http://www.forrester.com/ Forrester is an independent technology research company that provides pragmatic and forward-thinking advice about technology's impact on business. en-us 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 120 http://www.forrester.com/imagesV2/affiliates/logos/forrester.gif http://www.forrester.com/ http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55566&src=RSS_2&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55566 In 2008, the majority of US online adults who researched a financial product did so online, and the majority of those online researchers applied in a channel other than the Web. These cross-channel shoppers illustrate the importance of online-influenced sales in financial services. To effectively capture and manage these cross-channel shoppers, eBusiness executives should dedicate a portion of their Web strategies to tactics that include lead capture, interactive help, and cross-channel application completion. eBusiness/eCommerce Consumer Technology Financial Services Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT "Brad Strothkamp" <resourcecenter@forrester.com> http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55566&src=RSS_2&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55566 http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55508&src=RSS_2&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55508 The Internet's role as a distribution channel for financial products is growing fast in the Netherlands. Nearly half of Dutch Net users researched at least one financial product online in the past year, compared with 40% in 2007, and one in five bought a financial product online, compared with 12% in 2007. Eleven percent of Dutch Net users also research mortgages online. Simple and familiar products are best-suited for online distribution, and self-directed, confident, and experienced customers are the most likely to research and buy online. Dutch eBusiness professionals should apply proven tactics to increase researching and buying on their sites, like designing sites with customers' goals in mind, offering interactive help, and following up with customers who abandon online applications. eBusiness/eCommerce Consumer Technology Financial Services Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT "Alexander Hesse" <resourcecenter@forrester.com> http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55508&src=RSS_2&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55508 http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55056&src=RSS_2&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55056 Dashboards allow Customer Intelligence (CI) professionals to better influence marketing strategy and drive corporate activities beyond marketing. But many firms don't use them. Absent a culture of sharing, sufficient resources, and clean data, dashboard projects stall or falter. By setting simple goals for dashboard projects and using readily available resources, CI professionals can begin to share insights across organizational silos and gain entrance to the executive boardroom. Marketing & Advertising Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT "Julie M. Katz" <resourcecenter@forrester.com> http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55056&src=RSS_2&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55056 http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55055&src=RSS_2&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55055 Despite Forrester's four-part engagement definition, many Customer Intelligence professionals struggle to find the best way to measure engagement. When Channel 4 (C4), a media outlet in the UK, shifted its teen programming from TV to online, it needed a concrete way to demonstrate the impact of its new approach. Traditional measures, such as reach, didn't tell a complete story, so C4 turned to iCrossing, an interactive agency, which created a framework that merged traditional and novel measurement tactics. The advantage of measuring engagement? C4 can now easily modify marketing and product development and continually learn about its audience. Additionally, its approach to measuring engagement is adaptable, which allows C4 to incorporate engagement measurement into a variety of projects. Marketing & Advertising Media & Entertainment Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT "Julie M. Katz" <resourcecenter@forrester.com> http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55055&src=RSS_2&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55055 http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=54168&src=RSS_2&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-54168 The Web is becoming a bigger part of health plans' member service and member communication strategies, but health plans struggle to drive adoption. Forrester recently interviewed customer experience professionals responsible for member service Web sites at 17 health plans and learned that registration levels and measurement approaches vary widely — even as security practices converge. To improve the value of their online efforts, health plan customer experience professionals should analyze administrative and medical savings from online members and capture email addresses during the enrollment process. Customer Experience Healthcare & Life Sciences Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT "Elizabeth Boehm" <resourcecenter@forrester.com> http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=54168&src=RSS_2&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-54168 http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55711&src=RSS_2&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55711 Mobile is rapidly expanding as a medium for interacting with consumers, and it will only continue to do so. Many of Forrester's nontelecommunications clients — from the travel industry to consumer product goods to automotive companies to financial firms — ask us about the mobile landscape. Over time, these conversations range from high-level strategy questions to choosing specific vendors. The most important step for companies in this space is to learn how to ask the right questions. With those questions, consumer product strategists can readily tackle the challenges they face when interacting with their own consumers on one of the world's most adopted technologies — cell phones. eBusiness/eCommerce Consumer Industries Consumer Technology Thu, 19 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT "Julie A. Ask, Seth Fowler" <resourcecenter@forrester.com> http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55711&src=RSS_2&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55711 http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55492&src=RSS_2&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55492 Successfully engaging with consumers on Twitter requires both the right overarching strategy and a series of small best practices. Interactive marketers must ensure that consumers can find their brands' accounts, confirm that they are legitimate, and easily identify who is tweeting. Marketers must also provide a mixture of promotional and non-promotional content and decide how often — and in what ways — they will directly engage with consumers. To extract the greatest value possible from Twitter, balance department-level control of different accounts with a broad view of how your various accounts work together to reach users. Customer Experience Marketing & Advertising Automotive Financial Services Media & Entertainment Retail Travel Thu, 19 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT "Nate Elliott" <resourcecenter@forrester.com> http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55492&src=RSS_2&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55492 http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55410&src=RSS_2&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55410 Retail line-of-business executives know that technology plays a central role in helping to deliver improved customer service with increased margin. They look to CIOs to push what were once purely tactical point-of-sale (POS) systems to become solutions that link consumers, sales associates, back-office applications, and eCommerce platforms and deliver a competitively differentiated shopping experience. We analyzed more than 40 POS inquiries from Forrester clients and found that they fall into three broad categories: 1) POS vendor landscape; 2) trends in POS systems; and 3) POS service providers. Given the new strategic significance of POS in driving Experience-Based Differentiation in retail, CIOs need to recruit line-of-business allies to develop a comprehensive business case for strategic integration of store and headquarter applications. Packaged Applications Sourcing & Procurement Retail Thu, 19 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT "George Lawrie" <resourcecenter@forrester.com> http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55410&src=RSS_2&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55410 http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55143&src=RSS_2&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55143 When one of the world's largest defense contractors says, "We need to move from a culture of 'need to know' to a culture of 'need to share,'" you stop and listen. Competing in an industry driven by the mantra "loose lips sink ships," BAE Systems has identified a greater threat: failing to tap the collective wisdom and actions of its people. Smart organizations are looking to tap into the full power of the enterprise and beyond to drive better and faster decisions and to foster innovation that will keep them at the forefront of the changing economy. One approach that's top of mind for business technology leaders is the use of social networks to drive communities that span traditional organizational structures, or a Facebook for the enterprise. The types of organizations that are leading the trend may well surprise you. Customer Experience Information & Knowledge Management Aerospace & Defense Healthcare & Life Sciences Thu, 19 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT "Rob Koplowitz" <resourcecenter@forrester.com> http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55143&src=RSS_2&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55143 http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55781&src=RSS_2&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55781 The blab-o-sphere is full of warnings, proclamations, and sales pitches about cloud services and this is only making it tougher for IT decision-makers to sort the reality from the hype in the face of pressing technology challenges. Decision-makers are wrestling to balance economic pressures, new technologies like cloud services, and increasing demands from business owners and users — so Forrester interviewed nine major sourcing deal advisory firms to get their perspectives on what aspects, if any, of cloud computing service delivery are included in enterprise outsourcing deals, and what savvy decision-makers can do now to help plan for future cloud service value. IT Infrastructure & Operations IT Services IT Spending & Budgeting Sourcing & Procurement Wed, 18 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT "Paul Roehrig, Ph.D." <resourcecenter@forrester.com> http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55781&src=RSS_2&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55781 http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55701&src=RSS_2&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55701 For the past four years, Forrester has been tracking consumers' online and offline behavior in Asia Pacific. This is a dedicated report about Asia Pacific consumers' online behavior aimed at understanding the changes in this emerging medium. This year's data shows a vast diversity among Asia Pacific markets when it comes to the amount of time consumers spend with online media, adoption of social activities, and the increasing uptake of mobile Internet. Customer Experience eBusiness/eCommerce Consumer Technology Media & Entertainment Wed, 18 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT "Olesia Klevchuk" <resourcecenter@forrester.com> http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55701&src=RSS_2&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55701 http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=54979&src=RSS_2&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-54979 Retail IT is challenged to support new cross-channel offerings and the ability to sell services and merchandise not provided in the store itself. It also needs to support rapid innovation in point-of-sale (POS) peripherals and the promise of more direct-to-consumer promotion in stores. Retail CIOs must recruit the heads of business functions to help define the requirements of next-generation POS that can deliver Experience-Based Differentiation and integrate Social Computing with in-store experiences. The business case for POS replacement should be based on improved capabilities to deliver upsell and cross-sell recommendations that lift average order value and generate repeat visits through integration with enterprise apps like loyalty or order management and with in-store direct-to-consumer promotion. Application Development IT Spending & Budgeting Retail Wed, 18 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT "George Lawrie" <resourcecenter@forrester.com> http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=54979&src=RSS_2&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-54979 http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55614&src=RSS_2&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55614 Understanding how and why consumers experience the drive to adopt new products can help consumer product strategists trying to sell newer products. Concepts from academic psychology can be wedded to Forrester's Technographics segmentation to demonstrate how information, novelty, and status drive early adoption. Consumers motivated by career, family, and entertainment experience these drives differently; understanding these differences will allow product strategists to more effectively design, market, and sell new consumer products. Consumer Technology Tue, 17 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT "Abe Garon, James L. McQuivey, Ph.D." <resourcecenter@forrester.com> http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55614&src=RSS_2&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55614 http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55564&src=RSS_2&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55564 As more and more traditionally nonconsumer brands begin to move online, questions abound: How do we sell online? What do we sell to — or how do we service — our customers online? How do we organize to optimize the channel? The good news is that B2B companies have many best practices to learn, and adapt, from B2C firms, many of which are running mature or established online sales operations. The first step: Recognize that the online channel won't be successful as a pet project or a silo. The Web presence needs to be a hub for sales and service, buttressed by a business plan, customer insight, a strong organization, and a clearly defined technology strategy. B2B Sales & Marketing eBusiness/eCommerce Tue, 17 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT "Carrie Johnson, Elizabeth Davis" <resourcecenter@forrester.com> http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55564&src=RSS_2&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55564 http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=54503&src=RSS_2&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-54503 A new liability is coming onto the collective balance sheet of companies around the world: carbon. In the context of increasing awareness of the business and societal risks of climate change, corporate carbon emissions (and the energy consumption that creates them) are being scrutinized as a crucial indicator of business performance. And the spreadsheet data that most companies use to estimate their carbon footprint will not withstand that scrutiny from customers, regulators, and shareholders — enterprises need a new system of record based on verifiable data and automated processes, hence the advent of enterprise carbon and energy management (ECEM) systems. We expect that ECEM will be a mainstream element of corporate software backbones over the next five years. Enterprise IT organizations will come to the fore as the principle buyers of such systems, and, while we expect the big enterprise software suppliers to dominate the market, there will be plenty of opportunity for innovative smaller players. B2B Sales & Marketing IT Infrastructure & Operations IT Spending & Budgeting Security & Risk Government High-Tech Retail Tue, 17 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT "Christopher Mines" <resourcecenter@forrester.com> http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=54503&src=RSS_2&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-54503 http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55718&src=RSS_2&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55718 The importance of eBusiness professionals to the customer intelligence (CI) effort is clear. As owners of the online profit and loss (P&L), they must align with the CI command center to drive a true multichannel, multipronged approach, which Dave Frankland outlines in his report, "The Intelligent Approach To Customer Intelligence." The eBusiness leader will therefore need to grapple with the cultural, technological, and organizational changes brought on by the maturing CI organization, as it will catalyze eBusiness success. Customer Experience Marketing & Advertising Retail Mon, 16 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT "Brian K. Walker" <resourcecenter@forrester.com> http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55718&src=RSS_2&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55718 http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55451&src=RSS_2&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55451 Consumers and marketers have contradictory impressions of the value marketers provide in exchange for the consumer data they collect. Marketers claim they deliver more relevant products, services, and ads based on the consumer information they capture. But consumers just don't see it. What can marketers do? Start by making relevance more explicit to the consumer and engage the consumer in further improving relevance — at an absolute minimum, stop doing nothing. Marketing & Advertising Security & Risk Mon, 16 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT "Dave Frankland" <resourcecenter@forrester.com> http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55451&src=RSS_2&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55451 http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55418&src=RSS_2&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55418 Matt Jennings at Baker Tilly Virchow Krause needed to overhaul the accounting and advisory firm's security processes and technologies to ensure ongoing regulatory compliance and customer confidence. Replacing the company's use of a single password as the sole means to control access to sensitive client data with strong multifactor authentication (MFA) was the logical place to kick off this effort. Jennings started with a clear vision of the solution and stuck to it, gained and kept the trust of the firm's partners, and worked to achieve a thorough understanding of the people, processes, and technology that would be affected by MFA. As a result, the firm has more strongly secured access to data, improved its compliance posture, and demonstrated its commitment to its clients. Security & Risk Financial Services Mon, 16 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT "Bill Nagel" <resourcecenter@forrester.com> http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55418&src=RSS_2&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55418 http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55125&src=RSS_2&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55125 Hunter Douglas, a leading manufacturer of window coverings and architectural products, distributes its products through thousands of local dealers. Hunter Douglas saw an expanding online consumer retail market in Europe and wanted to use eBusiness to generate more sales leads for its dealer partners. The firm needed to cater to 25 different countries with multiple languages and allow local customization while maintaining brand consistency. To solve the problem, the firm implemented a distributed content management solution from ChannelNet that helps manage its brand and create consistent customer experiences while giving local dealers customized content and promotions — and has generated €600,000 in sales from leads generated for local dealers in the first half of 2009. Customer Experience eBusiness/eCommerce Information & Knowledge Management Marketing & Advertising Consumer Industries Manufacturing Retail Mon, 16 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT "Chad Mitchell" <resourcecenter@forrester.com> http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55125&src=RSS_2&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55125 http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=54085&src=RSS_2&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-54085 Google remains consumers' favorite online brand, with Yahoo! and Amazon not far behind. In the minds of their fans, the top online brands exhibit very traditional attributes such as trustworthiness, helpfulness, and relevance, all at the expense of more-predictable tech-friendly characteristics such as innovation and speed. Direct-to-consumer brands in categories including media, retail, financial services, and travel — and consumer electronics, given its technology angle — should position themselves against competitors' weaknesses and deliver their brand messages through site experiences that complement offline marketing. Marketing & Advertising Consumer Technology Media & Entertainment Mon, 16 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT "David Card" <resourcecenter@forrester.com> http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=54085&src=RSS_2&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-54085