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Autonomous Cars That Drive Us Together

Jan 2017/in , , , /by

Few things indicate an industrial revolution better than a controversial topic that ironically becomes a unifying factor. The biggest, boldest, headlines shout that 3 in 4 Americans are afraid to drive in an autonomous car, Uber and the DMV are head to head, and the autonomous car industry has the potential to eliminate jobs in up to 128 industries. However, other headlines have written a different story. From companies to technology to cars themselves, the Autonomous Car market is driving us all into a new, collaborative future.

Considered an initial stretch on the roadway to fully autonomous cars, V2V technology, vehicle-to-vehicle, is a wireless network enabling cars to converse with each other. At the next level, the technology would extend to V2I, vehicle-to-infrastructure, enabling cars and say, stoplights, to communicate as well. Consider a future city that is completely connected, from autonomous cars to smart buildings.

Collaboration is not just in the future. Even now, auto manufacturers and car service companies are establishing surprising relationships in order to win this grounded version of the “race to space”. Industry giant General Motors has reached out to carpool service application, Lyft, to test self-driving taxis. Alphabet, Google parent and Autonomous Car technology leader, may now be an Autonomous Car social leader as well in its car project, Waymo. The company already paired with Chrysler Pacifica minivans and is now in talks with Honda on accommodating Waymo’s self-driving technology in an upcoming model – a significant change from Google’s small, bubble cars I pass on our Bay Area roads. In a recent development, Audi and Nvidia have united over autonomous cars.

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Those large companies seeking committed relationships, are resulting in start-up acquisitions at every turn:

  • GM spent $1billion on Cruise Automation for their self-driving technology
  • Uber spent $680 million on Otto for their self-driving truck
  • In the second biggest tech acquisition in history, Qualcomm spent $39 billion to takeover NXP Semiconductors for a path to make chips for autonomous cars

Why do Autonomous Cars drive such cooperation? Maybe it is the cars’ origin – a unique world of technological cooperation. Founder of Comma.ai and iPhone unlocking, 26-year old George Hotz, has published open-source software and hardware driving agents in an effort to “become the Android of self-driving cars”. Consistent with this approach, Linux has devoted a foundation project to the mission of “creating open source software solutions for automotive applications.” The project, Automotive Grade Linux, or simply AGL, recently released the most advanced version of its platform yet. The AGL community is made up of nearly 90 companies with an impressive roster of Ford, Honda, Toyota, and more.

“This unprecedented level of collaboration is a clear indication that the automotive industry is adopting an open source development methodology that is resulting in faster innovation with more frequent software releases and new features.”

Dan Cauchy
Executive Director, Automotive Grade Linux

Maybe you’re not a fan of jumping on bandwagons. But with expectations of 21 million autonomous vehicles sold globally by 2035, it might be time for all of us to take a seat in any wagon pulled by the Autonomous Car.

 

This blog is part of an Industry & Market Series –  analyzing what FirstRain users are tracking at the moment in order to gain advantage for the moment.

FirstRain Buyer Persona

Market Trends: Chief Digital Officer

Jan 2016/in , /by

 This is part of the FirstRain Persona Series.  

Customers are demanding more of a digital experience, and the rise of a Chief Digital Officer (CDO) has soared to fulfill the need.  Providing customers with the most valuable digital experience is a CDO’s primary objective.

In the past, executives with digital oversight roles concentrated on magnifying a company’s online presence and brand.  Today, however, the role of a Chief Digital Officer is truly focused on the customer experience.

The fact of the matter is that buyers are no longer making purchasing decisions, or accessing portals solely from a desktop computer, but rather via mobile platforms, emails, and social media —on the go.  Thus, CDO’s are challenged with meeting the demands of a fast-paced consumer society that is always moving.

Customers access platforms and consume vast amounts of product information via different touch points: cell phones, tablets, emails, internal enterprise platforms, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, the web, video streams, vines, Periscope, etc. Today’s digital market demands seamless execution from all these platforms and CDO’s are leading that charge.

Coupled with a strong, robust digital strategy a CDO facilitates the customer experience, but how can that help grow your business?

A deep understanding of market trends and consumer behavior must be leveraged across all customer touch points; from small marketing campaigns, to large scale product launches.  This often involves leaders in business development, and becomes fundamental to helping a business evolve in today’s marketplace.

A recent McKinsey article on “The Transformer in Chief” stresses, “It’s up to the CDO to identify those functions where digital is critical: for example, investing in automation capabilities to rapidly respond to customer interactions, developing sophisticated reporting and analytics capabilities to interpret customer needs, building innovative interfaces to gather customer data (for example, an alternative payment method), and creating mechanisms to deliver content and offers across all relevant channels.”

Chief Digital Officers must identify the customer facing journey, drive customer engagement, and make sure that the dashboard touch points that she decides to implement for her company responds to market demands in real time. They are responsible for putting the tools in place to interpret customer insights with a main strategic goal of responding to customer engagement needs.

Customer intelligence tools such as FirstRain, helps interpret customer behavior via market trends, industry changes, and social media.  Target market analysis of what is trending in relationship to business goals and objectives are crucial for driving a business forward.  After all, the customer is always right, right?

Fundamentally understanding customer needs and how they intersect with revenue goals can make or break a digital strategy, making the role of a Chief Digital Officer pivotal for any industry.  A CDO must demonstrate agility to respond and adapt quickly to customer demands/needs, and are often faced with making bold decisions.

Wired.com asserts, “The CDO will drive the digital functional excellence from strategy to infrastructure and ensure that we have the right competence and capabilities to support and leverage the business from a digital perspective.”

CDO’s are not only the liaison between customer and product but become key partners with CIOs, CMOs, Sales Officers and CFOs.  They communicate the intricacies of market trends, new technology developments and customer behavior to create a digital strategy that is mindful of all these shifting plates, with the end goal to meet revenue objectives.

In today’s hyperactive commerce market, a strong digital strategy is necessary.  If done successfully, a CDO can move their company’s business platform to not only meet the demands of the customer, but also revenue goals of the enterprise.

For further reading from our C-Suite buyer persona series:

Optimize your Digital Strategy

Optimize your Digital Strategy this Year

Jan 2016/in , , , /by

It’s a new year and everyone is looking for digital trends that will optimize business strategy this year. We trust that things are already in full swing your business initiatives and we want to recap on our favorites brought to you from our friends at Altimeter.

CEO, Charlene Li, thinks, “Agile customization of experiences becomes a priority” in 2016, and we could not agree more.

  • Data must be able to run at the pace of today’s constant moving global economy, but most importantly around your business world.  “Agile customization”, as Li puts it, is not based on “static transaction profiles”, but a combination of information, analytics, verticals, and to put mundanely, a whole lot of data.  Information crosses paths and together can illuminate your business strategy with relevant market insights and actionable industry analysis.

  • Digital organizations are more than ever depending on data that is “tied together with world-class analytics.”  Both of these tools need to be packaged together for greater optimization.  CRM tools, real-time data analytics, coupled with customization around your key business markets will optimize your digital strategy in 2016.

Industry Analyst, Ed Terpening, acknowledges a rising complexity in the digital ecosystem.

  • Customer remains king in 2016, and adhering to the Customer Experience via an array of platforms can become tricky without the right technology.  There will be an added pressure to social tools that will mandate a cross functionality to a seamless digital experience. Terpening sees a challenge the way “social experience [can] support broader CX goals”.

  • CX demands a heightened level of attention and with it will bring innovative technology that will connect the dots between digital strategies and multi channel platforms.

Today’s business world is not static and your digital strategies must address not only volume of data but recency based on the specific role and need of the ‘consumer’ of that data. That is why our FirstRain Business Web Graph continually scans the structure of the living Web and the topics, triggers and business lines continually change over time, evolving and expanding based on system input and customer feedback.

FirstRain is an enterprise leader in providing a competitive analysis of target market analysis that will help optimize your business strategy this year.

Feel free to contact us for a free demo, and show you how actionable insights can empower your digital strategy this year.

winning-the-race

FirstRain Customer Insights Wins Industry Awards

Jul 2014/in /by

We are excited to announce that we’re continuing the momentum from the beginning of the year and are finishing Q2 on a high note by winning 2 awards this month!

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FirstRain Customer Insights has just won the DataWeek + API World 2014 award for Most Innovative Customer Intelligence Solution.

Customer Insights was selected by crowd vote, where thousands of people voted on the top Data + API technologies of 2014.

As DataWeek + API World awards recipients, our team will be attending and participating in this year’s conference & expo. We’re offering 50 free OPEN passes (for the Expo, Keynotes, and Open Talks) to our community. Register here to get your pass!

https://dataweek14.eventbrite.com/?discount=dw14-award-guest

 

Stratus-Award-Finalist-Medium

We were also named a finalist in the 2014 Stratus Awards. The Business Intelligence Group today announced the 2014 winners of the Stratus Awards. The inaugural industry awards competition recognizes those companies innovating in the Cloud and providing innovative offerings that are truly differentiated in the market.

 

We work hard to provide the most relevant, personal customer insights to our users to help them meet and exceed their own revenue and customer goals. These awards denote the importance of personal business analytics in today’s world and validate the hard work we put in every day for our customers!

 

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FirstRain is Matt Heinz’s App of the Week!

Jul 2014/in , /by

When respected industry peers highlight our company and our products, it’s incredibly special for us. So, we are extremely happy that we have been selected by Matt Heinz, founder of Heinz Marketing, as “Matt’s App of the Week.”

Matt selected FirstRain because, as he said, “Even with the proliferation of information available online, getting it all together and keeping it updated has often been a hassle… That’s where FirstRain really shines.  You tell them what companies you’re targeting, including the type of engagement or business relationship you’re interested in.  They then filter the entire Web for information about the company and specifically related to your focus areas, and share it for you in one easy-to-use Web interface.”

Matt has been using FirstRain and says it is a “huge time saver—and I’ve found it a source of intelligence I’m sure I wouldn’t have found anywhere else.”

Thanks again to Matt for making FirstRain this week’s App of the Week!

Read Matt’s entire post here and follow Matt Heinz on twitter @heinzmarketing.

Mega Trends

Staying Ahead of Sales Mega-Trends: Consumer Expectations

Jul 2014/in /by

This is part 3 of a 4-part series addressing how Personal Business Analytics help our customers respond to the emerging mega-trends set forth by McKinsey on the Salesforce blog.

B2C-inspired customer expectations

With the proliferation of mobile in consumers’ everyday lives, as well as increased expectation of BYOD workplaces, both B2B employees and customers are coming to expect the same level of personalization that they get as consumers. In order to meet these B2C-inspired consumer expectations, “sales leaders need to develop frictionless and personalized models to connect with the customer across any channel.”

The need to understand how to really connect with your customers has led to the rise of CRM and enterprise collaboration platforms, but employees tend to resist change in their existing workflows—which can result not only in stagnating customer relationships but also in slowing sales cycles. The answer is to place intelligent guidance right where sales already lives, while providing value-based information stickiness in the tools you need them to use. This can be done with very specific, granular insights based on their role, product lines they sell, regions they cover, industry focus and market and competitor relationships.

Connecting with your customer anywhere, anytime is a priority—and as our FirstRain usage stats show across some of the biggest global sales organizations, mobile is the fastest growing platform to connect sellers with buyers’ needs. But for many organizations, gathering the customer intelligence needed to turn the sales team into customer experts is time-consuming. They are simply unable to create very personal experiences with basic sales intelligence tools they may have previously invested in, many of which don’t even have native mobile apps. Consumers today have access to almost everything they need on their mobile devices, from banking to finding their next date, so consumer expectations now mean having the same experience when it comes to customer intelligence. They want their phone to help them build better relationships with their customers so they can win more deals; so, when selecting a tool to match the needs of these sellers, consider:

  • Are your current sales intelligence tools available as highly personal solutions in both native mobile apps, as well as integrated into enterprise workflows like CRM, enterprise portal and collaboration platforms?
  • Can your sales teams quickly create a very personal and intelligent view into their full customer revenue cycle, from initial sale to renewal?
  • Are you meeting consumer expectations by giving them specific, granular insights based on their role, product line, region, industry, market and competitor relationships?

Drop us a note if you’d like to learn more about enabling your sales teams with frictionless and personalized views that help them connect with your customers.

Increase CRM ROI

How to Maximize CRM ROI

May 2014/in /by

CRM has become an integral part of any salesperson’s workflow, but buying and implementing a CRM system is a big investment for any company. Companies need to make sure they get the best ROI they can—and the value CRM systems bring is not only from engaging users but also by providing them with critical information that helps them do their jobs smarter and better.

CRM ROI depends almost exclusively on user adoption. According to the Corporate Executive Board, “Only with high levels of adoption could any potential benefits or enhancements of the CRM be realized and applied to produce growth.” But how do you drive adoption amongst your team to ultimately see the growth that led you to implement the CRM in the first place? The answer is to make the system invaluable to them by using it to provide them with incredibly relevant customer insights.

It’s well known that people will not change the workflow to which they are accustomed unless they see a clear personal benefit of doing so—the typical “What’s in it for Me” syndrome. With enterprise B2B sales teams, it has been proven that incorporating personally relevant information on customers and prospects into CRM workflows can make the team realize that the CRM system does provide significant value. For example, FirstRain’s annual end-user survey shows that by delivering relevant insights when and where they need it, sales can see up to a 17% productivity increase, which is significant.

One of our customers, JDSU,recognized a new set of needs to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of their global sales organization. Their sales and marketing teams now required more customer intelligence in order to advise them on their end-to-end networking needs, while also improving sales productivity.

Their previous CRM ROI was not ideal due to poor usability. They selected FirstRain Customer Insights for salesforce.com to be integrated into their CRM solution. Their salespeople are now fully on board using Salesforce, and through their FirstRain views personalized to their role and what they sell, they are able to find more sales opportunities and build better relationships with their customers.

Thanks to salesforce.com and FirstRain, the entire team JDSU is now on the same page, and the critical insights provided by personal business analytics was one of the major incentives to drive adoption and help them maximize CRM ROI.