customer experience – Adobe /adobe-blog Perspectives on Adobe Digital Marketing Platform Technologies Wed, 22 Jun 2016 17:47:21 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.5.3 Copyright © Perficient Blogs 2011 gserafini@gmail.com (Adobe) gserafini@gmail.com (Adobe) /adobe-blog/wp-content/plugins/podpress/images/powered_by_podpress.jpg Adobe /adobe-blog 144 144 Blogs at Perficient Adobe Adobe gserafini@gmail.com no no Why Consumers Aren’t Satisfied with the Digital Experience /adobe-blog/2016/06/06/why-consumers-arent-satisfied-with-the-digital-experience/ /adobe-blog/2016/06/06/why-consumers-arent-satisfied-with-the-digital-experience/#respond Mon, 06 Jun 2016 19:05:09 +0000 /adobe-blog/?p=8795 Why Consumers Aren’t Satisfied with the Digital Experience was first posted on June 6, 2016 at 2:05 pm.
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Did you know that 45% of consumers are less than satisfied with their experience on digital channels?

What’s lurking behind this customer experience issue? There are a number of reasons, and data fragmentation is among them.

Consider for a moment at how fast data is growing each day. Worldwide digital data grows exponentially, and it’s expected to double every two years. What’s surprising is that only 0.5% of it is ever analyzed.

The profound volume and types of data created is a blessing and a curse for marketers. There’s an opportunity to harness this information, using it to make data-driven business decisions and providing more personalized experiences.

Data silos are among the top obstacles for marketers – where data lives and how it integrates with other systems so it can be accessed and used by the people who need it.

Other challenges involve technology and people. Many organizations lack the right analytics tools and people with the right skills or training that can turn data into insights.

How do you overcome this? And more importantly, how can you improve the 45% of consumers who aren’t satisfied with their experience?

When you employ a digital marketing platform like Adobe Marketing Cloud, you will be able to track, analyze, and report on customers’ activities across digital marketing channels – not just what happens on your website.

Want to learn more about demolishing data silos and solving other common digital marketing challenges? Download our latest guide below.


Why Consumers Aren’t Satisfied with the Digital Experience was first posted on June 6, 2016 at 2:05 pm.
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Connecting the Dots to Streamline the Customer Experience /adobe-blog/2016/05/26/connecting-the-dots-to-streamline-the-customer-experience/ /adobe-blog/2016/05/26/connecting-the-dots-to-streamline-the-customer-experience/#respond Thu, 26 May 2016 15:15:22 +0000 /adobe-blog/?p=8783 Connecting the Dots to Streamline the Customer Experience was first posted on May 26, 2016 at 10:15 am.
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After a recent shopping trip to one of my favorite stores, I walked away perplexed by a question asked by the salesperson. I’m a loyal customer of this retailer, and I receive multiple emails a week about the latest sales. And yet, I’m always puzzled when paying for my purchase and I’m asked, “What’s your email address?”

Sound familiar?

Between call centers, social media, email, mobile apps, and brick-and-mortar stores, your customers have multiple options for engaging with your company. The downside is that when the data coming from these channels aren’t connected, the experience can be confusing and off-putting. Not to mention that your customers’ frustration can be amplified when encountering vastly different experiences across your mobile, desktop, and eCommerce sites.

As a digital marketer, you must optimize content to maintain customers’ attention and meet their expectations to remain competitive. You might wonder, “How will this impact my business?”

A study of customer journeys by Harvard Business Review followed companies in two industries, insurance and pay TV. The companies that excelled in delivering journeys outperformed the competition with:

  • 30-40% improvement in overall customer satisfaction
  • 20-30% better performance in revenue, repeat purchases, and positive word of mouth

When you focus on delivering a journey that aligns to customer expectations, you position yourself to jump ahead of the competition. With a digital marketing platform like Adobe Marketing Cloud, you can create a seamless customer journey by organizing data and delivering a connected experience.

Want to learn more about creating a connected customer journey and solving other common digital marketing challenges? Download our latest guide below.


Connecting the Dots to Streamline the Customer Experience was first posted on May 26, 2016 at 10:15 am.
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Let’s Get Personal: How to Overcome Elevated Expectations /adobe-blog/2016/05/18/lets-get-personal-how-to-overcome-elevated-expectations/ /adobe-blog/2016/05/18/lets-get-personal-how-to-overcome-elevated-expectations/#respond Wed, 18 May 2016 20:26:51 +0000 http://blogs.perficient.com/digexplatforms/?p=3949 Let’s Get Personal: How to Overcome Elevated Expectations was first posted on May 18, 2016 at 3:26 pm.
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Creating a customer-centric experience in the digital world is no longer a lofty objective – it’s a necessity.

According to Gartner, 89% of companies expect to compete on customer experience in 2016. And in just four years, it’s estimated that 85% of a customer’s relationship with a brand won’t include face-to-face interactions. (Got your attention?)

Personalization is key not only for customer acquisition but also for customer retention. In the 2016 Annual Digital Trends Survey, companies that want to meet (or exceed) customer expectations need to deliver experiences that are: 2016 Digital Marketing Trends_Adobe_top_3_must_haves

  • Personalized and relevant (25%)
  • Valuable (25%)
  • Easy to understand (17%)

To create personalized experiences, marketing organizations need a solid digital marketing platform that supports their well-defined personalization strategies.

Many marketing departments choose to standardize on a single platform, easing the support and integration required for disparate, existing tools. Adobe Experience Manager, the content management pillar within the Adobe Marketing Cloud, is one such example.

Updates included in the recent release of Adobe Experience Manager 6.2 include features that make it easier for marketers to:

  • Personalize and target offers
  • Understand which assets are performing well (or not so well)
  • Create connected experiences across mobile apps, forms, and in-person (or in-store)

Want to learn more about exceeding customer expectations and solving other common digital marketing challenges? Download our latest guide below.


Let’s Get Personal: How to Overcome Elevated Expectations was first posted on May 18, 2016 at 3:26 pm.
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7 Expert Tips for Success with Digital Marketing Platforms /adobe-blog/2016/05/09/7-expert-tips-for-success-with-digital-marketing-platforms/ /adobe-blog/2016/05/09/7-expert-tips-for-success-with-digital-marketing-platforms/#respond Mon, 09 May 2016 13:36:42 +0000 http://blogs.perficient.com/digexplatforms/?p=3819 7 Expert Tips for Success with Digital Marketing Platforms was first posted on May 9, 2016 at 8:36 am.
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The customer experience (CX) is paramount to digital marketing success. As a marketer, you know that quality data is essential to better understanding customers and delivering on your brand promise. You also know that delivering optimized content and creating a personalized experience across all channels are key to driving customer engagement.

However, delivering a top-notch CX poses several challenges, particularly when it comes to integrating technology with existing marketing processes and platforms. Follow these seven expert tips to help you optimize your digital marketing platforms.

Like what you see? Download our guide, Solve Three Common Digital Marketing Challenges with Adobe Marketing Cloud.

Adobe_7_Expert_Tips_for_Digital_Marketing_Platforms_infographic_final


7 Expert Tips for Success with Digital Marketing Platforms was first posted on May 9, 2016 at 8:36 am.
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Top Three Takeaways from Adobe Summit /adobe-blog/2016/03/25/top-three-takeaways-from-adobe-summit/ /adobe-blog/2016/03/25/top-three-takeaways-from-adobe-summit/#respond Fri, 25 Mar 2016 16:00:06 +0000 http://blogs.perficient.com/digexplatforms/?p=3246 Top Three Takeaways from Adobe Summit was first posted on March 25, 2016 at 11:00 am.
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Adobe Summit 2016 was an unforgettable experience. The leading industry event for marketing and business transformation attracted a record-breaking 10,000 attendees in Las Vegas.

Our team was on the ground at Summit, learning about the latest innovations from Adobe and how marketers need to lead the transformation of creating an experience-led business.

Michael Porter, managing principal of Perficient’s strategic advisors, was among the team members at Summit, and he shares his perspective on the top three takeaways from the event.

 

What experiences or technologies at Adobe Summit impressed you the most?


Top Three Takeaways from Adobe Summit was first posted on March 25, 2016 at 11:00 am.
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Bold Creativity in a Data-Driven World – Adobe Summit, Day 2 /adobe-blog/2016/03/24/bold-creativity-in-a-data-driven-world-adobe-summit-day-2/ /adobe-blog/2016/03/24/bold-creativity-in-a-data-driven-world-adobe-summit-day-2/#respond Thu, 24 Mar 2016 19:18:55 +0000 http://blogs.perficient.com/digexplatforms/?p=3223 Bold Creativity in a Data-Driven World – Adobe Summit, Day 2 was first posted on March 24, 2016 at 2:18 pm.
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What do Mattel, Abby Wambach, Cirque Du Soleil, and George Clooney have in common?

I’ll wait for you to Google it…AdobeSummit_Day2_Mellor_Data Did you come up with the answer?

According to John Mellor, Adobe’s VP of Strategy and Business Development, they all are boldly creative in a world driven by data. This is what’s required to make the transformation to an experience-led business.

“Our jobs demand more data to create those experiences, but data is just a piece of the puzzle. Data alone is insufficient until we can wrap meaning around it. Our job is to transform that data into content that gives meaning to the experience,” he said.

Mellor also revealed results of a Twitter poll of Summit attendees, revealing that more than 40% believe their organization is “slow and steady” to adapt to this change of pace. Herein lies the challenge for many brands: combine data and science with content to tell great stories at scale.

“It’s through the power of storytelling that you can create the experiences and personal connections we all crave,” Mellor stated.

While Mattel, Cirque du Soleil, Wambach, and Clooney all shared captivating stories, below are highlights from two of the talks.

“Sometimes the most valuable invention is reinvention”

For most of us, our connection to Mattel stems from our childhood. Whether you loved Barbie, Hot Wheels, Fisher Price, or American Girl, Mattel is etched in our memories.

Richard Dickson, President and COO of Mattel, shared the story of how the brand started as a creations company by transforming the traditional paper fashion dolls into Barbie dolls, and “reinventing the toy car as a cultural phenomenon.” (Hot Wheels)Reinvention_Challenge_AdobeSummit

However as the brand succeeded and the company grew, Mattel lost its way and devolved into a packaged goods company that made toys.

The company realized it had to challenge the status quo to rise as a leading brand in “playtime.” Mattel applied the reinvention roadmap to reboot Barbie and disrupt the category the founders established 60+ years ago.

“Rapid relevance was the only way out,” Dickson said. Mattel did four major things for Barbie:

  1. Reflected the diversity girls see today, and launched more than 20 new dolls that represented a wide variety of skin tones, hair color and texture
  2. Liberated Barbie from high heels with a flexible foot
  3. Created “Hello Barbie,” one of the most advanced AI toys that engages girls with conversation (Note: this was created based on feedback from girls who said “I wish Barbie could talk to me.”)
  4. Responded to decades of cultural criticism of Barbie’s “perfect body” by developing dolls that reflect a wide variety of body types

Mattel needed to make girls fall in love with Barbie again and have their moms “like Barbie a little bit more.” This prompted the brand to create and tell a story through a short film called, “Imagine the possibilities”.

Mattel knew they had won over their audience before placing any paid advertising. They “created blockbuster relevance in the marketplace that couldn’t be bought,” with trending topics on Yahoo! and a cover story for Time as well as:

  • 50 million views of the short film
  • 500 million engagements on Facebook and Twitter
  • 81% positive reactions from moms
  • Celebrity influencers talking about it on social media

This reinvention roadmap, which is now being applied to Hot Wheels, Fisher Price, and other lines, is the push for Mattel to re-establish itself as a creations company and inspire the wonder of childhood.

Shaking Up the Movie Industry

Clooney3_talkDay 2 closed with an interview of George Clooney by Ann Lewnes, senior vice president and CMO of Adobe. Among the many topics covered, they discussed the shift in the film industry due in part to emerging technologies and social media.

“Technology and new media are opening up new ways to tell stories that didn’t exist before,” Clooney said.

“What’s happening in our industry is interesting. Television, for a long time, had its limitations. But now, TV, Netflix and others have ramped up the quality. It’s better than some of the films you see, and that’s great for our industry in general,” he continued.

With the proliferation of smartphones and similar video capturing devices, anyone can create content and share their experience with a large audience on social media. While Clooney is not a fan of social media, he indicated one benefit (from his perspective): “It [social media] can force you to make better products.”

This shift is something not only with which Hollywood has to contend, but also across dozens of other industries. You can’t ignore your fans – or your haters for that matter.

Final Thoughts

The keynote speakers of the day echoed John Mellor’s earlier remarks: “Storytelling is the biggest tool we have at our disposal. It’s that human touch that helps us connect with customers. Now, more than ever, we have to be storytellers.”

What did you learn from Day 2 at Summit?

 

AdobeSummit_Day2

Photo by @skimsey, https://twitter.com/skimsey


Bold Creativity in a Data-Driven World – Adobe Summit, Day 2 was first posted on March 24, 2016 at 2:18 pm.
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Adobe Summit: Know Your Customer, Transform Their Experience /adobe-blog/2016/03/23/adobe-summit-know-your-customer-transform-their-experience/ /adobe-blog/2016/03/23/adobe-summit-know-your-customer-transform-their-experience/#respond Wed, 23 Mar 2016 22:18:56 +0000 http://blogs.perficient.com/digexplatforms/?p=3215 Adobe Summit: Know Your Customer, Transform Their Experience was first posted on March 23, 2016 at 5:18 pm.
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Dr. Tal  Schwartz of Clicktale and Arran Peck  from Ancestry.com discussed how they transformed their experience. He started with a video.

The Clicktale product pulls all the information about everything someone does on the site.  It’s an easy integration to the web site.  They also integrate to Adobe Analystics, Adobe Target, and Adobe Experience Manager. By getting these deep insights, you can use that to create better tests and more efficiently optimize your site.clicktale-heat-map

AEM Integration

There’s a button on AEM site and you get a heat map to show you what users are doing on the site.

Many companies like CNN and Ancestry.com are using Clicktale

Mobile vs desktop: There are a number of use cases suited to mobile vs desktop.  In other words both have their place. Neither is going away.  That’s why Clicktale supports both channels.  You can get full session playback for a mobile site.  You also get a heat map for the mobile page.

Ancestry’s Usage

Arran has been with Ancestry.com for quite a while.  He ran the Australia office for a while but recently moved to the Bay Area.  He’s the senior director of conversion.

Ancestry

  • leading online family history service
  • Subscription allows you to access voer 2B document
  • leading DNA test for family history
    • Genotyped 1.5 M customers
  • $680M revenue in 2015
  • 1,300 employees
  • Offices in US, UK, Australia, Canada, and Sweden

Conversion and Insights, a love story

A lot of Ancestry’s brand is about storytelling.  The story

  • Uses Adobe Analytics to get data insights and see what opportunities exist
  • Create the hypothesis and then test it in Adobe Target
  • Use Tableau dashboards to see the data in Target and the actual revenue.
    • Business impact
    • Lifetime revenue
  • But were missing the customer insight.  Over 80% of the time, people were doing unexpected things.
    • Wanted to know why a test won and why a test lost
    • It’s about that true insight in actual usage

Case Study 1

ancestrydna

Ancestry DNA is a simple $99 test to find your ethnic mix and uncover distant relatives.  This gives

  • New audience
  • Significant increase in traffic to home page
  • But limited insight into customer behavior

Ran a test on the Ancestry DNA page.  They wanted to find out about the impact to different sections.  The results were good with an overall increase in sales.  However, ClickTale showed that all the middle content had little engagement.  The bottom section for FAQ’s had 53 seconds, almost 3X the other sections.

Then changed the banner image from white male to Native American

Case Study 2

Iterative testing into a great experience.   This test was about onboarding.  They used a testing process:

  • Think it
  • Test it
  • Build it

ancestryfamilytreeSo new functionality gets tested before rollout of functionality.   In this case, they wanted to make it really easy to run through your family tree.

Outcome:

  • Increase bill through of customers in free stage trial
  • Users more likely to bill through after the trial if they actually build their family tree
  • Quicker speed to discovery and to building a full product for A/B test validation (get product to release quicker)

The process

  1. Setup four rounds of the experience
  2. Look at the Clicktale videos
  3. Build second prototype and test again
    1. Also looked at if users were building trees quicker, etc.
  4. He showed how they were able to see the test results

Happy Customer, Happy Life

The voice of the customer amplified

The team with members who spent a minimum of two hours every six weeks watching what a customer does on the site saw far greater improvements to their designs’ user experience.

With Clicktale, can view videos by interest (

  • Customer device
    • destktop
    • tablet
  • customer profile
    • customer type
    • product purchased
  • entry page
  • Specific Tests
  • Specific page visite

Quote: Combining conversion testing with the videos creates a better customer experience and happier results.

 


Adobe Summit: Know Your Customer, Transform Their Experience was first posted on March 23, 2016 at 5:18 pm.
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What Are The Biggest Personalization Challenges? /adobe-blog/2016/03/16/what-are-the-biggest-personalization-challenges/ /adobe-blog/2016/03/16/what-are-the-biggest-personalization-challenges/#respond Wed, 16 Mar 2016 15:40:47 +0000 http://blogs.perficient.com/digexplatforms/?p=3104 What Are The Biggest Personalization Challenges? was first posted on March 16, 2016 at 10:40 am.
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PPC AudiencesIn a recent interview with Robert Sumner, principal of Perficient’s Adobe practice, we discussed first steps to create a personalization strategy for digital experience platforms. Proper planning is necessary, but executing a digital strategy isn’t as easy as flipping a switch.

In our discussion, we also talked about creating personalization scenarios and the implications of this at time of deployment. One of the challenges many companies face is that they tend to have multiple target audience segments which then requires multiple personalization scenarios.

Sumner expands on this thought here:

Additionally, a report from Webtrends reveals that digital marketers face other challenges when it comes to implementing a personalization strategy:

  • Lack of organizational alignment and unclear priorities – 76% of marketers stated this is the biggest hurdle preventing them from achieving digital marketing objectives.
  • Limited marketing budgets – 68% of companies stated lack of funds is an issue, even though an increasing proportion of their marketing budgets are slated for digital strategy.
  • Scarce skills and resources – 66% of companies believe they don’t have enough people to meet their digital marketing goals, and 57% stated that lack of digital marketing expertise of their current staff stands in their way.
  • Available technology – 62% of marketers said that not having the right technology in place prevents them from delivering a personalized experience.

With the evolution of social media platforms and the explosion of mobile technology use, you’re well aware that creating personalized, 1 to 1 interactions with the customer is essential to remain competitive.

You don’t have to go it alone on your digital marketing journey. We’re ready to help you navigate your transformation. If you’re headed to Adobe Summit next week, stop by and talk to our team in booth #530. You can also follow Perficient team members on Twitter during the event, @PRFTDigitalTech.


What Are The Biggest Personalization Challenges? was first posted on March 16, 2016 at 10:40 am.
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Ad blocking is here to stay, so get used to it /adobe-blog/2015/08/12/ad-blocking-is-here-to-stay-so-get-used-to-it/ /adobe-blog/2015/08/12/ad-blocking-is-here-to-stay-so-get-used-to-it/#comments Wed, 12 Aug 2015 17:54:06 +0000 http://blogs.perficient.com/perficientdigital/?p=8432 Ad blocking is here to stay, so get used to it was first posted on August 12, 2015 at 12:54 pm.
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Ad blocking is here to stayMy spouse was pounding on her iPad last night in frustration – rather more frustration than typical with technology – because a news site she helps edit kept crashing the tablet’s web browser.

After a few minutes of listening to her curse, I steeled myself against her wrath (which was causing our dogs to cower) and asked if I could offer assistance. She dialed down her fluster long enough to reload the website and show me the problem. On the screen, the site began to resolve, then it turned gray to highlight an ad window spreading over the center of the page.

The ad opened just long enough to announce a car dealership’s brand before both the ad and the browser behind it vanished, leaving me looking at neat rows of apps on the iPad’s desktop.

“This is just a bunch of …,” my wife said, followed by yet another string of epithets that made me want to join the dogs in hiding. “I need to review the morning story placement, and I can’t even get to the site!”

In separate situations, I witnessed similar exasperation recently from people at a Starbucks, at a mall food court, and in the waiting room of a doctor’s office. Little else sends Americans into paroxysms of agitation quite like the intrusion of advertising into our online reverie. And yet digital publishers express surprise and concern at the latest surge in ad blocking software revealed by PageFair and Adobe Systems, Inc. in “The 2015 Ad Blocking Report,” published this week.

PageFair, headquartered in Ireland, provides solutions to detect and measure ad blockers. Adobe is one of Perficient’s Strategic Partners. The report they produced examines per-country and per-state information on ad-block usage, as well as monthly active user statistics, and it found that – surprise! – web users are ratcheting up their use of ad-blocking software.

In the past year, ad blocker usage rose 41 percent in the United States and 35 percent in Europe to encompass a total of 200 million web users worldwide. In some nations in Europe, the report said, a third of users employed ad-blocking tools. Here, in states such as California, New York, and Oregon, around 15 percent of users regularly blocked web ads.

Those numbers translate into heavy damage on corporate profit margins, the report said. PageFair and Adobe estimate that U.S. firms alone lost almost $6 billion in revenue last year because their digital ad efforts were not reaching intended targets. The loss is likely to climb north of $10 million by the end of 2015.

PageFair and Adobe define ad blocking as any solution that acts like a firewall between web browsers and ad servers. Most ads are blocked or deflected by end users using solutions that target extensions such as “adblock” or “adblock plus.”

Naturally, online marketers are alarmed by all this blocking. It means their carefully crafted sales pitches – intended to supplant the evaporating influence of print publishing – are disappearing into the digital ether.

“(The) existential threat of ad blocking has become a pressing issue in the board rooms of publishers across the world,” the report said. “A concentrated response is required, founded upon a renewed focus on user experience and enabled by secure ad-serving technology.”

The key words here are “user experience,” or UX – the defining element of success in 2015. Connected technology has matured well past the convenience stage to become essential in the livelihoods of consumers as well as companies, but consumers, not companies, are driving this evolution. Proliferate smart technology and social networking have empowered consumers; now, they can choose to engage companies at multiple levels.

If companies hamper this empowerment, or compromise the UX with excessive ads, slower page loading speeds, intrusive auto-play videos, and the surreptitious downloads of uninvited promotions carrying potential privacy threats, the companies risk losing engagement.

And that affects the entire web.

“As technology develops and ad-blocking plug-ins become more commonplace, the growth in ad-blocking usage will receive yet another catalyst,” the PageFair/Adobe report said. “This has the potential to challenge the viability of the web as a platform for the distribution of free, ad-supported content.”

Presently, the web browsers Firefox and Google Chrome are responsible for most end-user ad blocking; however, the mobile market is making strides in this direction. Developers are busy making plug-ins for smartphone web browsers, and Apple’s pending iOS 9 will include support for ad-blocking apps.

The iOS 9 platform is due to release in September. Afterward, we can expect ad-block numbers to soar and more publishers to panic – and I can expect my spouse’s cursing to subside.


Ad blocking is here to stay, so get used to it was first posted on August 12, 2015 at 12:54 pm.
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Adobe CEO: Digital transformation is not an option /adobe-blog/2015/08/03/adobe-ceo-digital-transformation-is-not-an-option/ /adobe-blog/2015/08/03/adobe-ceo-digital-transformation-is-not-an-option/#respond Mon, 03 Aug 2015 19:31:53 +0000 http://blogs.perficient.com/digexplatforms/?p=2297 Adobe CEO: Digital transformation is not an option was first posted on August 3, 2015 at 2:31 pm.
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Shantanu Narayen, president and chief executive officer of Adobe, speaks during the Adobe Creative Cloud and Creative Suite 6 launch event, Monday, April 23, 2012 at the de Young Museum in San Francisco.  Photo/Adobe, Susan Goldman, handout.

Shantanu Narayen, president and chief executive officer of Adobe. (Photo courtesy of Adobe/CNN)

“Ultimately, when you do the right thing for the customer, everything falls into place.”

Wise words for any enterprise, but particularly for those now considering digital transformation. And the speaker should know.

Shantanu Narayen, president and chief executive officer of Adobe Systems, Inc., one of Perficient’s Strategic Partners, led his company through one of the most notable transformations ever witnessed in the corporate world. He is credited with lifting a company famous for digital publishing off of the desktop and into the cloud, then selling online subscriptions to Adobe’s market-dominant products such as InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop so customers could reach into that cloud.

Criticism rained hard on Narayen for doing this, in part because cloud computing was still elbowing its way into contemporary corporate language and people were uncertain whether the technology was secure enough to serve the marketplace. Today, however, Adobe is considered a global leader in digital marketing and a standard-bearer in the march toward digital transformation.

Recently, Narayen addressed transformation in comments for the Australian Financial Review while visiting Sydney for an Adobe symposium. In the sprawling land Down Under, the federal government raised transformation’s profile by creating a Digital Transformation Office that will oversee co-ordination and development of that country’s digitally delivered government services.

On this side of the Pacific, a development of such magnitude suggests Australia’s cloud is well above America’s, perhaps hovering somewhere near the stratosphere. In fact, the two markets remain at the same altitude, and attitude. For example, a recent survey found that 89 percent of large and medium-size retailers in Australia and 37 percent of small retailers believe they offer good customer service but had no means of measuring that perception beyond charting unsolicited customer feedback.

Narayen says that belief inflicts the boards of too many retailers worldwide and trickles down throughout their organizations to slow transformation’s progress.

“A great board is one that spends disproportionate amounts of time with management, taking active steps to understand the opportunities and challenges facing the business,” he told Financial Review. “With the world increasingly moving to digital and businesses implementing digital strategies, boards also need to boost their digital capabilities to be better strategic advisers to the business.”

In the United States, that will be tough when IT budgets are expected to rise no more than 1 percent higher this year over last, putting tech staffs in a difficult position to shepherd transformation at the legacy level.

At Adobe, “our digital transformation has been the foundation for growing our business, opening new doors to customer engagement and delivery, and also disrupting and leading many of the categories we operate in,” Narayen said. “Our board has been involved in our transformation strategy from day one and continues to be supportive.”

Probably every corporate board in the world is pondering digital transformation and desires Adobe-level results, Narayen said. The first step in that direction requires accepting digital’s dominance in the marketplace.

“Every multi-year strategic business plan must include digital thinking,” he said. “It’s not an option to ignore it.”

The next step requires boards to make a convincing argument for transformation and its overarching purpose.

“As an organization, we have to be clear why the digital transformation is going to be better for customers,” Narayen added.


Adobe CEO: Digital transformation is not an option was first posted on August 3, 2015 at 2:31 pm.
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