2016.05 liferay webinar, alistair oildfield
TRANSCRIPT
Closing the Gap between Store, Desktop and
Mobile in the new age of Telco Omni-
channel commerce
Alistair Oldfield – Emeldi Group - Official Liferay Partner
May 2016
www.emeldi.com
Defining Omni-channel digital commerce in Telco
Evolution towards Omni-channel digital commerce
Dichotomy between physical & online channels in Telco
Trends and behaviour of digitally-enabled consumers
Observations, Conclusions
Achieving Omni-channel
Simplification of perspective
Building blocks of Omni-channel
Summary
Agenda
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Defining Omni-channel in Telco
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What is Omni-channel Commerce
Anyways?
“You can't know where you're going until you
know where you've been.”
- old inspirational cliché
- Alistair Oldfield 2016
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Scratching the surface
Birth of Omni-channel concept originates through
innovation initiatives within ecommerce leaders:
Pushing of multi-channel boundaries
Hodge-Podge efforts of trial & error
Driven by what worked best for customers –
shaped by usage
5
Design
User
Experience
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Evolution of digital commerce
from the primordial soup
6
Single Channel
•One touch point to brand
Multi-Channel
•Technical and business unit silos existing and evolving independently
Cross-Channel
•Brand experience not unified
•Business functions still channel-centric
Omni-Channel
•Holistic customer view and brand experience continuity
•Business function channel-agnostic
Most Brave ones Lucky ones
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Opportunity knocks: Omni-channel is still a very
new concept
Omni-channel vs. OmniChannel vs. Omni Channel?
Ecommerce, eCommerce, e-commerce – remember those days?
Omni-channel is still a very new concept
Business description is quite well-understood (more later)
Opportunity lies in now applying technical best-practices in deploying a
concept for which business definition is now crystalized and hard lessons
have been learned
Goal of this presentation:
Understanding and executing the correct transformation steps on the first
try…
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Traditional brick-and-mortar shops
vs.
Traditional ecommerce
a classic example
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What traditional brick-and-mortar
store mean for Telcos
Primary closing venue for sales
Enjoys very high share of overall telco sales
Consumers place high value on personal
assistance when making final purchase
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Occasional re-visits in case of technical issues
Deserted during low-traffic business hours
Expensive to maintain (rent, staff, bills, etc.)
How can Telco companies improve
the productivity of these stores?
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What does ecommerce mean for
telecom sales?
Slowly but surely increasing online conversion
rates
Relative cost of up-keep is low
Innovative product and plan discovery tools
such as configurators and calculators
Runs 24/7, minimal comparable operational
maintenance costs
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Consumers still highly determined to touch and
feel hardware before purchase
Consumers not prepared for an online-only
shopping experience
How can Telco companies improve
the productivity of their ecommerce?
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Cross-channel Cannibalisation
Primary frontlines of
telecom sales operations
managed separately
11
Online Sales
Channels
Physical Retail
Channels
Sales / revenue /
customer:
CHURN
Competition and cannibalization
instead of synergic cooperation
Classic Physical Retail Stores vs. Online Sales Channels:
So many things wrong with this model in digital commerce
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Operational misalignment between retail
and online channels is costing Telcos
1. Bob reviews and compares various phones
and associated plans on his Telco's
ecommerce site, shortlists the services which
are right for him
2. However, when he visits the his Telco's
brick-and-mortar shop to make a final decision
and purchase, the store representative
informs him that there is no discount available
on the selected phone
3. Bob is seeks in vain to understand why –
Bob really doesn’t care about channels
4. Bob decides to evaluate options from other
Telco brands
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73% OF CROSS-CHANNEL
CONSUMERS
experience price and promotion
inconsistencies between stores and
websites under the same banner.
- CFI Group
Misaligned Business Functions
=
Bumpy, confusing shopping
experience
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Consumer Trends
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Source: Forrester Research Web-influenced Retail Sales Forecast
-2.25%
7.74% 7.53%
Offline-only
Sales Growth
Online-influenced
Sales GrowthOnline Sales
Growth
Overall consumer behaviour is
gravitating towards digital commerce
Consumer trends show the increasing significance of the role online
channels to overall retail sales bottom line over the next 2 years (2016, 2017)
Most consumer electronics
purchasing decisions are now made
online
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
WEB-INFLUENCED CONSUMER ELECTRONICS SALES
Percent Transacted Offline
Perc
ent
Researc
hed O
nli
ne
Source: Forrester Research Web-influenced Retail Sales Forecast
Enormous
disparity between
source of lead
generation vs.
venue of sales
finalisation
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Capabilities considered “important” or “very important” to online consumers:
Consumer expectations demand uniformity
between online and offline worlds
83%: Clear indication of when items will arrive
71%: View of in-store
inventory of products
64%: Store
locator
52%: Buyonline and have order
shipped to a store for pickup
50%: Buy online and pickup in
store (same day)
49%: Reserve online, pickup,
and pay in store
Source: Forrester Research Web-influenced Retail Sales Forecast
“Click-and-collect”
“Order Status”
“Endless Aisle”
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Foot traffic in Telco brick-and-mortar shops depends more and more on
online search, compare, shortlist & select, and inventory capabilities
Online inventory much larger than physical (i.e. saving the sale via the
“endless aisle”)
Click-and-collect use-cases:
removes checkout process (removing barriers is the name of the game)
significant impact on online conversion rates
Consumer is highly digitally enabled: expects same from sales rep
expects similar sales tools/capability/awareness of his/her own
experience across channels
Synergy is required between
online/offline channels
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Conclusion:Taking the “e” out of ecommerce
$
Online Offline
Conversions online low, however research online is high
Acquisition starts online, almost always
Needs to be recognized and reflected internally within organizational
structure
Consumers do NOT make a distinction between channels within the same
organization
Gartner: "we should stop calling it e-commerce and call it just commerce"
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Omni-channel in
telecommunications is much
more involved than seamless
integration between
ecommerce and physical sales
channels
ALL touch points are
affected
True Omni-channel refers to
the connectedness and
unity of the business
operation as a whole
What does an efficient, robust
Omni-channel platform look like?
Sounds simple, is that all?
Source: Telco 2.0 Research
Customer PerspectiveTelecom Operator Perspective
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Omni-channel is not a mash up of distinct channels, it is a mashup of common
functionality delivered through a common frontend
Omni-channel is not common customer experience (look & feel), it is continuity of
customer experience
Omni-channel ecosystem does not refer to a well-integrated set of business
operations across various channels, it refers to a single business operation which
addresses all channels
Omni-channel is NOT simply “multi-
channel” done well
Om
ni-
chan
nel
Business operation unity Continuity of experience
Experience can
only be aligned
through
alignment of
business
function
Single UI
platform,
business layer,
and data layer
are the key
Flexibility in
introducing new
channels key –
(plug and play)
Creating a seamless customer experience
across all existing and emerging touch points
Mu
lti-
chan
nel
Om
ni-
chan
ne
l
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All touch-points: Anywhere, Anytime,
Anyhow
Everything…
…that a customer touches
…that a sales representative touches
…that a call centre operator touches
…that a technician touches
If it shows…
…customer data
…product data
…order data
…billing data
…customer interactions
(chats/support/leads/opportunities)
…then it MUST be mounted and served to all users
from the Omni-channel platform
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Changes Required
Changes in perspective
Changes in practice
OrganizationalTechnical
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Achieving Omni-channel means
simplifications in fundamental perspective
Telecoms generally posses 5 areas of complexity which need to be
overcome in order to create manageable Omni-channel platform:
1) - Products
Multiple products and complex
offerings
Convergent offers built on modular building blocks
2) - IT
Legacy, silo’ed, fragmented
Robust platform, housing common business function
3) - Channels
Offline business, viewing online as
sales support
Omni-channel business function
Processes
Many, complex, manual, dis-joint
Full automation on unified
business platform
Governance
Internal rigidity, complexity and
competition deeply ingrained
within DNA
Agility, lean-and-mean
Simplification of Products
Telecommunications product portfolio is complex,
changes frequently
Billing: 10Ks combinations of:
products & services
options
rules
Imperatives:
Define limited modular combinations of products
Migrate:
Introduce incentives for customers to self-migrate –
may take time
Decommission & auto-migrate
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Simplification of IT
Telecommunications SOAs undergoing technical transformations, consolidation, and
convergence of systems.
CRM
Billing
Order Management
…
Consolidation efforts need to translate to visible value for the end-user:
IT simplification focus needs to include customer-facing front-ends (greatly
lagging)
Simplification of Channels: The Foundation of Omni-channel
Unity in customer experience
across all touch-points is
enabled through the following
4 pillars:
1. Common Presentation
2. Common Function
3. Common Customer
View
4. Common Analytics
Customer Experience Unity
Omni-channel
Common
presentation
layer concept
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1. Common Presentation Layer
Light-weight GUI
WCM / CMS driven – all channels
Web-based Common GUI
(common presentation)
Customer Portal
(self-care)
Ecommerce platforms (browse,
compare, and buy)
Help and
support
Marketing websites / micro sites
E-billingPartner
Integration
Kiosks
Mobile
PoS
Single presentation layer
Consistency in experience
Content Biz MgmtLook & Feel
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Features & Benefits of Light-weight
approach
Web-based:
Responsive design providing consistent experience for all devices
(desktop, tablet, mobile, POS, etc.)
Business-user-driven – flexibility in pushing broad-spectrum UI
changes with minimal technical intervention – faster T2M
Consistent navigation, look & feel, experience across all touch-points
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Liferay – Viable provider for Telecom Omni-
channel portal container
ICT point of view
• Housing for ecommerce applications
• Micro-services architecture
• Modularity benefits without DevOps complexity.
• Easy to integrate and customize
• Connects easily to existing systems
• Allows for creation of new services quickly
• Supports popular front-end frameworks
Business point of view
• Single, consolidated platform
•Easy-to-use interfaces
• Simple for non-technical users, consistent across channels.
• Supports customer campaigns, retention & loyalty, and digital transformation
Customer point of view
•Touch-point-agnostic
•Consistent experience and view on interactions with brand
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2. Common Function:Unified Business Layer
Common API (access to all digital services)
Product Catalogue
BillingOrdering
IntegrationDigital services
Automated processes
CRM
API
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Characteristics, Features & Benefits
of common function
All channels derive, and in turn provide, functions based on underlying API:
Ensures consistency of business function across enterprise
Channels build mashups functionality based on centralized API
Introduces a platform for cross-channel performance tracking and
sales commissioning
Creates opportunities for extending functions globally:
Significantly faster go-to-market for new offerings
Changed intrinsically pushed across all channels
Increased monetization through building shared services which provide
aggregated functionality
Fundamental building block for
effectuating true Omni-channel
platform
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Emeldi Commerce®
Powering the Omni-channel Commerce Experience
• 100% Telco specific platform
• Omni-channel solution
providing a unified interface
across all frontline channels
• Supports the whole customer
lifecycle
• Flexibility to coexist within an
ecosystem sharing a legacy
CRM (e.g. Siebel) if required
by the operator
eSales eCare Mobiles Sales Retail POS Customer care dep.
Emeldi Commerce® Omni-channel Platform
Unified frontline channels
Omni Platform Orchestration
Customer Management Product Catalogue Order Management
Pre-integration to TELCO Backend Solutions
Connectors to backend domains
Standard Telco backend domains
Billing Integration Provisioning ERP BI
Legacy CRM
Optional integration per
Operator’s architecture
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Emeldi Commerce®Powering the Omni-channel Commerce Experience
Emeldi Commerce® Omni-
Channel Platform
Full coverage of order capture and continuity of
experience across all channels
Telco Product Catalogue:
• Bundling & Non-Flat structure
• Product business rules / eligibilities / hierarchies / relationships
• Integration to Telco processes
• Complex payments
Telco Processes & Integration
• Sales
• Care
• CRM
• Ordering
• Provisioning
• ERP
• Billing
Telco Commerce Landscape
• Ecommerce
• Self-care
• Customer-care
• Mobile Apps
• Physical channels
• Other channels
API Product
Catalogue
Liferay (Common Presentation)
Database Server
Omni-Channel Platform (Common Function)
3rd-Patry Front-end extensions
Liferay Modules
LiferayNative components
Liferay service AP
I
WCM
DMS
Security model
Persistence layer
Liferay Database Schema
Emeldi Commerce
Unified frontline channels
Integration layer
PORTAL DatabaseSchema
JDBC
eSALES
Retail POS
eCARE
Call Centre
SOA
SOAP
ESB - SOA Platform
Omni Platform Orchestration
Order Management
Customer Management
Product Catalogue
Fulfilment
3rd-Patry Front-end extensions3rd-Patry Front-end
extensions
3rd-Patry Business Logic
Credit Check CRM
Delivery Management ERP / Inventory
Fulfilment / Activation
Number Booking / MNP
Payments Pricing Recharging
Scheduling / Appointments Self Service API SSO
Partner sites
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Omni-channel Platform System Architecture
Platform allows for introduction of
channels from various project
streams/sources
Common business layer creates
mashup of shared functionality
Shared Integration Layer, extendible and re-usable to all services
Shared product catalogue supporting Telco end-to-end processes
Predefined interfaces to standard Telco back-end domains
Consistent frontline channels management providing continuous experience across all touch points • Customers• Operator staff • Partners
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3. Common Customer View
Connect/consolidate
customer profile
information/functions
across different systems
into a single system of
record
Portal Profile
Ecommerce profile
CRM Profile
Support Profile
Billing ProfilePartners
Profile
Common Customer View Motivations & Challenges
1
2
3
4
5
7
8
9His next
shopping
experience is
highly customized
to his past
interactions
Peter sees
an ad on TV
for a mobile phone,
looks it up on
his mobile device
He goes
online on his
desktop to
review
the product
360 Customer
View
He uses
ecommerce map
to locate nearest
store, places
a reservation
to try it out
The map
links with his
mobile device
He visits the
shop, tries the
phone, purchases
it using the QR
code from his
online reservation
He is
prompted to
share his experience
and create an
online profile
to manage
his account
His profile is
used for future
customer interactions:
a thank you
email is sent
with vouchers
He shares
his experience
online, which
is integrated
to social media
Establishing a unified
view on customer
equates to establishing
a 360 view of customer
Can only be achieved
through proper
technical consolidation
of profile data
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Common Customer View Motivations
& Challenges
Technical transformation should execute consolidation in 1st phase
Master customer profiles and extension data to be migrated,
aggregated, and stored in central CRM
Newly-
appended
Profile Datasets
Base Customer
Profile Data
Unified
Customer View
MSISDN Challenge: One customer, multiple MSISDN,may not be identified as a single customer
Unified Customer View may require new identity model
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Migrating: Automate and Incentivize
De-dup migration waves, hits most customers, but
enough gaps remain for further action
Various de-dup automation strategies exist –
analysis will yield best approach
Billing address, subscriber names, email,
MSISDN,..
Incentivized strategies offered to customer to get
the job done:
Unified bills – ease of use
Limited offers/credits – when adding
subscriptions to profiles
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Common Customer View in Both
Directions
Benefits of unified customer view in terms of true
continuity of customer’s experience are self-
evident
For operators, exists large motivation to organize
and compartmentalize customer data into a
single system of record…
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4. Common Analytics
Care
• Omni-channel assisted care
• Personalized customer interactions
• Proactive care
Sales• Improved targeting
• Personlized/appropriate offers
Marketing
• Targeted marketing
• Track customer engagement through different channels
Omni-channel platform will virtually stand as sole data-capture engine for telecoms in better
understanding and serving their customers
Big data and analytics will emerge as nucleus to
Omni-channel in Telecom
Conceptual Architecture
Channels
•Online (ecommerce, self-care)
•Retail (store, kiosks, agent desktops)
•Care (call centre, chat)
•Partners
•Mobile (native apps / hybrid apps)
Common Presentation
•CMS / DMS
•Authentication / Authorization
•Look & Feel
•Responsive UI
•Business user autonomy
Common Function
•Universal Telco Business API
•Telco Product Catalogue
•Ordering
•Commissioning
•Telco Processes
Common Customer View
•Customer interactions, leads, opportunities
•Consolidated Customer Profile
•Customer profile management and enhancement
•360 view
Common Analytics
•Improved targeting
•Omni-channel assisted care
•Targeted marketing
In Summary…
Closing the Gap between store, desktop
and mobile is very much a top-down
transformation in business processes,
governance, and function
However….
Multi-channel patch-work and tactical
work-arounds will no longer meet the
expectations of digitally enabled
customers
True Omni-channel business vision can
only be realized by fully coordinated
technical and business efforts
Laying down carefully-considered
fundamental IT framework aligned to the
Omni-channel principle is key
Channel Strategy
Integrated Business Function & Product
Management
IT Building Blocks
