UK and Tech Entrepreneurship imperative

In The Lean Startup, Eric Ries states that ‘Entrepreneurs are Everywhere‘, and indeed ‘Entrepreneurship is Management‘.  (Source: http://theleanstartup.com/principles) The underlying emphasis is to ensure that entrepreneurial thinking must exist in all organisations that want to deliver customer-relevant innovations – which is in effect all companies, with the internet, cloud and mobile being ubiquitous in today’s economy.

The Lean Startup Process Diagram, Eric Ries

I would recommend the entrepreneurial / innovative approach to business to any person looking for a rewarding career – with like-minded creative people coming together in order to put a new customer-driven technology experience in place.

In 1988 I started my career in the Tech industry by joining Oxford-based Research Machines (RM) PLC as a Project Manager, attached to a team that were assembled to design and build new PC designs, which were based on AT & MCA IBM PC architectures – some may remember Intel’s 25Mhz 80386 Processor, which was a turbo of its time! It was an exciting period, as a UK company built first-class hardware technology from the ground up. This was effectively my first Entrepreneurial business environment, with a culture of innovation, collaboration, spirit and investing in UK Technology. RM continue to serve their core Education target-market today, although with Services and Solutions providing the major aspect of their business.

Bill & Dave formed HP and gave birth to Silicon Valley in 1938

In the mid 90s I started to work for HP, as the company was pushing the innovation envelope as a global brand – with the Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard legacy, which was later reinvented  under Carly Fiorina. The internet provided immense scope for innovation, when it was born during the 1990s (thanks Sir Tim Berners-Lee 🙂 ), with opportunities for intrapreneurship whilst building the fledgling e-commerce businesses and overall online experience for customers with like-minded colleagues across the business (Per Hoegberg, Emmanuel de-Rycker & Miriam Wong to name but 3 great HP colleagues) – those 4am drives along the M4 from Bristol to Heathrow, for Technical Requirements scoping, were ‘refreshing’! I had the good fortune with BT (E-Commerce, Consumer CRM), Dell (Data Centre Solutions, Acquisition through to Retention Marketing) and now Symantec (Mobile / Tablet Apps, SaaS and Cloud) to lead and contribute to further innovative businesses.

I am now thrilled to witness the growth of London as European Capital (Global Capital? San Francisco may have an alternative view!?) for Tech Entrepreneurship, with Old Street as a hot-bed for the next phase of innovation, with companies like Mind Candy, Hailo and last.fm, and more established tech brands also investing and incubating. I have spoken to Entrepreneurs and Professionals in other European countries, who are considering moving to London in order to capitalise on the UK Entrepreneurial culture, which is building up a head of steam around Mobile, Cloud, Payments, Security, Gaming, Music and more………..

According to the Boston Consulting Group‘s 2012 report, ‘The Connected World’, the internet economy’s contribution to UK GDP is  at 8.3 percent, higher than any other G20 nation’s. The report forecasts that this share will surge to 12.4 per cent by 2016. (Source: Wired http://www.wired.co.uk/topics/silicon-roundabout ) I personally suggest we haven’t even seen the full ‘Mobile Internet Effect’ as yet!

UK-based Tech Entrepreneurs need supporting in their commercial endeavours, as they are a major contributor to the future rebalancing of growth in the economy – nice to see the Government investment to revitalise Silicon Roundabout, and the growth in Senior Tech Networking. This is vital for the UK, vital for Europe, and an excellent juncture for the Global Tech Industry.

Mobile Retail Summit 2013

I joined the Mobile Retail Summit (#mretailsummit) in central London on Wednesday 24^th April, to gather insights on mobile commerce (m-commerce) from attendees including UK retailers and leisure companies, mobile technology and marketing specialists.

What struck me, as I listened to case studies of retailers moving very rapidly to deliver relevant experiences and offers for customers on their smartphones, was the lack of awareness of security on these phones. When one considers that  6.6M Britons made mobile purchases during January this year, with 42% using Android smartphones[1], that’s a large percentage of the country using their phone as a wallet. Combine this with the latest Norton research from the Norton Cybercrime Report that 46% of UK mobile users do not password protect their phone, and that’s a lot of wallets being left wide open!

Other intriguing insights came from the growing mobile retail trend of location-based marketing, where those who have opted in can receive special offers and services as they pass a nearby store. A shoe company named Meat Pack[2] managed to divert 600 customers to their stores with a targeted time-based discount offer, delivered inside a shopping mall. The ability to create an on-the-fly campaign at any time means even factors such as the weather can also now be used to target customers with offers from porridge to DIY!

If companies want to encourage more people to use mobile commerce, and take advantage of these possibilities, we are all going to need to work hard to educate and reassure the public that mobile commerce is safe. Our latest Norton Cybercrime Report also showed that only 20% of UK consumers feel safe making purchases on their mobile devices.

5 Tips for Customer Experience Excellence

1. Bring the Customer in to your Organisation

Whether the medium is Facebook, a User Forum, a Support Call or talking to Customers at a Retail Partner Store, it’s vitally important that a joined-up and genuine dialogue is prevalent in order to gain direct insight to constantly improve what you do. ‘Customer is King’ (or Queen) should be the adage, and an approach to an outwards-in ethos to designing the overall experience, including cross-functional rewards and remuneration, is key.

2. Let the Customer design their own experience

Customers are individuals. Yes they are targeted as a Segment, with similar values, behaviours and attitudes, however the subtle patterns of their own lives mean that they will be in the best position to describe to you how they would like to research, select, buy and use your product or service. Malleable Web site designs, and now dynamic Smartphone Apps, mean that a combination of User prioritisation, coupled with socio-demographic predictive modelling and geo-location, will provide the right customer experience.

3. Be where the Customer wants to shop and buy

A cross-channel strategy is tricky for any company, however the customer doesn’t care about the complexities of siloed teams or differentiated pricing. What they want is to be able to buy, and later Upgrade, in a way that best suits them. Differing Partner routes-to-market, along-side direct e-commerce, need to be designed with the customer behaviour trends in mind.

4. Don’t weigh down a Customer’s wallet

Take the balanced short and longer-term view with a Customer. A Customer who perceives real value will tell family and friends, and is likely to buy more from you. A combination of ‘Actual’ Value (what they have bought) and ‘Potential’ Value (what they will potentially buy & recommend in the future) should be used to guide how they are asked for cash. Too much irrelevant short-term cross-sell or up-sell may turn them away from being an advocate for your brand proposition, and the lost word-of-mouth sales that would result.

5. Recognise a Customer’s Value

‘Thank You’ doesn’t cost, however it is not always used or reinforced when a Customer has spent their hard-earned disposable income on your proposition. Whether explicitly used, at or just after the initial purchase, or implicit, in the tone of the ongoing correspondence or special offers, it highlights how much importance you bestow on their custom.

Andrew Ford, July 2013

Your Life on Your Smartphone

A friend of mine recently changed her Smartphone Contract with a well known High Street Retailer. Before collecting her replacement phone she diligently backed everything up… except her photos, due to the size of the high-res files. The shop assistant said not to worry because he could download the photos, from her smartphone, onto a USB key (via a laptop in the store). She could then upload the images onto her own PC at home. As the download would take nearly an hour she left her smartphone in the store while she went about her business rather than wait, guarding her phone, while the download completed. How trusting of her! When the download was complete my friend’s new smartphone was returned along with a USB stick full of photos, however she wouldn’t have known if such precious data went elsewhere as well!

There is no way I would consider leaving my unlocked smartphone with someone I didn’t know while photos were downloaded. How could my friend be sure only her photos were being downloaded? How could she be sure her e-commerce credit card / mobile banking details weren’t being hacked? How did she know her phone wasn’t being cloned or infected with malware?

Smartphones have all our personal details stored on them, and are increasingly becoming mobile wallets, so I would be extremely reticent to leave it unattended, even for a minute. This experience coupled with findings from Symantec’s recent Internet Security Threat Report (ISTR) show that mobile vulnerabilities increased by 93% in 2011. Increasingly ‘time-poor people’ are using Mobile Banking or Mobile commerce on-the-move. Malware authors are creating mobile-specific versions geared to the unique smartphone usage pattern. 2011 was the first year that mobile malware presented a tangible threat.

We need to be even more vigilant as these threats are specifically targeting sensitive personal data. We don’t need to help the cybercriminals by being lax in looking after our smartphone and mobile devices. It continues to be important to ensure we password protect our devices and using mobile security software. We all need to look after our devices with the same vigilance as we look after our wallet, purse or house keys.

http://www.mobilesecurity.com