So…You’re Going to Build a Website. Here’s What You Need to Know:

Your company’s website is its window to the world. It’s where customers and prospects learn about the company and its products and services. It’s an important channel for engaging people and building relationships with them and a vital part of your digital experience. Because so many people do their research online before they ever reach out to your company, your website is the way you ensure you are part of their decision-making set. Because it’s so critical to your business, it’s important to build a website that will be engaging, relevant, on brand, and current.

In this seven-part blog series, you’ll learn how to decide if your website needs updating, efficiently execute a comprehensive update, and ensure your website is well positioned to drive growth. For this first post, we’ll be focused on deciding whether or not your website needs an update and what should happen after that decision is made. 

First Things First: Should You Update Your Website?

So, how do you know if your website needs work? Updating your website takes time and resources, which can be significant depending on the size and complexity of your website. Therefore, you want to ensure you take on the project for the right reasons, not just because somebody said so.

What are good reasons for updating your website? Ask yourself these questions:

When was the website last updated?

If dinosaurs were still roaming the earth, it’s time to update.

Has your company strategy significantly changed?

If so, you need to ensure your website reflects the new direction.

Is your website easy to navigate and simple to use?

If prospects or customers have to work hard to find what they need, you’re not going to get their business. In this brave new marketing world, customers are in charge of their buying journey and, the easier you make it for them, the more likely you’ll get their business.

Does your website still match your company branding and positioning?

Having a mismatch between the external brand that you show on your website and your current market position can create a disjointed brand experience.

Do you have new products or services that are not represented on the website?

Over 80% of buyer’s decisions happen prior to talking to one of your salespeople. If someone can’t research your product online, they probably won’t ever buy it.

Is your website meeting your goals for engagement and conversion?

Continually updating your SEO and making technical updates to improve site speed and reliability are imperative to a good user experience.

Is your website mobile friendly?

If it’s not, this puts your business in the same category as cavemen. It’s a mobile world.

Is your website slow?

In this go-go world, we’ve been trained to expect things instantaneously. Don’t make customers or prospects wait for your web pages to load. They won’t come back.

Does your website offer visitors the digital experience they expect from your brand?

If you’ve hired the best people for the job everywhere else in your organization, but your digital experience lacks, you can’t expect customers to trust you—let alone become an advocate for your brand—if you aren’t giving them a phenomenal experience when they navigate to your website.

Depending on the answers to these questions, you may need to update your website. And, that update could be anything from a few simple tweaks to a full-blown redesign and re-architecting of your site.

Your Website Needs a Major Overhaul…What Now?

If you have decided that your website needs a major overhaul, just like an architect building a house, you will need to go through the five steps below:

1)    Create a Plan

You cannot create a corporate website on your own. You need to build your team and have a strategy for the final product.

2)    Build the Foundation and Walls

No house ever gets built without a blueprint and a schedule. Make a project schedule, create the information architecture (IA), and then, and only then, start the design.

3)    Develop the Interior

A website is nothing without the content for which your prospects and customers are looking. Articulate the positioning and messaging for website content and create the content which will bring visitors to your door.

4)    Decorate Inside and Out

Just because you build, it does not mean they will come. You need to drive traffic to your website, and then convert that traffic.

5)    Maintain and Update

The only way to know if your website is successful is to track metrics that matter to your business. Before you launch, make sure you test, test, and test again. In this ever-changing world, your website is out of date as soon as it launches. Be sure you put in place a process for continuous updates.

Stay tuned for the next blog in this series, where we’ll dive deeper into Step 1: Creating a Plan.

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4 More Digital Marketing Strategies You Need to Know for 2019

Digital marketing is ever-changing as innovation creates new opportunities for marketers every day. Along with it, your strategy must change and grow with technology to keep ahead of your competitors. Trending digital marketing strategies keep marketers on their toes trying to innovate new and different ways to engage their audiences.

In this blog, we’ll take stock of the digital marketing landscape in 2018, discuss what’s changed and what’s new, and see where you should be investing your energy for 2019.

1. Virtual and Augmented Reality

Smart companies are leveraging mobile cameras to improve their customer experience. Through VR and AR, you can improve brand engagement and help with pre-purchase decisions by bringing your products to life. By allowing customers to engage in more profound ways through immersive experiences, they are better equipped to find what they are looking for and be delighted in doing so.

Consider Amazon, who set up Oculus Rift VR booths around Prime Day, allowing shoppers to experience a wide range of products from nerf guns to refrigerators as they would in physical reality. By empowering potential buyers to literally picture themselves owning products and simulate this potential reality, VR preemptively addresses needs and pain points, greatly enhancing the customer journey.

When getting users to a specific physical location isn’t possible, augmented reality can provide greater flexibility and reach through integration with mobile apps. StubHub executed this masterfully, introducing an AR feature that allowed fans to better understand the city and stadium ahead of this year’s Super Bowl. Potential ticket buyers could click to see a 3D map of the stadium, parking, transit lines, and more, making it easier to envision themselves at the event.

By deploying virtual or augmented reality strategically, you have a unique opportunity to supply consumers with the depth of pre-purchase information they crave, while minimizing the effort they must take to obtain it.

2. Artificial Intelligence

In the past, digital marketers have been hesitant to incorporate artificial intelligence into their strategies. But as AI continues to prove itself useful for simplifying data-based experiences and improving user experience, confidence in it has increased.

KLM has done a great job with this, creating a plug-in with Messenger that streamlines everything from booking to check-in and flight status updates. It’s a win-win for both sides: travelers can access all their travel info from anywhere, and KLM can supply it to them without tying up personnel.

Chatbots can also be valuable for facilitating pre-purchase decisions. For instance, Bing’s Business Bot, which is embedded into search results, allows interested users to have basic questions answered by the businesses around them. If their query is not on the pre-configured list, the bot refers them to a phone number. The bot also asks business owners additional questions based on what users are looking for, so that common requests can be answered faster in the future. By refining responses to fit user needs, artificial intelligence allows you to help users better and faster over time.

3. Visual and Voice Search

Search is evolving beyond its text-only origins, meaning that visual and voice search deserve serious consideration now. Think of visual search as a sort of reverse search, using images to find text-based info instead of the other way around. Google, Microsoft, and Pinterest have all jumped into the fray, and it’s only going to get bigger over time. Marketers can gain an edge here by preparing tailor-made content to await potential customers after their image searches, while also gaining even more insights into their preferences.

Voice search also continues to grow as a way for consumers to find more information without even having to lift a finger. Domino’s has done well here, teaming up with Amazon Echo to let customers order pizza hands-free. Allowing people to interact with you via voice search makes their life easier, and offers a chance to incorporate brand personality and tone in the way you respond. The dynamics of voice search also present a challenge for digital marketers, who must figure out how to optimize for both humans and devices.

4. Vertical Video

With the shift from desktop to mobile a consistent digital marketing consideration, it should come as no surprise that mobile video ads continue to be hot. Savvy marketers are using videos to both engage their audiences in-app between tasks and on social platforms.

What’s new, however, is the movement towards more vertical video. Instagram’s recent introduction of IGTV continues this trend, allowing users to create long-form vertical videos. While advertising is not available (yet) on IGTV, its great place for brands to share their longer content organically. The success of IGTV and other similar platforms is worth keeping an eye on, as it could cause a major shift in favor of vertical video. If this is the case, marketers will need to create horizontal and vertical assets to reach their audience fully.

Staying Ahead of the Competition

These emerging digital marketing strategies make it easier to both reach customers when and where they are ready to buy and improve their experience post-purchase. Competitive companies know that capitalizing on new forms of content and technology will help them capture new audiences on fresh playing fields.

So which of these hot new digital marketing strategies do you plan on implementing? Let me know in the comments below!

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Why Top Brands Win with Transparency

“You can’t fool all the people, not even most of the time. People, once unfooled, talk about the experience.” — Seth Godin

Consumers Choose Companies They Trust

Although often overlooked, companies with top-notch marketing emphasize privacy and transparency. Tech giants such as Apple and Google are in part so successful because of the trust built within their enormous user base. This trust spans from believing in their product to trusting the company with their private data.

Inversely, Facebook has experienced a sharp decline in public perception because of how the company has handled personal data—along with the Cambridge Analytica scandal. In turn, dwindling trust in Facebook has led to a decrease in growth.

In this blog, I’ll cover the steps for building consumer trust and get insights on how to optimize marketing in the Age of Privacy.

Transparency as a Strategy

“95% of people surveyed wanted companies to give options to opt out of certain types of information collected about them, how it can be used and/or what can be shared with others” —Consumer Policy Research Center

Companies have an obligation to their users to be transparent in how they operate and use personal data. For marketers, this means informing your potential customers on how you handle their data—and why you’re reaching out to them.

Part of the reason that Facebook has experienced a recent decline is that users were completely unaware of their business model. The sale of data was a driving factor for Facebook’s revenue and included sharing information with hundreds of third parties. After users discovered how their data was used, many expressed outrage and fled Facebook.

Companies who hope to be successful in the long term must be open and transparent with their customers about how their data is both used and shared.

According to a study by Label Insight, 94% of consumers surveyed indicated that they were more likely to be loyal to a brand that offers transparency, while seventy-three percent said they were willing to pay more for a product that provides complete transparency.

Due to recent data scandals, data privacy regulation, and changing privacy policies, users are more conscious of how their personal data is collected and shared. Word-of-mouth and online reviews through sites, such as Yelp, G2 Crowd, and Glassdoor, leave a lasting impact on the marketing efforts of any company. As a business, it’s crucial to understand that consumers trust each other more than companies. Instances of mishandling privacy of any magnitude prove detrimental to any business—regardless of size.

The GDPR, CCPA, and What Marketers Must Consider

Effective as of May 25, 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) affects every resident of the EU and has a profound impact on how companies worldwide record and manage data. Marketing teams specifically are affected by how the law views and handles consent, targeted advertising, and data use.

When marketing, businesses must obtain consent from the user by having them opt into specific communication. Additionally, users have the option to request access to their data or have it deleted by the company at any time. Although this only applies to EU residents currently, other governments—such as California and Brazil—are already drafting and passing legislation that would impose similar requirements.

It’s important to keep in mind that the GDPR and CCPA are not just advertising-centric. They’re about general data protection, focusing on giving consumers greater control and privacy in terms of their own personal data. This forces companies to have a more customer-centric model. Marketers who want to succeed can do so by embracing data privacy and transparency to provide their potential customers with the best experience.

Steps for Building Consumer Trust and Brand

For marketing and sales emails, include options to manage preferences or opt-out of communications. This allows users to control how they’re being contacted. Offering users more options for communication strengthens the relationship between marketer and consumer, and leads to higher engagement. Instead of acquiring large lists of users to contact, consider building segmented, high-quality groups that can be reached through targeted marketing.

Conduct market research and use analytics platforms to determine the types of users that have a high conversion rate. Find out which users are more likely to disregard emails or unsubscribe from communication. You can rule these out before finalizing your list of potential customers. When marketing to smaller, well-defined groups, users will be more likely to engage with content and be open to receiving more information from your business.

After determining the segmented user bases, the next step is to employ marketing strategies that lead to engagement and new customers. Important tactics include a consistent standard and design, speaking to customers in an authentic human voice, and specifically addressing the problem that you solve for the customer.

With consumers connected through the internet worldwide, one review can influence hundreds of potential customers. Branding your business as one that can be trusted—both in terms of privacy and quality of service—is essential. G2 Crowd is a great example of a platform for users and businesses to gauge the authenticity and trustworthiness of a seller.

Another useful resource for providing users with confidence is a well put-together and defined privacy policy. This policy provides users with the information necessary for understanding how their data is used, shared, and processed. Making your privacy policy accessible through your website, marketing emails, and other communication shows users that their privacy is your company’s first priority. It leads to building a brand image that emphasizes transparency and trust. Not convinced? Check out the depth that Apple and Google feature in terms of privacy.

Why Transparency Translates into Successful Marketing

Successful marketing is much more than the number of impressions, clicks, or time spent on site. It’s about making informed decisions that drive results. Every marketing team should focus on building a quality audience and providing them with the resources and capabilities needed to maintain privacy. It is essential for developing a strong relationship with users.

With a customer-first and privacy safe stance, your customers will feel more inclined to recommend your product or service while also building your company as a trustworthy brand. Any company can put money into advertisements and well-written marketing; only the most forward-thinking businesses take the time to create a satisfied and privacy-aware user base that continues to drive success at the company.

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How Data Can Curse Brand Strategy: 3 Mistakes Marketers Must Avoid

It’s important to have a very clear appreciation of just how important data is when it comes to making marketing decisions. Understanding how your campaigns are performing, how different visitor segments are interacting with your site and which strategies and tactics are generating the greatest ROI isn’t just nice to know. It’s imperative to your brand and your marketing’s overall success.

There’s no doubt that all of this data can be a huge blessing. When it comes to your brand, it can also be a curse. Why? Because while data can tell you the aggregated story of the people who interact with your brand, it can also entice you to make myopic decisions based on numbers alone. And if you do that, you’re making a big mistake.

Here are three mistakes that you need to avoid when it comes to data and your brand strategy.

1. Forgetting that Data Is Made up of Emotion-Driven Human Beings

In today’s businesses, we’re driven to quantify any and everything that can be quantified, but don’t mistake correlation with causation. Your data can show you that your visitors chose logo A over logo B. It can also identify which image at the top of your landing page created the most conversions. But it can’t tell you why. And at the heart of it all, the why matters.

Before any of your customers are numbers in your marketing data, they’re human beings. They make emotionally-based decisions—and then perhaps try to justify them with logical, rational explanations. The numbers in your analytics program, no matter how nicely they’re displayed, can never tell your customer’s whole story.

For example, the reason why Susan completed the lead form on your landing page—the one with the image of the sailboat at the top, versus the skiff—is related to her positive childhood memories of sailing with her Dad as much as her interest in your webinar. However, David’s lifelong fear of water created a strong sense of unease for him as soon as he hit the landing page, causing him to bounce—neither image ultimately would have worked for him. Do either of these make sense? Not necessarily. Welcome to the world of human emotion.

For the best results, remember that data is just one tool in your marketing arsenal. Other activities, like focus groups, customer surveys and even talking to front-line personnel about their experiences can and should inform your brand development or brand refresh. Don’t get so focused on the data that you lose sight of the human beings that make up the numbers.

2. Ignoring Your Gut Feeling

Imagine this scenario: The data suggests that visitors would prefer choice A for your new website format, but instinct tells you that choice B will ultimately prove to better resonate. In this situation, don’t ignore your inner voice. Remember, your inner voice has been cultivated through years of experience in marketing. Don’t discount working day in and day out with your brand and customers. It too has gathered and analyzed data points and drawn conclusions.

I’m not surprised that full 41% of CEOs admit that they make decisions based on intuition even though they have access to reams of data. I always tell my team that if the data says one thing, but their gut doesn’t agree, take a closer look.

3. Following Data to a Benign Brand

Guess what happens when businesses let data drive all of the branding decisions? The silent majority starts calling the shots, and things can start looking (and even sounding) boringly similar to the competition. It’s the online version of design by committee, a phrase that strikes fear in the hearts of designers everywhere.

There is real value in adding personality to your brand’s design, capturing the essence of your brand visually. Whether it be an unusual font choice, the style of imagery you choose or even a unique background that evokes a very specific vibe, the design choices you make can create an evident “personality” for your brand. For example, if your site included only pen and ink illustrations—no stock photography—it would “feel” radically different than if it included only highly-saturated color photography. One has a different energy from the other.

Let your data lead to some basic design decisions, but not at the expense of letting your brand personality shine through. Ultimately, it’s these human-driven unique brand features that help make customers feel more connected, and ensure that your brand stands apart from your competition.

Augment Your Data with Your Human Talents

Data plays a huge role in today’s marketing and branding, but savvy marketers realize that data tells only part of the story. To achieve success, marketers must understand that analytics and data are just a tool in a much larger marketing arsenal. Ensure that you dig deeper to find out the why behind the what before making big brand decisions. Additionally, don’t devalue the power of your intuition. Make sure that your customers can ultimately see the human side of your brand. By augmenting your data with your very formidable human talents, you’ll be positioning your business and your brand for continued success.

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Vlocity Thriving on the Salesforce AppExchange Focusing on Industry Verticals

The Salesforce AppExchange is where companies can find third-party applications that run on and integrate with the Salesforce platform. David Schmaier, CEO and Founder of Vlocity, a Forbes Cloud 100 Company, says that Vlocity is the fastest company ever built on the Salesforce AppExchange and the Salesforce platform.

Companies leverage Vlocity Industry Cloud apps to extend the power of the Salesforce platform.

Vlocity CEO and founder David Schmaier discussed his companies amazing rise in an interview at Dreamforce:

Vlocity Has 5 Industry Verticals Built on Top of Salesforce

Vlocity is the single fastest company ever built on the Salesforce AppExchange and the Salesforce platform. The app exchange has 4,000 companies that do basically everything you can do possibly with the world's number one CRM platform and cloud platform Salesforce. What we do is we build five industry verticals on top of the Salesforce platform; communications and media, insurance, healthcare, government, and our newest addition is the energy business. We take what our regulated businesses and we make them digital.

I came to my first Dreamforce in 2013 and I was looking around for opportunities. Some friends had built a company called Veeva, which is the biggest company ever built on the Salesforce platform and they do pharmaceutical and life sciences CRM. I came to Dreamforce to find the next Veeva and when I found was astonishing. Back then there were around 2,700 companies on the AppExchange and I saw CPQ, CGI, Middleware and Document Management, but no other industry vertical applications.

There was only one back then and yet it was the largest company ever built on the Salesforce platform and the only one to go public. You didn't need to be a Ph.D. in computer science to figure out that there was an opportunity to build another Veeva, a bigger Veeva, which we call Vlocity.

Vlocity Transforms Industries to be Modern, Digital, and Customer Centric

We named the company Vlocity because we're fast, but we try and we're trying to improve the agility of our customers. A good example of this is last night we were with New York Life Insurance which has rolled out about 18,000 users of Salesforce and Vlocity in about a year and they do it all in a mobile-first way.

Before they would go in and talk to you about life insurance in your kitchen with pen and paper and now they just tap on their phone to sell life insurance. We've taken the whole process and made it mobile first and made it digital so they can connect with their customers in a whole new way. That's the kind of capabilities that we provide for people. We call it digital, we call it agile and it's all available now on the mobile device.

Vlocity Announces New Mobile Products

We're announcing two new mobile products. The first is a visual studio where I can point and click and drag and drop and I can put in a companies logo and I can build high fidelity rich mobile apps and I can deploy them really really fast versus having to custom build them. We simplify the development process and allow you to point-and-click and put your colors and your branding and your logo and roll out very high fidelity mobile apps.

The second part is we're coming up out with a new app for consumers so that when I want to browse my bill or look at my usage or add devices or buy the new iPhones that just came out I can do that all from a branded consumer mobile app that's that comes out of the box and ready for use. We're doing a lot of things in the mobile-first area.  

Vlocity Integrates AI and Siri

I'm excited about Salesforce’s big announcement this week where Einstein and Siri are now best friends. We were in parallel working on these mobile apps and because our software's all built 100% native and additive on the Salesforce platform all that great work Salesforce is doing with Einstein and Siri we get for free.

Now we can ask Siri questions about paying the bill or understanding usage or adding the new iPhone and I can do that all through the voice capabilities that Salesforce has added to the platform. The platform keeps getting better with analytics, with Einstein, now Einstein meets Siri, and we're just thrilled to be part of this great ecosystem.

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How adidas is Creating a Digital Experience That's Premium, Connected, and Personalized

Digital marketing is changing and adidas is working to make it integral in connecting with their customers and to really change their lives in a positive way. Joseph Godsey, Head of Digital Brand Commerce at addidas, says that "The beauty is with digital is we can create relationships at scale."

The company is reaching out and connecting with customers in a personalized way via their app that they launched last year and have recently announced major new features.

Joseph Godsey, Head of Digital Brand Commerce at adidas discusses the company's new digital marketing strategy at Dreamforce:

Digital Brings the addidas Core Principals to Life

We spend a lot of time really listening to consumers in focus groups and through lots of studies in order to really understand what their needs are and how we can serve them better, particularly using our digital channel. It started really with our core belief as a company that through sport we have the power to change lives.

Then we asked ourselves the question if digital is a focus and clear priority for us how does digital actually bring that core to belief to life? The beauty is with digital we can create relationships at scale. We can really connect with the consumer and match their needs using digital in a way that we could never do before.

Creating a Digital Experience That's Premium, Connected, and Personalized

When we talk about interacting with the consumer we look at how we can make a difference in their game, in their life, and in their world. We look at how we can hit home on all of those fears and then ultimately in digital create an experience that's premium, connected, and personalized.

Premium is about inspiring love for the brand and desire for the products. Connected is about taking all the touch points that they can interact with us in a physical or in an online environment, and there are a lot, that we're actually seamless and really interacting with them in a consistent way. Personalized, because in our brand there are so many sports to talk about, but I need to talk with you about what's relevant for you, not what's relevant for someone else.

I can’t just blast out a communication anymore and hope that it's interesting for you. I need to respect the interactions we've had together across any touch point and make sure I bring what's relevant to you in that particular context but also what's interesting in terms of your profile. We really want to create that relationship that creates value and meaning that hits home on what's most interesting for the consumer.

Announcing the Launch of a New addidas Membership Program

We have some exciting news that we'll talk about during Dreamforce this week which is about a new membership program that we're launching in the US and then later will expand that in other countries. It gives us the ability to really engage and hit home on what's most interesting for a consumer. They might be looking for value, they might be looking for experiences, or they might look to actually give back and be part of broader causes. Depending on what's most interesting to them we can expose that in our ecosystem and reward them for those interactions but also give them the chance to interact as well.

I think to be relevant in today's world with the proliferation of brands and experiences that are out there we have to have something that's really meaningful that consumers will come back to again and again. They have to also see how we are represented as a brand and have a way to interact and connect with that as well. We're looking across all the experience to have something that's sticky and makes it seamless and easy to use. If you want to buy something you can do it quickly and easily but we also make the experience a positive one.

The App Changed the Paradigm

We launched the app last year and we've now rolled it out in 18 countries which is a very small space of time for a massive global rollout but also expanding the features and the capabilities in the app. It's a great example where we really tried to change the paradigm and how we develop things because when we initially launched the app we put out there a starting point, we had a very clear strategy how the app would enable us to create a connection with the consumer to be even more personalized. For instance, with the newsfeed, they can really surface what's personally relevant for that consumer where we can talk with them about new releases and new things that are coming.

At the same time, we only launched it as a starting point, so almost like we put out the very first version of a car. We wanted consumers to give us feedback in mass.  We did consumer testing to build the app extensively but when you really get it out there and people start using it they tell you what's really interesting and what they want more of. Through that experience we realized some of the things that we might prioritize in our backlog, actually, we need to elevate some other topics that are more important to the consumer.

The adidas Digital Strategy for the Future

I think for us ultimately with our digital strategy the first part is how do we create that ever-tightening relationship that has meaning and value from a consumer perspective and really hits home on those three pillars of premium, connected, and personalized. How do you really surface that in a meaningful way?

Take something like a product description. How do we really have the product descriptions and offerings so that if you're interested in sports we will help you find exactly the product that you need for the sport that you're interested in? We will also educate you and bring you back at different points in time to help you find out what you need when you need it, or with an engagement program. Ultimately, like the membership program, that it has something that's sticky, that you can give back to something, even more, you can participate in events and experiences.

For us, a lot of it’s really deepening those experiences but also exploring new technologies and new areas. Omnichannel was kind of the original wave which happened and  I said it was the freight train that came past us a couple of years ago. Now we're also looking at what those next freight trains are, whether it's technologies like blockchain or experiencing picking up a new channel. For example, we're working extensively with Salesforce on automation, how we can automate consumer experiences. Take something as simple as a consumer service interaction. How do I make it so easy for you, no matter if you talk with us via Messenger, WhatsApp, online, or in the app itself, that we can respond to those questions fast and easy but not have to have thousands of agents all the time on the call?

I would say the interesting complexity but also the opportunity comes from that connected sphere. How do you connect all of those different things that are relevant? If you participate in one of our communities how do we also reward that interaction through a membership program? How do we build that seamlessly into a sales or commercial experience as well? That's really part of that opportunity and that multi-year journey that we're on and really expanding.

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Zippin CEO: In 5-10 Years Every Store Will Be Checkout Free

What if going to a store was easier than shopping online where you could just walk in and pick up your purchases and walk out with payment happening all in the background?

You have heard about Amazon's cashierless stores, Amazon Go, and their plans to open thousands of those stores in the coming years. Now there are startups that intend to bring this concept to all stores by providing a software platform and a technology solution to retailers.

Zippin Co-founder and CEO Krishna Motukuri talked about the technology behind his new checkout-free solution in a recent CNBC profile:

At Zippin, our mission is to banish checkout lines for good. You can simply walk in, check-in when you enter, pick up whatever you want, and simply walk out. If there was somebody that actually was able to follow a customer around the store and see what they were picking and just took a note of that information and then when they walked out simply just gave them a bill, it would be very convenient for the customer.

We use overhead cameras that look straight down and get a bird's-eye view of the entire store. That allows us to uniquely identify customers and we use that information to also understand which items they're picking from the shelf and which ones they're putting back. This information is paired with sensors that are on the shelf that worked with the cameras to accurately identify which products cart picked.

As we've seen in the online world where ecommerce customers can actually see which product you've clicked on how long you actually considered it or whether you put it in the cart or taking it out, there will be retailers that will be responsible in the way they use that information.

In addition to supermarkets and grocery stores, we're also getting a lot of interest from hotels, airports, stadiums, and commercial buildings. For the first time, this technology allows you to operate a store more cost efficiently. We expect more of these smaller stores to appear in residential complexes and office buildings where there was nothing other than just a vending machine and some salty snacks before.

Our next step is to actually take the technology to an existing retailer and implement it in their stores. I would say five to ten years you should expect every store will be checkout free.

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Chinese Internet Growth is Staggering and is Still an Enormous Business Opportunity

South China Morning Post CEO Gary Liu recently gave a Ted Talk explaining the staggering growth of the Chinese internet and how it is rapidly changing millions of lives for the better. What’s especially fascinating is how impactful their internet growth has been for the Chinese migrant workers and the poor and how this is only the beginning.

There are still 600 million Chinese offline, their wages are rising too which means their spending power is a huge opportunity for internet startups. 

South China Morning Post CEO Gary Liu talks about the impact of 772 million Chinese that are now on the internet:

Technology is Changing China

Once every 12 months, the world's largest human migration happens in China. Over the 40 day travel period of Chinese New Year 3 billion trips are taken as families reunite and celebrate. The most strenuous of these trips are taken by the country's 290 million migrant workers for many of whom this is the one chance a year to go home and see parents and children they left behind.

Travel options are very limited with plane tickets costing nearly half of their monthly salary, so most of them choose the train. Their average journey is 700 kilometers, the average travel time is over 15 hours and the country's tracks now have to handle 390 million travelers every Spring Festival.

Until recently, migrant workers would have to queue for long hours, sometimes days, just to buy tickets often only to be fleeced by scalpers and they still had to deal with near stampede conditions when travel day finally arrived, but technology has now started to ease this experience. Mobile and digital tickets now account for 70% of sales, greatly reducing the lines at train stations, digital ID scanners have replaced manual checks expediting the boarding process, and artificial intelligence is deployed across the network to optimize travel routes.

New solutions have been invented, China's largest taxi hailing platform Didi Dache launched a new service called Hitch which matches car owners are driving home with passengers looking for long-distance routes. In just its third year Hitch served 30 million trips in this past holiday season, the longest of which was further than 1500 miles. That's about the distance from Miami to Boston.

China's "Need Economy" is Driving Innovation

About a year and a half ago I moved from my home in New York City to Hong Kong to become the CEO of the South China Morning Post and from this new vantage point. I've observed something that is far less familiar to me, propelling so much of China's innovation and many of its entrepreneurs is an overwhelming need economy that is serving an underprivileged populace which has been separated for thirty years from China's economic boom.

The stark gaps that exist between the rich and the poor, between urban and rural, or the academic and the unschooled, these gaps form a soil that's ready for some incredible empowerment. When capital and investment become focused on the needs of people who are hanging to the bottom rungs of an economic ladder that's when we will start to see the internet truly become a job creator.

Because of the country's sheer scale and status as a rising superpower, the needs of its population have created an opportunity for a truly compelling impact. When explaining the rapid growth of the Chinese tech industry, many observers will cite two reasons. The first is the 1.4 billion people that call China home.

Chines Government: "Active Participation" or "Pervasive Intervention"

The second is the government's active participation, or pervasive intervention, depending on how you view it. The central authorities have spent heavily on network infrastructure over the years creating an attractive environment for investment at the same time they've insisted on standards and regulation, which has led to fast consensus and therefore fast adoption.

The world's largest pool of tech talent exists because of the abundance of educational incentives. Local domestic companies in the past have been protected from international competition by market controls. Of course, you cannot observe the Chinese internet without finding widespread censorship and very serious concerns about dystopian monitoring.

Yet, the Internet Has Continued to Grow

Yet the Internet has continued to grow and it is so big, much bigger than I think most of us realize. By the end of 2017, the Chinese internet population had reached 772 million users. It's larger than the populations of the United States, Russia, Germany, United Kingdom, France, and Canada combined. Also,  98 percent of them are active on mobile and 92 percent used messaging apps. There are now 650 million digital news consumers and 580 million digital video consumers.

The country's largest ecommerce platform Alibaba now boasts 580 million monthly active users. It's about 80 percent larger than Amazon. On-demand travel between bikes and cars now account for 10 billion trips a year in China. That's two-thirds of all trips taken around the world. So it's a very mixed bag the internet exists in a restricted, arguably manipulated from within China, yet it is massive and has vastly improved the lives of its citizens. Even in its imperfection, the growth of the Chinese Internet should not be dismissed and it's worthy of our closer examination.

As the Chinese Internet continues to grow, even in its imperfection and restrictions and controls, the lives of its ones forgotten populations have been irrevocably elevated. There is a focus on populations of need, not of want, that has driven a lot of the curiosity, the creativity, and the development that we see. There's still more to come.

An Enormous Opportunity: 600 Million Chinese Offline

In America, internet penetration has now reached 88 percent. In China, the Internet has still only reached 56 percent of the populace. That means there are over 600 million people who are still offline and disconnected. That's nearly twice the US population and an enormous opportunity.

Wherever this alternative fuel exists, be it in China or Africa or Southeast Asia or the American heartland we should endeavor to follow it with capital and with effort driving both economic and societal impact all over the world. Just imagine for a minute what more could be possible if the global needs of the underserved become the primary focus of our inventions.

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EU Investigating if Amazon is Using Data to Unfairly Compete With Third-Party Sellers

The European Union is on the prowl again in a likely attempt to win cash and concessions from Amazon. This is another investigation in a long string of investigations into American companies designed to extract big cash payments.

European Commissioner for Competition, Margrethe Vestager, indicates that the issue is the possible use of third-party seller data by Amazon to determine which products it might decide to produce and sell itself, thus competing and presumably putting out of business the other sellers of that product. Vestager admits that there have been no formal complaints from resellers but they "have people" coming to them and asking questions about this issue.

European Commissioner for Competition, Margrethe Vestager discussed their investigation on CNBC's Closing Bell:

EU Suspects Amazon Is Using Data to Compete With Third-Party Sellers

It's too early to have a concern but we like to understand how this is working because Amazon has this dual role, they host a lot of little guys and enabling them to do e-commerce which is a great thing, at the same time they're a big guy in the same market. How do they treat the data that they get from the little guy? Does that give them an advantage that cannot be matched or how to understand this?

We have concerns from the marketplace and we have seen this also in a sector-wide inquiry so so we're very interested to learn also in deep detail how this works.

There Are No Formal Complaints Filed From Third-Party Sellers

One thing is to enable the little guy to do business. It's another thing that once you have enabled it and you see how it works in the marketplace basically you take it and because you're a big guy you do large scale so you can sort of occupy that marketplace yourself. We have people coming to us with concerns but no formal complaints have been filed from third-party sellers.

The EU Already Settled an eBook Case with Amazon

We have already had one Amazon case on eBooks, on German and English spoken eBooks. We saw that Amazon was saying if you as one of our suppliers do something innovative, if you lower your prices or something like that, you always have to give us the same benefit and that, of course, made it very difficult for the eBooks market to innovate.

If you always have to give Amazon whatever you have then of course that puts a lid to innovation. That we solved in a settlement actually covering ebooks in almost all segments.

Not Opposed to Amazon but We Have Questions

It's important that the price point is right because for many people on a low budget, of course, low prices is of the essence and enabling choice is a great thing. We also want to see that innovation is thriving because being a customer in an innovative marketplace is, of course, better than being a customer in a non-innovative marketplace.

This is what we're trying to understand how does this work and of course, it may turn out that we have no further questions to be asked but that remains to be seen.

EU Commision Meeting With US FTC

We've had a very good meeting today with Federal Trade Commission Chairman Joseph Simons and others from the FTC, and we didn't discuss in any detail these questions. What we discussed is our cooperation which is actually very good because we exchange views, but we don't try to walk in each other's shoes.

Status of the Google EU Investigation

Of course, we expect a change of behavior because the decision is a cease-and-desist decision, you have to stop this and you cannot put anything in its place that has an equivalent effect. This is about enabling choice for the ones who produces our phone so that that maybe you can have a phone that carries other apps when you have the out-of-the-box experience.

That is important for us to see this change in the marketplace to show that those who actually have the skills maybe to do another operating system from the Android open source code that they may be able to do that. The fine will have to be paid and then of course it is for Google to decide if they will appeal the case or not.

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How to Use Data to Become Incredibly Customer Centric

Steve Stone, former CIO of L Brands and Lowes, recently discussed how retailers can use data to serve their customers better and become incredibly customer-centric:

Retail Grew Up Differently

When you think about retail, retail grew up differently. We started with stores and then we eventually added e-commerce. We were also very much notorious best-of-breed in the way we build our applications. Over time, you've got this technical debt where information about the customer and information about the product is stored in many different places.

When you're trying to build an integrated seamless frictionless customer experience it's very hard to do that if your information is disjointed. One of my favorite sayings is if the plumbing isn't right it doesn't matter how nice the experience is it just isn't going to work. This is a huge challenge for retailers and it's where technology really has to play a role, not only to combine the information but to find ways to add speed and agility to the entire process.

Data Key to Meaningful Customer Experiences

I've always said data governance isn't exactly sexy but it's it's what really drives the ability to deliver those types of meaningful customer experiences. With the focus now today on the customer experience with the Internet of Things and with all these new technologies coming at us and especially with the advent of AI and machine learning, we now see that data has to be right, the hygiene has to be great. Suddenly, master data has become a vogue term in retail and in consumer products.

I think the biggest problem a lot of companies find is they've got to find a place to start. You've got to get that starting point. Picking an experience, an experience that you want for the customer, and then flowing back through, where are all the interaction points of data, where does it originate, and where is it getting corrupt? Cleansing that and building that one experience we'll start you on your journey.

Be Customer Centric, Not Product Centric

After that, it's really getting into the plumbing and understanding your data and understanding the customer. It's always amazing when we build these great customer experiences, but they're built more for us and not for the customer. At L Brands we always put the customer first. Be customer centric, not product-centric. How do we integrate, how do we become customer first in everything that we do?

We're really at the point now where the technology exists to do this right. The integration platforms such as MuleSoft are really strong now that allows you to stitch together your applications plus build an extensible layer where applications can change quickly. That experience becomes one where if I'm a customer and I walk into a store and you don't have the product I want there’s no problem. The product will still be at my doorstep the next day or hopefully that day.

Knowing Your Customer

I'm online and I want this product and I don't want to have to wait for it to come from your distribution center in Detroit or Wisconsin. I want it and I'm in California and I get it in a couple of hours because the retailers are able to use the inventory in those local stores.

As a customer, you know me regardless of the channel, whether I came to you via the call center or whether I came to you in a store or online. You know me and that's to me where retailers have to be. I don't think that's differentiating as much anymore, instead, I think that's becoming the table stakes.

You can't compete against the past, you've got to compete against what the future is going to be. I see retail changing so much from inventory, from the customer, and even the whole level of personalization that we're trying to offer to the customer now. The customer is going to be asking for things that we would never have dreamed possible and yet in a few years we're going to be delivering it.

The Best Retailers Cater to Their Customers

Retailers that I really admire are Costco, Lilly Pulitzer, Ulta Beauty, Tractor Supply, they have a really great connection with their customer. They cater to that customer and they're building out technology capabilities that really allow that customer to operate on their terms, not on the retailer's terms, and I just think that's so powerful.

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SEC Chairman: We Want America to Lead the World in 5G

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai recently talked about the upcoming White House meeting which Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint are all expected to attend. The FCC Chairman says that it’s vital that we eliminate the local regulatory hurdles that are currently preventing 5G from being implemented in the US.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai via CNBC’s Squawk on the Street:

We Want America to Lead the World in 5G

We want America to lead the world in 5G just as we led the world in 4G. That, of course, takes private sector initiative but also requires government to set the stage in terms of getting the tools for the industry to use out there into the marketplace.

First, we want to outline a cross-government strategy, not just the FCC, but the entire Trump Administration is going to be on the same page in terms of asserting US leadership in 5g. We hope to learn from the industry is what are some of the necessary building blocks for 5g? We want America to be the home for innovation and investment for the next generation of wireless connectivity. We need to know what policies are needed in order to promote US leadership and I'm hoping it'll be a very productive exchange.

I think there's a strong case for optimism about it being sooner. We already see some of the nation's biggest companies doing 5G trials and cities like Indianapolis. We see a lot of investment and innovation in some of the tech sectors but there's also a reason to be concerned because we see a lot of the regulatory barriers to 5G deployment in terms of the infrastructure that is needed to get out there into the marketplace.

Local Government Regulations and Fees Holding Back 5G

These regulations are holding back the case for a 5G deployment. That's part of the reason why the FCC has been focused on what I call our 5G Fast Plan - Facilitating America's Superiority in 5G Technology. If we get the spectrum out there, incentivize infrastructure deployment, and modernize our regulations, I'm confident that we can hasten the day when Americans can turn to 5G just as they've come to rely on 4G.

We want to set the table so that every company, big and small, and regardless of where they happen to be trying to put deploy these 5G services, will be able to do so at scale in order to serve American consumers.

By far the biggest barrier is the domestic regulatory barriers that we face. For example, it takes one to two hours to install a small cell on a utility pole that's necessary for 5G. In some cases, it can take a year or two years to get the regulatory approval for deploying that small cell. That by far is one of the greatest barriers to getting the wide-scale deployment of 5G technologies in the future.

Additionally, the spectrum that is necessary to get out into the marketplace has been a barrier. We've been working aggressively to fix that and we've already teed-up over the next year or so more spectrum for the commercial sector use then all of the mobile broadband providers today hold combined. I think those building blocks domestically are much more important for 5G in order to be deployed at scale.

We Don't Want to Cede the Mantel of Wireless Leadership to China

China saw the success that the United States had in 4G and they want to claim that success for themselves. When it comes to 5G we want the United States to be the haven for innovation and investment not just out of some parochial concern but because we truly believe in a free and open Internet and the power of innovation and in the importance of the private sector leading this revolution. We think that this market-based approach is a superior one.

We, of course, don't want to cede the mantle of wireless leadership to any other country and our concern is that if China is the first mover in 5G that they will be able to draw some of that capital, some of that talent, and ultimately some of that innovation to their shores.

I think about some of the applications here in terms of precision agriculture and telemedicine and the Internet of Things and all kinds of other applications we can't even conceive today. All that could be on tap if we make the right decisions here in the United States and I think that's going to be a boon for American consumers and for our Internet economy.

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So…You’re Going to Build a Website. Here’s What You Need to Know:

Your company’s website is its window to the world. It’s where customers and prospects learn about the company and its products and services. It’s an important channel for engaging people and building relationships with them and a vital part of your digital experience. Because so many people do their research online before they ever reach out to your company, your website is the way you ensure you are part of their decision-making set. Because it’s so critical to your business, it’s important to build a website that will be engaging, relevant, on brand, and current.

In this seven-part blog series, you’ll learn how to decide if your website needs updating, efficiently execute a comprehensive update, and ensure your website is well positioned to drive growth. For this first post, we’ll be focused on deciding whether or not your website needs an update and what should happen after that decision is made. 

First Things First: Should You Update Your Website?

So, how do you know if your website needs work? Updating your website takes time and resources, which can be significant depending on the size and complexity of your website. Therefore, you want to ensure you take on the project for the right reasons, not just because somebody said so.

What are good reasons for updating your website? Ask yourself these questions:

When was the website last updated?

If dinosaurs were still roaming the earth, it’s time to update.

Has your company strategy significantly changed?

If so, you need to ensure your website reflects the new direction.

Is your website easy to navigate and simple to use?

If prospects or customers have to work hard to find what they need, you’re not going to get their business. In this brave new marketing world, customers are in charge of their buying journey and, the easier you make it for them, the more likely you’ll get their business.

Does your website still match your company branding and positioning?

Having a mismatch between the external brand that you show on your website and your current market position can create a disjointed brand experience.

Do you have new products or services that are not represented on the website?

Over 80% of buyer’s decisions happen prior to talking to one of your salespeople. If someone can’t research your product online, they probably won’t ever buy it.

Is your website meeting your goals for engagement and conversion?

Continually updating your SEO and making technical updates to improve site speed and reliability are imperative to a good user experience.

Is your website mobile friendly?

If it’s not, this puts your business in the same category as cavemen. It’s a mobile world.

Is your website slow?

In this go-go world, we’ve been trained to expect things instantaneously. Don’t make customers or prospects wait for your web pages to load. They won’t come back.

Does your website offer visitors the digital experience they expect from your brand?

If you’ve hired the best people for the job everywhere else in your organization, but your digital experience lacks, you can’t expect customers to trust you—let alone become an advocate for your brand—if you aren’t giving them a phenomenal experience when they navigate to your website.

Depending on the answers to these questions, you may need to update your website. And, that update could be anything from a few simple tweaks to a full-blown redesign and re-architecting of your site.

Your Website Needs a Major Overhaul…What Now?

If you have decided that your website needs a major overhaul, just like an architect building a house, you will need to go through the five steps below:

1)    Create a Plan

You cannot create a corporate website on your own. You need to build your team and have a strategy for the final product.

2)    Build the Foundation and Walls

No house ever gets built without a blueprint and a schedule. Make a project schedule, create the information architecture (IA), and then, and only then, start the design.

3)    Develop the Interior

A website is nothing without the content for which your prospects and customers are looking. Articulate the positioning and messaging for website content and create the content which will bring visitors to your door.

4)    Decorate Inside and Out

Just because you build, it does not mean they will come. You need to drive traffic to your website, and then convert that traffic.

5)    Maintain and Update

The only way to know if your website is successful is to track metrics that matter to your business. Before you launch, make sure you test, test, and test again. In this ever-changing world, your website is out of date as soon as it launches. Be sure you put in place a process for continuous updates.

Stay tuned for the next blog in this series, where we’ll dive deeper into Step 1: Creating a Plan.

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How to Find Seasonal Employees For Your Small Business When Unemployment is Low

Target, Macy's and other retailers are already gearing up for the upcoming holidays and the accompanying shopping madness. Insiders are anticipating a good season, thanks to consumer optimism and low unemployment. But can retailers find enough seasonal workers to fill their needs?

Target is aiming to hire 120,000 seasonal employees while Macy's plans to bring onboard 80,000. The Gap is reportedly looking for around 65,000 part-time workers. Meanwhile, delivery carriers are also looking for more workers in anticipation of the upcoming surge in online shopping. FedEx is hoping to sign up 55,000 extra hands while UPS will have room for 100,000 employees.

Unfortunately for retailers, finding extra employees won't be easy. The US job market is very worker-friendly at the moment, thanks to the record low unemployment rate. Job seekers now have more options and can afford to be picky about who they want to work for.

[Image source: TalkMarkets]

Because of this, a lot of businesses have implemented some strategies in the hopes of seducing seasonal employees. For instance, some retailers are offering customized incentives or hiring HR contractors. Others businesses are opting to give better training to their existing workers instead of hiring additional ones.

As a small business owner, you'll also need seasonal employees. However, the hiring strategies used by large enterprises might not be effective for you. But that doesn't mean they can't compete. If your small business needs more workers for the holidays, here are a few strategies to help you fill your roster.

How to Get Seasonal Employees Interested

1. Tap Into Your Team's Network

One of the best sources of temporary employees is through your current staff members. Tap into your team's network and ask for their help in looking for new teammates. The holiday season can be brutal and most small businesses won't have the luxury of replacing unreliable workers at this time of year. You'll have to hire trustworthy people and the best way of doing that is via personal referrals.

Implement an employee referral system for your small business. This will give you a consistent pipeline of candidates while keeping current staff happy with their referral incentives. Plus, employee retention tends to be higher with referred applicants.

2. Be Flexible With Schedules and Incentives

Monetary incentives are often not enough to get a worker interested, especially in today's labor market. However, customizing your job offer and the perks that come with it can get you a nibble in the job pool.

Seasonal workers have a different motivation for taking on the job. They might need extra income for school, the position could be an internship they need, or maybe they have family commitments to meet. This also means a conventional schedule or payday might not cut if for them. Your new hires might ask to be paid daily or want the option to give you their preferred weekly schedule. Being flexible with your worker's schedule or incentive structure will go a long way in helping you to fill your job openings in time for the holidays.

3. Check College Campuses

College and university campuses are a great hiring ground for seasonal workers. Many students don't return home for the holidays and the majority look forward to earning money and getting some work experience during this time.

Businesses are also ensured of employees that are energetic, enthusiastic and well-educated. The holiday season is also an ideal time for students to work part-time or as interns as their position comes with a definite end date. It's a win-win situation. Boost your odds by advertising on campuses and posting on college job recruitment websites.

4. Host a Job Fair

A job fair is one of the most efficient ways of sourcing contract workers. However, an event like this takes time to plan and organize. But when executed properly, you can connect with numerous candidates in a short period of time.

Join annual job fairs several months ahead of the season you want to hire for. This will give you enough time to select the best candidates and train them. Spread the word by advertising at local colleges, newspapers, and news stations. Make sure you also post your requirements on your website and through online job boards.

5. Look at a Different Job Pool

Don't limit yourself to conventional job pools or postings. There are numerous organizations or programs that you can reach out to for job placements. For instance, why not get in touch with organizations that work with ex-cons or the handicap?

A temporary HR contractor can also help fill your job openings. Recruiting is time-consuming and most many small businesses aren't able to outsource, interview and process applicants. An HR contractor can manage your staffing requirements so you'll have more time to focus on other critical tasks. What's more, an HR company knows how to select the best candidates for the job. And if you're lucky, your seasonal hire could become a permanent asset to your company.

Businesses hire millions of seasonal employees every year. While it's more challenging for small businesses to catch the attention of these workers, you can still do it. You'll just have to think outside the box and come up with creative tactics. Asking for employee referrals, being flexible with incentives and tapping college students are just some ways to secure hires and be productive during the holiday season.

[Featured image via Pexels]

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What is Uniquely Different About the New Amazon 4-Star Store?

Amazon 4-Star is Amazon's first retail store focused on selling Amazon's products. The first of presumably many stores just opened in the Soho area of New York City and of course has made a big splash in the media. But what's special about this store and what makes it a unique shopping experience?

Amazon Physical Stores VP Cameron Janes answers that question in a Bloomberg interview:

Amazon 4-Star is Built Around What Our Customers Our Loving

What is uniquely different is that we really built this store around our customers. It’s a direct reflection of our customers, not just what they’re buying, but really what they’re loving.

Everything in the store is rated 4 star or above by our customers, is a top seller or is the newest trending on Amazon.com. Our goal is that customers can walk into this store and pick up anything and know that it is going to be a great product because customers online have already said so.

The average rating of products in this store is 4.4 stars and collectively we have about 1,800 products in the store and they earned 1.8 million 5 star reviews. These are really high-quality products that our customers love. The product with the most customer reviews in Amazon 4-Star is actually the Fire TV Stick with Alexa voice remote with over 197,000 customer reviews and it’s rated 4.4 stars.

Curation is What 4-Star is About

Whenever your working offline you can’t have the endless aisle that you have online. When you are working offline you really have to curate and that’s actually what Amazon 4 star is all about. We have a highly curated selection from some of the top categories, the most popular categories on Amazon.com. We’ve got devices, electronics, kitchen, toys, home, and all of these hit that 4-star selection bar that we think is so important.

Here at 4-Star what we are trying to do is create an experience where customers can come in, browse, have fun shopping find products they love. With all of these experiences, we are trying to find more ways to connect with our customers. Of course, customers love to shop online, but a lot of customers love to shop offline as well. What we can do with these experiences is create a new type of shopping experiences and help them discover new products.

Our Focus is Connecting With Customers

Another thing you can do in offline that you can’t do online is that customers can come in and touch the products themselves. Certainly, with our device category, customers can come in the store, play with the Fire TV, they can read on the Kindle, they can interact with the Amazon Echo and Alexa products and see how those products work in first person and make a more confident buying decision.

Our focus here is on connecting with customers and if customers come in here and discover products that they love, we know they will come back and over time that can be something big. That’s really what we are focused on today.

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Identity as a Platform on the Cloud is Hot, Hot, Hot

Identity as a platform on the cloud is hot, hot, hot. Companies of all sizes are seeing identity management in the cloud as the future of online security. Many of the major tech companies have entered this space including Oracle, Google, AWS, IBM, and smaller competitors such as OneLogin as well. One company that is all about the identity cloud and is technology agnostic is Okta.

Recently, Okta CEO and co-founder Todd McKinnon talked about their unique platform called the Identity Cloud on CNBC Squawk Box:

Identity Cloud Connects All Technology

Our platform is called the Identity Cloud and what that means is it’s a cloud service that connects all of the technology that you can use at work or a customer uses on your website. It is easy for them to log in and makes it very secure and gives company visibility as to what’s happening with technology.

Every company is thinking about how they can use more technology, how they can do it securely, and how they can make everyone the most productive in their environment and we’re right in the middle of that.

Identity Now Has to be Its Own Platform

This generation of technology, cloud, and mobile, is different from past generations in that in every generation before identity has been part of other platforms, whether it was Windows or Oracle. Now, the pervasiveness of this idea of everyone needing to connect to everything and everything going online and everything going mobile has made it where identity needs to be its own platform.

You have to be able to trust Identity to connect you to all the different technologies you want to use so that you are not beholden to one platform.

Not an Island in the Networks of Cyber Protection

Everyone wants their choice of technology and with choice sometimes comes disparate systems. We integrate it all together. You can get that choice, that best of breed, the right technology for the job while at the same time making that experience amazing for the end user, for your customers to be able to access your systems and for your employees.

Identity Cloud is For All Sizes of Businesses

The prospects for growth are tremendous, both in the US and internationally. This is a worldwide movement and in a lot of ways, we are just scratching the surface.

We help companies adapt to the cloud and we help them build better customer websites and mobile apps. These are being done by companies of all sizes. Whether you are a global 2000 or an SMB we can help them all with this unique cloud platform that can reach to the largest companies in the world down to the smallest businesses as well.

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