Modern-day consumer expectations are very high and the industry is also competitive, which means that if you cannot offer a modern, efficient service and high-quality products, then potential buyers will simply take their business elsewhere.

Chatbots are becoming increasingly common and important in e-commerce
Share on X

It can also be difficult to know the best ways to modernise when there are constantly new developments and trends appearing seemingly every week. Here are a few of the best ways to modernise your e-commerce store and hopefully help you stay ahead of the curve.

Chatbots

Chatbots are becoming increasingly common and important in e-commerce as AI technology continues to improve. People often have questions when it comes to online shopping, and being able to answer these immediately could help to improve conversions and stop people from using another store.

Offering voice search could help your store to stand out and be accessible to more users
Share on X

Voice Search

The rise of personal assistant devices in recent times has led to an increase in voice searches which is expected to surge in the coming years. Therefore, offering this service could help your store to stand out and be accessible to more users.

Mobile-Optimised

Following this, more and more people are shopping on their mobile devices, so it is important that your e-commerce store is mobile-optimised. Mobile use is predicted to overtake desktop shopping within the next few years, so optimisation is vital if you’re to stay ahead. It is also helpful for improving your search engine ranking.

Mobile use is predicted to overtake desktop shopping within the next few years
Share on X

Warehouse Management Systems

It is not just the store that you need to modernise, as the warehouse is an area of the business which can often cause stress and slow down the operation. This is why the best warehouse management systems should be implemented to streamline the entire operation and help with the daily running for increased efficiency while making work much easier for staff.

The warehouse is an area of the business which can often cause stress and slow down operations
Share on X

Product Visualisation

Product visualisation is crucial for converting visitors into customers, but you will need to provide more than just a few photos to compete in today’s market. Many e-commerce businesses are now including videos that help people see the product in action, and from all angles. But you could take this a step further with Augmented Reality which will enable them to see the product in a “real-life” setting. This is particularly helpful for products like hats, glasses, and furniture.

Product visualisation is crucial for converting visitors into customers
Share on X

Personalisation

Personalisation is a huge trend occurring in e-commerce right now as consumers expect to have a shopping experience based on their individual preferences. Being able to collect and interpret customer data with machine learning can enable an e-commerce business to recommend relevant products that can boost sales and enhance the overall customer experience.

Augmented Reality could enable your customers to see the product in a “real-life” setting
Share on X

It is essential that you stay current when it comes to e-commerce technology and trends. The above examples are just a few of the main types of technology that are currently being utilised. Implementing these technologies could help your store stay ahead and provide a better experience for customers.

Implementing these technologies could help your store stay ahead and provide a better experience for customers
Share on X

Tech Trends offers a broad range of Digital Consultancy services to guide companies, individuals and brands in effectively leveraging existing and emerging technologies in their business strategy.

The post Tech Trends in E-commerce appeared first on Tech Trends.

So, you want my attention? Then you’d better inform me, entertain me, or offer me something that has a real, clear, and immediate value. Preferably all of the above.

While it is true that traditional advertising still generates plenty of revenue, the writing is on the wall as people’s attention spans – already very short – become even shorter, and we become ever more adept at ignoring blatant messages that are forcibly bombarded at us in the digital advertising arena.

Ad blockers are becoming increasingly common, so much so that some websites have started to demand you turn them off before you’re allowed to browse their content
Share on X

The fact is that online advertising doesn’t really do it for me most of the time, because when I’m online I’m doing something – either for work or fun, or a mixture of both – and my brain automatically sifts through any pesky interruptions. The only engagement that pop-up windows get from me is enough eyeball time to locate the little cross to close them so I can get on with my business already.

Ad blockers are becoming increasingly common, so much so that some websites have started to demand you turn them off before you’re allowed to browse their content (I immediately leave such sites out of principle, nobody likes being told what to do in that way)

The fact is that most consumers actually prefer to engage with more traditional out-of-home advertising such as billboards, but this comes with another whole set of shortcomings compared to digital
Share on X

Advertising, in other words, needs to be relevant, but not pushy, and relevant, but not in a creepy way. For instance, I sometimes do notice the bots that follow my web journeys and try to capitalize on what I’ve been searching, and the fact I notice I’m being targeted makes me less likely to engage with them.

A classic example is that of a friend who told me that he once needed to buy a toilet seat to replace a broken one, and after he made that less-than-thrilling but necessary purchase, seemed to be forever doomed with being pushed adverts for toilet seats on Facebook. “I don’t collect them, you know” he mused.

The fact is that most consumers actually prefer to engage with more traditional out-of-home advertising such as billboards, but this comes with another whole set of shortcomings compared to digital – namely inflexibility, lack of interactivity and inability to measure results, not to mention the fact that this option is simply out of reach for most small-scale businesses, since the industry is highly centralized and controlled by a few established players which impose high costs and tend to be rather inflexible and antiquated in their requirements.

Advertisers can book displays in near real-time and run their campaigns on the screens selected by them within the desired radius or area
Share on X

Digital out-of-home advertising (DOOH) until recently also fell into that category, but here’s where the technology trend that has disrupted every other major industry – namely the shared economy that has given us Airbnb, Uber and countless others– could come into play to level the playing field.

A platform that is looking to do just that is HYGH, which connects advertisers directly with outdoor display providers so they can create hyperlocal advertising campaigns at a much lower cost.

The idea is that any screen – tablets, televisions, digital billboards, etc. – in a public space can be converted into ad space, no matter its location or intended purpose. The owner of the screen can easily download the software and link it to the HYGH platform. Once paired, the device becomes a node in a flexible advertising chain that is available for interested businesses to leverage and engage consumers with.

The idea is that any screen – tablets, televisions, digital billboards, etc. - in a public space can be converted into ad space
Share on X

Advertisers can book displays in near real-time and run their campaigns on the screens selected by them within the desired radius or area. They can also pick specific time slots for their advertisement to be played, which in return helps them to target the right audience. HYGH simplifies the booking process so they only need to register in the system, create a campaign, search for displays and soon the campaign is good to go live.

This could prove to be a lifeline for many bricks-and-mortar businesses currently struggling to stay competitive in the high street, which can monetize parts of their real estate by allowing such displays on their premises.

The advantage of such an approach is that it combines the scalability and ease of deployment that you get with online advertising with the engaging, impactful location-based user experience, with precise targeting powered by smart analysis. This allows campaigns to be highly customizable, interactive and adaptive.

The advantage of such an approach is that it combines the scalability and ease of deployment that you get with online advertising with the engaging, impactful location-based user experience
Share on X

Under their revenue share model, the display owner gets 83.5%, validators will receive 2.5%, HYGH takes a rather modest 5% cut, and security token holders receive 9%. The idea here is to build a globally distributed ecosystem by ensuring that all parties derive maximum ROI from it.

So where it comes to the future of advertising, the strategy pioneered by HYGH here really takes the best of both worlds by bringing the physical and digital together in one blended and coherent user experience. Where it comes to getting your message across without annoying your prospective customers, that really would seem like the smartest approach.

So, you want my attention? Then you’d better inform me, entertain me, or offer me something that has a real, clear, and immediate value. Preferably all of the above
Share on X

Tech Trends offers a broad range of Digital Consultancy services to guide companies, individuals and brands in effectively leveraging existing and emerging technologies in their business strategy.

Alice Bonasio is a XR and Digital Transformation Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Shared Economy Advertising appeared first on Tech Trends.

By Maria Letizia Mariani, Market Group Leader Europe, Signify

Forward-thinking organisations are capitalising on this trend –transforming offices into structures for promoting employee productivity, wellbeing and competitive advantage.

With new levels of connectivity, and the rise of the Internet of Things, people expect to be online 24/7. They want to access what they need, when they need it, with services tailored to suit them. The same applies to offices where people expect more from advanced technology in the workplace.

Leading the charge in smart building technology is connected LED lighting. And while most people are familiar with the energy savings and lower maintenance costs afforded by switching to LED, few really appreciate the role lighting can play in increasing the operational efficiency of their business and comfort, productivity and wellbeing of their workers.

With new levels of connectivity, and the rise of the Internet of Things, people expect to be online 24/7
Share on X

Consultancy firm Deloitte has been at the forefront of adopting smart office technology. It’s Dutch headquarters, ‘The Edge’ in Amsterdam, is dubbed the most intelligent and sustainable office in the world. Its connected lighting system, from signify was instrumental in creating a more comfortable, productive and sustainable environment for its employees. Taking a leaf from the book of their Dutch colleagues, Deloitte Digital has now equipped its office in Milan with similar technology – becoming the first office in Italy to use our flagship Interact Office lighting system. In this instance, some 250 office luminaires are connected to and powered by the building’s computer cabling (Power over Ethernet network). This does two things. Firstly, it standardises wiring and eliminates the need for separate electrical wiring to power the lights. Secondly, it makes it easy for the lighting to be integrated into the building’s IT network.

Forward-thinking organisations are transforming offices into structures for promoting employee productivity, wellbeing and competitive advantage
Share on X

Of course, the company expects to reap 50-70% energy savings and lower maintenance costs by switching to new energy efficient smart lighting. The long-lasting connected lights automatically dim during the day depending on outside light levels and switch off when people leave meeting rooms. They also send data on their performance and energy use to the building’s facility manager. But energy savings are only a part of the Deloitte Digital story.

The long-lasting connected lights automatically dim during the day depending on outside light levels and switch off when people leave meeting rooms
Share on X

Much more than energy savings

Managers at the office in Milan, wanted their staff to have greater control of their workspace. They saw a role for lighting to support flexible working and the company’s new open plan office environment. They also wanted to gain valuable insights into how people use spaces in the office, so that they could improve operational efficiencies and reduce costs further.

Where the value of connected lighting really comes into its own as it offers building managers insights into how well their office space is utilised
Share on X

Of course, people are the biggest cost to any organisation. While figures vary depending on office size and type of organisation, average office expenditures (per square foot, per year) broadly equate to $3 for utilities, $30 for rent, and $300 for people cost. This means a 10% increase in energy efficiency will create a $0.30 saving per square foot while a 10% saving in people costs will generate a $30 saving per employee per square foot. And this is where the value of connected lighting really comes into its own as it offers building managers insights into how well their office space is utilised. By better utilising space, companies can make big savings.

Few people really appreciate the role lighting can play in increasing the operational efficiency of their business and comfort, productivity and wellbeing of their workers
Share on X

Occupancy sensors embedded in the office luminaires acquire data and the resulting information tells a facility manager if a room or space is occupied or not. Over time an accurate model depicting space utilisation is built. At The Edge, Deloitte’s office in Amsterdam, analysis of such data revealed that the office was under-utilised. Subsequently, the company added 1,000 more staff, realising an annual space utilisation saving of EUR 3.6 million!

Deloitte expects to reap 50-70% energy savings and lower maintenance costs by switching to new energy efficient smart lighting
Share on X

Workers are taking control

It’s not all about savings though. Deloitte Digital staff in Milan can personalize the lighting in their immediate space using their smart phones. This contributes to employee satisfaction – a proven factor in attracting and retaining top talent. Furthermore, employees can now adjust light levels to suit any given task, helping them to improve their productivity.

Deloitte Digital staff in Milan can personalize the lighting in their immediate space using their smart phones
Share on X

Finally, our Interact Office lighting system in Milan offers flexibility for the future. Software apps can be written to it using its APIs, making integration into platforms, such as room booking systems, quick and straight forward. Looking to the future, Deloitte and Signify share a similar vision – believing that lighting is a convenient backbone for truly smart offices. Offices that improve the lives of people at work and transform the way businesses operate.

Employees can now adjust light levels to suit any given task, helping them to improve their productivity
Share on X

The post Expert View: The Connected Office appeared first on Tech Trends.

AI platform Globality is giving small and medium businesses access to broader opportunities.

In a post-Brexit, “America First” world, protectionism seems to be back in fashion, and globalization has become something of a dirty word. Since the 1990s, global trade has helped lift over a billion people out of poverty, driven sustained economic growth, lowered consumer prices, and delivered unprecedented freedoms to much of the world’s population.

Large multinational companies still seem to be the greatest beneficiaries of a globalized marketplace
Share on X

Still, middle-income earners have seen their living standards stagnate, while many of the great leaps forward in automation are destroying the jobs of those least able to cope, with vastly greater levels of disruption feared.

Large multinational companies still seem to be the greatest beneficiaries of a globalized marketplace. Small and medium-sized businesses, which constitute the bulk of the world’s economy and drive most job creation, find it more difficult to make valuable connections that can lead to international trade opportunities and contracts with large organizations.

In a post-Brexit, America First world, protectionism seems to be back in fashion
Share on X

This is due in large part to the outdated procurement process based on Requests for Proposals (RFPs), which is still the standard across most industries. RFPs are not only extremely time consuming, but such competitions are used as cover for a procurement decision that has already been made, so prospective smaller suppliers never really stand a chance.

Small and medium-sized businesses, which drive the bulk of the world’s economy and job creation, find it more difficult to make connections
Share on X

Joel Hyatt cofounded Globality to prove that technology could be the missing link to make globalization work for more businesses. By providing a matchmaking platform that connects big clients–Fortune 500 companies spanning financial services, pharmaceuticals, food and beverage, consumer goods, and other sectors–with a diverse pool of providers, he wants to help those small and medium-sized companies land contracts that would otherwise be out of their reach.

Joel Hyatt cofounded Globality to prove that technology could be the missing link to make globalization work for more businesses
Share on X

He served as the national finance chair for the Democratic Party during Al Gore’s presidential campaign in 2000, and after the election, partnered with Gore to start a media company that they sold in 2013. When Hyatt started Globality in 2015, Gore became an investor. The company has since raised $35 million in their latest funding round and embarked on a major expansion of its platform that uses artificial intelligence to match the small clients with big contracts all over the world. So far, over a dozen fortune 500 companies and over 40 multinational corporations have signed up on the client side, and its SME (Small and Medium Sized Enterprise) Service Provider Network covers every continent and more than 100 countries.

The platform is made up of three main elements, explains Globality CTO Ran Harpaz: The first gathers information from the client, helping them to determine what their real needs are. The second matches them with the best service provider to fulfill those needs, and the third helps build the relationship by fostering collaboration between the two parties.

What Globality is doing is making high-level knowledge and expertise accessible to a much larger pool of companies and people
Share on X

For the first part, the client answers a detailed Q&A devised by their experts. Their algorithms then extract a variety of data points from those clients using NLP (Natural Language Processing) and continues to build upon that in a constant learning loop. It takes all the information from the questions it asks of both client and providers during the matching process to suggest a shortlist of possible matches, which is then reviewed by an industry expert consultant at the final stages.

Enabling smaller companies to become micro-multinationals means they will fuel job creation and economic growth throughout the developed and developing world
Share on X

This AI-powered consultancy model effectively harnesses the best of both worlds, according to Harpaz, as it scales the nuanced, sector-specific expertise that traditionally comes at a prohibitive premium. By leveraging machine learning to recognize interactions–often spotting patterns in the data that might not have occurred to a person and using that in the matching process–this high-level human know-how becomes accessible to companies without multimillion-dollar consultancy budgets at their disposal.

“At every step, the system is collating feedback from both sides, learning from signals that tell it how the match is actually working in practice by prompting them with questions based on interaction data,” Harpaz says. “This systematic approach to human knowledge representation effectively gives people superpowers, by taking that magic sauce of human interaction and knowledge, and making it possible to apply that consistently and at scale.”

Although this process is building toward ever more efficient automation, Harpaz says that they will always need a human expert to look at those matches with a strategic eye and make the final decision on the most suitable pairings. “What Globality is doing is making high-level knowledge and expertise accessible to a much larger pool of companies and people, rather than only the large corporations who have been traditionally able to afford the services of consultancy firms,” he explains. Globality’s pricing model is usually free for client companies, with suppliers being charged a percentage of the contract’s value, but only once they receive payment themselves for the services they provided.

Waqqas Mir, a partner at Axis Law Chambers, a law firm based in Lahore, Pakistan, is one of the suppliers using Globality to reach international clients. Mir feels that law firms such as his in developing countries often lose out on such business because of their size. Being on the platform, however, gives them the opportunity to open up new channels of communication, which he believes provides great value in the long term. “That allows you to begin a relationship and remain on their radar,” he explains. “The whole thing is motivated by a desire to ensure a more inclusive global economy.”

Globality matched a Fortune 50 company with South African marketing agency Colourworks. The company had to find service providers who were Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment-certified by the South African government. “So we worked backwards from that, looking at all the providers who matched the certification criteria, and narrowing it down from there,” Harpaz says.

Since winning the Africa account, the agency has continued to use the Globality platform to connect with their new client on a global level, and are now exploring the possibility of working with them in Germany. “In this day and age, it is so easy to do business online or over video conferencing, so distance is really not a barrier,” says Lexy Geyer, account director at Colourworks.

Enabling smaller companies to become “micro-multinationals” means they will in turn fuel job creation and economic growth throughout the developed and developing world. Globalization and AI are often portrayed as inevitable waves of disruption that will leave chaos and inequality in their wake and ultimately make much of humankind and their skills redundant. But if platforms like Globality continue to create opportunities for diverse smaller businesss in this global marketplace, perhaps globalization can become a force for good.

This article was originally published in The Fast Company

Al Gore-backed AI platform aims to make globalization more equitable https://t.co/KwdblIl8Ku pic.twitter.com/iZKz9yZOOt

— Fast Company (@FastCompany) March 2, 2018

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Making globalization work for SMEs with Artificial Intelligence appeared first on Tech Trends.