How Consumer Packaged Goods companies are adopting Digital?

Consumers are at the heart of the digital transformation, in every industry starting Retail, Financial services, insurance & Health Care. 

Consumers are most concerned with getting quick, easy and effective results from any interaction in their professional or personal life.

Consumer Packaged Goods companies are typically relied heavily on traditional media like TV and display advertising to drive brand awareness among consumers. You will see multiple advertisements for toothpaste, detergents, and dairy products and so on.

They have so far relied on mass marketing; focused on physical brick & mortar sales. They still have to catch up on online ordering like electronics, books etc.

The physical store still enjoys a major share of the market: customers like to feel a product before they buy it.

CPG companies are quickly adopting digital to connect with millennial consumers.

They are using Big Data Analytics:

·         To identify consumers who will convert with less spend on marketing.

·         Trying to identify the best and most profitable channels to sell select products and pack sizes.

·         To gain deeper insights into price-sensitive consumers

·         To be able to send unique offers to every consumer with extreme personalization

·         360 degrees customer views to build loyalty

Here are some innovative ways CPG industry is using digital for excellent customer experience:

·         Social media to understand the needs, gaps, brand performance, and purchase behavior leading to significant input for targeting, positioning as well as new product development.

·         Using geo-fencing to provide real-time deals when a consumer approaches the store.

·         Stores like Amazon Go has come up with cashless checkouts. When the customers have the Amazon app installed on their mobile device, any product added to the cart gets billed to the customer’s account automatically.

·         Mobile payments: most of the physical or online stores are accepting mobile payments like Apple Pay, Samsung pay, PayTm etc.

·         Beacons: to ease finding products in a store, a customer can download the retail store app, and be able to connect to the store’s “beacons” and get details of the best deals available

·         Smart Shelves: these indicate inventory levels, and instantly update product prices on display.

The future is digital and CPG companies are adopting it with an open heart.

Role of Mobile in Digital Transformation

Our world has become increasingly digital. 

The mobile-first strategy is no longer valid as we live in the mobile-only world.

Today a number of people having mobile phones on the planet is much bigger than bank account holders or credit cardholders globally.

People use mobile devices as Swiss pocket knives: they serve a range of needs, activities, and purposes.

We shop and buy more of our products online or via mobile, we decide where to eat, buy a car, and hire a plumber by looking at the app digitally. Any critical decision that is made, a credit decision, admissions into a top university, accessing your social security benefits statement, etc. are all made electronically.

With the proliferation of new digital platforms, businesses are forced to rethink their physical presence. Gone are the days where you just have an app and a website: it’s vital now that mobile’s role is understood within the larger digital ecosystem.

Mobile is now present along every step of the end-to-end customer journey, from research and inspiration to return. Mobile is one of the most important touchpoints in the customer lifecycle.

Mobile has already stormed the Banking, Travel, Retail industries. Mobile has become an integral part of the shopping experience as consumers spend more time with mobile devices than with desktop and laptops combined.

Users leave billions of data points, which brands use, by applying analytics to personalize & keep them actively engaged to generate revenue. Integrating social media networking channels with mobile apps would further allow the consumers to interact freely with the enterprise, paying the way for increased brand loyalty.

With so many advances in mobiles, the mCommerce has also changed the face. Since the launch of the iPhone, mobile commerce has moved from sheer text messages to apps. There are so many uses for ticketing, money transfers, information services like news, stocks, traffic alerts, etc.

Mobile payments have gained momentum and as more options become available, usage is set to surge. Consumers are adopting mobile wallet apps, Google wallets, smartwatches and devices with Apple Pay, Samsung Pay t capabilities.

Mobile brings various advantages like portability, instant connectivity, personalization & localization of services. Further, it allows businesses to be visible to the customer at all times, build brand and recognition.

Even at work and out of office employees can benefit from mobile access to information, work from anywhere, reduce traveling and increase overall efficiency. While an organization can benefit from easy collaboration with team members, helping sales folks with quick information at their fingertips.

Businesses are focused on delivering growth and profitability with faster; better decision-making, & mobile technologies appear to be in the driver’s seat in this Digital Age.

Digital Transformation in Restaurants and Food industry

Digital disruption is omnipresent, get on board or get thrown off the track.

Digital is no longer a purview of only Banking, Insurance, Healthcare or Retail. The Restaurant industry is having pressure from multiple directions. 

Today’s consumer expects fresh food, whether it is in season or not, with an exotic dining experience.

Successful restaurants recognize that the easy path to their customers' stomachs begins in their minds. They need to grab customer's attention and entice them with a memorable experience in order to trigger repeat visits.

Here are some of the applications of Digital disruption in the restaurants & foodservice industry:

·       Digital Signage to deliver eye-catching graphics to engage customers the moment they walk through the door

·       Online reservations using mobile app & flexibility of customization of the menu as per customer taste

·       Chatbots: Restaurants are using virtual assistants to respond to customer inquiries and to process and customize customer orders. Taco Bell, Pizza hut have adopted chatbots to automate ordering process from a social media platform.

·       Robots – Restaurants are using AI-driven robots to increase the capacity and speed of food preparation and delivery.

·       Recommendation engines – Developers are designing applications which use AI to help consumers choose meals & suggest foods based on their eating preferences.

·       Wi-Fi enabled dining spaces for truly engaging customer experience

·       Kiosks – Restaurants are integrating AI-driven self-service Kiosks to reduce customer waiting time and enhance the customer ordering experience.

·       Pay by phone and flexible paying options

·       Loyalty programs based on a frequent visit

·       Digital supply chains to accurate demand forecasting, inventory optimization, and cost reduction.

Restaurants generate vast quantities of data through software that controls everything from scheduling food delivery and shift staffing to taking reservations to manage vendors and inventory to paying bills

Today almost every consumer is making dining decision on their smartphone.  They have tried new menu item based on the mobile ad.  Mobile payments have become the norm now in this industry. Customers would like to order quick meals via mobile and want to use mobile payments.

McDonald’s was the first store to accept Apple Pay.

Starbucks is a leader in digital transformation. Using more than 50mm Facebook fans & over 15mm Instagram followers at their disposal they mastered the social media engagement. First, they created an app to pay for coffee and food in their restaurants. Then they added the loyalty program, starting to craft hyper-personalized offers and experiences for their 24-hour connected customers. The company also developed new digital services to be enjoyed in its physical stores, achieving a highly praised omnichannel approach.

Pizza Hut has started an order and payment-enabled pepper robot. Customers can now have a personalized ordering, reduce wait time for carryout, and have fun with the frictionless user experience.

TGI Fridays, Wendy’s and other big names have all adopted digital technology to lure their customers.

OpenTable, GrubHub, and Zomato are some of the latest apps showcasing nearby restaurants with high-quality pics, presenting a menu with exotic pictures, price, ratings, etc. you can also get offers, deals instantly.

The digital technology available to restaurants has streamlined the lives of restaurant owners much like smartphones have bettered our daily lives.

Digital has entered the restaurants and food industry through the front door and brings many exciting trends.

As consumers expect Apple to come up with a new iPhone every year that makes the earlier model obsolete, similarly they want fresh ways of serving food with fantastic dining experience which is made possible by Digital disruption.

Digital Transformation in Banking - my POV

The digital banking landscape has never been more dynamic than it is today. 

The number of people going into branches to do their banking is falling dramatically. Customers are changing the way they bank, which requires banks to be flexible and agile.

A lot has changed about today’s customers. In this digitally connected world, customers search, learn, communicate and shop with technology. Easy access to abundant information, web connectivity & smart phones which are key characteristics of the digital age, may have impact on customer loyalty. 

On top of that new competitors & new technologies are impacting the banking industry faster and to a more significant degree than ever experienced.

With rising pressure from agile digital competitors, whether fintech startups

like Sofi, Billguard, Wealthfront and Moven, or larger entrants like Apple, Microsoft, and Google, every financial services organization must think like a tech company.

Today’s banks are facing various head winds that require shift to digital:

• Channel overload – mobile, online, branch, ATM
• Growth required – competition from non traditional players
• Budgets are allocated to risk and compliance

Banks are introducing digital financial advisers called Robo Advisers, which helps customers to make more informed savings and investment choices.

Recent analysis shows that over the next five years, more than two-thirds of banking customers are likely to be “self-directed” and highly adapted to the online world.

Consumers already take great advantage of digital technologies in other industries like booking flights and holidays, buying books and music, and increasingly shopping for groceries and other goods via digital channels.

Banks are using fintech companies to co-develop new services that meet their business needs in areas such as money management, payments, lending and mobile on-boarding.

There are several challenges in digital transformation:

• Data quality as it is coming from disparate sources
• explosion of Big data sources like social, audio, video, beacons data
• Lack of data integration across various lines of business
• Resource shortage to develop and maintain digital solutions

Some of the trends in Digital Transformation:

•  A Blockchain based payment system
• Increased focus on data science – machine learning, Artificial Intelligence
• Lending industry consolidation

How to start this digital journey:

• Understand and assess what customers, partners, employees and other stakeholders want.
• Map the customer journey for each touch point.
• Analyze the quality of experience and identify the challenges to be resolved.
• Prioritize and deploy social, mobile, analytics, cloud, IoT as necessary.
• Test and move fast on failures to new innovations or business models

Banks must focus on humanizing the digital relationship, not digitizing the human relationship. They should use any technology or innovations which has to ultimately benefit the consumer.

NFC - Near Field Communication - wireless power at your fingertips !!

Few years from now your credit cards, bus pass, train tickets, loyalty cards for high street coffee shops will be gone due to digital transformation and you only carry your phone.

Welcome to Near Field Communications (NFC), a contact less, WiFi style technology that could already be in your smartphone, and could soon be a regular feature of your commute.

Near field communication (NFC) is a radio wave technology for smartphones and similar devices which allows to establish communication with each other by touching them together or bringing them into close proximity, usually no more than a few centimeters.

Unlike Bluetooth, no pairing code is needed, and because it's very low power, no battery in the device being read.

NFC allows for data exchange between 2 devices like your smartphone & payment device through physical contact.

Today many of your tasks can be done by NFC:

• Instant mobile payments at POS
• Data sharing of contacts, photos, files within friends
• Commuting tickets like bus pass, train tickets and just wave to enter

Some futuristic uses of NFC:

• Rental firms can send you keys via email and you can wave the keys above car lock and voila…..you are off !!
• No forms at the hospitals, just wave your mobile and doctor gets your medical records
• Tourists can tap the NFC tags at the historical monuments and learn more
• NFC enables smart posters offers coupons, discounts or timetables for next ride
• NFC pass to board the plane instead of normal boarding pass
• Open your hotel or office doors with tap of an NFC wearable device

Google Wallet was NFC's biggest push on 2011 allowing US Android users to pay using NFC technology.

Apple Pay released in October 2014, allowing iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus users to pay using NFC at participating retailers.

Today Samsung, PayPal all are entering this market.

NFC is further used in tags which are small stickers that contain NFC chip and based on programming it can change various settings, launch apps and perform some actions just by holding your phone near to it.

Are you still diving your old '96 Honda Civic's but want to treat it as Tesla? Just slap a NFC tag on dashboard and program it to turn on Bluetooth, GPS and 3G, open Google Maps, and whatever else you need on your smartphone. Then show off to your dear ones J

NFC is still in its trial phase, but it's got a big future.

Connected cars - best companions of Smartphones !!

The ‘connected’ car, not to be confused with the self-driving, autonomous car, is defined as any vehicle equipped with Internet access that allows data to be sent to and from the vehicle.

Since the automobiles were invented, car makers have been trying to add features which may reduce driver error. Today’s car has the computing power of 20 personal computers, features about 100 million lines of programming code, and processes up to 25 gigabytes of data an hour.

Digital technology is also changing how we use and interact with our cars, and in more ways, than you probably realize.

The market for smart vehicles is certainly set for takeoff and many analysts predict they could revolutionize the world of automobiles in much the same way smartphones have changed the face of telecommunications.

Is your car connected to the Internet? Millions of vehicles around the world had embedded Internet access, offering their drivers a multitude of smart options and benefits. These include better engine controls, automatic crash notifications, and safety alerts, to name just a few. Owners can also interact with their connected vehicles through apps from any distance.

Vehicle-to-vehicle communications, for example, could help automobiles detect one another's presence and location to avoid accidents. That could be especially useful when it comes to driver-less cars - another advance already very much in development. Similar technology could help ensure that cars and their drivers slow down for school zones or stop at red lights.

Connected vehicle technologies provide the tools to make transformational improvements in safety, to significantly reduce the number of lives lost each year through connected vehicle crash prevention applications.

The Connected Car will be optimized to track and report its own diagnostics, which is part of its appeal for safety-conscious drivers.

Connected cars give superior Infotainment services like navigation, traffic, weather, mobile apps, emails and also entertainment.

Auto insurers also have much to gain from the connected car revolution, as personalized, behavior-based premiums are already becoming the new industry standard.

OEMs and dealers must embrace the Big Data revolution now, so they’re ready to harness the plethora of data that will become available as more and more connected cars hit the roads.

Cloud computing powers much of the audio streaming capabilities and dashboard app functions that are becoming more commonplace in autos.

In the next 5 years, it seems that non-connected cars will become a thing of the past.  Here are some good examples of connected cars:

• Mercedes-Benz models introduced this year can link directly to Nest, the Internet of Things powered smart home system, to remotely activate a home’s temperature controls prior to arrival.
• Audi has developed a 12.3 inch, 3d graphics fully digital dashboard in partnership with NVIDIA.
• Telematics Company OnStar can shut down your stolen car remotely helping police solve the case.
• ParkMe covers real-time dynamic parking information and guides drivers to open parking lots and meters. It is further integrating with mobile payments.

The next wave is driver-less, fully equipped and connected car, where there will be no steering wheels, brakes, gas pedals and other major devices. 

You just have to sit back, relax and enjoy the ride!!

Cards or Mobile payments? The choice is yours !!

Today number of people having mobile phones on the planet is much bigger than bank account holders or credit card holders globally.

Mobile phones have already become an integral part of our lives, often taking the place of alarm clocks, calendars, cameras, calculators, movie tickets or paper tickets from airlines. What they haven’t replaced yet is hardcore money.

As part of Digital Transformation, 2015 was the year when mobile payments happened. We now have Apple Pay, Android Pay, Samsung Pay, LG Pay, Microsoft Pay, Walmart Pay, CurrentC / MCX, Chase Pay, with a few more on the horizon.

Mobile payments are gaining momentum and, as more options become available, usage is set to surge.

Consumers are adopting mobile wallet apps, branded wallets, smart watches and devices with payment capabilities.

In order to make a mobile payment, most applications require several layers of authentication, and may also need a biometric authentication in the form of fingerprint or facial recognition via selfie. This is on top of the tokenization technology, which replaces transmitting personal information with an encrypted code, to process the payment.

Consumers can make three types of payments with a mobile device:

• Person-to-person transfers initiated from a mobile device
• The second is for goods and services purchased over the Internet on a mobile device.
• The third is mobile payments at a point of sale (POS), such as grocery stores, restaurants, or gas stations.

     There are 3 different technologies for mobile payments:

• Near field communications (NFC) is a short-range, high-frequency, standards-based wireless communication technology that enables an exchange of data between devices in close proximity (less than two inches to four inches). Consumers can send mobile payment by keeping their mobile near the NFC reader.
• QR code or 2D barcode is a two-dimensional barcode containing more information than a conventional one-dimensional linear barcode. 
• Beacon-based payments when connected with mobiles on Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.

Current technologies and players:

• Apple Pay – came in 2014, NFC based payments
• Paypal – QR code and beacon based payments
• Google Wallet – came in 2011 and now called Android Pay also testing hands-free payment via Bluetooth
• CurrentC – QR code-based payments
• Samsung Pay – came in 2015
• MasterCard is coming out with biometric authentication or selfie pay
• Chase pay in partnership with Starbucks

The apps used by Starbucks and Uber offer a high level of customer service and intimacy and represent real value for the merchant and the customer alike.

But mobile payments will give rise to tons of Big Data on shopping behavior & preferences, enabling more sales opportunities via targeted marketing.

One of the biggest benefits of using a mobile payment option is the ability to integrate loyalty and incentive programs into the mobile payment applications. Instead of customers having to keep up with punch cards or key ring tags, all of their information is stored in the application each time they make a purchase with their mobile device.

For end consumers, they help in speedy checkouts, improved experience, better security & reward opportunities.