Commerce 2.0 Cloud Horizon

Implementing a commerce cloud utilization strategy can be very difficult due to both the span of the partners that would, and should, be involved and the horizon of the strategy. The strategic horizon of the cloud technologies and services is a very short span due to the velocity of the change being driven by both the technology and acceptance of the technology.  In addition, the strategy is also being driven by the wide spread acceptance of the cloud and the manner in which consumers have embraced these technologies and services. The cloud has and will continue to change the consumer shopping methods in ways that will continue to change and evolve in new ways that can only be imagined today.

I see the wild card aspect to cloud and eCommerce strategy development and implementation to be the consumer.  The consumer has taken on a greater level of importance and a greater level of disruption to the retail market as a result of the improvements and capabilities of the smartphone market.  This impact is not slowing down, rather it is speeding up and this is encouraged and supported by the expansion of both the smartphone market and high speed Internet availability and wireless broadband access. This is an interesting study in the results and relationship of the impact that one market segment has on other market segments; the communication and wireless phone market segment in this case is actually driving the disruption to other retail market segments.  

This disruption is quickening due to the expansion of the wireless phone market segment and the acceptance of the consumer and the consumer’s hunger for new capabilities.  This disruption in turn is spilling over into other market segments due to consumer demands to utilize their new tools and capabilities for all their shopping.  So now in order to meet these new and changing consumer demands the retail market must embrace the same framework of cloud tools and capabilities.  This is really the only option for the retail market to be able to keep up with the demands.  Retailers must be able to change and meet the changing demands of the consumer in this increased demand velocity and the only option to succeed in meeting these demands is utilization of shared services and tools along with increase collaboration across both partners and consumers.

The consumer has finally turned the table on retailers and is demanding the ability to shop in a manner that meets their changing needs and desires.  This consumer adoption of the cloud technology and services has allowed the consumers to utilize new capabilities that were out of reach of both consumer and retailer only a few years ago.  This new reality makes it impossible for retailers to spend a great deal of time internally developing these new capabilities.  It also makes it possible for the smallest retailer to provide the same or even better shopping capabilities as the largest retailers.

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

ECommerce will have wide ranging impacts on both the retail and manufacturing sectors.  How can you focus these abilities to improve the consumer's experience?  Improving the consumer’s experience will require a re-evaluation of the sales channels, the manufacturing channels and practices and the supply chain channels and practices from the raw materials to the consumers’ homes.  In order to ensure and maintain success in this new reality you must harness the tools and capabilities in many new areas.  How can you support these continuously changing requirements?

Commerce 2.0 Cloud Strategy

Cloud technology and services are in a state of radical and discontinuous change that really cannot be forecast or planned.  You can understand and plan for a general direction of the change, however you would have a difficult time making any firm or long term plans to incorporate specific changes.  This places a business and their extended network in a difficult position where there is no guarantee that a tool or service will be around for the long term and on the other hand the tool or service provides a great benefit to the network.  This challenge can be met by utilizing a continuous improvement strategy to identify and incorporate improvements in a quicker cycle.  

There has been a quickening of change over the last twenty years and the type and velocity of change as has also also increased, the change is in fact causing an increase rate of change.  I believe that one reason for this increase in type and velocity of change is the introduction of mobile technology and acceptance by consumers.  Business and business networks have no compelling reason to implement the changes and especially accept the velocity and short-lived nature of these changes without a compelling driving factor.  This compelling and driving factor is the introduction of the consumer and the consumer’s acceptance and embrace of mobile technology that thrives cloud services and technology.

The consumer has become the wild card factor in driving retail change and the consumer is becoming more demanding as they accept and embrace even more technology.  There is one retail market that is helping to drive these changes and that is the wireless phone market.  This market is driving new technology to the consumers as a means to maintain and grow their market share.  This has resulted in new and exciting technology that supports more and more areas of the consumer’s life and demands.  This new technology in turn is driving the consumer to demand new capabilities from the other retail market segments. I find this fascinating that one market segment is driving change into another market segment through offering technology and tools to the end consumer.

Retailers can no longer ignore these changes, these changes are providing consumers with new methods to shop in other segments of the market.  This requires all market segments to change based on the consumer demands.  A continuous improvement strategy is in fact the single strategy that can support the type and rate of change that is introduced by the cloud.  Retailers and their supporting networks, including the extended supply chain must continue to not only embrace the cloud technology and services, they must also demand new technology and services from the cloud.

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

ECommerce will have wide ranging impacts on both the retail and manufacturing sectors.  How can you focus these abilities to improve the consumer's experience?  Improving the consumer’s experience will require a re-evaluation of the sales channels, the manufacturing channels and practices and the supply chain channels and practices from the raw materials to the consumers’ homes.  In order to ensure and maintain success in this new reality you must harness the tools and capabilities in many new areas.  How can you support these continuously changing requirements?

Commerce 2.0 Clout Utilization

Cloud technology and services can deliver great benefits to small and large businesses, that is for sure.  The trick is how can your network and partners utilize the technology and services to realize these benefits.  The cloud should not be utilized simply because it is there, it should be utilized to bring real and measurable benefits to the network.  You must be careful that you are not blinded by the hype and potential promise of the cloud technology and services and define clear a clear strategy and plan for your network cloud utilization to achieve the objective values.  Cloud technologies and services are like any other new tools, no matter the hype, and you must treat the utilization like any other tool and analyze the benefits and return that will be provided.

Don’t get me wrong, I think there is a great deal of upside to utilizing cloud technologies and tools, I am just warning that you must evaluate these tools utilizing the a thoughtful evaluation process.  I do not think though that you should utilize the same process that you would with hardware purchases.  The reason for this is that the cloud technologies and services evaluation should weigh the cost with a lower priority and include the potential future utilization in the evaluation.  Your evaluation should be a narrow focus on a short term objective. However, your strategy should realize that your evaluation is more similar to a prototype or proof of concept than a final, one and done type, delivery.  This is probably the key benefit to utilizing cloud technologies and services, the justification is simplified and the utilization supports your continuous improvement methodology.

I see probably the single greatest benefit to utilizing cloud technologies and services to be the match up to support a continuous improvement program.  These technologies and services provide the best opportunity to experiment without a huge investment in infrastructure, it provides a pay-as-you-go model that allows you and your network to utilize new capabilities without locking into a huge investment in technology.  The key factor here is that you and your network are able to purchase the capability of a new technology without a long term commitment.  This is an important factor that mitigates the risk to investing early in technology that is continuously changing.

While cloud based individual services and technologies can never be guaranteed to survive for any length of time, the cloud framework and concepts are going to survive and extend into more and more areas of both businesses and consumers.  Cloud technologies and services are changing the manner in which both businesses and consumers deliver and utilize services and capabilities.  These capabilities and changes are in the initial stages of development and maturity.  This means that the level and types of changes will be fast and furious and due to the nature of the framework, this rate of change may not slow.