Kim Whitler, Contributor for the Forbes CMO Network and Professor at Indiana University
By Kim Whitler
What are the biggest challenges facing marketers across the globe? According to a hot-off-the-presses study conducted globally by IBM (500 marketing managers) across 15 different industries, creating growth (through the acquisition of new customers) and sustaining growth (through superior loyalty) is at the very top. Forty-two percent of respondents suggested that acquiring new customers and 36 percent suggested driving loyalty and satisfaction were the biggest challenges facing their organizations.
While these results aren’t earth-shattering as it is likely that a survey a decade ago would have yielded a similar pattern, what is surprising is the items at the bottom. Only 21 percent of the respondents suggested that measuring ROI was the most challenging problem they faced, behind branding, leveraging data, understanding and effectively using social channels, and creating positive experiences for consumers. A few years ago, measuring ROI was at the top of everybody’s list. This perhaps suggests a sign of the times – that a tough marketplace, increased competition, a more global marketplace, and more savvy consumers has made growth especially challenging. Continue Reading »
Jeanette Horan, CIO, IBM
By Jeanette Horan
Most CIOs will tell you that one of their top priorities is helping functions like sales, marketing, and HR stay agile, collaborative and equipped to make data-driven business decisions.
Take IBM for example. The information that IBM’s many departments need to do their jobs resides among more than one petabyte of Big Data (that’s one million megabytes). That’s a lot of data and business opportunities to be analyzed. For the past few years, IBM has called upon the cloud for business analytics to boost resource flexibility, departmental collaboration and enable faster, more informed business decisions.
At IBM we’ve been able to save $25 million over the past five years. Here’s what we’ve learned… Continue Reading »
Jill Puleri, Vice President, Global Retail Leader, IBM
By Jill Puleri
These are crucial times for brick-and-mortar retailers as they evolve to put the consumer at the center of all that they do. Those that make good decisions are going to prosper; those who don’t are going to slip to the back.
Central to retailers’ ability to remain relevant is their response to the mobile opportunity. Mobile commerce is expected grow 115 percent over the next 12 months. Though the opportunity is clear, capitalizing on it is full of complexity as retailers integrate web sites and supply chains together with the numerous mobile devices that consumers are using to shop.
Just a few years ago, many retailers were working feverishly to push out shopping applications for mobile devices. There was good reason for the rush: tens of millions of consumers are jumping on the smart-phone band wagon and using them to shop. Continue Reading »
Michael Haydock, Chief Scientist, IBM Global Business Services, Retail Analytics Leader
By Michael Haydock
Jewelry sales are set to shine this year and expected to grow more than 11 percent in the second quarter and nine percent overall this year, according to a new Big Data-based retail forecast from IBM.
According to the analysis, improved consumer confidence, lower unemployment and enhanced stock dividends from the fourth quarter of 2012 have combined to leave people ready to start spending on luxury items again, like jewelry.
In addition, key retailers are buttressing the economic landscape and driving sales by leveraging Big Data analytics to better understand and respond to customers and trends. Sterling Jewelers, for example, which owns the popular Jared and Kay brands, overhauled its digital channels to better respond to changing consumer preferences. The move led to an increase in online sales of 49 percent this past holiday season. Continue Reading »
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Richard Silberman in
Jeffrey Nichols, IBM Research Staff Member
By Richard Silberman, Writer/Researcher, IBM Communications
Jeffrey Nichols is putting a new twist on Twitter that could change the way businesses use social media to identify, engage and market to customers.
“What we actually see from Twitter is just the tip of the information iceberg,” said Nichols, who manages the social media and crowd research team at IBM Research in Almaden, Calif. “Below every tweet there’s a lot more information that people have that they’re not sharing.”
Determined to extract hidden information from social media, Nichols is developing strategies to ask questions directly of targeted strangers over Twitter. The crux of Nichols work is to move from the ubiquitous reactive approach to social media, where marketers follow and respond to what people are saying, to a proactive model where they can reach out to individuals to collect specific information. Continue Reading »
Jill Puleri, Global Retail Leader, IBM
Mobile shopping also played a large role this past holiday as consumers reached for their smartphones and their tablets to shop. Overall sales from mobile devices increased 43 percent over 2011 and mobile site traffic increased close to 69 percent over the same period. It’s clear that more and more consumers are engaging in “couch commerce,” buying clothes, home goods, and other items from the comfort of their own couch. As consumers shop with the swipe of a finger, the iPad continues to be the device of choice, making up 35 percent of all mobile traffic – more than any other device. Continue Reading »
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Steve Hamm in
Like other media companies around the world, Australia’s Fairfax Media Limited is under pressure due to the fast-changing dynamics in publishing. But Fairfax isn’t taking those challenges lying down. The company, which is a leading media outfit in Australia and New Zealand, owns two of the most popular news Web sites in Australia. “We now have a business based around journalism that creates a large audience, and we hit that audience in print, online, tablet, smartphone and smart TV,” says Fairfax CEO Greg Hywood.
IBM CEO Ginni Rometty
Fairfax is a prime example of a company that has aggressively adopted technology to transform the way it does business and interacts with customers. Hywood was a featured speaker today at IBM’s CMO+CIO Leadership Symposium in Sydney, where IBM executives and clients interacted with nearly 100 chief marketing and chief information officers from Australia’s leading companies.
In a keynote address, IBM CEO Ginni Rometty told the audience that the explosion of data makes it possible for companies to address customers as individuals. “I think this will change the relationship you have with your customers fundamentally, no matter what industry,” she said. “And it will change the relationship between the CMO and CIO.”
Dr. Trevor Davis, Consumer Products Expert, IBM Global Business Services
By Dr. Trevor Davis
Today, smart retailers are using sentiment analysis and social listening to keep one step ahead of trends as they develop – identifying which trends have staying power, when to act on them, and how to use them to their best advantage.
Some social media trends come and go in a day. Some can remain unnoticed for years until they spring into public consciousness and everyone realises that the trend had been there all along – suddenly, like the exclusive model of automobile you just bought, ‘it’ is everywhere.
Some trends, like ‘steampunk,’ take decades to build momentum and make the break into the mainstream. Perhaps I am getting ahead of myself. What is steampunk and why should you care?
Steampunk is usually defined as a sub-genre of science fiction that concentrates on alterative world stories inspired by the technology, clothing and social mores of Victorian society. The stories of Jules Verne and H G Wells are often cited as inspirations. If you are a film fan you may have had a taste in the Will Smith movie “Wild, Wild, West” with steam-powered machines set in the Old West. Maybe you were in New York at Christmas 2011 and saw Macy’s holiday window dressed by designer Paul Olszewski in steampunk style.
Click the image to view an infographic of the Birth of a Trend.
By Richard Silberman, Writer/Researcher, IBM Communications
During the past year, we’ve profiled nine exceptional “People for a Smarter Planet” who exemplify the spirit of change, innovation, creativity and curiosity that lie at the core of building a smarter planet. They are inventors and researchers, academics and executives, thought leaders, dreamers, risk-takers, pioneers.
These individuals come from a wide range of fields and possess an array of interests and expertise. What they all have in common is a passion for their work and a commitment to make the world a better place.
They include Ruhong Zhou, whose avian flu research may help prevent a global pandemic; Dave Bartlett, IBM’s smarter buildings guru; Bill Reichert, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist with novel advice for entrepreneurs; and sustainability expert Sarah Slaughter.
If you haven’t met them yet, here are nine People for a Smarter Planet you should know.
By Raul Arce
Vice President, Travel & Transportation, IBM
The holidays are upon us once again. And with it comes visiting with family and friends, parties, last-minute Christmas shopping and, of course, traveling.
In fact, more than one in four Americans will travel 50 miles or more from home this holiday season, according to AAA’s 2012/13 Year-End Holiday Travel Forecast. I’m one of those travelers and it’s likely that you are too.
