Transform

After a year of geographical expansion, increasing web presence and the development of its own product range, Ocado unveiled a 16% rise in sales. Average orders increased by 18.6% last year, whilst declining by 1.7% in value. This has been attributed to its Ocado Delivery Pass customer loyalty scheme, which now accounts for the majority of Ocado orders. Last year Ocado, known for its technological innovation, launched its new Webshop in order to speed up the shopping process. Checkouts by mobile devices grew to 18% by the end of a year that saw it develop additional apps for Blackberry and Windows Phone 7 mobile devices. It is our mission to make sure customers continue to regard Ocado as the home of the market-leading offer in online grocery shopping. Chief Executive Tim Steiner Read the full story here

Last week saw the launch of the Gov.uk site and here at Transform we would like to pass on our congratulations to all those involved.

The Governments aim is for the site to act as a single source for public services in the UK with the intention of allowing citizens to access the information and services they need without having to wade through numerous government websites.

Early testing of the site has shown that user time has been reduced by a third, with many pages being condensed into a multiple-choice selection to guide people to their required destination. 

When complete, the common digital platform is expected to save £50m a year of tax-payer money.

Here at Transform we have a special interest in the site, having worked alongside Martha Lane Fox, the Government’s Digital Champion, whilst undertaking an independent strategic review of Directgov. The review was based on the necessity for Government to become more efficient and transparent.

As channel shift specialists, Transform was well placed to bring knowledge and expertise to the review of Directgov. Through years of experience of working within Government, primarily in the areas of health and education, we are skilled in taking digital services to the public in order to better meet the needs of users, and to improve their interaction with Government.

Our recommendations placed digital at the heart of Government and we now see them moving towards a service culture where citizen’s needs are being placed ahead of those of departments.

NearMe is a mobile guide app allowing consumers to search the local vicinity for things they need from specific shops, to pubs, hospitals, parking and so on. Brands as varied as Tesco, French Connection, ScrewFix and Fullers Pubs are now paying to appear on the home screen of the search service, creating something akin to a digital high street. They are signing-up in droves to receive a preferential presence on the home screen, as well as brand space within the app. A spokesman for NearMe explains the appeal "Customers can not only see what is around them and find what they are looking for, but they can also engage and be engaged by brands as well. Retailers can target offers at specific countries, cities, towns or even individual stores that can then be seen by users. This can be offers, invites, information or even job ads for those stores." Read the full story here

In the current climate where customers are tightening the purse strings and looking to make savings, consumer feedback is crucial, and Marks and Spencers have been working to increase the coverage and depth of customer feedback interaction. The stats reveal they have succeeded. By introducing new functionality that sends customers a post-purchase email containing a link to the item review page, customers are able to provide feedback, with each email tailored and sent in a timeframe suitable to the purchase Marks and Spencers Report a 427% increase in customer reviews. David Walmsley, M&S Director of Multi-Channel Development notes "This means customers can make a more informed purchase, which in turn has a positive effect on return rates and bolsters engagement and trust of the M&S brand." Read the full story here

Image with thanks to Ell Brown

Target Corp. is enlisting the help of its suppliers in an attempt to thwart "showrooming." This is the latest trend in consumer behavior, that of visiting a 'brick and mortar' store and viewing products with the intention of buying online from a rival store at a lower price. In a radical move the Minneapolis based chain encouraged its suppliers to produce unique products that set them apart from their competitors and thus leave them exempt from price comparisons. Where specialised products aren't possible Target have advised suppliers to match rival prices and offer a subscription service to give shoppers a discount on regularly purchased items Some analysts believe that these measures are unlikely to reverse the showrooming trend and considerably improve profits as it fails to address the root cause of the problem; Consumer preference is moving online and Online-only retailers have significantly lower labor costs. Read the full story here

The following video shows how Motorola are seeking to engage students that have never engaged in school before.

Monday 16th January was my Dad’s 70th birthday – if he found this depressing he made a good show of hiding it.
Unlike most people, it appears – as Monday was also ‘Blue Monday’ officially the most depressing day of the year.
Office Angels, the recruitment agency celebrated this not by sending my Dad a present, but by releasing some research among employees on the future of work describing a future in which more and more people believe they will be able to use technology to unchain themselves from their workplace and work from home or on the road.
This will have all sorts of benefits for employers – reducing property costs, improving productivity, reducing carbon footprint (indeed the Department for Transport launched a website to encourage firms to adopt flexible working practices to reduce the volume of travel)   and helping to attract the best employees by offering flexibility, for example. And for employees, it will offer new levels of freedom and flexibility in how they organise their working day (or evening).
As Ben Dowd at O2 points out, in 2012 the London Olympics is set to not only provide a showcase for the latest mobile services, but also to make getting to the workplace difficult for many – encouraging businesses to try to crack flexible working. More broadly it is becoming clear, that flexible working is not just about lower property costs and happier workers but also about building new organisational models with resilience built into their reduced location dependency.
Yet, interestingly, press coverage focused on the more negative aspects, predicting ‘a less enjoyable future for workers where employees never meet their colleagues and employee engagement drops to an all-time low.
As HR Magazine points out: “This lack of integration may lead to a possible reduction in knowledge sharing between employees, according to 30% of those surveyed, while 43% of employers worry that it may lead to a lack of engagement and loyalty which may affect employee turnover. This concern does seem to have foundations, as almost half of employees (46%) felt that remote workers might experience a loss of identity with the organisation they work for, and a further third (31%) predicted low levels of engagement.”
What these fears demonstrate is that while there are significant benefits – to employers, employees and the environment of flexible working – to achieve real success organisations will need to take a holistic, joined up approach to developing new ways of not just using technology, but understanding how this will challenge their people and work with them to develop the behaviours and culture to excel in the new environment. As my colleague, Transform Associate Alex Wright, who specialises in the people aspects of this area, likes to say: the technology enables the change, but it’s people that deliver the benefits.
Written on my iPad on my Dad’s sofa.

Transforms Digital Maturity Index (DMI), a measure of digital channel development, has been running for 2 years now and during that time weve interviewed more than 50 digital leaders from both public and private sector organisations; capturing data for almost 5,000 questions in the process. The summary output from last years programme can be found here. [link - http://digitalmaturity.theenginegroup.com]

Work is now underway on the DMI 2012 and interviews have already taken place with business leaders responsible for digital development in media, public sector, health, B2B and telecoms companies.

The public sector is undergoing a dramatic shift towards digital engagement and the newly created <a href="http://digital.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/">Government Digital Service</a> (GDS) team within the Cabinet Office is tasked with transforming government digital services, so we asked Mark ONeill, Head of Innovation at GDS to share his thoughts on what innovation really means.

And if youre interested in taking part in this years programme drop us an <a href="mailto:Emma.Honeybone@betransformative.com">email</a>.

<strong>Innovation: the better mousetrap</strong>

By Mark ONeill @ the Cabinet Office

Innovation is easy. Its just the combination of an idea and execution of that idea. Easy.

In the digital space innovation has given us the BLINK tag, web pages that auto play audio on loading and its given us Comic Sans.

And thats the problem; innovation isnt always a neutral good. For me a better definition is "something that improves on the current world".

These improvements can be small - as simple as using images to guide people through a process rather than reams and reams of text - or they can be huge shifts, like the way I can now access all the digital services and information I need through a device I can hold in my hand.

For some people, innovation implies the latter: disruptive change that replaces the old world with a new, forgive the word, paradigm. And indeed history is littered with the businesses that sometimes had the disruptive idea and sought to delay or prevent execution in order to preserve an established business model.

They all failed. Sooner or later the better mousetrap catches us all.

It doesnt matter if that disruption is technological such as digital cameras; or in business processes like the assembly line or an approach like Total Quality Management (TQM). The improvements, the benefits, the speed of the new, all drive that fundamental shift.

But innovation can also be small and incremental, a little change that drives an improvement, like a sign on a door that simply says "Pull".

So what does innovation mean in the digital space?

We see and hear a lot about the disruptive end of the innovation space - businesses like Amazon, Google etc - businesses which have completely transformed how we shop, how we think about information and how we work.

Even in the public sector we can learn from disruptive innovation. G-Cloud has the aim for 50% of all new ICT systems and services to be cloud based within 3 years. Personally, I expect the trajectory to be even faster than that.

But I also find myself musing on the small scale innovation opportunities in the digital space. Something as simple as tweeting when we are running a procurement, building feedback mechanisms into our online services so people can actually tell us about the frequently mandatory services we run, providing frontline staff with the ability to share knowledge and experience through digital channels, even just starting with the basic question "What do our users actually want to do?"

Perhaps the most powerful driver of innovation is for us to start each day asking "How can I make this digital service better?" and to make that part of our normal work approach.

Im writing a list of the digital services and channels I am responsible for on a whiteboard and above them Im writing "How do I make these better?".

If we all do the same then innovation - both disruptive and incremental - will become part of our normal discourse.

Just so long as we don't run out of whiteboards ...

<em>Mark ONeill is the Head of Innovation at the <a href="http://digital.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/">Cabinet Office</a>. Mark is also the founder and Head at UK Government "Skunkworks" and a judge/mentor at Rewired State.</em><em> </em>

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

In a recent survey of 1000 consumers conducted by EPiServer it was revealed that 59% own a smart phone, 18% own a tablet device, and as many as 73% have accessed a website using these mobile devices in the past 12 months.

But what are they using these devices for? The findings show more than half (51%) are looking up directions, 49% to access social networks, 43% use the mobile web to find information about organisations and brands while on the move, and almost a quarter (24%) are making online purchases.

EPiServers Marketing Europe and Sales Operations VP, Maria Wasin, observes: <em>The rapid development in mobile technology and the quick uptake by consumers of mobile sites and apps means that more and more brands have the opportunity to connect with potential customers, encourage purchases and build brand loyalty. Its crucial that marketers become aware of the mobile channel in order to maximise their online results.</em>

Full Story at: <a href="http://www.internetretailing.net/2011/11/almost-a-third-of-uk-consumers-... Retailing</a>