Deloitte Trends for 2013

Deloitte has released its report on Tech Trends for 2013. Central to its thesis in this report is that we have entered a post digital era, comparable to the post industrial era, where the forces of the identified era have become the mainstream drivers of the new age. The report heralds a role for the CIO in organizations being raised to new strategic heights. And it emphasizes the ubiquity of mobility as well as a reinvention of ERP. There are ten trends identified and explained on the Deloitte website, complete with supporting videos and case histories exemplifying the various trends. It makes an interesting read.

The Transformation of Payments Systems

Payments in the financial services industry have been undergoing a transformation over recent months/years. PArt of it has involved a significant shift to the east, where the new technologies are centered. KPMG has been tracking these changes and writing about them The results appear on the KPMG website and make a tremendous resource for anyone interested in researching this area.

As the site says: "While many in the financial services industry may have historically viewed payments as being somewhat boring, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, given the rapid pace of change, innovation and growth now underway in the sector, it seems increasingly clear that payments is actually one of the most exciting – and potentially valuable – parts of our current financial system."

And about the shift to Asia: "Amidst all of this disruptive change, one development in particular – while somewhat slower to play out – will change the very dynamics of the sector: the shift East. The facts are undeniable: in 2010 alone, Asia’s share of global payment transaction volumes on general purchasing cards increased from 26 percent to 31 percent. By 2015, Asia’s purchasing volume is expected to be double that of the United States’."

There is a lot of good material there and worth investigating because the next year will see a huge change in payments methodologies around the world, including and perhaps most strikingly in North America. Check out the KPMG site.

No Metrics for Mobile Advertising?

Metrics are an important driver for advertising. That's because advertising is expensive and advertisers need to know that their money is being spent productively. Good metrics can tell them whether people are responding to the advertising by actually buying the products.

The problem that they are experiencing with mobile advertising is that the means to obtain the data for metrics - cookies - are not effective for mobile units, and in fact mobile phones do not contain the capacity for cookies. In addition, users often switch between different devices, phones, tablets, PC's, to do their transactions. So it's hard for the advertisers to track their activities. In any event, there are growing constraints on tracking mobile users because of privacy laws.

Intuitively, there is a strong feeling that mobile advertising should pay dividends despite some apparent resistance from mobile users, and the advertisers are going to have to come up with ways to measure the results. This will require some innovation, but should be possible. Check out this article for more.

Mobility - A Pathway to Growth

While mobility is an important element of growth, placing more emphasis on it raises some management issues that need to be addressed. Chief among these is the question of whether the company will adopt a BYOD policy. "Bring Your Own Device" has definite advantages, including more choice by employees and greater buy-in, but also raises the need for a formal policy to guide the use of those devices. In particular this policy must address the increased security risk that comes with allowing a variety of mobile devices to carry and transmit corporate data.

Grant Thornton has released a useful white paper on this topic, which can be downloaded at their site.

Hints of Change in Reporting Requirements at the SEC

The appointment of Mary Jo White as Chair of the powerful SEC may lead to some important changes in  their reporting requirements. Check out my article on Money.ca.

Maintain that Opt-in List

Marketing by email requires that recipients have the choice to opt in or out. Marketing by IM even more so. But maintaining an opt-in list requires much more than just keeping a list of names up to date. it requires feeding the list with good content, maintaining the interest. This approach requires research and dedicated resources to do properly. There's more here.

E-Textbooks in the Cloud - Long Overdue

Various movements have been taking place towards electronic textbooks. At present, most students bear the burden of paying extravagant prices for their books, often as much as $300 each, almost always at least half that.

It's a big price to pay, despite the fact that in most areas, there is a pretty good used book market, where students can unload their books after they completing their courses and new students can avoid the high prices of new books.

However, in this digital age, the publishers could do a lot better. In the book market for fiction and non-fiction, which has been undergoing a revolution, most books are now made available electronically, especially for e-book readers and tablets at prices far below the traditional prices for paper books. The fact is the preparation and distribution costs are a lot lower and the savings can be passed along to the consumer.

There have also been some calls for open source books, which could be offered for free. However, whether this would work is an open question. Quality is a big issue, and to control for that requires a mechanism to monitor and edit any content. This is the norm for established open source vehicles, such as Wikipedia. It isn't likely that skilled professionals and academics will be willing to devote much time to such efforts, if they were either not paid or not given recognition in their world of academic credits, which at present they would not.

There is no reason why they couldn't still be published in the cloud - online, thereby avoiding even more of the publication costs. But having said that, straight e-publishing along the lines of the rest of the industry is likely the most sustainable and economically viable route for textbook publishing. The educational publishers have been terribly slow to act in this area, and it's time they did. For more on this subject, check out this.

Social Media on Websites

As the usage and value of business interaction with social media grows, so does the value of traditional websites decline. People (customers and potential customers) are looking to social media to gain understanding of a brand or to have their questions answered. That means companies who do not make effective use of social media, and more importantly make it clear on their websites, are missing the boat. So how does a business enhance their website to include social media. There are several important ways we are seeing. First and most obvious, include social media icons on a prominent place on the website. Certainly on the lead page and on other pages where it makes strategic sense. But that's not enough. Include the ability of users to like the page, or to like, share and tweet particular entries. Also, to join a discussion on LinkedIn. Where there are logins, allow users to log in using their Facebook or other social media logins. The website needs to be fully integrated with the social media presence of the business. So the social media strategy and the overall web presence need to be a unified strategy. For some ideas on how to integrate websites with social media, check out this article

The Impact of Technology on Reading

No, technology has not led to the demise of reading, as many have predicted. In fact it has increased the importance of both reading and writing. People with poor grammatical and general writing skills stand out for all the world to see on Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs, and even on Twitter. Technology, however, is having a major impact on the way people read, and that change can be expected to intensify. To continue reading,click this link.