to use this buzz word – digital transformation is not an option. It never was, but Covid-19 taught them the lesson that they severely underprioritized this topic. So the why and the what have been hammered down. What business leaders do not know is: How? They do not yet know how to recover and how to initiate or to continue their much-needed digital transformation. Overall, this translates into a situation of uncertainty for...