How workplaces at high-tech social media giants meld work and leisure

According to Edel Mahony's research, from All Systems Commercial Fitouts, there is a new phenomenon called 'Bleisure', referring to the blend of work and personal life, or leisure time and he showcases in his infographic how the big tech giants (Facebook, Google and Twitter) are accommodating this for their workforce through innovative work and social spaces. Google provide free food for their staff (is this for the staff to work longer hours or to keep them sweet?) and nap pods (for late nights or does a quick nap increase productivity?). Facebook's 'Bleisure' code is driven to 'change people's thinking' through their work environment by offering cupcake stores, barbeque joints and workable walkways for fast meetings. Jeremy Myerson, Co-Editor of Time and Motion Redesigning Working Life, sees this new future as the 'new contemporary workforce where the gates never close'. This may not be…

How financial services firms can harness the digital revolution

Consumer expectations are growing. Recent research suggests that given the chance, over half of financial consumers would opt to bank with Amazon. Why? Because a company famous for delivery innovation, outstanding customer service and indeed, thinking outside the box, has fundamentally disrupted the service industry, reinventing what it means to provide a best in class customer experience. We believe that in the age of the expectation economy, there is much that retail giant Amazon and disruptors like it, can teach brands about what it means to provide an outstanding experience and stand out from the crowd. There is no shortage of commentators noting that the retail banking is set for change with a new breed of innovators entering the industry. It’s not only Millennials that are demanding more Amazon-like experiences from every service provider and banks need to catch up quickly. All customers…

Chart of the Day: South Korea, Singapore and the Netherlands lead the world in Digital Adoption

This is a first for us - a non-digital chart of the day! It comes (courtesy of a scanner) from the brand spanking new 2017 edition of The Economist's World in Figures, and has not yet been released digitally. Which is somewhat ironic, given it's subject! The Economist measured the adoption of digital technologies across business, government and among consumers. It found South Korea, Singapore and the Netherlands were leading the world when it comes to the adoption of digital technologies. It's interesting how global this list is. Rather than being concentrated entirely in Europe and North America, this list features countries from North East Asia, South East Asia, the Middle East and Eastern Europe, as well as the more expected Western Europe and America. The digital revolution is creating a more connected world - one…

Marketing agencies need to learn from tech leaders

Having spent ten years spearheading one of the UK’s leading dot com companies to digital success, Dave Heath is now shaking up the agency landscape by taking dot com thinking into agency processes. Dave believes all companies should behave like a dot com; and an agency’s role is to help clients take a dot com approach to gain competitive advantage, especially where technology is core to achieving business goals – arguably in 2016 this is almost every company.

[si_definition title="What is it? Dot Com" description="A dot com company is a company that does most of its business on the internet, usually through a website that uses the popular top-level domain “.com”."/]

Some of the largest dot com companies are undoubtedly leading the field in digital innovation, delivering huge profits as a result. 
Dot coms tend to act differently to multi-channel businesses that have added…

How to achieve organisational excellence

Organizational excellence is desired by every business, but many business leaders are never able to determine how it is achieved. It has often been said that 'change is a constant in businesses', but it is particularly relevant today from a marketing point-of-view with the growth in digital transformation projects. There is no single shortcut to organizational excellence; you need to take a multi-channel approach to improving and optimizing business performance. At Performance pH, we have designed a methodology for achieving organizational excellence, which we refer to at the 10 Levers of Optimal Business Performance.

1. Strategic Direction

Building an effective organization begins with understanding your company’s purpose. Once that occurs you can more clearly defining your long-term goals. Next, objectives can be defined that help you move toward achieving your goals. These objectives can then be assigned to people within the organization so that a named person or team of people owns the…

Tackling the challenge of Digital Transformation

One the one hand, we’ve become so accustomed to digital technology, we’re no longer able to imagine life without it. And yet, when it comes to the digital transformation of the workplace, we still have a long way to go. The greatest hurdle digital transformation is going to face is, simply put, people. To clarify, there are a number of things that don’t have to do with technical innovations that are going to make the process more complicated. That’s not to say that creating the proper infrastructure to accommodate the rapid pace of development is not going to be a major issue in and of itself. But a number of key factors in implementing digital solutions are related to people. And while tech is relatively easy to change and adapt, people are not. However, the situation is not as bleak as it sounds if you break…

In today's innovative economy, businesses need to embrace digital transformation to stay ahead.

According to new research from The Economist, Britain and America are the most innovative major economies. This is great news for the economy as a whole, but it means businesses within the economy can't afford to be complacent. With increased innovativeness comes increased competition for established businesses. Thus they need to embark on digital transformation programs if they haven't already. Staying still is not an option. It is also interesting how China is 'punching about its weight' when it comes to innovation plotted against GDP per capita. This again should be a warning to major brands to expect stiff competition from China's emerging digital champions, who are using the lessons they've learnt appealing to price-conscious mobile consumers in their home market. Both East and West can learn from each other.

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Western countries will see huge increase in the number of connected devices per person

New data forecasts show how the number of connected devices is set to explode, approximately doubling the rate seen in 2014 in just three more years. Interestingly, it is the areas that already have the most connected devices which will see the biggest increase. North America, which leads the world in connected devices per person is set to have over 11 connected devices per person on average by 2019. This mean a typical family home with four people in may have 44 connected devices! All these connected devices will be creating data, and lots of it. This raises privacy concerns, but also the possibility of understanding customers far better than we do now. Would you want your Smart fridge to tell advertisers that you are out of Yogurt, so all…

How to go about transforming your business in a competitive market

We live in a time of digital Darwinism, an era when technology and its impact on business and society are constant with varying, but inevitable, degrees of both evolution and revolution. The effect of digital Darwinism is real and it’s enlivened though changes in people (your customers, employees and partners) and how markets are advancing as a result. To thrive in these times, many companies are investing in digital transformation to drive business evolution and modernization. In fact, all the big research firms and consultancies from Deloitte to Accenture to CapGemini and also my team at Altimeter Group are dedicating significant resources to study how companies are changing because of digital. For all of its exposure (or over exposure), digital transformation is relatively young and still developing with much still to understand. For example, in my previous research, I found that…

Luke Bilton, Director of Digital at UBM, interviews Claire Hazle of Marie Curie

Claire Hazle, Head of Digital for Marie Curie, is taking the charity through a period of transformation… just don’t call it ‘digital’. “Digital transformation is business transformation. A business strategy with digital at the heart of it.” Claire Hazle, Head of Digital at Marie Curie Speaking at a Digital Transformation conference earlier this month, Claire explained the transformation journey that the team have been through. In 2012, Marie Curie commissioned a review of their digital capabilities and found they were 3 to 5 years behind charities of a similar size, with talent dispersed across the group with no strategic digital direction to bind them. The independent report highlighted the charity would face significant limitations to future income if they did not improve the digital channels to make it easy to recruit and…