Designing your experience Sometime in the months before July 2006, senior executives at Nike made a decision that has shaped its digital strategy. It created ripples in the world of personal electronics that are still being felt today. At that point in time, big data was being talked about worldwide as an emerging competitive advantage […]

Know where your business is heading  The term “creative destruction”, coined by the Austrian American economist Joseph Schumpeter, refers to the “process of industrial mutation that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one”. In other words, an innovation cycle that creates new organizations and market […]

What your customer wants Over the last decade Australia really enhanced its reputation as “the lucky country”. While other economies were struggling with the fallout of the GFC Australia’s economy was strong. But this success has come at a cost. While many global businesses were rapidly transforming around the needs of the customer and the […]

Recently I joined a select group of people who hold the qualification “Certified Experience Economy Expert”. I was the 225th person in the world to earn that title — and the first person in Australia. I’m now starting to share the key concepts I learned with businesses in this part of the world, concepts that brands such […]

Many new data driven, targeted, marketing techniques are now possible, but recent evidence suggests that some may actually do more harm than good. Developing a simple and effective digital communications strategy isn’t easy. Getting it right requires the leadership of a business having a clear understanding of customers’ needs, the experience they want to create […]

In June 2009 a company was created that would forever alter a market that had been mostly unchanged and unchallenged for nearly a century. The environment was perfect for this company to come into effect. On one side of the equation it provided a means for people to earn a living, or a few more […]

Your customer’s world has become increasingly digital. This has dramatically changed the way she connects with brands, researches products and makes purchase decisions. To address this change and avoid becoming irrelevant, many businesses have invested heavily in digital assets.  These assets commonly include: Scalable CRM systems A range of tools such as marketing automation New […]

What will one of the brains behind some the world’s most iconic customer experiences have to teach us? That is the first thing that sprung to mind when I was recently asked to host an event in Melbourne featuring Tim Kobe. For the small group of professionals who are focused on understanding, designing and delivering outstanding customer […]

Transforming a business is always challenging. New organisational arrangements, processes and capabilities need to be introduced in quick succession. It always requires a change in company culture. When the transformation is “digital” it can be particularly demanding. So how do some of the world’s best businesses manage the process? As you might expect, facts and […]

Delivering quality digital experiences is challenging. Investing in customer insights and feedback is just the starting point. To ensure success there needs to be a balance between engaging your customers and delivering tangible results. A recent Forrester study called ‘Mind the Gap’ discovered that one of the biggest challenges facing businesses in realising their digital […]

As digital marketing techniques have gained acceptance and matured over the last few years the momentum to collect and utilise data has rapidly gathered pace. In the customer experience and communication space ‘data’ has become the catch-all term for anything digital including contact details, transaction history, behavioural information and even content such as images or […]

Life is not easy for a marketer these days. The media landscape continues to be reinvented and fragmented, affecting the ability of marketers to capture the attention of their target audience. The power of the mass-media model is waning, so attention is turning to digital innovation and data-driven direct communications. Yet, as many brands have […]

In late August this year Melbourne’s digital elite assembled at the city’s public library. The event was the Australian Interactive Media Industry Association’s V21 conference, and this year’s line up promised to be the biggest event yet. One of the key draw cards was Catherine Heath, the Head of Strategy & Planning, US West Coast, […]

The marketing industry has completely reinvented itself over the last few years. In fact it is difficult to think of an industry that has had to deal with so much change as marketing and advertising. But while many marketers may feel like they are finally getting on top of the technology and data needed to […]

It’s safe to say that the pace at which Australian consumers have adopted shopping online has taken some retailers by surprise. While many may have seen the writing on the wall during the years following the Global Financial Crisis, a turning point in online trade, some of the more traditional retailers were slow to accept […]

I recently attended an event that focused on Big Data insights and techniques for retailers. It was well attended and had some great speakers presenting including Myer CEO Bernie Brooks. By the end of the two hour seminar it was clear that Australian businesses have been busy investing in Big Data technology thereby ensuring they […]

With above 300 million professionals on the platform worldwide, browsing LinkedIn is now the default way for keeping tabs on people in your professional networks. In fact, many professionals spend more time managing their LinkedIn profile than keeping their CV up to date. Recently the social network added a range of new features to their […]

The same economic and technological changes which expose weaknesses in existing business models also pose huge opportunities for those willing to embrace change and respond to evolving market demands. Joseph Schumpeter, a famous American economist, referred to this process as “creative destruction”. But being on the winning side of this process is rarely a simple […]

The way we shop has changed forever. E-commerce sales continue to climb. A 2013 Forrester report stated that Australian e-commerce sales in 2010 were worth $27 billion and by the end of 2013 had jumped to more than $37 billion. Over the past few years, major retailers overseas saw strong currencies and economies as an […]

On the 18th and 19th of February a number of the world’s best social media and digital strategy thinkers met at the Recital Centre in Melbourne for the first “Social Business” event. The keynote speaker was Brian Solis, principal of USA based Altimeter Group, futurist and the author of three books including “The End of […]