SIPAlert Daily – Learning the right mobile business model for you

I sat down next to Larry Schwartz, president of Newstex, at a roundtable at the recent SIPA Conference. The subject was tablets, and Schwartz showed me some of his company’s intricate and attractive mobile-design work—banner ads, interfaced rows of pictures, branded mobile apps.

“Things have changed a lot in the last 18 months,” he said. “There are a lot more self-serve tools. The hardest thing to figure out [for going mobile] is, how are you going to use it? What’s the purpose? What’s the model? There are some people who take all their time trying to find the perfect colors. Really.”

Schwartz will join Ed Keating, chief content officer for BLR, this Thursday in the second of SIIA’s Mobile Essentials Webinar series—Monetization and Business Models. SIPA/SIIA/ABM members can listen free by registering here. The first webinar made the business case; this one will help you build the right model.

Considering that this is just an hour of your time about something that might become a huge percentage of your business, it’s highly recommended. Mobile commerce now accounts for about one out of every 10 e-commerce dollars. Integrating mobile platforms into your overall business models and strategy is crucial.

A blog post on the comScore website at the end of last month listed five things that every marketer should know on this topic. It’s a helpful list:

1. Be there. “One out of every three monthly visitors to the average digital retailer website comes exclusively on mobile platforms. …retailers who do not (at a minimum) optimize their mobile browsing experience or introduce mobile apps are effectively turning away a third of their potential customers.”

2. Know thy customer. “Mobile apps drive smartphone retail engagement, while mobile browsing wins on tablets.” You probably don’t have the time or resources “to develop a fully optimized experience for every platform. Knowing how your customers engage with retail on their phones and tablets can help you better prioritize your efforts.

3. Prioritize. “Smartphones drive a higher share of m-commerce dollars than tablets, but less on a per device basis.” Tablets are gaining in numbers, however, so you’ll have an interesting decision on where to first focus your user experience.

4. Know thy content. “Retail category browsing can vary considerably by platform.” Basically it’s common sense but still important to think about. Is there a visual component to what you are selling or how you are selling? Perhaps you want people to see charts and graphs in your marketing? Speakers’ faces. That might do better on tablets, where apparel and home furnishing sales excel. Interestingly, health care is the only category listed that does better on smartphones, though it’s pretty close on books and consumer electronics.

5. Plan now. “M-commerce spending seasonality shows wider variance than traditional e-commerce.” It may be quiet now, but with holiday season lurking, expect a huge jump. “Consumers…are also increasingly comfortable using [their devices] to transact. Retailers with an advanced understanding of m-commerce will be able to most effectively deploy their assets and marketing resources during the year’s most crucial spending period.”

Schwartz went on to show me—on his tablet—a list of Time Inc.’s 25 top love story films of all time. It was impeccably designed. “They could easily do 100 and get sponsors for it,” he said. In other words, the sky’s the limit.

U.S. adults will spend more media time on mobile this year (19.8%) than on their laptops and PCs (19.5%). Tablets are sparking this trend. Last year, 10% of tablet time was spent watching videos; this year it’s 19%. Join us in this important webinar series. Register here now.

 

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Ronn LevineRonn Levine began his career as a reporter for The Washington Post and has won numerous writing and publications awards since. Most recently, he spent 12 years at the Newspaper Association of America covering a variety of topics before joining SIPA in 2009 as managing editor. Follow Ronn on Twitter at @SIPAOnline

SIIA’s Deciphering Finance: Focus on Financials: Comprehensive ERP and Financial Management for a Manufacturing Competitive Advantage

Plex SystemsThe following is an excerpt from SIIA’s Deciphering Finance, a publication cataloging finance strategies and best practices. The goal of the book is to provide solid guidance to help finance executives understand how these new technology trends can benefit finance departments by tapping into the minds of SIIA member executives.

Today’s post is brought to you by Jim Shepherd, VP Corporate Strategy and Product of PlexSystems.

Comprehensive Coverage Throughout the Enterprise

The manufacturing enterprise benefits from comprehensive, real-time financial tracking, analysis and reporting of accounts receivable, customer credit management, receipts and other activities. It’s a strong disadvantage if the organization uses stand-alone spreadsheet systems to track purchasing, receiving, shipping, accounts payable, collections and other areas.

[Read more...]

SIIA’s Deciphering Finance: A Good CFO Understands the Numbers – A Great CFO Influences the Numbers

OPEXEngineThe following is an excerpt from SIIA’s Deciphering Finance, a publication cataloging finance strategies and best practices. The goal of the book is to provide solid guidance to help finance executives understand how these new technology trends can benefit finance departments by tapping into the minds of SIIA member executives.

Today’s post is brought to you by Lauren Kelley, CEO and Founder of OPEXEngine.

For years, CFO publications, conferences and networking events have trumpeted the need for CFOs to move from being the top accountants in a company, to playing a more strategic executive role in driving corporate performance.   “Strategic” implies both an ability to influence future performance, as well as a collaborative management role.  By contrast, the traditional CFO has focused on tracking performance that has already happened and at best, working towards cutting costs and expenses going forward.

Many CFOs have not played a fully strategic role in their company because by relying solely on internal data and accounting of past performance, they do not have the tools necessary to influence strategy adequately.  Often, the CFO’s voice is just one more voice in what can be a chaotic decision making process around determining the company’s budget and strategic performance goals.

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Serious Business Challenges Posed by NSA Surveillance Revelations

Recent revelations about the National Security Agency’s (NSA) surveillance efforts have clearly changed the privacy landscape for the remainder of 2013, if not much longer. This is a complex policy issue with very broad implications.

Importantly for SIIA members, it is one that poses the following serious business challenges:  (1) enhanced privacy concerns among customers around the world, (2) policymakers around the world seeking to restrict the cross-border flow of data and enact technology localization requirements, and (3) conflation of private sector data collection with government surveillance as an inseparable public-private partnership that necessitates strict new commercial privacy legislation or regulations—FTC Commission Julie Brill has recently made this connection in an op-ed, which has also come from influential thought-leaders such as former White House Chief of Staff John Podesta.

As a preliminary assessment, the Information Technology Innovation Foundation (ITIF) estimates that the U.S. cloud computing industry alone could lose up to $35 billion over the next three years if foreign customers decide the risks of storing data with a U.S. company outweigh the benefits.

SIIA has been very engaged in policy debates surrounding this issue for several months, and we expect to remain highly engaged to combat these challenges for months to come.  Recently, SIIA President Ken Wash was invited to a meeting at the White House in early August, which was one of several consultations leading up to the President’s call for reforms to NSA programs on August 9.

As a follow-up to the discussion with Administration officials and the SIIA this week joined with other leading technology trade associations in sending a letter to Administration officials urging that discussions about national security must be kept separate from conversations about commercial privacy issues, as the policy considerations in these two areas are distinct. In the letter, SIIA and industry partner organizations made the following recommendations for action that are likely to frame our priorities for the remainder of 2013:

  1. Implement transparency with respect to national security programs – in order to separate fact from fiction regarding the intersection of private sector IT companies and the U.S. Government, it is critical that the Administration enhance transparency and enable companies to share information publicly about the scope and frequency of Government inquiries;
  2. Promote policies that allow for unimpeded cross-border data flows such as the U.S.-EU Safe Harbor Framework – We are already seeing that longstanding and effective cross-border data mechanisms are being questioned in light of the recent disclosures about the U.S. government surveillance programs. For instance, recent statements by government officials in the EU indicate a lack of “trust” in the U.S.-EU Safe Harbor framework, which allows for the transfer of information from the EU to the U.S. for participating companies. This is one of many critical policies that facilitate digital trade for U.S. companies, and it is critical that U.S. government must vigorously engage with the international community to promote cross-border data flows while addressing privacy and civil liberties concerns; and
  3. Support reforming the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) to enhance privacy in law enforcement investigations – SIIA has been a leading supporter of ECPA, seeking to update the outdated statue by correcting the double-standard that inappropriately provides for a lower level of privacy for communications stored remotely, or “in the cloud.” Currently, the law provides for a challenging legal environment for industry and a disincentive for customers to embrace hosted information and communications technology solutions as an alternative to on-premise solutions.

SIIA believes that these are critical steps to ensuring that concerns about U.S. Government surveillance do not impose an unnecessary impediment to U.S. information technology businesses.  We are also closely monitoring a range of proposals in Congress that would seek to enhance transparency surrounding U.S. Government surveilance.  The  Surveillance Transparency Act of 2013 (S.1452) was introduced by Senator Al Franken on August 1st, 2013, and the Surveillance Order Reporting Act of 2013 (H.R.3035) was introduced by Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren on August 2nd, 2013.  SIIA has not endorsed any bill at this point, but the Lofgren-Franken approach goes in the right direction by allowing companies to reveal how many national security requests they have received, how many they have complied with and how many users or accounts are affected.

We will continue to focus heavily on this critical issue to promote the ability of U.S. businesses to thrive in the U.S. and markets around the world.  To that end, we will provide further updates regarding new developments.


David LeDuc is Senior Director, Public Policy at SIIA. He focuses on e-commerce, privacy, cyber security, cloud computing, open standards, e-government and information policy. Follow the SIIA public policy team on Twitter at @SIIAPubPolicy.

SIIA’s Deciphering Finance: What are the Biggest Misconceptions Among Finance Professionals Today?

Adaptive PlanningThe following is an excerpt from SIIA’s Deciphering Finance, a publication cataloging finance strategies and best practices. The goal of the book is to provide solid guidance to help finance executives understand how these new technology trends can benefit finance departments by tapping into the minds of SIIA member executives.

Today’s post is brought to you by Robert Hull, Founder, President, and CFO of Adaptive Planning.

I continue to be shocked by the common notion that it is acceptable to manage FP&A processes today on spreadsheets.  Nearly two thirds of businesses still hold onto this idea despite the fact that spreadsheets do not support collaboration or aggregation, are prone to errors, and often create cumbersome and time-consuming formatting and version control issues.  Spreadsheets continue to impede collaboration and process efficiency, and thus mire finance professionals in low value data management tasks rather than freeing them for more strategic analysis and collaboration activities.

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SIIA’s Deciphering Finance: Savings on Both Sides: Vendor and Client Perspectives on the Financial Advantages of SaaS

AvantgateThe following is an excerpt from SIIA’s Deciphering Finance, a publication cataloging finance strategies and best practices. The goal of the book is to provide solid guidance to help finance executives understand how these new technology trends can benefit finance departments by tapping into the minds of SIIA member executives.

Today’s post is brought to you by Jim Emerich, CFO of Avangate.

Saving money can be a major motivator for making the transition to software as a service. But the savings that come with SaaS aren’t found only on the client side. Moving to the SaaS model can be a wise financial decision for software vendors as well as their customers. This article offers an in-depth exploration of the financial advantages of cloud services and resulting business practices, considering the savings and benefits for vendor and client alike.

[Read more...]

Nominations Now Open for the 29th Annual SIIA CODiE Awards

Today SIIA opened nominations for the 2014 SIIA CODiE Awards. The 2014 CODiE Awards feature 28 new and updated categories, reflecting the dramatic changes in technology and business models impacting the software and information industries.

The CODiE Awards have been the premier award for the software and information industries for 28 years. The awards program has three tracks organized by industry focus: Content, Education and Software.

Content: The SIIA Content CODiE Awards showcase the information industry’s finest products, technology and services created by, or for, media, publishers and information services providers.

The Content CODiE Awards will be presented on January 29-30, 2014 during the Content Divisions annual conference for Information Industry leaders, the Information Industry Summit.

Education: The SIIA Education CODiE Awards showcase applications, products and services from developers of educational software, digital content, online learning services, and related technologies across the K-20 sector.

Education winners will be announced in San Francisco on May 12-14, 2014 during the Ed Tech Industry Summit.

Software: The SIIA Software CODiE Awards showcase applications, products and services that are developed by independent software vendors (ISVs) for use in business, government, academic, or other organizational settings.

Software winners will be announced in San Francisco on May 20-22, 2014 during the software industry’s premier ISV conference, Maximize.

For more information about the SIIA CODiE Awards, visit http://www.siia.net/codies.


Angel Scott Angel Scott is Awards Program Coordinator at SIIA. Follow the SIIA CODiE Awards on twitter at @CODiEAwards.