On International Women’s Day, Perficient and Adobe celebrated by co-hosting our annual Women in Digital panel with a group of accomplished digital leaders (who happen to be women) where we discussed topics ranging from career paths to prioritizing the next wave of business strategies to leadership approaches in hybrid work environments. Read the recap.

At the end of the panel I found myself wanting more and had so many take aways that any woman, no matter the stage in their digital career, can put into practice today.  Some of these came from the panel session itself but some of them came from the ‘behind the scenes’ prep discussions leading up to the panel.   I don’t want anyone to miss out so here are some of those take aways, and I think more importantly, some of the thinking and background discussion this group of tenured, diverse, smart women brought to the table. 

• Is it really still that challenging to be a woman in technology?
• Are traditional career paths still a ‘thing’?
• How can you better ‘show up’ at work in this remote world?

Take Away #1 – Be a Barrier Buster

One of my goals in leading the panel this year was to ‘elevate’ the conversation around women in digital; moving away from a tone of ‘it’s hard to be a woman in this industry.’  While the group appreciated the sentiment, they quickly put me back in my place pointing out that while we are all here because we didn’t let being a woman become a blocker in driving our careers, it certainly wasn’t without its challenges.   As digital leaders we cannot ignore the fact that still, in 2022, women hold fewer than 20% of leadership positions in the tech industry and the truth of the history behind that small number.  

As leaders we need to invest more time (yes, more)  in removing blockers, real or perceived, experienced by women entering the technology field.  If our goal is to NOT have to talk about the challenges of being a woman in digital, we are the only ones who can make that happen.  

Take Away #2 – Say Yes More

We received several questions from attendees related to career paths in digital.  Where to start?  Certifications? Better industries to start in?  What should I say ‘no’ to? What should I say ‘yes’ to?  Such great questions with as many answers as there are paths.  The group discussed how their career paths varied wildly from each other as well as how they started vs. how they are going.  Representing healthcare, automotive, manufacturing and software, the only thing the group’s paths had in common is the digital lens itself. 

Don’t chase the myth of the defined career path.  Don’t think you need to stick to one department, company, or even industry.  Don’t be afraid to say yes.  Keep your options open and look for opportunities to take on challenges you’re not sure you can conquer.  It might be scary at first but taking the risk to learn always pays off. 

Take Away #3 – Practice Empathy

There is no denying the pandemic changed how we do business and how we work with our teams day-to-day. There is no ‘getting back to normal.’  While organizations now (hopefully) have better resiliency plans in place to deal with next disruption teams are still trying to figure out how to get work done today. For women in our field who survived the last two years or for those looking to re-enter the field (women in tech were almost twice as likely as men in the same industry to leave their jobs, be laid off, or furloughed during the COVID-19 pandemic) ‘getting stuff done’ presents an even greater challenge than before.  Our group agreed that to be successful in our teams, projects, and careers empathy needs to play a much larger role in how we approach it all.

Let empathy lead you in all things.  Regardless of the position you hold in your company or team; whatever project you’re trying to get out the door or big account you’re trying to land; whatever ‘life’ throws at you, it’s throwing something at the person next to you (virtually) too.  Go out of your way to make your teammates feel seen. Empathy is a practice that will strengthen over time.  Regular flexing will enable you to bust those barriers for women in your network. And don’t forget to practice empathy with yourself either. It will allow you to take those risks that grow your career. 

In Part 1,  and Part 2 of “The Return of Direct-to-Consumer” series I discussed WHAT direct-to-consumer looks like in 2021,  how the definition and opportunities have evolved, and what brands are leading and lagging in the DTC world.  In Part 3 of this series I outlined WHY a business might consider a direct-to-consumer model and the benefits to both the business and consumer when a brand goes direct.

Part 4 of this series answers the HOW; high-level capabilities you may need to develop and considerations before diving in to the direct-to-consumer pool.

How to Get Started with a Direct-to-Consumer Strategy

Commerce success takes more than just a technology or platform. It requires adopting a consumer-centered mindset so teams can enable meaningful consumer relationships. For many organizations, this means transforming their culture — from siloed, manual, and transactional ways of working to insight-led practices that can deliver the experience-driven, omni-channel experiences customers demand.

“We listen to our customers so closely every week, and now we have six years of data on recipe preferences, culinary preferences, ingredient preferences, seasonal preferences, and we’re using that to make the product better and more customizable, to lead to stronger personalization in the future.”

– Matt Fitzgerald, VP of Marketing,  HelloFresh

Truer words have never been spoken when it comes to the first ‘HOW‘ of going direct-to-consumer.  Listen to your customers. At the core of any direct-to-consumer model is the consumer.  Your customers have a wealth of qualitative and quantitive feedback ready for mining.  Insights gained from this data can help form the basis of your DTC gap analysis and maturity model.  If you find yourself lacking in qualitative customer feedback, a good first-step to help shape your DTC vision is to begin a customer research program.  This can run parallel to other strategic and planning activities and can help inform and course correct as your strategy becomes more defined.

Customer-centricity isn’t a new notion but part of the new rise of DTC brands is a re-focus on experience first, or ‘experience-driven commerce’.  Experience-driven commerce isn’t a particular platform, technology or capability, it starts with transforming an organization’s culture and operating model. A robust ‘voice of the customer’ program is imperative and central to a successful DTC business 

A Macro DTC Capability Continuum

In working with clients to understand what their DTC vision is and how to get there we start with evaluating their position and maturity across a series of macro capabilities.  This allows us to begin to understand not only what exists within the organization that might be leveraged to support the new business model, but where there might be deep gaps, particularly in culture and processes, that might throttle DTC success.  Once we establish where an organization generally sits across the macro Crawl/Walk/Run/Fly capabilities and where they aspire to be we develop a more traditional, detailed DTC capability maturity model that is rooted in supporting the needed cultural changes intersected with voice-of-the-customer findings.  Any new technology or enabling platform needs come last in our considerations and only once we fully understand how technology needs to support customer experience and business capabilities. 

High-Level Direct to Consumer Capabilities Continuum

Key Direct-to-Consumer Model Considerations – Transforming or Remodeling? 

The macro capability continuum represents the tip of the iceberg in beginning to develop your DTC strategy.  As we start digging in to macro capabilities positioning we quickly have to volley the conversation between capabilities and tactical considerations.  In other words, is this a transformational opportunity for the organization where most capabilities, including the brand itself, need to be developed from the ground up? Or is this more of a ‘remodeling’ opportunity where you have considered many of the aspects of DTC and just need to tweak some parts of the people/process/technology triangle to thrive? 

Once again, thinking back to Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, we always start our ‘considerations’ conversation with Customer Experience needs. Once we’ve address the Customer experience needs and mapped back to capabilities, we move on to discussing the Operational support needs, and finally enabling Technologies.  There are no right answers; only alignment to the DTC vision and desired capabilities via Customer need analysis.  For example, if you’ve already determined, through market research and Voice-of-Customer input, the right product assortment for your DTC play you must determine whether you have a team of merchandisers who understand how to represent those products digitally.  The answer to that consideration may mean re-skilling or hiring into the existing merchandising group, or given other DTC considerations, the creation of an entirely new business team and operating model.  In the event the answer is a new team and operating model, that opens the door to a plethora of net new enabling process and technology possibilities to the organization that aren’t mired in legacy complications and concerns. 

Another example of a critical consideration is channel conflict concern. This is still a very real concern for traditional B2B organizations and their distribution partners, so thinking through the ‘Why’ and the ‘What’ before you get to ‘How’ will be key in communicating mutual DTC benefits to channel and distribution partners. 

Key DTC Considerations

Thinking about a Direct-to-Consumer play?   Perficient can help work through the Whys, Whats, and Hows 

Perficient has helped brands like CAT, Electrify America, and Benchmade achieve their direct-to-consumer visions.  While their individual organizational journeys were different, the business outcomes were the same –  happy customers and a growing business rooted the principles of experience-driven commerce.  The offers below are meant to help guide organizations in developing achievable, measurable, successful DTC strategies. 

• Emerging Business Model Strategies
• Digital Strategy
• Visioning and Planning
• Strategic Frameworks and Customer Needs

In Part 1 and Part 2 of “The Return of Direct-to-Consumer” series I discussed WHAT direct-to-consumer looks like in 2021, how the definition and opportunities have evolved, and what brands are leading and lagging in the DTC world. 
Part 3 of this series outlines the ‘Why’; the benefits to both the business and consumer when a brand goes DTC.

Why Consider Going Direct-to-Consumer? 

• Almost half of manufacturers said direct to consumer sales increased brand awareness and have boosted leads and sales for their channel partners.

• 27% said they can focus on items that yield the best profitability while letting the manufacturer fulfill orders for lower-volume inventory items.

• 14% said they see a benefit in letting the manufacturer test the success of new products before passing them along to retailers. *source

Apart from these compelling statistics there are other reasons a business should consider going direct-to-consumer right now ranging from access to elusive first-party consumer information to faster time-to-market. 

Business Benefits

Data & Insights – Enable and act on data-driven insights

Going direct-to-consumer makes available multiple layers of data you may not have access to as a traditional B2B or B2B2C organization.  Access to this level of first party data provides potential capabilities for better mining, analysis and insights which should lead to better relationships with consumers as well as agility in addressing opportunities that arise based on data insights.  For a business, going DTC means:

• Owned consumer data 

• Deeper consumer insights 

• The potential to leverage existing distribution partnerships in new ways

• The capability to experiment with new partners, channels, and product categories at a lower risk

Speed & Efficiency – Develop organizational agility

Building on the owned consumer data and data-driven insights capabilities, a DTC model can enable even greater organizational agility and speed-to-market from the basics of cutting out the middlemen to the opportunity to have even greater insight into supply chain challenges and opportunities. For a business, going DTC means:

• Elimination of intermediary overhead 

• Efficiency gains across unified operational processes

• Improved velocity & speed to market 

• Potentially greater control, visibility, and the ability to provide transparency into the supply chain

Brand & Consumer – Build stronger, lasting consumer relationships

Having direct access to realtime consumer by selling directly to them allows brands to build 1:1 relationships by being in direct control of brand perception, conversation, and consumer experience.  For a business, going DTC means:

• Direct control over brand/brand perception

• New market discovery and penetration

• New consumer acquisition

• New revenue streams

Consumer Benefits

From a consumer’s perspective, buying directly from a brand is more desirable than going through intermediaries IF brands get the experience right.  In a recent publication studying consumer attitudes towards direct-to-consumer brands there is direct correlation between a positive DTC consumer experience and their intent to repurchase.

“… quantitative analysis with 210 US DTC shoppers confirmed that co-creation, cost-effectiveness, website attractiveness, brand uniqueness, social media engagement, and innovativeness of DTC brands significantly influence consumers’ attitudes while cost-effectiveness (indirectly), brand uniqueness, social media engagement, and brand innovativeness affect consumers re-purchase intentions. The findings offer insights for aspiring entrepreneurs and incumbent retailers on strengthening their value propositions.”

However, if a brand doesn’t get their consumer experience right, consumers won’t return.  When thinking about building a direct-to-consumer business, starting with a consumer-centric perspective is imperative.  Inspired by the Elements of Value model from HBR and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs we’ve developed a simple consumer perception aspiration model a DTC brand can reference that suggests the attitudes a brand should hope to elicit from their consumers via a DTC model to nurture them from acquisition to advocacy. 

Consumer Hierarchy of Needs

Of course, deciding to go direct-to-consumer and understanding the business benefits is different from understanding how to shift an organization from department-focused to consumer-centric.  In Part 4 of “The Return of Direct-to-Consumer” series we’ll look at HOW an organization can start developing a direct, consumer-centric business. 

In Part 1 of “The Return of Direct-to-Consumer” series I discussed WHAT direct-to-consumer looks like  in 2021 and how the definition and opportunities have evolved. 

In Part 2 of this series I will provide examples of DTC brands that have embraced experience-driven commerce and are winning big because of it, and those that aren’t quite living up to the DTC brand promise – a cautionary tale.

Which Capabilities to Prioritize to Compete in the DTC Landscape?

Direct-to-consumer is all about the consumer, so when considering a DTC play, start by understanding the experience capabilities that exist in the market.  Your customers will judge their experience with your brand based on their last best experience with other brands so it’s important to be on-par, if not exceed their reference point.   The goal is to become that last best experience they reference. 

When we work with our clients to evaluate and prioritize a capability and program portfolio we typically use our Now, New, Next framework.  Using this framework we compare a brand’s experience to market comparables to determine if you are offering an on-par experience, an innovating experience or differentiated experience in the eyes of your customer. 

To understand the depth and breadth of DTC experience capabilities based on the N3 model we first created a data set, for example:

• mobile by design
• product videos
• installment payment options
• try before you buy
• subscriptions
• AR/VR
• product configuration
• product customization
• digital channel selling
• digital + physical channel selling
• phygital experiences
• sustainability commitments
• diversity & inclusion statements and proof points

We then selected and assessed a subset DTC brands to understand which ones were the banner examples of delivering Now, New and Next experiences their customers. Not all DTC brands are delivering innovating experiences which presents opportunities for category leaders to adopt innovating DTC go-to-market strategies.

DTC Now, New, Next Results

Direct to Consumer Brands – Now, New, Next

Now – Representative DTC  Tablestakes Experiences

For any DTC experience, consumers expect easy, frictionless, flawless interactions that allow them to shop, pay, and track at their convenience, usually on their phone.

Direct to Consumer Brands – Now

1. AllBirds: Multiple Payment Service Options

2. Glossier: Mobile-Friendly Checkout

3. Cobalt District: Easy Order Tracking

4. ThirdLove: Guided Selling via Gamification (e.g. Quizzes)

New – Representative DTC Emerging Experiences

Brands who have conquered Tablestakes add features that enhance the customer experience and drive loyalty.  In some cases, moving traditionally physical, complicated buying and selling experiences online.

Direct to Consumer Brands – New

1. Love & Wellness: Supplement Subscriptions

2. Versed: Installment Payments

3. Carvana: Buy/Sell Cars Online. Get an instant offer to buy your car.

4.  Away: 100-Day Product Trial

Next – Representative DTC Innovating Experiences

Whether it’s a considered purchase or an impulse buy, advanced digital features geared toward meeting the consumer where they are, body, mind, and soul, drives expectations within the category across brands.

Direct to Consumer Brands – Next

1. Versed:  The Brand is the Message

2. Warby Parker: AR/VR Glasses Try-On

3. Tesla: Car Configuration

As with any general survey and assessment results, your mileage may vary.  For example, if you don’t have a product that lends itself to configuration then obviously that capability might not be applicable to your brand BUT do your own survey and assessment of market comparables.  Is there a competitor who has innovated a way to make that same type of product configurable in some way?  Even if it’s personalizing packaging?  Thinking outside the proverbial box, and in this case that might mean literally, will allow your brand and products to stand out amongst the sea of DTCs in 2021.

Now that I’ve outlined WHAT direct-to-consumer is in 2021 and provided examples of brands who are doing it well, Part 3 of “The Return of Direct-to-Consumer” series will explore the WHY of a direct-to-consumer business model, especially for traditional B2B organizations. 

Chances are in the past 12 months you’ve purchased something online. Maybe even a lot of things online. (I generally don’t like to make assumptions but I feel safe on this one.) And chances are at least one of your purchases were from a brand that only sells online; had great prices; offered flexible payment terms; offered some kind of perk in exchange for creating an account with them.  Assuming all of this is true it would mean as a customer, you had a first-hand,  direct-to-consumer experience.  Congratulations!   

But what’s the big deal? You just bought something, right?  As a consumer, if you had an easy, frictionless experience buying from this DTC brand, it went off exactly as they intended.  If you sit on the other side of the equation though and are leading exploration or commercialization of a DTC brand, you know the frictionless  experience was a result of months, maybe years, of strategy, research and planning that were far from frictionless.  Today’s DTC businesses are a far cry from pure plays of the late 90s.  So what does direct-to-consumer look like in 2021?

This blog series will explore What direct-to-consumer looks like today, Why it can be an important growth strategy for traditional B2B organizations, and How to start planning a modern DTC play. 

Let’s start with a basic operational definition. 

Direct-to-consumer (DTC) refers to selling products directly to customers, bypassing any third-party retailers, wholesalers, or any other middlemen.

Increasingly, DTC means thinking ‘digital-first’ across product development, marketing and distribution.

That second part hints at the evolution of DTC but I think Henry McNamara, Partner at Great Oaks Venture Capital, captures the sentiment best:

“A lot of people think a [DTC] brand is just a landing page and a logo. But in our experience, [with] the most successful brands we’ve seen, it’s really a promise, and trust that you build with customers so that they can depend on everything from the interaction they have with a customer service rep, to the product that shows up at their door”

So What?

The direct-to-consumer explosion isn’t slowing down as evidenced by the continued emergence of new brands and tremendous growth of brands in existing categories.

For emerging brands, the focus is on authenticity, product differentiation, and the right mix of digital distribution channels.

For existing brands, especially traditionally B2B organizations, there are more opportunities than ever to capitalize on the influx of traffic to digital properties and drive growth by driving awareness and distribution through DTC channels. 

Regardless of brand maturity, reinvention and innovation across organization, people, process, and technologies will be key in going direct-to-consumer and providing experience-driven commerce, as customer expectations shift and increase at an exponential rate. 

DTC Era Analysis

While technology capabilities and customer expectations have forced the definition of DTC to evolve over time, basic tenets like cutting out the middleman and focusing on digital channels remain.  What’s new is a “digital-first” and experience-driven mindset across product, marketing and distribution to meet customers where they are.

Part 2 of “The Return of Direct-to-Consumer” series will provide examples of DTC brands that have embraced experience-driven commerce and are winning big because of it, and those that aren’t quite living up to the DTC brand promise – a cautionary tale. 

New data is available to show that the major carriers (UPS, FedEx and USPS)  generally performed well compared to last year which is surprising given over 2 million packages still missed their Christmas delivery window.  Perhaps as a response to all of the delays, a new crop of apps have appeared that “help” customers aggregate and track shipping status across their orders.  My question is, why though?

These new apps violate the very first Customer Commandment – “You shall not make it hard for me to be a customer.”   As a customer I want to make a purchase, and best-case-scenario, at the moment of the transaction, opt-in to email or text notifications of shipping status.  I do NOT want to be prompted to download yet another app to get this information.  Having experimented with some of these apps (Shop by Shopify; Route; AfterShip) I don’t yet see the benefit of a separate app that forces a customer to enter in orders or allow it to access emails in their Inbox only to see that nothing is actually getting delivered. Or, as in my case, the inability to even access delivery status and dates. What customer research warranted Product Owners to drive this crop of apps?

Which leads me to what still seems to be a big miss in software product design, development and management today; research-driven product innovation.  In the case of these delivery status aggregator apps I imagine the impetus was something like “customers are freaking out over all these package delays and don’t like having to go through their emails and texts to find shipping info – let’s make it easier.”  Well-intentioned, but how much research went into digging a bit deeper to determine customer motivations, intentions, needs; in short, jobs to be done?

The ‘job’ customers are trying to accomplish is NOT tracking their shipment, it’s getting their stuff!

“Research” has a connotation of being heavy, expensive, and time-consuming but it doesn’t have to be and is critical in uncovering target customer ‘jobs to be done‘ and driving real product value and innovation.  So how can product teams better incorporate customer research and insights to drive backlog prioritization and uncover new value propositions?  There are hard ways with diminishing returns, and there are easy ways.

Easy

• Design Sprints – adopting isn’t necessarily easy, but once established, target customer validation is inherent to the approach
• In-Market/Field Observations – observe target customers in their natural environments; no interaction
• Contextual Inquiry – observe AND question target customers in their natural environments

Hard/Limited Returns

• Lab Studies – costly and time consuming to recruit and rent facilities; review and analyze study results. Takes target users out of their natural environments.  Due to costs and time constraints you are typically limited on the number participants included so are you really getting a full view of ‘jobs’?
• 1:1 Interviews – similar issues to lab studies, but interviews moreover put the target customer ‘on the spot’ and introduces the likelihood of several biases that will not get you to the results you seek
• Focus Groups – even worse than 1:1 interviews because it is likely the entire narrative will be dominated by one or two people in the group
• Surveys – self-reported target customer data in this context is generally unreliable when used alone.

This is not to say the ‘hard’ approaches aren’t valuable research methods in other contexts, but in uncovering jobs to be done, they will not help product owners in developing a product that offers a compelling value proposition.

With all the promise of modern product management approaches and processes, no degree of DevOps will help a product team that has failed to root out and address what a customer is trying to accomplish.

Learn more about how Perficient can help you get off the ground with product innovations your customers will actually care about.

A year and a half ago I published an updated view of Digital Responsibility as part of our Digital Essentials series. It challenged the notion that digital responsibility starts and ends with data privacy, and introduced the idea of incorporating accessibility, diversity, and inclusion into digital responsibility mandates. While some organizations had started considering these areas as part of their strategic digital programs in 2019, 2020 only accelerated these considerations. In some cases, the events of 2020 forced organizations into reaction mode and they rushed to try and operationalize digital responsibility initiatives at a much higher rate. That included looking inwards to identify internal operating models and biases that may have inadvertently been impeding business goals and objectives.

Fast-forward to this past October when I was asked to participate in an IBM Global Elite Partner panel featuring Perficient, focusing exclusively on how businesses can and should start incorporating diversity and inclusion initiatives into their digital roadmaps. It was an exciting conversation to have, and very encouraging to see digital programs starting to consider how to grow and gain loyalty through digital initiatives that consider all team members and customers.

Each member of the panel brought a different perspective to the conversation but some of the key takeaways included:

• Don’t be afraid to get into it. Yes, diversity and inclusion can be a scary subject to broach, fraught with the fear of coming across as inauthentic,  hurting feelings, or making a huge PR mistake. This is where the ‘strategy’ part comes into play. Strategy is nothing more than a high-level plan to achieve one or more goals under conditions of uncertainty. Align on your vision for diversity and inclusion, identify the ‘what ifs’ and risks with a plan to mitigate.  Identify initiatives that will drive operationalizing diversity and inclusion across the organization and customer base. The key here is don’t be afraid to engage in the conversation. Build those VOE/VOC programs INTO the roadmap. LISTEN. Be proactive. Be outcome-driven. Think operationally, not aspirationally. Involve people from across the organization. Start from a place of commonality, not difference. This allows for a foundation built on trust. If you engage with authenticity, you will get authentic engagement in return.
• Communication is a mandate; cameras on.  Especially as we remain home-bound it becomes extraordinarily difficult to really know how your team members and customers are feeling. This is not the time to take the ‘no news is good news’ stance. Set up overt communication avenues with your team and your customers. Ask the tough questions. Make it okay to blend personal with business. This is where the greatest insights will emerge. Simple roadmap item; if your internal communications tools and platforms don’t allow or struggle with video, add that as a top priority.
• Look outside your organization; outside your customer base for what you don’t know. If you stick within your friendly confines you might miss a bigger insight that can really move the needle, especially if your organization has ties within the local community. Actively look for input outside a cohort you normally turn to and keep an open ear for pain points you might be able to address by shifting roadmap initiatives.
• Innovative ideas come from groups with different perspectives.  As the saying goes, ‘The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results.”  The same principle applies to expected outcomes from teams.  If you don’t build teams that have diversity you will not get outcomes that reflect diversity.  Everyone from Google to smaller organizations has recognized better, more innovative outcomes from teams that are more diverse.

I invite you to register and watch the full panel discussion. Hopefully, you’ll come away inspired and more importantly ready to be proactive in 2021 to make diversity and inclusion a reality in your digital programs.

To register, visit the IBM Global Elite webcast site and select “Partner Perspective: Digital Transformation, Culture, and Diversity & Inclusion in Business”.

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There is no doubt that the role of the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) has changed significantly in the past decade. Once held up as a maven of creativity and brand, today’s technologies, customers, and pace of business demand CMOs have a wider handle on a variety of skill sets and a much deeper business acumen in order to move their team from cost to profit centers.

CMOs are still expected to be big brand and creative thinkers and organizations will always need this kind of talent to drive awareness, interest, and excitement in a brand. However, these somewhat intangible metrics have given way to hardcore month-over-month and year-over-year growth metric expectations, leaving some CMOs without the right people, processes, or technologies to deliver.

This is not a short-term trend either. One of the biggest shifts in the role highlighted by today’s CMOs is the demand for accountability and real contribution to an organization’s bottom line. Whereas marketing used to be all about generating “buzz” and vanity metrics, today’s CMOs are charged with building business cases around campaigns and reporting out post-launch ROI metrics to justify business value. While most CMOs agree this is a shift in the right direction, they also recognize they don’t necessarily have the right personal experience, team members, or skill sets to deliver on these expectations. In fact, in some organizations, more traditional “CMO ” titles have evolved into titles like “Chief Marketing and Data Officer” or “Chief Marketing and Growth Officer,” reflecting the very real business expectations of the role. This represents a significant shift in how organizations think about marketing and presents a welcome recognition that marketing is an important player in the entire value chain, not just the top of the funnel.

Along with expectations that marketing become inherently data-driven comes a modern CMO’s responsibility to understand the very real legal implications of collecting and acting on customer information. Under GDPR and CCPA, CMOs need to understand the current landscape of customer data privacy and data collection transparency laws and, moreover, how to address the experience of asking for and then acting on information captured so as not to alienate and lose customers they fought so hard to win. Therefore, CMOs are responsible for the entire customer experience from awareness to advocacy.

The industry’s response to the changing expectations of the CMO has varied ranging from headlines proclaiming the ‘Death of the CMO,’ to theories of ‘serial CMOs’ that posits companies need different types of CMOs at different periods depending on their maturity and lifecycle, to CMOs themselves leaving the positions after feeling overwhelmed and ineffective.

So do today’s CMOs need to be part brand whiz, part creative director, part data scientist, part lawyer, part UX designer, part…? The short answer is No. And Yes.

How to Get There

Digital transformation is business transformation and the CMO role isn’t the only traditional organizational role being disrupted as business needs and customer expectations evolve. Just like their C-suite counterparts, the CMO is first and foremost a leader, and a good leader recognizes their strengths and fills in knowledge and skillset gaps with team members who can educate and activate a marketing team as well as the entire organization.

So no, the CMO doesn’t need to be all things to all people, but they do need to continue to fill the traditional role of a strong organizational leader who doesn’t let ego get in the way of driving business goals and objectives. A modern CMO should understand enough to be heads up to the capabilities and disciplines needed to deliver on their goals, but always come back to the basics of leadership, creativity and agility that proved the role to be successful in the first place.

No matter a CMO’s background or how they’ve developed their teams, they are still responsible for the customer experience and as long as that is their North Star, a modern CMO only needs the ability to build and evolve their teams to respond to customer expectations.  If they can remain collaborative and agile in that pursuit, they will be able to deliver on the evolving expectations of the role.

Part of Apple’s iPhone 12 family announcement included a big push around 5G capabilities and the promise of a better life, all because users will be able to do things faster than they did before.  Apple (and others) are calling 5G a “game-changer” but is it?  And if it is, what exactly is the 5G game and why should you care as a business?

Generically-speaking. The name of the game is speed. 5G translates to faster download speeds, reduced latency, and more available bandwidth.  While availability of 5G coverage is still limited in the United States, businesses should consider how to start building capabilities and products that leverage 5G now.

Improved Consumer Experience Possibilities with 5G

• Video/Live Streaming
• AR/VR
• Realtime Data Automation
• AI

Consumer markets have tried to deliver Immersive and personalized customer experiences with fits and starts, but with limited success. Consumers expect flawless experiences and to-date, existing networks have been a barrier to that.  With increased speed and bandwidth comes the ability to build experiences that don’t rely on end-users having the perfect connectivity conditions for a seamless experiences. At the same time, these improvements help businesses respond to customer needs faster than before with real, realtime data availability and automation processes enabled to respond in likewise near realtime. With the advent of 5G comes the possibility of finally realizing true 1:1 personalized experiences with AI-driven, realtime predictive modeling that can appear as to anticipate the customer’s next step.  Layer on AR/VR or streaming experiences that aren’t interrupted by glitchy renderings and the future could be a “fourth dimension” of consumer experience for shopping, entertainment, gaming, and communications.

Digital Product Development Innovation Possibilities with 5G

• Healthcare
• Education
• Transportation
• Automotive
• Finance
• IoT

Going beyond consumer markets,  5G capabilities may drive some more significant innovations and quality of life improvements many people may not even realize. Find some industry-specific thoughts here, but going beyond the obvious what if… With improved video and streaming capabilities there may be greater opportunities for more complex remote healthcare delivery.  With improved network capacity there may be cost efficiencies in delivering higher bandwidth to under-served communities and school districts. With faster and deeper IoT integrations there is opportunity to automate data sharing to reduce errors and improve safety across industries.  Intel is sponsoring a very cool labs program that brings innovators from across industries to collaborate on the art of the possible with 5G.  The overall potential for 5G to increase our existing cognitive surplus may allow for the imagination of digital products that significantly support and improve the very way we live our lives.

So Now What?

Regardless of consumer market or business focus, don’t snooze on the potential of 5G. Build into your 2021 budgets some capacity to research and experiment with applications and data that can be improved or better leveraged using 5G capabilities. Understand network rollout schedules for your key markets and device support trends amongst your key users.  Treat this a potential revolution; not evolution. That is the real 5G game and why you should care as a business.

It’s been well-publicized that the major shipping carriers will be overloaded and overwhelmed this holiday season, with existing delays getting worse.  The end result will be unhappy customers likely looking to brands to make appeasements.  Pre-pandemic, customers hesitated to place orders if 2-day shipping wasn’t an option. While customer patience around shipping has increased a bit during the pandemic, especially in specific categories, that patience will quickly erode as the holidays grow near. Assuming you already have a strategy to keep up with customer demand, if your holiday readiness plan doesn’t address increasing shipping delays, now is the time to get added to the plan.

Prepare for Another Customer Service Spike

Brands have already experienced increases in customer service and call center volume due to the pandemic, some as much as 800%  reducing capacity and customer satisfaction along with it. With physical locations closed and existing carrier delays, customers are reaching out to live people more often.  While most organizations have responded by increasing call center staff or re-skilling other roles in the organization to assist with customer service, will it be enough come the holidays?

Staffing up is one approach, but it’s not too late to see what could be automated to reduce call center load.  A simple rules-based chatbot can go a long way in satisfying customers who just need to inquire about their order status or other straight-forward information. Something like this doesn’t need to be a long, involved project with tremendous capital investment.  See how one Perficient team developed a customer service chatbot solution in less than 3 days. 

 Communicate Early and Often to Customers

As a brand, you are probably already telling your customers about shipping delays.  As a consumer, you’ve probably seen these communications. The problem with these communications so far is that they are general at best, ambiguous at worst, e.g., “You may experience significant delays in receiving your order.”  As a consumer, I’m wondering, “I may?”  “What is significant?”  “Should I even bother ordering?”

I’ve worked with some brands who are hesitant to publish shipping lead times because they are afraid it will dissuade customers from ordering, but customer feedback is quite the opposite.  The more specific a brand can be when their customers can expect their orders, the more likely they are to order.  Being able to plan around the information provided is preferred over being kept in the dark and hoping.  Also, the more specific you can be with your customers, the less likely they will need to reach out to your customer service team.

Key digital touchpoints to consider when communicating shipping lead times to customers:

• Site-wide banner
• Product detail page in proximity to the “Add to Cart” button
• Shopping Cart
• Order confirmation
• Customer Service FAQ page content
• Email (marketing and transactional)
• SMS (marketing and transactional)
• In-store signage (where applicable)
• POS receipts
• Call Center/IVR scripts
• Packing slips
• Social Media
• Direct mail/catalogs

Start devoting marketing campaigns to shipping cut off times and highlight physical location pickup options as part of those communications if that’s available.

Highlight Alternatives to Shipping

If, as a brand, you have physical locations, be sure Buy Online, Pick Up in Store/ On-Location (can your DC be a pickup location?) is an option and make sure this delivery option is prominent across your digital channels.   Given Covid-19, curbside pickup should be an option.  If it’s not, it’s not too late. Perficient can help stand up curbside pickup before the holiday high point.

If you don’t have physical locations, it might not be too late to look into smaller, alternative last-mile providers. On-boarding logistics and fulfillment partners aren’t as complicated as it used to be. For brands who sell consumables, it could be these smaller carriers are the only want to ensure on-time delivery to your customers over the holidays.

With e-commerce sales expecting to be up 35% this year, brands that plan ahead for this holiday; and prepare for the worst-case scenarios are the brands that will come out on top.

The spending power of Gen Z is predicted to outmatch all the generations before it. Still, it’s never too early to start understanding and planning for capabilities that will be expected from the generation coming next. But who are they? What will they expect from an experience given how they grew up under the influence of Millennials (their parents)? Most importantly, what are we going to call them??

The last question is the easiest to answer.  While the final name will only be known once someone makes it ‘happen’ conversation and speculation have gravitated towards two options—Gen Alpha or Gen C (for, yes, Coronavirus).  I’ll just leave that there and move on to the more critical questions.

What Will They Expect?

Flying cars. REAL hoverboards. Day trips to the Moon. Self-adjusting shoes and clothing.  ‘Hydrate level 5.’

They should expect all these things. We were promised these things by 2015.  Seems like a good customer experience aided by the right tools and technologies will be passé for this generation. Realistically though, they will have grown up amongst generations who witnessed:

• the birth, adoption, and ubiquitousness of the internet
• two (hopefully only two)severe recessions
• parents who have had three or four jobs (conservatively) over their lifetime without guarantee of a social safety net
• greater social awareness but greater social instability
• a pandemic resulting in:
  • rapidly shifting social and community norms
  • reliance on technology to learn, eat, work, maintain health
  • ‘bubbles’
  • separation from friends and family
  • feelings of personal, family, community, and world ‘stuckness.’

So What?

Given these reasonably traumatic experiences, it’s fair to think Gen Alpha/C priorities may be rooted in values and motivations related to the tumultuous times they will be influenced by.  What could that look like?

• Convenience: a more in-depth/broader expectation of “where I am/when I am” fulfillment.   Think beyond curbside pickup and more campsite, drone-driven delivery
• Value: a redefinition of how value is measured.  It must go beyond functional and address life Changing and Social Impact levels.
• Accountability: loyalty will be given to brands that provide accountability at every level. Imagine less reporting on CSR initiatives from brands and more enablement of self-service accountability tracking and reporting features for consumers.
• Lo-Tech, Hi-Touch:  in nascent form, this is called things like “Zero UI” and “Smart Homes,” the fruition of invisible technology that allows less time dealing with technology and more time enjoying life being supported by it for a less complicated, more informed life

We don’t know what the future holds, and it will be at least 20 years before this Gen Alpha/C group comes of age (definitely) renames their generation and shows us what we predicted rightly and wrongly. But we can start thinking about their needs today.  A long-term strategic view of the ‘what ifs?’ now will help you answer the ‘so what?’ in building a foundation that will support a brand surviving and thriving into the next century.

As organizations continue daily adjustments in response to pandemic-related market shifts and customer expectations, existing internal alignment challenges compound. The compounded alignment challenges multiply when digital strategy transformation activities are layered on. This perfect storm results in clients asking how they can get their teams unstuck, aligned, and moving again. I’ve started answering the question by saying “Just remember, everybody’s got a dumpling.” Stay with me here…

Any strategic or transformation initiative must, at its foundation, be built upon the basics of change management. If it isn’t, it’s sure to fail in achieving its goals. But the pandemic and recent world events are taking its toll on everyone at a human, emotional level, and those factors can’t be ignored, even within, or especially within organizations aiming to accelerate their digital transformations.

When disagreements and differences arise between teams or individuals within teams, the standard organizational approach is to invite them to meet, talk about their differences, and try to come to some kind of compromise. This standard approach is rarely successful. First, compromise means that both parties leave the table feeling like they’ve lost something. Second, the focus of the meeting is on the differences and disagreements; each party trying to convince the other that their way is the right way. Unless one of the parties is extremely open-minded, really ready to listen and change their mind, the meeting won’t be successful. The end result of these kinds of interactions is, at best, grudging compromise without any real buy in or, at worst, a deeper rift causing bigger blocks in progress. Indeed, much has been published lately around diversity and inclusion programs and why they tend to fail. The root cause is the same – focusing on differences doesn’t bring teams together.

This is where the dumpling comes in.

Every culture has some kind of dough – sometimes stuffed with meats, or cheeses, or spices – that then gets boiled, steamed, or fried. Then eaten. A lot. It doesn’t matter what your cultural background is, we humans love our dumplings. Chances are you have a particular dumpling you really like (I love samosas). So do the people on your teams. It also might be true that two individuals so divided over how to make progress on their initiative both LOVE pot stickers. What if the conversation started with that shared love and went from there?

The point here is when we start conversations focused on differences we start from the wrong place. We block ourselves. We should be starting with what we have in common. What do we agree is working? What do we love about that? What struggles do we share? Take it to a human place and I’m not talking about cultural differences here (although that may be a part of it too). A lot of us have kids at home while we are trying to get work done. Or pets that are used to different routines who are really starting to freak out with humans around all day. Or some of us are isolated; only really interacting with people from work. There are ties that bind us, regardless of our differences. If we start the conversation there and build empathy and understanding, resolving differences suddenly becomes easier. And what tends to happen are some big breakthroughs. That shouting match over the right commerce platform becomes a reasonable conversation about how different teams might appreciate the different types of tools. Those “actually” emails transform into “let’s meet up again to talk more” messages. In short, progress.

Organizational and digital strategy transformation is now more critical than ever, but equally important is giving your teams the tools to transform successfully, especially right now when every day brings new and different professional and personal challenges. Those tools must include encouragement and the space to share hopes, dreams, and fears (and favorite dumpling type) because that will be the key to really nailing that tricky new business process map that makes everyone happy.