Covid-19 transformed customer expectations and forced businesses to pivot and renovate their digital landscapes. The goal: offer customers a smooth digital experience.

According to Forbes and Twilio:

• Covid-19 sped up digital transformations by six years
• 97% of executives say the pandemic sped up their digital transformation
• 95% of executives say they’re looking for new ways to engage customers
• 79% of executives say Covid-19 increased budgets for digital transformation

How are you keeping up with your customers’ expectations and staying ahead of your competitors?

We’ve helped many of the world’s most innovative and customer-focused brands, including automakers and suppliers, transform how they serve, engage, and support their customers.

Click here to watch our on-demand webinar and learn what many recognizable brands are doing and how automakers and suppliers can leverage similar tactics to focus on the customer and win in the market.

Customer expectations have evolved drastically due to the impact that digital technology has placed on the customer experience. There is also no question that Covid-19 has changed the digital game by increasing digital transformations and creating a demand for a smooth digital experience.

When McDonald’s began to see a decrease in sales, they stepped back and listened to the customer. The demands were simple: improve order accuracy and provide a better dining experience. McDonald’s took these recommendations and rolled out innovative digital self-order kiosks, updated dining experiences with an app to order, and then announced they would implement a trial phase for a loyalty program in Arizona in later years.

Adidas went all in with their digital experience because they noticed online sales were increasing. The shoe conglomerate invested heavily into data insights and user engagement analytics and created tailored-to-fit messaging for customers. Taking the customer experience a step further, Adidas listened to feedback and began producing shoes from ocean waste and sold over one million pairs in just one year.

These are just two examples of major companies transforming their digital experiences. We’ve helped many of the world’s most innovative and customer-focused brands, including automotive companies, transform how they serve, engage, and support their customers.

Register here to join Automotive News and Perficient on February 17^th at 2 pm EST to learn what many recognizable brands are doing and how automakers and suppliers can leverage similar tactics to focus on the customer and win in the market.

Attend this webinar to hear:

• Real-life examples of what top brands are doing outside the automotive industry
• How to apply similar tactics in the automotive industry
• Where to begin for some quick wins
• Inspiration and ideas that can be translated to your business

It’s the first week of February, and more and more people are receiving the Covid-19 vaccine. I am feeling very hopeful. Before we get too far into the new year, I wanted to share three trends that industry experts expect to dominate 2021. We’re seeing them at Perficient as well.

Personalization and The Age of The Engaged Customer

“The next generation of personalization is not about cookies or third-party data, it’s not about merchandising, and it’s not about guesswork,” according to Cheetah Digital CMO, Richard Jones. “The next generation of personalization is about relying on deep data insights, and using machine learning to derive not only the right content, not only the right offer, not only the right channel but, the right sequence of events that leads to an automated path to conversion.”

What Does It Mean?

Customers have multiple options for each service or good they are seeking, and the companies who take time to dedicate personalized ads, or messaging, will truly prosper. Why? Because this is what customers are being conditioned to expect. From simple concepts like a direct thank you message after a purchase with their name versus customer, to specific messaging based off of collected data directing a customer towards an item.

Personalization is the future of consumer engagement. The fastest way to achieve this is with a specialized and dedicated data service. Companies have access to unlimited customer data, so why not utilize that information to help formulate specific messaging and offers for their customers? It’s up to companies to make their consumers feel like a valued individual versus a number from a sale.

Virtual Interfaces in A Socially Distant World

As companies raced to find new ways of delivering service to customers who were not walking into stores, they began to consider providing some of the services in digital forms using technology such as augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality.

What Does It Mean?

Plain and simple, customers still want to buy and will engage with new and exciting platforms to make sure their product is the best to suit their needs. Makes up tutorials from leading brands, 360-degree views inside a new vehicle that can be delivered to your door, viewing an item in your home before you even purchase it, and a new mindset of “try before you buy.”

In order to provide the best options for customers to continue shopping and engaging with your brand, you should ensure your website, app, and social pages are up-to-date with the newest technologies and offers because you can guarantee your competitors are doing the same thing.

Working from Home but Collaborating Across the Globe

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the majority of non-essential jobs transitioned from a corporate workplace or office to a work-from-home environment. Looking forward to 2021, we hope that the transition to returning to offices will begin mid-summer, but just in case that doesn’t happen or your company wants to continue to work from home, how will you continue virtual collaboration methods?

To prepare for the future and to sustain the change, companies might want to consider a transition to a stable communication and collaboration platform providing secure and efficient workflows.

What Does It Mean?

Zoom, which grew from a startup in 2011 to going public in 2019, became a household name during the pandemic, but it had its share of issues (e.g., hacks, security). Other existing large corporate tools such as Cisco’s Webex, Google Hangouts, GoToMeeting, and Verizon’s BlueJeans are also providing state-of-the-art videoconferencing systems, facilitating remote work across the globe.

But, in order to fully transition to a secure and efficient virtual workspace, companies might want to consider adopting Microsoft Teams. This platform allows for instant messaging, calls, file sharing, and collaboration.

If the current engagement tool your company is using works, then don’t reinvent the wheel. But, if your company is looking for the next step in a remote workspace, then perhaps Teams is the answer.

As we ring in 2021 and say goodbye to 2020, it’s time to look forward. There’s no better time to utilize the “new year, new me” mindset and focus on taking your company to the next level and giving your customers a better experience.

CIO Review states, “Digital transformation trends have been increased by 5.3 years, while experts predict global digital transformation investment will nearly double between now and 2023.”

A lot of progress has been made, especially on a global scale. In 2020, we saw lockdowns, tight regulations, and sadly, business closures. But we also saw growth in the business world, specifically when it comes to digital transformation. Why? Because companies had to transform to compete. Companies were forced to utilize new practices to engage with their customers.

Digital transformation came across in many forms. Fresh new websites. Cool new apps that are are easy to use. Virtual reality that enables people to try new products. Hyper-personalization. These were the ways businesses communicated with consumers. 2021 will not be very different.

Consumers are now not only looking for these forms of engagement, but they’re expecting them.

So, how will you transform in 2021? Will you launch a new product or an easy-to-navigate website? Will you design and unveil an innovative app that you’ve been sitting on? Will you leverage artificial intelligence or virtual reality to showcase your products to the customers?

Whatever your digital goals are, we can help.

It is time to reimagine the traditional banking business model and optimize it for the digital age. Financial institutions that want to remain ahead of their competition must adopt new business processes and implement fresh digital strategies and technologies. By optimizing these digital efforts, companies will increase sales and provide value to their customers.

Below are three examples of outstanding customer engagement campaigns that were launched by well-known brands (not discussed in our webinar!):

• Coca-Cola launched the #shareacoke campaign, which placed 250 common names on Coke bottles. It was so personal that people bought bottles for themselves and others and took to social media with thousands upon thousands of photos. In Australia, you can even personalize Coke bottles with your name!
• Casper Mattress Company created the Insomnobot-3000, a late-night chatbot designed to keep customers company when they cannot sleep. The bot would talk to the customers like a friend on the phone. This engagement increased revenue by $300 million in the first two years and collected phone numbers for SMS marketing purposes.
• Cisco introduced AR and VR into the customer experience to create an interactive product catalog that customers can access anywhere in the world to view products in 3D and visualize them in their business space before actually making the purchase.

How will your company take the next step in customer engagement?

Recently, Jim Marous from The Financial Brand, alongside Scott Albahary and Kevin Colletti from Perficient, presented what highly recognizable brands outside of banking are doing in digital and how financial institutions can leverage similar tactics to attract, engage, and support customers.

What You’ll Learn:

• Digital strategies from top brands across multiple industries
• How these companies are enhancing the customer experience, resulting in more sales and increased value for customers
• How financial institutions can apply these strategies

You can watch this on-demand webinar here.

Recently, Dave Shuford, a sales consulting director at Oracle, and Caz Halsey, a director of life sciences at Perficient, presented an informative webinar on Oracle Clinical One, a new unified clinical development platform.

During the webinar, the two discussed how Clinical One is different from the legacy applications most people know. Specifically, David explained the industry’s shift from individual point solutions to a suite of applications to an integrated platform and then finally to a unified platform.

Transitioning to Clinical One isn’t just a matter of flipping a switch. The process can be complex, as the solution impacts the overall clinical operations, including people, technology, and processes. Because of this, companies will require an experienced partner, like Perficient, to help navigate their journey.

Watch the recording to see

• The Clinical One roadmap
• A demo of Clinical One
• How Perficient can support your transition to Clinical One

Perficient was included in Forrester’s recent report, “Now Tech: Digital Process Automation Services, Q3 2020, Forrester’s Overview of 20 Digital Process Automation Service Providers.” The new report provides an overview of technology service providers and assists global clients in identifying possible partners to support the transition to digital process automation (DPA).

DPA services help a company formulate their digital transformation strategy, improving their customer experiences, and addressing the organizational change management aspect of a project. To achieve absolute success, a company must consider working with an outside vendor to maximize their return on investment during the DPA implementation.

Forrester’s Now Tech report examines service providers for their work with DPA technologies and analyzes each vendor in two categories:

1. Market presence
2. Functionality

The report names Perficient as a mid-size technology implementation consultancy with a vertical market focus in financial services, healthcare, and manufacturing. The report lists America First Credit Union, M&T Bank, and NASCO as a sample of our customer base, and we stand behind our work with them, as it exemplifies our proficiency and knowledge in implementing DPA technologies.

It is an honor to be recognized for our DPA services. As a leading global digital consultancy, we believe inclusion in these types of reports amplifies our proven expertise with DPA technologies and our success in delivering incredible results for our clients after every implementation.

Why Perficient

The world’s largest financial institutions count on us to help exceed expectations and win in the market. As a company, team, and partner, we are ready and able to support you in your company’s transformation for the future.

Perficient brings a dynamic and passionate team to the financial services space, as well as customer-focused strategies to build and execute experiences that solve your company’s complex challenges. Some clients come to us for our financial industry experience, and others come to us because of detailed partner technology knowledge, but many count on us for both.

Together, our financial services team can help strengthen your operations and deepen your customer relationships.

Learn More

If you’re ready to take the next step and realize the benefits digital process automation provides to organizations, contact us today.

Perficient was listed  in Forrester’s recent report, “The Forrester Wave: Digital Process Automation Service Providers, Q3 2020, The 13 Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up.” The report evaluates 13 service providers and illustrates how each provider measures up and supports application development and delivery (AD&D) professionals.

Digital process automation (DPA) services help a company formulate their digital transformation strategy, improving their customer experiences, and addressing the organizational change management aspect of a project. To achieve absolute success, a company must consider working with an outside vendor to maximize their return on investment during the DPA implementation.

The Forrester Wave examines implementation service providers for their work with DPA technologies and analyzes each vendor in three categories:

• Current Offering
• Strategy
• Market Presence

In order to be included in The Forrester Wave, vendors, including Perficient, had to have:

• A dedicated DPA practice and technology partnerships with vendors in Forrester’s DPA Wave.
• The ability to deliver low-code applications and enable client business users to participate in the development process, with proven change management capabilities.
• A proven track record of delivering process automation in the context of larger digital transformation initiatives.
• Consulting offerings that cover strategy, user experience, and change management, along with technology.
• Dedicated IP to accelerate project execution time and support vertical and/or horizontal use cases.
• Relevance to Forrester clients represented in inquiries and client consulting.

“Perficient’s home turf is healthcare and financial services in NA [North America]… Perficient brings passion and expertise on human-focused, formal change management to its engagements.”

Forrester DPA Service Providers Wave Report, Q3 2020

It is an honor to be recognized for our DPA services. As a leading global digital consultancy, we believe inclusion in these types of reports amplifies our proven expertise with DPA technologies and our success in delivering incredible results for our clients after every implementation.

Why Perficient

The world’s largest financial institutions count on us to help exceed expectations and win in the market. As a company, team, and partner, we are ready and able to support you in your company’s transformation for the future.

Perficient not only brings a dynamic and passionate team to the financial services space but also customer-focused strategies to build and execute experiences that solve your company’s complex challenges. Some clients come to us for our financial industry experience, and others come to us because of detailed partner technology knowledge, but many count on us for both.

Together, our financial services team can help strengthen your operations and deepen your customer relationships.

Learn More

If you’re ready to take the next step and realize the benefits DPA provides to organizations, contact us today.

Perficient’s Andres Gonzalez, lead business consultant, organizational change management, Meghlynn Achez, lead business consultant, organizational change management, and Ryan Coburn, senior project manager, management consulting, hosted a webinar where they discussed how change management was leveraged by a large utility company to ensure that its 15,000 employees adopted Microsoft Teams successfully.

The change management team was able to ensure that every employee was ready, willing, and able to embrace a new way of working together. Implementing a new technology was just the beginning and making sure each employee knew how and when to use the new tool was crucial.

This project happened during the Covid-19 pandemic and required our team to educate and train many teams in a completely virtual environment. In fact, our team used Microsoft Teams to teach Teams, which promoted a self-learning environment.

Watch our on-demand webinar to learn more about:

• The client situation and need for a new collaboration tool
• Unexpected obstacles and delivering this project in a virtual environment
• Driving user engagement and increasing adoption
• Achieving the desired ROI with a new platform

Perficient’s Mike Grossman, general manager, life sciences, and Oracle’s Jim Streeter, global vice president, life sciences product strategy, hosted a fireside chat that answered many of the most-common questions about Clinical One.

Simply put, Clinical One automatically generates cross-department collaboration and provides a single view of clinical trial data. But there’s so much more to the Clinical One story… 

Watch Mike and Jim’s open and honest discussion. They cover many topics, including: 

• What is Clinical One, and how is it different from Oracle’s other applications?
• How can Clinical One change my business?
• What are the advantages of Clinical One over other vendor solutions?
• What Clinical One functionality is available today, and what is to come?
• How does Clinical One impact the ongoing development of systems, such as InForm, Argus Safety, Siebel CTMS, and DMW?
• How does Clinical One work with non-Oracle solutions?

If you are interested in learning more about our Clinical One capabilities, please reach out to us.  

You can also register for our upcoming webinar: Getting to Know Clinical One: Demo and Roadmap. 

Please join us on October 8^th as Perficient’s Andres Gonzalez, Lead Business Consultant, Meghlynn Achez, Lead Business Consultant, and Ryan Coburn, Senior Project Manager, discuss how investing in organizational change management (OCM) can help drive user engagement, increase adoption, and achieve the desired ROI.

The team recently migrated a leading energy company’s 15,000 employees from Microsoft Skype for Business to Microsoft Teams. While it sounds like a daunting task considering the large number of employees, with the proper planning, communications, and roll-out, this project was completed successfully and without disruption.

Register to attend this webinar to learn how the project unfolded and how organizational change management ensured a smooth transition to Microsoft Teams.

Recently, Christine Livingston, Chief Strategist, Artificial Intelligence, Kari Blaho-Owens, Ph.D. Director, Safety and Pharmacovigilance, and Prabha Ranganathan, Director, Clinical Data Warehousing and Analytics, hosted a webinar with Bio-IT World that discussed how to leverage AI and automation to improve case processing.

The implementation of such cutting-edge technology results in fewer manual processes, streamlines workflows, and increases consistency. It has the potential to transform your PV operations significantly and save you tens of thousands of hours and millions of dollars. The ROI directly relates to your current processes and the number of adverse event cases you have every year.

You can find the webinar recording below, in which you will learn how you can apply AI and automation with your complementary PV/drug safety platforms to support your innovation journey. The webinar highlights:

• Challenges in PV
• Adverse Events Case Processing Workflow
• AE/PQC End-to-End Data Flow With Automation and AI
• Natural Language Processing
• AE/PQC Intake Demo
• Automation and AI Outcomes in PV
• ROI of Automation for Intake

If you are interested in learning more about our PV capabilities, please reach out to us.