digital business

Bankers around the world are rightly worried about the threats posed by digital disruptors getting in between them and their retail banking customers. But Forrester’s newest research reveals that executives should be just as worried — perhaps even more worried — about another market that is being upended: small business banking. Small- and medium-sized businesses […]

For the first time in 15 years, I will not attend Mobile World Congress (MWC). When I mentioned this to some clients, some of them told me, “Yes, you’re right: Mobile is dead. There is no innovation anymore. It is all about AI and blockchain these days.” (?!!) I could not disagree more. The reason […]

Take Practical Steps To Apply CX Disciplines To Digital Initiatives Odds are your firm is regularly seeking ways to improve customer experience (CX). You’re also likely embracing digital technologies to enable a more customer-driven, agile operating model. The question is: Are these initiatives aligned? In other words, are you confident in your firm’s ability to […]

If you were to ask me a year ago what I would point to as a best practice for data governance, my response would be to look at what financial services firms do to meet their regulatory requirements. Fast-forward to the age of GDPR and the new privacy mandates coming out of California (CCPA), and […]

The Journey From Energy To Experience In the summer of 2017, I, along with my Forrester colleagues, wrote up the results of our year-long endeavor to build an analytically sophisticated, data-driven framework for emotion-led branding. In my report entitled “Emotions Fuel Your Brand Energy,” I outlined three components of a brand’s “energy” and its ability […]

When digital channels such as websites arrived, they were designed in large part as “pieces of paper” delivered on a computer screen (thus, the still-widely-used term “web page”). But the human brain wasn’t wired to slog through big blocks of text, so millions of websites (and now mobile apps and other digital interfaces) are currently […]

CEOs want to understand how digital translates into revenue growth. They don’t just want to hear how similar companies have digitally transformed; they want to understand what the net result was on revenue and profitability. If you’re a technology sales professional working for one of the myriad companies delivering digital transformation, you’ve probably already honed […]

Games are a great teaching aid. The digital snakes and ladders game from Forrester helps teams identify and focus on best practices of digital transformation. Learn about it in an upcoming webinar.

Each thing you see at CES may be wondrous, but after you’ve seen five variations of the same hundred things, the net effect is clutter and confusion. Let me help sort things out. I’ve had a week away from mood-lit Alexa-enabled toilets, from fierce ping-pong-playing robots, and from the jingle-jangle morning of walking through unending […]

Omnichannel investments, including in-store pickup and endless aisle, continue to be top strategic investment for digital business professionals at retail organizations. Forrester predicts that digital touchpoints will influence 55% of total European retail sales by 2022, so a retailer’s digital presence continues to play a significant role in influencing consumer purchase decisions, both online and […]

Consumer-facing brands know that there is proverbial “gold” in generating direct sales through digital commerce — but the big question is the size of the prize. Where will brands place their digital commerce bets, and what will each yield in terms of digital sales, profitability, and customer relationships? The sales opportunity across different digital commerce touchpoints, […]

Retailers are slowly moving beyond omnichannel fulfillment capabilities in stores to invest in digital store technologies that empower store associates, improve customers’ engagement, and enhance store operations. There is no single formula for great execution on digital store technologies, and the varied performance of the retailers assessed shows that many are still figuring out the […]

Luxury brands have gone from relative inertia over digital strategies to a flurry of activity, including technology upgrades, partnerships, and even acquisitions. Back in the summer of 2017, we warned that luxury brands were out of time when it came to improving their digital customer experiences and internal operations. Digitally mature and savvy luxury consumers […]

With GE establishing a new standalone software business, we examine what it means for existing and potential customers of GE Digital and for GE. What we know: On December 13, 2018, GE announced the formation of a new industrial IoT (or IIoT) software business, with $1.2 billion in revenue (based on GE Digital sales combined with sales […]

Every company will face disruption from new market entrants and innovations that seek to solve some of the world’s most difficult issues. To get a sense for the potential impact of such innovation, a new Forrester report, “Disruptive Innovations Are Happening In Every Industry” by James Staten and Michele Pelino is a must-read for CIOs […]

IBM’s journey to rebalance its enterprise software portfolio around areas such as AI, hybrid cloud, and supply chain shifted into high gear with an agreement to sell a group of its collaboration and experience products to HCL Technologies for $1.8 billion, as announced on December 6. The products involved in the deal are: Notes, Domino, and Connections for collaboration, Appscan and BigFix in the security arena, plus several […]

After a few quiet years, Thought Machine, the fintech behind a new core banking platform called Vault, is stealing the limelight, first with its announcement of a strategic partnership with Lloyds Banking Group, then with a similar partnership with the digital bank Atom. And today we’ve learned about another partnership, this time with IBM. We […]

Too many firms are heavily focused only on what their customers are looking for today. This makes sense if you are struggling to address these current, tactical needs. But if you are meeting these needs, your focus needs to shift to:  Your customers’ needs evolution. Your customers’ ultimate objectives — beyond what they use you for. […]

We recently evaluated 12 midsize digital experience agencies in “The Forrester Wave™: Midsize Digital Experience Agencies, Q4 2018.” While nobody likes the word “midsize,” we all should pause and consider why a smaller agency can often be the best fit. In the 36 customer reference calls, we heard over and over again that these smaller […]