{"id":397,"date":"2016-01-14T18:44:51","date_gmt":"2016-01-14T18:44:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-ca\/industry\/blog\/industry\/2016\/01\/14\/cutting-through-the-chaos-in-the-age-of-mobile-me\/"},"modified":"2016-01-14T18:44:51","modified_gmt":"2016-01-14T18:44:51","slug":"cutting-through-the-chaos-in-the-age-of-mobile-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-ca\/industry\/blog\/retail\/2016\/01\/14\/cutting-through-the-chaos-in-the-age-of-mobile-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Keeping pace with mobile customers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mobile commerce, once a novelty is now ubiquitous.\u00a0 Retailers seeking competitive advantages in mobile commerce today must identify and adapt to rapidly changing consumer behaviors and match their pace with innovations.\u00a0 Consumers once satisfied with simply searching and completing basic transactions on a mobile device, now demand personalized, rich and contextually relevant experiences.\u00a0 Retailers that don\u2019t recognize these changes jeopardize their future.<\/p>\n

If you are going to compete and win in mobile commerce today, you must target \u201cmarkets of one.\u201d It is no longer an effective strategy to treat your customers as one giant homogeneous market of unknown consumers. In today’s world of mobile commerce, where devices are intimate extensions of unique individuals, knowing those individuals as individuals, is key.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=i-RXJc4Z0XU&feature=youtu.be<\/a><\/p>\n

Personalizing user experiences is not easy, as mobile consumers often use multiple devices and computers while shopping online.\u00a0 In fact, 56 percent of online shoppers regularly use multiple devices on a single path-to-purchase journey.\u00a0 That means personalization needs to be supported in all experiences and on all devices and platforms.\u00a0 Systems like Cognizant\u2019s ONERetail<\/a>, built on Microsoft\u2019s Azure<\/a>, have been designed to provide personalized analytics across all platforms based on an understanding of usage pattern, location and an understanding of context.<\/p>\n

Our research has found different devices are preferred for different activities.\u00a0 Quick on-the-go search and discovery is often initiated on a smartphone, immersive research follows on a tablet, while transactions are finalized on a laptop.\u00a0 Using a combination of different devices, laptops and visits to brick and mortar stores makes it difficult for retailers to recognize a unique path-to-purchase customer journey.\u00a0 This is an obstacle that needs to be overcome by retailers. To add to the complexity, our research also found different devices are preferred at different times of the day.\u00a0 Smartphones are popular for online shopping in the morning during breakfast, at lunch and during commutes.\u00a0 Laptops and desktops are popular during working hours, while tablets are popular in the evenings.<\/p>\n

In addition to all the previously mentioned complications, we found mobile consumers exhibit significant differences based on ages, education levels, genders, ethnicities and technology preferences (laptop\/desktop vs. mobile).\u00a0 All of these variables equate to hundreds of thousands, if not millions of different combinations of needs, preferences, unique activities and behaviors. We call the unique set of variables which accurately describe a consumer \u201cMobile Me\u201d (MME) profiles.\u00a0 Each unique MME profile requires different personalized content, at different times and locations, on different devices and platforms in order to provide an optimal experience. Our research reveals 90 percent of mobile users ages 18-34 highly value personalized mobile experiences. In order to deliver these experiences one must have real-time data collection, analytics, personalization engines and mobile applications capable of supporting real-time content personalization. One must also have an operational tempo within their IT systems and business processes capable of supporting real-time. These capabilities make possible innovative new business processes that provide significant competitive advantages for businesses that embrace them.<\/p>\n

Delivering a real-time personalized experience, however, requires data and a lot of it. We have identified three key information rich sources of this data we call 3D-Me data sources:<\/p>\n