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Find the Right Master Data Management Solution for You

February 18, 2020 TIBCO Spotfire

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Master data management (MDM) is a large, fast-growing market, growing at 16 percent annually. And it’s no wonder: every business needs to first ensure that their data are consistent and accurate before it can be used efficiently.

Gartner recently published the 2020 Magic Quadrant for Master Data Management (MDM) solutions. According to Gartner, “Data and analytics leaders can use this Magic Quadrant to help them navigate through a wide choice of enterprise MDM solutions.” We believe, for any data and analytics leaders considering MDM, this report provides essential guidance on making the right choice for amongst the many options available today.

Why TIBCO has been named a Leader

For the fourth consecutive time*, Gartner has named TIBCO Software a Leader in the Magic Quadrant for Master Data Management Solutions.

Digital business requires a new approach to MDM, favoring a holistic solution with strong multidomain and multivector capabilities. That’s exactly what TIBCO EBX^™ Software is all about. It’s a single pioneering solution to manage, govern, and consume shared master data assets across the broadest set of industries and domains.

Here are just a few reasons why TIBCO EBX^™ should be your MDM solution of choice to gain accurate views across all business functions, generate trusted, insights, and mitigate risk:

Model-driven: Implement with your data, workflows, and security models
Multidomain: Manage any domain of data and their hierarchies
All-in-one: Includes all the capabilities you need across the entire data management lifecycle
Designed for business teams: Encourage adoption and collaborative data governance

TIBCO addresses every kind of data in your ecosystem in a connected way, including metadata, reference data, master data, and transactional data. A unified view and governance of master data is the key to ensuring your:

Operational systems are using consistent information
Analytics efforts are based on accurate dimensions and hierarchies
Compliance efforts are driven by trustworthy data

Businesses that are able to successfully manage and share all of their data assets, thrive in today’s data-centric economy. TIBCO can help your organization avoid data silos and provide a single trusted view of the business for faster, smarter decisions.

For more on why TIBCO Software was named a Leader, read this complimentary copy of the 2020 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Master Data Management.

This graphic was published by Gartner, Inc. as part of a larger research document and should be evaluated in the context of the entire document. The Gartner document is available upon request from [insert client name or reprint URL].

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Gartner Magic Quadrant for Master Data Management Solutions, 13 January 2020, Simon Walker, Alan Dayley, Sally Parker, Malcolm Hawker

*Appeared as Orchestra Networks, Gartner Magic Quadrant for Master Data Management Solutions, 2017-2018

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The TIBCO Blog

3 Ways a Digital Business Can Get Customer Experience Right

January 20, 2020 TIBCO Spotfire

Reading Time: 3 mins 30 sec.

There is a secret to success shared by top digital businesses today, and it has to do with providing a positive customer experience. Happy customers are loyal customers, and loyal customers are willing to pay more for better customer experience. But what about those companies that go above and beyond to provide an unmatched customer experience? What is their secret to success?

Read about three digital businesses that are thriving due to the customer experience they provide and to get a glimpse of their common secret to success.

Grupo Xcaret

Grupo Xcaret is a family and environmentally-friendly all-inclusive resort made up of theme parks, hotels, and restaurants. The company takes a holistic approach in providing great customer experiences by creating an integrated ecosystem behind the scenes.

With the all-inclusive approach, visitors can pay for their stay all at once, then move freely throughout the various parks and accommodations without having to stop to pay, weigh decisions on additional spending for food or entry fees, or be held up in unnecessary entrance lines. Their secret to success is….a data-sharing ecosystem makes this all possible; it connects Xcaret’s lodging, restaurant, and park application systems together, combining data to better serve its customers. By analyzing the data collected and predicting next steps, Grupo Xcaret provides its visitors timely, personalized offers that let them know their experience is important to the company.

Caesars Entertainment

Also in the business of entertaining, Caesars Entertainment knows how to provide a great customer experience. But what is their secret to success? Caesars has created advanced engagement models to give each customer a personalized experience, from check-in to restaurant and show deals, to suggestions for making the most of their time on the casino floor. This is possible because they store all of their data in a shared cloud, giving 360-degree access to customers on every Caesars property.

Aeroporti di Roma

Whether you’re heading to Mexico for an all-inclusive family vacation or jet-setting to Vegas or Dubai for a more adults-only adventure, those leaving from Rome’s Aeroporti di Roma will receive a premier customer experience as soon as they reach the airport.

Aeroporti di Roma found its secret to success by integrating its data ecosystem to improve the traveling experience for flyers. From flight reservations to shopping in the terminal to boarding the plane, data is captured and analyzed, giving the airport a holistic view of its passengers. Heat maps detect passenger flow and help the airport streamline the journey from check-in to boarding based on data patterns.

A Data Sharing Ecosystem: The Secret to Great Customer Experiences

Have you figured it out yet? The secret to customer experience success is through data sharing. It allows digital businesses to personalize each individual’s visit and unveils a more thorough understanding of customer preferences. It also increases cross-sell and up-sell opportunities.

All three of the companies mentioned rely on TIBCO to integrate their systems. To learn more about each business’s strategy, check out their case studies on our Customers’ page.

Connecting an enterprise is easier said than done, however. Integrating previously siloed data, sometimes bringing in outside data from partners or even rivals, requires careful consideration and coordination. But the end result helps digital businesses deliver an experience that only looks effortless to the customer.

For more on the importance of customer experience, specifically around airport strategies, read this piece by TIBCO exec/SVP Erich Gerber. If you’re interested in seeing how TIBCO can help you build a connected customer journey, learn more here.

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[Whitepaper] The right RFP response tech and tactics to closing business with D365

January 13, 2020 Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Can you think of a more critical step in your sales process than getting a customer to sign a quote? (If so, please tell us.)

How are you currently using the power of D365 in this critical part of your sales process, to help move someone from “proposal sent” to “proposal signed?”

Most businesses are using D365 to capture and store prospect and customer information, but when it comes time for building a quote, they typically import a spreadsheet or Word doc and pass that on to their customer. But…

There’s a better way to create and send sales quotes in D365.

Download a free whitepaper on best practices in RFP responses. You’ll learn what to say — and how and when to say it — along with what technology you can and should be using together with Dynamics to ensure every sales proposal you send has a better chance of being signed.

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CRM Software Blog | Dynamics 365

The Right Tool Makes Order Management Easy

December 31, 2019 CRM News and Info

If your experience is that order management software is slow, complicated, and frustrating, we’re betting it’s because you don’t have the right tool for the job.

Recently, a client came to us with the following challenge:

The client had developed an innovative product that fills a need in the marketplace. The good news is that the product has really caught on, and orders are pouring in. The bad news is that orders are pouring in, and their present software can’t keep up with the demand.

The client was looking for a simple, easy to use solution to manage their customer orders from conception through fulfillment to billing.

At P2 Automation, the challenge was right up our alley. Our technical understanding of business automation solutions, coupled with our practical expertise in small business operations, allows us to design business management solutions that meet our clients’ unique needs.

The P2 Automation team quickly identified the client’s need. They had a great product and they were willing to consider an alternative to their present system of marketing and delivery. All they needed now was an efficient method for automating their processes from initial order all the way through to billing and payments received. They needed the right tool.

We approached the project logistically by consulting with the client’s teams: Sales, Fulfillment, and Accounting. We observed how they had been processing orders and identified pain points and inefficiencies at each step of their process.

We found out that the out-of-the-box software solution they were using was the source of their slowdowns and bottlenecks. The software was far more complicated than it needed to be, and the time spent trying to figure it out and make all the components co-operate was causing frustration and delays. They wasted time with duplicate data entry during various stages and had a hard time seeing a 360-degree real-time picture of each order.

In this case we equipped the Sales team with an easy way to start the process with basic company and contact management tools, a simple tool for tracking activities and emails, and an Order Management Software module.

Once the Sales team has entered the order, the information generates a packing slip that goes directly to the Fulfillment department, so they know exactly what they need to get orders out quickly and efficiently. Then the information goes to the Accounting department where an invoice is generated. The whole process is simple, accurate, and efficient.

When you get a task done quickly and easily, it’s because you have the right tools. The right tool made all the difference. Our client now easily keeps up with the demand for their product and they’re already dreaming up the next big thing.

So, if you’re working on a project and you think it’s harder than it needs to be, ask yourself if you have the right tools for the job. If the answer is no, now is the time to schedule a strategy session with P2 Automation.

We can help you evaluate Microsoft Dynamics 365 and P2xRM to see what is the best fit for you!

Schedule a Strategy Session with our experts at P2 Automation today.

By P2 Automation, www.p2automation.com

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CRM Software Blog | Dynamics 365

GRC And Intelligent Finance: How To Get The Human Factor Right

December 4, 2019 SAP

Part 4 of the “Finance Transformation” series that explores how finance can take the lead in driving their companies towards an intelligent enterprise

By definition, automation means removing the human factor from a given process. This is as true for finance as it is for manufacturing or any other line of business.

But the truth is, the human factor can never be removed entirely – particularly for finance processes where governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) is non-negotiable. Visibility into and oversight over automated processes is a requirement. We are in control, not the robots, and we must maintain appropriate oversight of automated processes.

The question is this: how much of the human factor can be legitimately removed from processes while still maintaining control? Managing payments is a good example. As finance organizations have long known, instead of paying people to check every invoice against every purchase, technology can be used to automate the process of matching purchase orders (POs), goods received, and invoices. This is known as the three-way match.

In this instance, you might maintain the human factor in the form of an auditor. This auditor comes in periodically and pulls, say, 25 transactions at random – examining them to make sure there is no sign of error, fraud, or noncompliance to policy. If the auditor finds an issue, the next step is to pull additional transactions to ascertain the extent of possible anomalies and exceptions and finally recommend remediation steps.

Most certainly, this approach provides some level of assurance and is a compromise between auditing every transaction and helping ensure adherence to policy based on sampling. In the end, however, this is primarily manual in nature and does not provide full coverage of transactions.

Toward full automation

A better way forward is full automation with real-time management by exception. The idea here is to pull humans into the process only as needed. Any process – procure-to-pay, order-to-cash, treasury management, billing and credit, and much more – can be fully automated with proper real-time monitoring to alert process managers of outlier events.

What’s more, whereas the auditing approach involves a statistical sampling of transactions, real-time management by exception means that your system monitors 100% of transactions, configurations, and relevant master data in the here and now.

Getting the human factor just right with full automation, however, requires a different approach to financial process management. You might find it helpful to think in terms of intelligent access, intelligent controls, and intelligent detection.

Intelligent access

Automation and hybrid landscapes can complicate access to financial systems. In the past, you needed to authenticate individuals – or not – based on credentials provided. Now, to facilitate end-to-end automated processes, you need to provide access across landscapes, and in some cases, to robots, as well.

To manage the access risks, you’ll need to manage digital identities across systems as well as be able to provide access capabilities to authenticate robotic identities. A good practice is to define the incoming machine in terms of a defined role that allows the person or machine sufficient permissions to perform the needed business function. And from an audit perspective, every transaction and user requires monitoring. This means that every action taken by users and robotic processes must be logged, producing an audit trail and an alerting system to detect anomalies and potentially malicious activities.

Technology such as machine learning (ML) can help. By reading process data in real time, ML algorithms can detect security and transactional anomalies at the application layer and alert process managers. ML can also be used to intelligently optimize role definition, which can then be assigned dynamically in a secure and traceable manner.

Intelligent controls

Fully automated financial processes are controlled primarily through configuration, master data, and transaction monitoring.

Configuration settings are key to establishing and maintaining processes that are aligned to policy. To optimize processes, leading organizations are adding continuous control monitoring to provide a feedback loop on how these settings can be monitored. Take, for example, a setting that alerts a process owner to a change in the thresholds assigned to a three-way match before manual intervention is required. Or consider monitoring depreciation calculations tied to automated postings, changes to charts of account tables, or modifications to posting and reconciliation rules associated with accounting periods and the financial close processes. By replacing manual controls with fully automated controls, process owners and auditors can gain greater visibility and trust in processes, including robotic processes, managed by core ERP systems.

Proper master data monitoring is also critical to help prevent policy violations or potential fraud. Fields that contain sensitive data can be monitored to help ensure accuracy and completeness, as well as for changes that might be motivated by policy aversion such as one-off transactions. Master data that can be monitored can be found in key fields in vendor or customer master accounts, including bank account information, or fields related to key information in POs or invoices, or conversion values used in various calculations. And in today’s world, which requires greater data protection and privacy, the ability to also mask or log data access to sensitive information is also needed.

Finally, transaction monitoring provides another layer to help identify unexpected outcomes in core processes. Although effective access management, configuration, and master data monitoring are all important in a detective and preventive approach, transaction monitoring adds an important final check to help identify where these prior approaches might not be yielding the expected results and adjustments might be in order. And by receiving alerts, a process owner can also have the ability to drill down quickly into the transaction details residing in back-end systems. This is enabled now more than ever, as SAP S/4HANA allows for tighter integration of core processes that help provide a more consolidated view of enterprise business data that serves as a single source of finance truth.

Intelligent detection

Constant monitoring of finance processes is required to detect intrusions and potentially fraudulent activity. Proper detection is critical at the point of system access – but it doesn’t stop there.

On a 24×7 basis, your systems must be monitored to detect both external and internal threats. Beyond traditional cybersecurity and monitoring approaches, many companies are now turning to ML algorithms as the risk landscape grows in complexity.

You can stay on the offensive by using ML to analyze and correlate logs from past and current security events. Based on this historic data, ML can help you run forensic investigations that uncover new attack patterns before they impact your systems. It can also help you detect patterns of system activities in real time to generate alerts to anomalous conditions that might require immediate attention.

ML can also be used to map structured and unstructured data across systems and highlight personal information, which is relevant under various data-privacy regulatory pronouncements.

The advantages of intelligence

With intelligent access, intelligent controls, and intelligent detection, organizations can get the human factor just right for automated finance processes. The outcomes, though, are not merely a new set of requirements for managing finance risk, but tangible business benefits that serve the business well and provide greater assurance to process owners and stakeholders alike. These include trusted processes that drive business performance, expected results that instill confidence, and streamlined audits that drive down the costs of compliance.

Join the second SAP Intelligent Finance virtual event on Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2020, and explore the new reality driving finance transformation. Register now.

Follow SAP Finance online: @SAPFinance (Twitter) | LinkedIn | Facebook | YouTube

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AI Weekly: Multimodal learning is in right now — here’s why that’s a good thing

November 23, 2019 Big Data

Data sets are fundamental building blocks of AI systems, and this paradigm isn’t likely to ever change. Without a corpus on which to draw, as human beings employ daily, models can’t learn the relationships that inform their predictions.

But why stop at a single corpus? An intriguing report by ABI Research anticipates that while the total installed base of AI devices will grow from 2.69 billion in 2019 to 4.47 billion in 2024, comparatively few will be interoperable in the short term. Rather than combine the gigabytes to petabytes of data flowing through them into a single AI model or framework, they’ll work independently and heterogeneously to make sense of the data they’re fed.

That’s unfortunate, argues ABI, because of the insights that might be gleaned if they played nicely together. That’s why as an alternative to this unimodality, the research firm proposes multimodal learning, which consolidates data from various sensors and inputs into a single system.

Multimodal learning can carry complementary information or trends, which often only become evident when they’re all included in the learning process. Plus, learning-based methods that leverage signals from different modalities can generate more robust inference than would be possible in a unimodal system.

Consider images and text captions. If different words are paired with similar images, these words are likely used to describe the same things or objects. Conversely, if some words appear next to different images, this implies these images represent the same object. Given this, it should be possible for an AI model to predict image objects from text descriptions, and indeed, a body of academic literature has proven this to be the case.

Despite the many advantages of multimodal approaches to machine learning, ABI’s report notes that most platform companies — including IBM, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google — continue to focus predominantly on unimodal systems. That’s partly because it’s challenging to mitigate the noise and conflicts in modalities, and to reconcile the differences in quantitative influence that modalities have over predictions.

Fortunately, there’s hope yet for wide multimodal adoption. ABI Research anticipates the total number of devices shipped will grow from 3.94 million in 2017 to 514.12 million in 2023, spurred by adoption in the robotics, consumer, health care, and media and entertainment segments. Companies like Waymo are leveraging multimodal approaches to build hyper-aware self-driving vehicles, while teams like that led by Intel Labs principal engineer Omesh Tickoo are investigating techniques for sensor data collation in real-world environments.

“In a noisy scenario, you may not be able to get a lot of information out of your audio sensors, but if the lighting is good, maybe a camera can give you a little better information,” Tickoo explained to VentureBeat in a phone interview. “What we did is, using techniques to figure out context such as the time of day, we built a system that tells you when a sensor’s data is not of the highest quality. Given that confidence value, it weighs different sensors against each at different intervals and chooses the right mix to give us the answer we’re looking for.”

Multimodal learning won’t supplant unimodal learning, necessarily — unimodal learning is highly effective in applications like image recognition and natural language processing. But as electronics become cheaper and compute more scalable, it’ll likely only rise in prominence.

“Classification, decision-making, and HMI systems are going to play a significant role in driving adoption of multimodal learning, providing a catalyst to refine and standardize some of the technical approaches,” said ABI Research chief research officer Stuart Carlaw in a statement. “There is impressive momentum driving multimodal applications into devices.”

For AI coverage, send news tips to Khari Johnson and Kyle Wiggers — and be sure to subscribe to the AI Weekly newsletter and bookmark our AI Channel.

Thanks for reading,

Kyle Wiggers

AI Staff Writer

P.S. Please enjoy this video about Bill Gates discussing AI at Bloomberg’s New Economy Forum in Beijing, among other topics like climate change and nuclear power.

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Big Data – VentureBeat

Giving Tuesday the Right Time for Nonprofits to Turn to Outcomes Measurement

November 14, 2019 NetSuite

Posted by Courtney Kang, Nonprofit Industry Marketing Lead

With the holidays around the corner, the most charitable time of the year is approaching for nonprofit organizations. However, for some it can also be the most stressful, as nonprofits begin competing for donors’ attention amid a hectic fundraising environment.

Tis’ the season to be generous

According to the Nonprofit Source, 30% of annual giving occurs in December and 10% of annual giving takes place in the last three days of the year. Kicking it all off is Giving Tuesday, a movement founded in 2012 as a response to the hyper-consumerism of post-Thanksgiving holiday shopping. With a global reach, immense social media presence and the backing of corporations such as Facebook and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, this annual day of giving has generated over $ 1 billion since its inception and is expected to garner even greater participation this year.

While creating a Giving Tuesday social media strategy and email campaign is a standard and almost expected effort, going beyond the usual fundraising tactics is key in standing out from the crowd and creating opportunities for a nonprofit that can extend beyond the end of the year.

Communicating impact for year-round engagement

For starters, nonprofits can effectively navigate Giving Tuesday and create awareness around their mission and the benefits of extra donations by measuring and communicating the financial outcomes of programs year-round. By directly linking donations to mission impact in key messaging, nonprofits are more likely to attract donors who are putting the time into researching where they should be giving. Informed donors want to know how their money will be used—sharing meaningful metrics will help cut through the noise and draw them in.

And while Giving Tuesday is undoubtedly an influential movement and a powerful celebration of generosity and giving back, it is not free from criticism. One of the main arguments is that the day encourages episodic one-time gifts. That means it’s up to nonprofits to convince first-time donors to make follow-up gifts or even pledge longer-term commitments. When donors are able to see the impact and tangible difference their previous donations made, it’s likely they will be inspired to give again—whether that be on a future Giving Tuesday or another time in the year.

This should give rise to both more rigorous and robust outcomes measurement, but also more frequent, clear and engaging communications with donors on how their donations were spent and to what end. Measuring outputs is the first step, and one many organizations do well. Measuring outcomes, on the other hand, can be quite complicated.

To link an organization’s activities to outcomes for an affected community involves causal relationships, theories of change and logic frameworks. However, because the sector has turned away from determining effectiveness purely based on low overhead costs and hitting basic outputs, organizations have the opportunity to re-think how they are measuring and communicating their work in a longitudinal way.

Luckily, there is a growing number of resources and tools available to help nonprofits understand and adopt more meaningful success metrics. The recent Connecting Dollars to Outcomes survey highlights the challenges nonprofit finance executives face in measuring financial outcomes; and how new technology, measurement tools and funding models are helping address the evolving infrastructure needs of nonprofits.

Not only is Giving Tuesday and the overall giving season an important fundraising period, but it’s also a pivotal moment for nonprofits in terms of raising awareness, demonstrating effectiveness, and setting up opportunities for longer term success. By building efforts upon a foundation of outcomes measurement metrics, nonprofits can avoid the post-holiday/giving season blues and use the charitable time as a launchpad for further successful fundraising.

Posted on Tue, November 19, 2019
by NetSuite filed under

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How to Pick the Right Data Virtualization Solution for You

October 21, 2019 TIBCO Spotfire

Innovative companies today expect easy access to both historical and real-time data. But organizations need the right infrastructures set up to meet these growing expectations for analytics on demand. Many large organizations, searching for a solution to empower this data-driven business culture, have turned to data virtualization (DV). DV allows users to access information in a federated data layer, creating a central place for technical and non-technical employees to get the answers they need without moving large amounts of data.

How to Pick the Right Data Virtualization Solution for You — *From GigaOm Data Virtualization: A Spectrum of Appoaches (2019)*

With the exponential growth in data, it’s no surprise that we’re seeing increased adoption and implementation of DV to handle that data. While the technology isn’t new, the market continues to evolve with capabilities to meet modern challenges. We’ve seen it for ourselves. Read this blog to see why TIBCO^® Data Virtualization was such a hot topic at TIBCO NOW Chicago and will probably be just as much of a hit in London, September 25-26th.

So, in today’s market, what is the best data virtualization solution for you?

There are many factors that should go into choosing the right DV solution to meet your business needs. All of which go into independent technology research and analysis firm GigaOm’s 2019 Data Virtualization landscape report. With this report, GigaOm can help give you a better understanding of the implications of data virtualization, its impacts on business, media, and society as a whole, as well as evaluate potential vendors.

Here’s what you’ll find: TIBCO^® Data Virtualization, mentioned throughout the report, offers sophisticated data management that provides a unified, comprehensive view of your data, necessary for discovering insights.

We think it’s the best option for companies with evolving data needs and maturing architectures. But don’t take our word for it. Download the full 2019 “Data Virtualization: A Spectrum of Approaches” landscape report to explore current data virtualization products and technologies and see how TIBCO^® Data Virtualization stacks up against the competition.

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Getting CX Nuances Right: A Subscription Driver for Brands

October 9, 2019 CRM News and Info

National Customer Service Week is the first full week of October — a designation we’ve celebrated every year since 1992. The week highlights the importance of customer service and the people who serve and support customers on a daily basis.

Customer service is a big deal in e-commerce, as 73 percent of customers reportedly view it as
an important factor in their purchasing decisions.

In today’s competitive market, providing a flawless customer experience is integral to optimizing customer retention — particularly important with ever-lucrative subscription services.

Customer retention is the
key to subscription profitability, according to Forrester. Renewals account for 62 percent of subscription revenue.

If online brands want to satisfy their shoppers and prevent churn, they must deliver a shopping experience that includes a friendly user interface, simple website searchability, minimized hassle during checkout, and an individualized customer experience across all touchpoints.

Expectations Rise

Buyers have grown accustomed to personalized shopping experiences and one-day and two-day shipping, which means expectations of sellers have amplified. Customers seek out brands they believe care about and understand their unique preferences. Quality products and services always will remain a critical component of a brand’s identity, but the way in which businesses deliver their goods and services holds just as much weight.

To deliver that experience, merchants need solutions that allow their businesses to be agile and responsive to customer demands. An e-commerce technology stack can help, with the right tools. For example, a legacy infrastructure can make it challenging to shift systems quickly to address customer desires. Customers want shopping journeys to feel personalized, unified and frictionless. If merchants are going to offer superior buying experiences, they must have the proper technology in place to make the buying process simple.

To accomplish this, a merchant’s best bet is to maintain a website powered by modular, best-of-breed solutions, which will provide the most flexibility to create those superior experiences while maintaining the brand voice shoppers sought out in the first place.

The Subscription Rush

Brands are embracing the subscription model now more than ever as a way to address customer needs and grow their business. The subscription economy has
grown by more than 100 percent each year over the past five years according to McKinsey & Company.

From software to apparel, companies everywhere are shifting to the subscription model because it offers revenue predictability and increased customer engagement.

This subscription market trend can be described in three words: flexibility, convenience and value. Consumers want the flexibility and convenience of paying only for what they use, as they use it — with little or no upfront investment. Also, they want to extract more value out of the products they do buy.

The rise of subscription commerce is appealing for online brands that can pivot successfully and create new, recurring revenue streams, all while building and extending the relationships they have with their customers.

Some consumers don’t see the benefits of opting into a subscription, however. They simply view the model as a new way to purchase the same old products. The challenge for brands is to add new and continuous value to subscriptions, communicate that value, and show customers that subscriptions aren’t just a new way to buy — they’re a better way to buy. This is where the nuances of customer service can bring more potential customers to the brand.

1. Be Personal

The No. 1 way to add value to a subscription service is to cater to each customer’s interests. Subscriptions increase consumer touchpoints, providing companies with a wealth of valuable customer data that can be used to tailor offerings for individual customers.

Depending on the product or service, personalization can take many forms. For physical goods like subscription boxes, it may be a selection of products that align more closely with a customer’s preferences. For digital subscriptions, personalization may mean curated content or a personalized interface.

Regardless of how personalization manifests, it is an important tool to show customers that you understand their unique preferences, wants and needs. Showing customers that your brand recognizes and is working to fulfill their needs can be the basis of a strong customer-brand relationship.

2. Be Communicative

The kind of personalized and seamless shopping experiences consumers get from Amazon, and the other direct-to-consumer brands that have followed suit, are now table stakes. For subscriptions, demonstrating value to customers can be almost as important as creating that value to begin with. That’s why ongoing communications are so important for subscription providers.

Because the purchasing process is passive, subscriptions sometimes can go unnoticed, or consumers might forget they subscribed to a particular service. They can let payment information expire, leading to involuntary churn and service disruptions. The best way to combat this is through back-end processes that update card information automatically.

This can be through promotional messaging or non-transactional content. It’s become more commonplace to receive a subscription as a holiday or birthday gift. In these situations, consumers who did not initiate the service are more likely to drop their subscription. However, consistent and relevant communications can prevent that by helping to accentuate the value in the brand relationship, increasing the value of the subscription itself.

3. Ensure Convenient Payments

Payments hold a uniquely important place in the subscription model. Subscriptions are valuable to customers in part because the passive payment process makes purchasing easy and hassle-free. That convenience is predicated on payment processing systems functioning properly. Any failed transaction takes away the convenience of the model and can create an opportunity for subscriber churn that brands want to avoid.

It’s important to maintain the proper IT infrastructure to ensure all transactions are processed correctly. Many companies partner with e-commerce solutions providers because they understand that payment automation is part of what makes subscriptions valuable to customers.

Experienced e-commerce providers have many tools at hand to optimize payments, update information and reduce churn. Having the right IT systems in place can minimize disruptions in service and ultimately increase customer retention.

There is a return on investment for merchants when they take the initiative to put customer preferences first. For example, accepting a range of popular payment methods such as PayPal or other digital wallets means giving consumers options and not restricting their buying experience.

4. Add Continuous Value

A subscription itself will not entice a customer. The product or service has to have its own value proposition, but the subscription model creates multiple touchpoints that brands can use to sell additional products and services.

For example, brands may offer additional services at a discount available only to subscribers — or give subscribers exclusive access to new products. If additional services increase the usefulness of the product itself and make subscribers feel like important members of a club, the customer receives tremendous value and is more likely to continue engaging with that brand.

Brands can add value to subscriptions by personalizing offers, communicating with customers, ensuring system automation, and promoting relevant enhancements to consumers. By adding continuous value to subscription offerings, brands increase the likelihood of customer retention and improve revenue overall.

Who’s in Charge?

Customers are in the driver’s seat when it comes to what they want businesses to deliver. Convenience and flexibility are non-negotiable. Business leaders and their teams need to develop the customer journey shoppers demand if they want to maintain and grow profitable customer relationships.

Maintaining consistency across channels, ensuring quality support services, and incorporating new technologies to stay on trend with consumer habits are monumental tasks. Customer experience can’t be owned by any one person. In the same way that marketing and sales are most effective when they join forces, customer experience (CX) should be a collective effort.

Brands should think about CX as an extension of their company mantra. Every business division needs to understand the brand’s CX strategy and view its own operations as part of the bigger picture.

All consumer touchpoints should enhance the customer experience in some form. This is why CX doesn’t end with marketing. Brands should develop an end-to-end CX strategy that accounts for all areas of the business, not just those explicitly client-facing.

Intertwining Company and Customer Values

The best customer experience is a reflection of consumer values, not just company goals. Many brands develop an ideal e-commerce journey map to improve profitability, but don’t take time to consider that journey from the customer’s perspective.

Brands need to use available consumer data to construct a journey map that fits their audience’s needs and habits. Marketing leads the way in this customer experience mapping, but IT may play a role in data collection.

While the audience should be at the center of CX, company values also play a role. Everyone in the company, from board members to interns, is responsible for ensuring that company values are implemented on a day-to-day basis.

Technology Is Paramount

Technology is a major component of CX that deserves to be considered more carefully by CX strategists, who should bring IT to the table early in the strategy development process. Taking a technology-based approach to CX not only can enhance a brand’s CX strategy, but also position a company as a leader in the digital marketplace.

CX aspects like website design, easy-to-use payment options, and delivery and return logistics all have a tremendous impact on overall customer experience and quality customer service. This is why it’s so important for brands to partner with the right e-commerce system provider to leverage technology in the most effective way possible.

Every piece of the customer journey impacts the overall experience, and it’s up to all company leaders and business segments to develop a CX that ensures profitable customer relationships.

Online merchants have a chance to communicate the value of subscriptions to consumers via the technologies they integrate into their brands. With support from these solutions, they’ll be able to give consumers the experiences they desire and cultivate strong connections in return.

These shopping journeys have lasting impacts on consumers and are an avenue for merchants to build long-lasting relationships with their buyers. By showing an understanding of the customers’ needs and taking measures to support them, shoppers often will commit right back to the brand. They’ll not only become returning customers, but also will take to social media to share great experiences and favorable opinions, which could help bring new customers to the fold.

James%20Gagliardi Getting CX Nuances Right: A Subscription Driver for Brands
James Gagliardi is chief product officer at
Digital River, a leading provider of global e-commerce and payment solutions. He is responsible for the strategy behind the company’s global product roadmap, and for ensuring its suite of commerce, order management, and payment and risk solutions meet, exceed and anticipate the needs of Digital River’s world-renowned clients.

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CRM Buyer

How the Right CRM System Helps Banks Identify Star Employees

October 9, 2019 Microsoft Dynamics CRM

How good are your team members at referring customers to other services offered by your bank to expand your “share of wallet”?

With the right CRM system, you can run activity reports based on employees. You can see how many referrals they have attempted to make, if the prospects were qualified or not, and if the referral resulted in additional revenue to the bank. This can be especially helpful during an employee’s annual review.

A low score on these activities can highlight the need for additional training or an updated incentive plan. It can also spotlight those few employees who are performing far above the others.

For example, if your bank has one hundred tellers, there may be five that really stand out as doing more than the others. You can single them out for commendation, give them additional responsibility, or promote them to a higher position.

The same analysis can be used for all departments. Is the sales team cross-referring to other departments? Are the commercial lenders sending anything into investments and back to the bank? You can easily see who are the givers and not just the takers.

The Right CRM System for Banking

A well-defined and executed customer relationship management (CRM) strategy with Microsoft Dynamics 365 at its center can help banks focus on imperatives such as increased customer acquisition, better customer engagement, and improved efficiency and revenue.

Crowe works with 1,800 financial services organizations across the country, including more than two-thirds of the top 100 U.S. banks.

Crowe CRM for Banking, built on Microsoft Dynamics 365, empowers bank staff with the tools and information needed to efficiently deliver high-quality, personalized service – for all interactions, across all channels. It gives managers and team members the information they need to be effective.

For more information about Crowe CRM for Banking, contact us at +1 877 600 2253 or crminfo@crowe.com.

Download the eBook: 5 Ways Banks Overcome Strategic Challenges with Microsoft Dynamics 365

By Ryan Plourde, Crowe, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Gold Partner, www.crowecrm.com

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