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Tech Chops | Business Cred

2012 Mobile and Emerging Technology

Planning Guide

Developing an Enterprise Approach

to the Multichannel Customer

By Matt ChisholM, Mark hewitt, adaM staChelek, and aleC FranCesConi

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15 Cypress St., #200, Newton Center, MA 02459 | [email protected] | cantina.co | 1-800-775-2714

The Vision:

Identify the Pain Points for 2012Trends in platforms, technology, and adoption

In 2011 the pace of technological change continued to acceler-

ate. New technologies arrived and formerly niche technologies

achieved mainstream adoption. Below are several of the major

trends Cantina sees evolving over the next 12-18 months.

New Emerging Technologies Change the Game Again

New emerging technologies will appear and be adopted by cus-

tomers; businesses will needto respond with a strategy to

adopt, adapt or work around

them. Its nearly impossible

to predict what technologies

will achieve traction, but it

is possible to be prepared

to adapt to fast moving

challenges.

Niche Technologies

Adopted by the Mainstream

2011 saw the standards,

interfaces, and associated

technologies that loosely

dene HTML 5 solidify and

mature. This was accompa-

nied by the rapid decline of

Flash, the long-reigning tech-

nology of choice for build-

ing web sites and apps withrich interactivity and video.

In 2012 HTML5 will become

the de facto standard for

web development efforts and

best practices will evolve.

Feature Avoid forNow Use withCaution Use itToday

HTML5 Audio XHTML5 Video XWeb Storage XWeb SQL DB XIndexed DB XData URLs XHTML5 Data Attributes XGeolocation XWeb Workers XWeb Sockets XServers-Sent Events XCanvas (2D) XCanvas (3D/WebGL) XSVG XSVG Filters XCSS3 Animations XCSS3 Multiple Backgrounds XCSS3 Transitions X

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Cloud technology has been widely adopted and can lower the

cost to maintain, host, test and scale sites and apps. A few years

ago building a new site required dedicated synchronized serversthat could take weeks to congure. This same conguration can

now be launched to the cloud in a matter of minutes.

Keeping Up with an Agile Approach to Technology

In the mobile app-enabled business environment getting to mar-

ket quickly is critical. Agile development processes are helping

companies rapidly redene their software architecture to meet

new business challenges.

Cantina has seen that incorporation of iterative developmentprinciples into the project management process results in a nal

product that not only better addresses business needs, but yields

a working product for early review. Field testing functional proto-

types and revisions provide actionable feedback that cannot be

obtained otherwise.

Responsive Design Becomes a Best Practice

Responsive design is a design approach that results in device-

independent web site and app development. By designing appli-

cations that respond to a given devices dimensions and capabili-ties customers are provided a tailored user experience optimized

for the given form factor. Compared to multi-platform native app

development, savings achieved from responsively designed, ap-

plication development can be substantial with greater potential for

positive ROI.

Mobile Enablement of Enterprise Apps

As apps continue to capture customer attention, mobile deliv-

ery of content and services has become an enterprise initiative.

Organizations are discovering that they own a growing numberof sand-boxed native apps and web-app development projects.

Redeveloping seemingly simple enterprise apps such as a retail

store-nder can yield major benets in terms of user experience,

adoption, maintenance and protability.

By designing

applications that

respond to a

given devices

dimensions and

capabilities each

user is provided

with a tailored

user experience

optimized for

the given form

factor

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Exposing Back End Legacy Systems

In order to take full advantage of the new Open Web paradigm,back-end services must provide accessible APIs. By building ex-

ible web services, businesses and their partners can more easily

develop new applications. This enables easy access to an organi-

zations information and services for both internally and external-

facing apps for iPads, smart phones and other channels.

Video Becomes a Mainstream Communication Channel

Cantina sees video continuing to increase in importance as a tool

for marketing and sales communication, support and internal

corporate communications. Organizations have important choicesto make about their online video provider (OVP) partners such

as Brightcove and third party platforms such as YouTube. Secu-

rity, management and reporting are key factors to consider when

managing video content as a critical corporate asset.

Strategic Insight: Build a Plan Using

Best Practice ToolsGuidance for mobile, video and emerging technology

Organizations that are succeeding in the new economy are

actively listening to what their customers want and designing

experiences to satisfy those needs. The brand experience will

take place in the channels the audience desires, so business

objectives must take into account those channels, platforms and

devices.

The good news is that the tools and techniques needed to de-

velop a solid strategic framework for delivering a consistent brand

experience across multiple devices are available. Most business

can get to where they need to be with a combination of in-houseexpertise and outside partnerships.

Audience Analysis is Required

Marketing leaders have long employed user experience best

practices to design web experiences to meet their custom-

Organizations

that are

succeeding

in the new

economy are

actively listening

to what their

customers want

and designing

experiences to

satisfy those

needs

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ers needs and to promote desired behaviors. These same

insights, based on qualitative and quantitative ethnographic

audience analysis, are applicable to this new mobile land-

scape, but are often neglected. Customers are demanding

more from their online brand experiences and are adopting

devices more quickly than ever before. Understand your au-

dience and create an experience that delights them.

Implement Responsive Design

Responsive design maximizes reach while minimizing invest-

ment. Designing a singular adaptive user experience that

scales to the broad spectrum of connected devices reduces

the need for a unique design for each platform. New mo-

bile devices regularly enter the market. Although they all are

supported by different native technologies and distribution

channels, they all have one thing in common: support for the

latest standards-based web technologies such as HTML5,

CSS3, and JavaScript. Applying a disciplined responsive

design approach to your next site or application redesign is

a sound, future-proof approach that produces a single user

experience which displays effectively across a wide array of

devices.

Technology Enables the Customer-Centric Solution

Lead with a great customer experience, not with technology.

Its true that technology choice is a key decision, but it must

be driven by research that identies customer needs, analyz-

es gaps and discovers opportunities. Planning a solution that

will satisfy these needs will provide an optimal experience

for the customer and maximize ROI for the organization. We

think of technology as the nal mile in the solution devel-

opment process, not the nal product.

Experience Matters for Internal Teams and External

Partners

The rapidly evolving nature of the marketing technology

landscape is causing too many stakeholders to adopt fast-

follower behaviors, such as mimicking competitors apps

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which results in a poor customer experience and business results

that are not achieved.

While the technologies may be new, there are familiar business

problems and strategic patterns used to solve them. Assemble a

team of insiders and, where appropriate, external partners who

have both business experience and rst-hand technical skills.

Practical Recommendations: Get

Ready to Engage with Your CustomerWhat your organization should be prepared to do

Entire industries are transforming, and doing so quickly. Here are

steps your organization should follow to maximize its proactive

response to emerging technologies.

Find an Internal Change Agent

Most organizations have a clear understanding of who owns

interactive assets, but when it comes to making signicant

changes, which often have broad organizational implications, it is

important to re-evaluate ownership and to identify change agents

to own key strategic projects.

Review Your Business Requirements

Having clear business objectives will help focus business require-

ments for 2012 technology initiatives. Business objectives are

fullled when customers are satised by their online and channel

brand experience. Organizations have an opportunity to differenti-

ate themselves now by aligning their services and offerings with

customer expectations.

Review Internal and External Analytics Strategy

Organizations should review and revise their analytics strategy

to incorporate key metrics of their next-generation technology

efforts to enable comparisons with previous efforts. In addition,

evaluating and benchmarking against competitors technology

initiatives can yield valuable insights, inuence future strategy and

help guide investment decisions.

Organizations

have an

opportunity to

differentiate

themselves

now by aligning

their services

and offerings

with customer

expectations

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Review In-House Staff and Technology Assets

Organizations must also evaluate their internal capabilities and re-sources. As the rapidly changing technology landscape continues

to expand and fragment, in-house IT and development teams of-

ten nd it difcult to stay current with the latest technologies and

development best practices given their workload, project sched-

ules, changing priorities, maintenance and compliance activities.

Many businesses are nding themselves saddled with a growing

set of apps, sites, Flash-based solutions and other services that

have been developed by different divisions and external vendors.

These are often ill-equipped to adapt to the rapidly changing

landscape of mobile customer engagement, and lack interop-

erability. In many cases back-end systems were designed for

specic projects without consideration for reuse and accessibility

across the enterprise.

Technology teams are running leaner than ever before and rarely

have the time to advance to next generation technology on their

own. During project assessments Cantina teams often conduct

gap analysis to identify whether the clients current set of tech-

nology assets can meet the needs of their organization, or

whether a new strategy must be adopted.

Decisive Action Required Now for 2012

The clock is ticking and 2012 is on the horizon. Analyst

organizations such as Forrester and Gartner predict

that businesses have between 6-15 months to meet

the technology demands of their customers as they

adopt new channels of behavior and demand

greater interactivity. By focusing on customer

needs, business objectives, corporate strate-

gy, and technology implementation, organiza-tions that act now will keep pace with, or even

surpass, their competition.

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Contact Cantina for Further

Information and AssistanceLarge enterprises nd themselves stretched to maintain their cur-

rent technology, and yet nd it necessary to leapfrog ahead to the

next generation of platforms and devices. To get to that next level

many businesses bring in an outside partner like Cantina to help

evaluate their current status, develop a strategic framework and

implement new technology.

Whether you leverage internal experts or third party rms like

Cantina, marketing leaders need to engage experienced experts

to help shape their 2012 customer-centric strategy. Bringing thevoice of the customer into the planning process is more critical

now than it has ever been given the speed of change, and the

adoption of new devices. The time for start up thinking in the

enterprise is now.

2012 planning guide 1101

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