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Retailers Must Improve Mobile Shopping Experience
New research has found that if brands want to remain competitive they will need to keep up with the growing mobile commerce expectations held by their consumers.
Stibo Systems annual consumer retail survey reported that 40% of respondents use a mobile device to make purchases, an increase of 10% from last year. This data was supported by another study performed by Gartner, which estimated that by 2016, there will have been a global increase in tablets by 655 million.
Mark Thorpe, UK managing director at Stibo said: “In producing a year-on-year survey comparison, it is evident that mobile is a key part of a retailer’s multichannel strategy,” said Thorpe.
“Retailers must pay attention to this if they are to continue to ensure customer satisfaction throughout the overall shopping experience.”
While the laptop is still the preferred method by 66% for online shopping, smartphone and tablet devices have grown to be the favourite method of online shopping among 20% of online shoppers.
“As the use of mobile devices becomes more ubiquitous in today’s world, it becomes crucial for retailers to meet customers’ rising expectations surrounding m-commerce,” said Mark Thorpe, UK managing director at Stibo.
The survey, however, found a drop in customer satisfaction when shopping on smartphones and tablets. Overall, only 25% of respondents reporting being satisfied with their mobile retail experience. The research suggests that retailers must create a well-rounded data management and multi-channel strategy to ensure customer interaction and satisfaction.
Click here for tips on improving customer satisfaction on mobile devices.
TweetDisaster Preparedness Driving Cloud Computing
Small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) are turning to virtualization and cloud computing in order to improve disaster preparedness.
According to new research from IT security firm Symantec, SMBs are embracing technologies such as virtualization and cloud computing that were once solely in the domain of larger companies.
The survey indicated disaster preparedness is a key factor in the adoption of these technologies and said they had improved the company’s ability to deal with the loss of data or other security threat.
Symantec surveyed over 2,000 organisations worldwide and reported that 34% of SMBs are currently deploying or already benefitting for server virtualisation, while 40% have deployed public clouds and 43% implanted private clouds.
Symantec senior vice president, Steve Cullen said: “SMBs cannot afford lengthy downtimes, so the ability to quickly recover from a disaster is critical.
“Technologies such as virtualization, cloud computing and mobility, combined with a sound plan and comprehensive security and data protection solutions, enable SMBs to better prepare for and quickly recover from potential disasters, such as floods or fires, as well as lost or stolen mobile devices and laptops.”
Based on the results, Symantec recommends SMBs develop a disaster preparedness plan taking into account cloud computing and virtualization, and review disaster preparedness at least once a quarter.
TweetMultichannel Strategies Improves Sainsbury’s Growth
The online and multichannel strategy of supermarket giant Sainsbury’s, has been highlighted as the one of the main reasons it was able to improve its market share and sales last year.
Sainsbury’s full year sales rose by 6.8% to £24.5 billion in 2011. The company outperformed the market, increasing market share to 16.6%, the highest for nearly a decade. eCommerce sales experienced a 20% increase, making it the fastest growing online grocery retailers in the UK.
Its phenomenal success has been attributed in part to its multichannel strategies, where by customers can select the products they want online and then collect them for their nearest store. A recent study from Postcode Anywhere found that more than half of online shoppers want to see options to collect in-store. Sainsbury’s offers this service in over 900 stores and states that around 50% of general merchandise orders are now processed through this channel.
In a recent statement, Sainsbury’s chief executive Justin King says his supermarket is outperforming competitors because it appreciates the needs of its customers, allowing to save money and enjoy a positive shopping experience.
King said: “We are succeeding by understanding what our customers want, supporting and inspiring them to live well for less. Delivering quality and value is a compelling offer, in tune with what today’s savvy shoppers want.”
Sainsbury’s could face stiff competition in recent weeks as Morrison’s plans to launch its own eCommerce strategy.
TweetAccess to Data will Save NHS Money and Improve Care
Allowing NHS patients to view health records online will save GPs money as well as improve the level of care, a pioneer in the health records access movement claims.
Greater Manchester GP, Dr Amir Hannan, explained to the Pulse newspaper how his practice has saved money and resources by providing access to data online.
Hannan said: “The vast majority of our patients were – and still are – unaware that they have the right to access their medical records. They have not been aware of what the benefits might be should they access their records and some feared the notes would be difficult to understand even if they could access them.”
A study of the programme to be published shortly shows that for every patient with access to their own information and online support, the practice saves one appointment and three telephone consultations a year.
According to Hannan, providing patients with access to their records could make savings of almost £20 per patient per year in saved appointments.
Major data changes are expected to take place in the healthcare sector, after reports of data breaches surfaced.
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) issued its first fine to a public sector healthcare organisation and warned that more penalties are in the pipeline.
TweeteCommerce More Resilient than High Street
Shoppers preferred online shopping to the high street last month, according to new research.
According to figures from the British Retail Consortium, online sales grew by 9% last month. The growth in eCommerce came with a ‘substantial’ fall in clothes demand and the worst footwear trading since 2008. This drove bricks and mortar like-for-like sales to fall by 3.3% from the same month last year.
The research suggests the reason consumers chose to shop online and avoid the high street was largely due to the poor weather.
Online retailers, despite being the quickest growing part of the sector, were also hit, with growth slowing from 14% last year as the market begins to mature. According to the report, the growth was the weakest since November 2011.
BRC director general Stephen Robertson said: “The general trend for online retail is a slowing rate of growth, which is a sign of the market maturing.
“Growth of 9% for this April is respectable but well behind the increase of almost 14% for the same month last year. There’s major growth in sales being made via mobiles, but that’s still a very small proportion of all the business being done.”
Robertson added that consumers, cautious about their finances, remained reluctant to spend unless they had to.
TweetWhite House Pushes the Cloud
The US federal government has been revealed to be the latest fan of cloud computing technology.
It has been suggested that the demand for cloud computing among the US government follows an order from the White House, which has instructed all bodies to prioritise cloud applications and services ahead of traditional technologies when they are considering new IT projects
Chief technology officer for Microsoft’s federal business Susie Adams, quoted by PC Advisor, claims that there has been progress in this area for the national authority.
Adams said: “We’ve seen movement both in private cloud and public cloud,” she confirmed, adding to the opinions expressed by a panel of industry executives in a recent conference.
Adams noted that government clients are increasingly turning to cloud services both for infrastructure functions like computing power and storage, and applications such as email and collaboration or CRM-like tools to deliver better citizen services.
What’s more, cloud computing, can be provisioned on demand and this therefore is an obvious fit for big data endeavors, typical of government bodies.
This follows from the recent announcement that the UK government will launch a new Enterprise Capital Fund to provide £40 million in funding to high-growth SMEs, particularly software and cloud computing companies.
TweetSlow-loading Sites Cost Retailers £1.73 Billion in Lost Sales
Slow page loading speeds cost online retailers more than £1.7 billion in lost sales according to a new study from online customer data platform QuBit.
According to QuBit, in the UK, the online sector makes up around 7% of total GDP. Website sales totalled £68.2 billion in 2011. Based on 60,000 individual pieces of customer feedback, the research has led QuBit to conclude that slow sites cost online retailers globally more than £1.7 billion.
QuBit says eCommerce businesses should have a need for speed if they want to improve customer retention. A faster loading page will increase traffic and reduce abandonment.
Graham Cooke, CEO of QuBit said: “Site speed is one of the most fundamental measures of a site’s performance so it’s surprising to see so many major retailers falling down in this area.
“The numbers revealed by this research are even more troubling when you bear in mind the expected rate of growth for online retail. Based on current predictions, if retailers fail to act on poor site speeds it could be costing them more than £4 billion in just 18 months.”
According to the research 8% of consumers cited slow loading pages as a key reason for abandoning their purchase. This follows from research from Postcode Anywhere which investigated the top three reasons for cart abandonment.
QuBit also highlights the fact that consumers are becoming increasingly more impatient.
In 2006, the average user would be happy if a page took around 4 seconds to load, but by 2009 these expectations had halved to 2 seconds. Whilst the 2012 value remains unknown, Google suggests that any site taking longer than 1.5 seconds to load is ‘slow’ and will consequently be relegated within their search engine ranking.
TweetNHS to Overhaul Data Strategy
The NHS is expected to make significant changes over the next few weeks, to the way their data is handled.
Speaking at the HC2012 conference in London, Chief Executive of the NHS Information Centre Tim Straughan explained how important capturing accurate data is to the NHS for both patients and users.
“People don’t just want to see raw datasets, they don’t just want to see raw information, they want to see information and data that’s linked together across a number of care settings that starts to link input data with output data.”
Providing more linked data would allow the health service to demonstrate good practice, as well as helping to transform health and social care, he told delegates.
“Open data will be a big driver behind the strategy, he added.
The news comes ahead of the Department for Health’s delayed Informatics Strategy, expected to be published later this month, which is expected to include even more changes to the way data is captured and used by the medical professionals.
The NHS’s data quality strategy has been firmly in the limelight over the last few weeks, as reports of data breaches surfaced.
TweetCloud Computing to Transform Charity IT
Cloud computing will help charity organisations evolve their IT infrastructures according to a recent Guardian blog post.
Dan Sutherland, chief executive of Carrenza, told the Guardian that charity websites experience unique IT challenges, including large spikes in traffic during campaigns and events. He said creating an IT system capable of coping with mass volumes of traffic in a short space of at time and at a reasonable cost is an issue all charities have to deal with.
However, Sutherland says that cloud computer could be the answer, because of its ability to quickly and efficiently scale capacity to meet an organisation’s needs.
He explained: “Rather than having a room full of servers that go unused for over 300 days of the year, cloud computing offers the opportunity to scale-up capacity when you need it.
“We’ve been working with Comic Relief, for Red Nose Day and Sport Relief since 2008 and have created one of the first cloud-based charity donation platforms.
“This approach means that Sport Relief doesn’t have to run physical infrastructure all year round, but can scale up by a factor of around 400 times in the peak period.”
The ability to scale down allows cloud solutions to use less energy when an organisation’s capacity demand decreases. He added that this kind of system also has huge benefits to the environment because masses of servers are not needlessly eating up energy.
Mr Sutherland said that it is still early days for cloud computing, but the future will undoubtedly see more businesses in the commercial, public and charity sectors embracing its benefits.
Recent research from GBI research predicts that cloud computing in the healthcare sector will also grow significantly in the next few years.
TweetNHS Fined £70,000 for Data Quality Breach
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has handed out its financial penalty to an NHS organisation for a serious breach of the Data Protection Act (DPA).
The Aneurin Bevan Health Board in Wales was fined £70,000 after sending a report containing extremely sensitive patient information to someone with a similar name.
A recent report from the ICO found that human error is now the largest cause of data breaches.
An ICO investigation found that data protection training was lacking for both clinical and secretarial staff at the organisation. It also found that the NHS trust did not have adequate controls in place to ensure that personal information was being sent to the right people.
Stephen Eckersley, the ICO’s head of enforcement explained how the case could have been extremely distressing to the patient concerned as well as their family: “The health service holds some of the most sensitive information available.
“The damage and distress caused by the loss of a patient’s medical record is obvious, therefore it is vital that organisations across this sector make sure their data protection practices are adequate.”
The trust has since signed an agreement with the ICO that will ensure they give their staff appropriate data security training and regularly monitor their data compliance and IT security policies.
“We are pleased that the Health Board has now committed to taking action to address the problems highlighted by our investigation; however organisations across the health service must stand up and take notice of this decision,” Mr Eckersley concluded.
Click here to find out how you can improve data quality within your business.
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