digital business

To help digital executives, we developed the Forrester Digital Competency Map which identifies the essential skills needed for digital transformation.

Apple and Goldman Sachs are partnering to deliver a new credit card. The industry seems to be quick to dismiss the partnership . . . but there’s an awful lot more at stake here than credit card rewards.

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 […]

Customers demand that marketing coordinate with sales, service, and commerce to deliver better experiences. That’s why enterprise marketing technology (martech) is melding with customer experience (CX) to deliver consistency and relevance (see Forrester’s “Predictions 2019: B2C Marketing” report). Martech is a direct line to consumer touchpoints, and marketers should embrace and leverage it to drive […]

Machine-learning models may occasionally suggest an undesirable action. The action might be either biased or unethical — or just bad for business. Most of the time, the suggestion won’t be wrong. How can developers protect against these bad outcomes? It’s Simple You don’t have to do what the model tells you to do. If someone told […]

Having worked in and with the automotive industry for around 25 years, the challenges that OEMs face given their size and structures often inhibit the business agility needed to provide lasting customer value in an age of digital disruption. The focus has always been more skewed toward the product experience and product features and defining […]

On November 5, in line with tradition, a huge array of sparkling displays took place across the UK to celebrate Guy Fawkes night (“Remember, remember, the fifth of November . . . ”). As days get shorter, Bonfire Night is also a friendly reminder that it’s that wonderful time of the year (again) when we […]

At its TechEd 2018 Barcelona event last month, SAP announced that it is adding robotic process automation (RPA) to its software suite, starting in early 2019. Two aspects of this announcement are particularly interesting. The first is that SAP has chosen to build its own RPA capability instead of partnering with any of the existing […]

Context And Timing Is Critical For Robots And Humans To Work Well Together

The extensive industry activity and commotion about digital transformation — mobile, internet of things (IoT), machine learning (ML), cloud, APIs, microservices, and on and on — is all well and good, but while everyone is happily going along with the next new and way-cool digital thing, most are making a big mistake. Digital is great — and necessary — but […]

JPMorgan enters the retail investing price war.

Over $1 trillion (no typo) — that’s how big 2017 holiday topline sales were in the US and Europe combined. As for online sales specifically last year, Forrester projected $129 billion in the US and €54 billion in Europe. As a retailer with substantial revenue at stake, you’ve made your merchandise buys, allocated your marketing dollars, and feverishly analyzed […]

It’s been 30 years since the internet made customer self-service and automation the watchwords of business. But most of you are still in the starting gates of digital transformation. Only 15% of companies have kicked it into digital high gear. And even these advanced incumbents fall way behind digital pure plays in harnessing the full power […]

Wealth management is not a sleepy market, but the core business model and operations have remained relatively stable while other industries have been immediately — and in some cases — viciously affected by empowered customers and the dizzying pace of digital. It is already clear that younger customers are captivated by fintech and insurtech providers. They are willing to experiment and, in […]

In today’s fast-paced world, you’d be hard-pressed to find an IT shop that isn’t at least experimenting with Agile. The pressure for IT to accelerate and innovate faster than ever before is real. But it’s not just IT that is feeling the heat. In most firms, every leader in every function is under pressure to […]

When British lifestyle brand Ted Baker wanted to create a compelling customer experience, it employed the storytelling power of video and augmented it with interactivity. Its “Mission Impeccable” campaign used shoppable video, which took traditional linear video and added clickable interactivity that let consumers learn more about products and add them to their cart. In […]

Many people believe that digital transformation is not an IT thing. While this may have been true when applied to last century’s typical IT group, it should not be true in 2018. To be fair to anyone who believes that IT cannot lead digital transformation, I’m referring to a new kind of IT: The technology team […]

Since I first wrote about digital transformation back at the end of 2012, the term has become wildly overhyped. Since CEOs are now at least asking about digital transformation, and every technology vendor now claims expertise in digital transformation, it’s time to burst a few of the myths surrounding digital transformation. But first, let’s recap […]

Voice is marketing’s most significant paradigm shift this decade — one that has far-reaching implications for how brands engage customers and prospects. Read Forrester’s latest report on voice to learn why voice will flourish, what that means for your brand, and how to get ready to win in the world of voice. Get Ready For The […]