Uprint Digital Direct will highlight branding technology at the upcoming Modern Marketing Expo, taking place from 11-13 September at Gallagher Convention Centre.
The company will showcase branded and promotional products and ideas such as branded T-shirts, balls, pens, corporate promotional gifts, campaign-related branding and more.
Gareth Hawkey, Group CEO, redPanda Software, states that integration is a really big worry and instead of merely implementing once-off development projects, businesses now need long-term strategies and engagements to ensure that the best solution is developed and that it creates synergies with existing processes. This is the real key to future-proofing your business.
Global economies are under pressure and leaders are always on the search for ways to improve customer experience, innovation and growth. New technology trends and digital platforms emerge all the time and keeping up to date with everything is a massive challenge. Choosing who to partner with and what to implement is a difficult and costly decision.
Deloitte recently reported that technology has created a multitude of ways to engage customers on their paths to purchase. But the tech stack required to engage and deliver an end-to-end customer experience can be incredibly complex and challenging if not developed within the parameters of a customer-led digital innovation strategy.
With this in mind, South African businesses and software development teams need to take a closer look at their approach. In many cases, this means rethinking the entire process – and making very practical changes from the start.
Clarity about what the business problem is and the desired outcomes
To begin with, the early engagements between clients and software development partners should be very carefully and thoughtfully approached. Often, the stakeholders present in early engagements are simply not close enough to the business problem. Or, the business problem itself has not yet been properly identified and thought through. The result is that the client receives a solution that they perceive as different to what they had asked for. The entire process then becomes frustrating and far more complex than both parties had envisioned. This unfortunately wastes time and budget.
To avoid this, it is critical that businesses have a clear idea of the problem they need to solve and the desired business outcomes. They must ensure that the right stakeholders are involved early to discuss and agree on the details of the project. Deloitte states that CIOs and CMOs are finding they will have to collaborate more closely than ever in order to deliver not only on their company’s new marketing strategies but also on established digital agendas. Each party needs to be clear on the desired outcomes; the steps involved; and the roles that they need to assume in the process. This will ensure that there is a strong element of both transparency and visibility and shared accountability.
A true partnership
Given the iterative and fast-changing nature of technology itself, the entire relationship between clients and technology partners also needs redefining. It is no longer enough to invest in a once-off solution or ‘intervention’ – businesses need to view development teams as an extension of the modern enterprise environment. Once the initial groundwork has been done, the process yields a natural trust and transparency that benefits both parties in the short and long term.
For development teams, a transparent process leads to far higher productivity, as well as more consistency with regards to the quality of the software produced. For clients, they benefit from software that is not only more tailored and suited to their specific business and context, but they also achieve a solution that is future-proof and able to pivot in response to a disruptive business landscape.
As any development project unfolds and progresses, there is a continually shifting dynamic – whereby the demands of the customer, the technical teams, and the development and quality assurance managers have to be constantly balanced. To ensure that this process unfolds in a way that both mitigates risk and supports innovation, we have Four Roles or Guardians that together guide each development project: the Product Owner, Senior Development Manager, Head Architect and Quality Assurance Specialist.
Make sure you have the right team in place
The Product Owner is primarily there to ‘fight’ for the customer. This person has a deep understanding of the customer’s business, domain and is also able to promote innovation and idea generation within that business. The Product Owner not only ensures that the customer’s needs and expectations are met, but he/she also plays a major role in developing the initial specs of the project. Their role is far removed from the technical aspects and entirely focused on the business and its objectives/desired outcomes.
Moving from the customer to the software development team, the Senior Development Manager ensures that the internal team delivers on the outcomes/specs that it committed to. This role requires a close relationship with the development team and a clear understanding of what makes it tick, i.e. which positions/roles are required, managing the workload, managing personal growth and development, checking that the team has the right tools and support, and ensuring that there is visibility and transparency across processes. The experienced Senior Development Manager allows for autonomy within the teams, while ensuring that deliverables and expectations are met (internally and externally).
The Head Architect is entirely focused on the technical elements of the process. This leader is the chief guardian of the software, and he/she works on creating best practices and blueprints to achieve the most impactful technical outcomes. The main focus, within this realm, is to develop software that has flexibility, extensibility and maintainability. Here, technical excellence is everything.
Finally, we come to the chief gatekeeper – the Quality Assurance (QA) Specialist. This person gives the final stamp of approval for any software that goes out, and he/she scrutinises every aspect (technical elements, usability, business impact, etc). The QA assesses the deliverables from a macro viewpoint and ensures that it meets the brief and expectations of the customer as closely as possible. In addition, the QA makes sure that there is a standardised way of automating tests – which confirm that the quality of the finished product is world-class and ready for the enterprise.
Sustainable and impactful
With this structure in place, the team can effectively mitigate risks – while delivering on customer expectations within the enterprise software environment. Such a structure is designed to enable agility and adaptability, so that customer expectations are met in a way that is efficient, structured and sustainable.
For any business today, it is critical to have a technology partner that can balance the enterprise need for speed and efficiency, with the technical need for agility and adaptability. Only when all these needs are met or balanced, do you get a finished product that can truly fuel growth and development within the enterprise.
The Loeries aim to recognise productions that epitomise improving the African narrative. As such, Regency Global’s Empowering People To Empower Themselves campaign for Old Mutual won a Gold award in the Shared Value category at the Loeries Awards at the Durban ICC (23-24 August 2019).
The campaign tells an award-winning story about Old Mutual Alternative Investments’ innovative approach to expanding access to homeownership and growing secure and inclusive communities across South Africa.
The campaign is the story of Jealous Tshwala, who was able to purchase his first home in Karino Estate, one of OMAI’s Housing Impact Fund developments, we come to understand the important role of impact investing in solving some of our key development challenges and the potential that exists for business to create financial returns alongside social outcomes.
Panelist Shani Kay at the Loeries 2019 Brand South Africa MasterClass said, ’People care about people. We care about the challenges they have overcome and the success they have achieved. And in doing so we will care about the brands that have helped and enabled them along the way. This is how brands are built by people and how authentic stories can be used to build a brand that matters.’
Hoorah Digital won a silver award for the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) campaign ‘For Nature. For You.’ Sustainable Apparel Project at the recent Loeries Awards that were held in Durban.
Hoorah Digital developed a digital launch that spanned email, social media, paid social, and also owned and earned media all driven by data insights. The campaign was so successful that the consultancy achieved its annual targets in under six months with a 245% increase in digital revenue for the WWF. Core sizes were sold out within three months.
‘We needed to break tradition. That is why we created an eco-commerce platform that produces shared value by generating a new source of revenue for WWF and its partner, K-WAY,’ said Shaune Jordaan, CEO at Hoorah Digital.
‘Hoorah Digital was instrumental in helping WWF conceptualise and deliver a project that tested and challenged the organisation’s appetite for innovative thinking,’ said Koogan Pillay, head of business development at WWF South Africa. ‘Jordaan and his team managed to find and deliver an e-commerce solution that has helped us open further revenue streams for the organisation. The solution is one which the WWF network can leverage and gain further income from globally.’
Simon Spreckley, Hoorah’s executive creative director said, ‘Through this campaign, we managed to turn WWF into a fashion e-tailer with a difference. Customers were enabled to change the world by changing their wardrobe with a WWF signature range of fully recycled apparel.’
Pan African Media Research Organisation’s (PAMRO) commitment to the industry includes ‘paying it forward’ by offering media-studies related bursaries to two worthy recipients, as well as an opportunity for these students to attend the conference and meet leaders in their chosen professions.
PAMRO is a 20 year old NPO run by volunteers who host an annual conference in different African countries. PAMRO was founded on an express interest to better the media, marketing and advertising industries across Africa by sharing knowledge and creating a uniform research infrastructure. By aligning research methodologies, members of the industry can make informed decisions about how to reach, and communicate with, certain target markets.
This year’s conference takes place in Mauritius (25 – 28 August 2019 at Hilton Mauritius Resort and Spa). As a result, two Mauritian students, Ashwinee Rajkoomar from Middlesex University Mauritius and Shameema Peeroo from Curtin Mauritius are the proud recipients of the bursaries.
Rajkoomar commented, ‘It is an honour to have been recommended by my tutors and the award gives me a sense of satisfaction. But most importantly, it represents a challenge to uphold excellence in my performance as an advertising, public relations and media student. It also proves that young people are not isolated but we are part of a community of supportive organisations and people who can lead us to success.’
Peeroo said, ‘I am honoured beyond words to have been selected as a recipient of this bursary. This bursary breathes confidence into me to soar and thrive. It also contains the gratifying element of alleviating my financial burdens to which words fall short to describe my immense appreciation and gratitude.’
While neither of the students had heard of PAMRO prior to receiving the bursaries, on learning about the aims of the organisation and its annual conference, they were quick to realise its enormous potential for networking and strengthening the media industry.
Wynand Smit, CEO INOVO, suggested that instead of looking to change or adjust their service or product offering, South African businesses can attract and retain customers simply by providing seamless and efficient customer service.
In an environment in which quality customer service is infamously absent, this can be an almost instantaneous (and relatively easy) way for businesses to gain a critical competitive advantage. Get your customer service right, and you will instantly stand out from the crowd.
South African businesses are faced with an exceedingly difficult task. They have to find ways to survive in the face of ongoing political uncertainty, fast eroding business and investor confidence, and declining consumer spend. From large retail banks to small consultancies, local businesses have to fight hard to win customers – and even more so to retain them. Indeed, as competition intensifies amidst a slowing economy, brand loyalty is becoming a thing of the past. Today, consumers switch between brands at the slightest hint of better prices, more responsive service and higher quality outcomes. More than ever before, businesses have to stand out – they have to have a clear differentiator in order to survive (and thrive) in a tough environment.
Beyond the buzzwords
There can be no doubt that modern businesses have lost touch with the consumer and end-user. While this can be attributed to many factors (urbanisation, the loss of the ‘corner store’, retail chains, hyper-connectivity, etc.) the end result is the same: businesses no longer have a personal, ‘human’ relationship with customers. They have no knowledge of who they are dealing with, what that person’s needs are, their historical relationship with the brand, etc. All intimacy and connection has been lost – the essential link has been broken.
Some companies have recognised this, and have taken steps to repair the broken link. In recent years, we have witnessed the emergence of myriad technology solutions and platforms to help businesses get it right. Arguably, however, many ‘solutions’ have been sold on the back of attractive buzzwords (cloud, virtualisation, AI, Big Data, chatbots, etc.) that have seldom translated into positive and measurable outcomes for businesses. Yet the problem doesn’t lie within the technology itself: the problem lies with the simple fact that businesses still do not understand who their customers are.
Get back to basics
To provide world-class customer service and thereby differentiate themselves, businesses have to get back to the very basics of engagement. Forget the technology for now, and place the emphasis on restoring the lost link with the consumer.
Four key steps that provide a strong foundation for growth:
1. Consolidate all interactions
In an attempt to stay ‘relevant’ and trendy, businesses are adopting multiple channels and touchpoints without understanding how to integrate them properly. We are seeing the use of WhatsApp, chatbots, social media, etc., to engage with customers, yet with no ability to track, measure and follow through on queries.
To avoid providing lacklustre service on these channels, make sure that you consolidate and bring all the mechanisms into the same queue, i.e. into the measurement environment. If they cannot be consolidated, rather remove certain channels than allow them to dilute the brand.
2. Identify the customer
Once your channels have been consolidated, the next step is to learn to identify the customer across all the various mechanisms. To provide great service, every interaction must quickly and easily reveal who the customer is.
3. Harness the data
Once the identification piece has been solved, you can then begin to gather historical data and create a holistic view of the customer. This data can be used to predict behaviour and thus empower call centre agents with the ability to personalise their service and meet individual needs.
4. Create accountability
This is a final and critical step. Make the customer a promise, and then put mechanisms in place to track and measure if that promise is being fulfilled. Without a culture of accountability, any attempt to enhance customer service will fail.
This also means reassessing and changing existing metrics. Today, efficiency and productivity is often measured according to the number of calls answered in a time period. Yet this means nothing in itself – were the issues resolved? Were there promises made, and were these promises upheld?
Basics drive profit
By getting back to the basics, understanding their customers, and creating a culture of accountability, businesses can quickly transform from within – without major investment or internal upheaval. There is no doubt that creating a winning customer service proposition is one of the fastest ways to drive bottom line profits today.
INOVO
www.inovo.co.za
One of the most prominent themes that Dion Chang, trend analyst and founder of Flux Trends, touched on at the RCS Summit is what he terms ‘The Rise of Eve’, which recognises the rise of the female economy as women increasingly take the lead at home and the workplace.
‘Women are forging ahead in previously male-dominated sectors, with scores of influential women taking key positions in politics and business. Alongside this progress, we are seeing advances in women’s spending power that have fundamentally changed what companies sell – and how they sell it,’ said Chang.
He said that the trend has initiated the ‘femmepreneur’ phenomenon, which sees investors backing more and more female-owned businesses with the emergence of female-centricity. However, despite this progress, companies need to do more to promote gender equality – not only for the sake of long-term sustainability – but also the bottom line of companies in the short and medium-term. This is according to Sandi Richardson, Human Resources Executive at RCS – a subsidiary of global French bank BNP Paribas – who said that companies looking to target women need to be representative of the market.
‘A recent study by Boston Group Consulting shows that increasing the diversity of leadership teams leads to more and better innovation and improved financial performance. Without strong female leadership, the study suggests that companies are missing out on creative and innovative ideas that could see them tap into the rapidly developing female market segment,’ said Richardson.
A report released by PwC in 2018 showed that female representation at senior management and executive levels in South Africa averages at 20%, despite women making up 51% of the general population.
According to Chang, as women continue to make gains in the workplace, they will represent a bigger share of the market. This trend suggests that unless the issue of gender representation is addressed holistically, companies would be missing out this growth segment. ‘Today’s woman is a force to be reckoned with: she is smart, savvy and know exactly what she wants. Brands need to focus less on the general idea of a female customer, and more on the specific needs of a massive target market that just happens to be female,’ said Chang.
Richardson concluded, ‘In South Africa, more women are employed in the workplace than men – for the first time in history – and have been since 2010. For companies to target this market segment, they’ll need to make gender equality a priority by continuing to find innovative solutions that promote women – not only at the workplace but within the broader society too.’
The #ModernMarketingTrendCamp is a two-day conference set to take place on 11 and 12 September 2019 at the Gallagher Convention Centre alongside the first Modern Marketing Expo.
At the Trend Camp, industry experts will cover branding, new-age marketing, technology and campaigns across the branding, advertising and marketing industries.
Speaker line-up:
Wednesday, 11 September 2019
9:30 – 10:15: Adding value to your brand with CRM and digital innovation. Michael Gullan, Co-Founder and Managing Director of G&G Digital, will discuss what influences will shape the future and how brands can source digitally innovative ways of reaching out to a diverse audience.
10:30 – 11:15: Want to build a good relationship with your audience? Tholoana Qhobela, Chief Strategy Officer at Havas South Africa, will detail how brands can forge a meaningful relationship with their target audiences.
11:30 – 12:15: Data and advertising. Kagiso Musi, Group Managing Director at Meta Media, will discuss why data is a big buzzword at the moment and look at data from a traditional media perspective that can be used to create insight-rich media campaigns.
12:30 – 13:30: Optimising your brand campaign with Google. Renier Meyer, Account Strategist at iLEAD et al (a Google partner), will show you how to maximise your brand campaign reach with Google by using effective PPC campaigns, Google ads, website optimisation and social media. He will also discuss the biggest pitfalls and how to overcome them.
Thursday, 12 September 2019
9:30 – 10:15: Using influencers as a marketing channel. Research by Anne Dolinschek, Founder and Chief Strategist at Nfluential, reveals why influencers are an important channel – if the right types of influencers are used in the right way, they can bring immense value to brands. They can be the difference between consumers loving or hating a brand or choosing competing brands.
11:30 – 12:15: Evidence-based marketing – what is it and why do we need it? Kirsty Dugmore, Chief Growth Officer of SugaSpice, will elaborate on how marketers can use the disciplines of Behavioural Economics, Observed Consumer Behaviour and Neuro-marketing to better understand consumers’ purchasing and brand decisions.
12:30 – 13:30, How to create award-winning campaigns. Andrew Human, CEO of the Loeries Africa and Middle East will illustrate a few of his favourite Loerie award-winning campaigns, discuss innovative campaign strategies that brought new and fresh thinking and how the campaigns were relevant to the brand, target audience and medium used. He will also share what stands out for him when judging campaigns.
Entrance to the #ModernMarketingTrendCamp is free. For more information and to register, click here.
The #ModernMarketingTrendCamp will take place on 11 and 12 September 2019 at the Gallagher Convention Centre, where industry experts will cover branding, new-age marketing, technology and campaigns across the branding, advertising and marketing industries.
One of the speakers, Michael Gullan, Co-Founder and Managing Director of G&G Digital, will address the topic ‘Adding value to your brand with CRM and digital innovation’, discussing which influences will shape the future and how brands can source digitally innovative ways of reaching out to a diverse audience.
‘Customer relationship marketing (CRM) is an important tool to help turn your marketing campaigns into a success. With this tool, repetitive tasks are automated, freeing up time for teams to engage with tasks that are more demanding to meet business objectives,’ said Gullan.
Entrance to the Trend Camp is free. For more information and to register, click here.
BMW Group SA has turned to creative transformation agency, Wunderman Thompson, for its breadth and depth of offering. This will allow the BMW and MINI brand to pivot towards the future with an agency that is sufficiently proficient in ATL as it is in digital, social and direct, leaving no need to compromise on any part of the mix.
Haydn Townsend, Group CEO, Wunderman Thompson said, ’The effect of adding a powerhouse like BMW Group SA to our stable is incalculable in terms of the energy it releases within the agency. This is not only because of its global iconic status, but also because its brands match our vision. This is a company that is constantly reinventing its brands and taking the future head-on. This could just as easily be me talking about us. This is one of those times I am delighted that you are judged by the company you keep.’
Modern Marketing is a news site and weekly newsletter that covers branding, products, technology, trends and campaigns across the marketing and branding industries. It’s an evolved mix of strategic marketing, traditional marketing, internet and new media.
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