Karan Chadda

Global digital marketing and communications leader

Technology will drive growth

When Martin Wolf, the FT’s venerable economics commentator, endorses a concept, it’s usually sensible to give it hearing. Today, he’s backing the idea that we’re a post-growth society. That the growth generated by the industrial revolution and advances of the 20th century simply cannot be matched by the changes being wrought by the current technological revolution.

The argument that jet engines, running water and electricity are all inventions and innovations that rapidly drove up productivity and that current technological innovations pale in comparison will appeal to many. It will receive a warm welcome from those who hark back to a time when we built things, who think the service sector part of the economy is illusory. However, it is wrong.

At first glance a lot of the benefits of technological innovation are incremental, but they enable productivity improvements far beyond those we have so far reaped. Capital is already global, yet despite the massive growth of cities, labour lags behind – people move around the world a fraction of the amount and the speed that resources do.

Technology mitigates this need for travel. It connects people in a way never before possible. It frees up time and forges closer bonds over greater bonds over greater distances. Very few companies have been able to capitalise on this yet but those who have, have found that international, collaborative working has driven innovation. GE is a prime example. Back in 2010, it created a private network to connect its 5,000 global marketers. It enabled people working in different divisions to share problems and create solutions that weren’t previously possible.

Collaborative workplace tools have the potential to change business structures and productivity in the same way the specialisation and rolling assembly lines did during previous periods of high innovation and growth.

A recent McKinsey Global Institute report stated that collaborative workplace tools could generate productivity gains of up to $1.3 tn in the consumer packaged goods, retail financial services, advanced manufacturing, and professional services sectors. There are hard numbers that support this prediction: Microsoft paid $1.2bn for Yammer, the social networking tool for businesses.

Collaborative tools are just one element of the changes that the internet and related technologies are enabling. Yet they alone have the potential to boost innovation and growth in key service sectors. The technological revolution is increasing not only our ability to innovate but the speed at which we can do so.

This article originally appeared here on the Huffington Post.

Mobile wallets: who’s after your money?

Mobile money and wallets (paying for things with your phone) have been all over the news recently. Many companies see a valuable income stream flowing from such payments and they’re all setting up systems in the hope that theirs will become dominant in the market.

Many of the companies behind mobile money come from different sectors, and the sectors they come from indicate their motivation. So let’s take a look at who’s after your money.

Payment Companies
Perhaps the most obvious sector, is the one who’s dependent on making money from your cash: payment companies like Visa and Mastercard. Both have invested in mobile payments systems. They believe that payments will, over time, move from credit and debit cards to smartphones. They already have the systems in place to process payments – Visa processes $4tn worth of payments annually – and they make a small sum for every transaction. For payments companies, mobile payments are the future of their industry, so they’re making sure they’re part of it.

Telecoms Companies
Mobile network operators, including recently rebranded EE, Vodafone and O2, are facing a fork in the road. One path leads to them becoming providers of wireless data. This path essentially makes them utilities like energy suppliers or water companies. This low-growth, generic product path is one they’re absolutely petrified of. The other route they can take is the horribly jargon-ised “move further up the value chain”. The idea is to provide services to customers that add value beyond data and phone calls. The operators hope that one of these additional services will be payments. The beauty of mobile payments is that they offer strong growth potential and that payment processing fees to do not fall directly on the consumer. So exciting are the potential revenue streams, that EE, Vodafone and O2 have worked together to build a common standard for mobile payments.

Retailers
Loyalty schemes have been one of the great innovations in retail history. Such schemes have enabled retailers to move from marketing their wares to segments of society, to marketing to individuals. Mobile wallets would enable them to capture more data by ensuring they record online purchasing data as well the offline purchases at the tills. It means they’ll never miss a transaction.

Internet and Technology Firms
Google already have a wallet, Apple have taken tentative steps with the creation their Passbook and start ups like Square and iZettle are bridging the gap by providing card reader attachments for attachments for smartphones. The Googles in this space are driving innovation partly because they’re in an industry that is changing rapidly and those who don’t innovate fail, and partly because, like retailers, they seek to add to their vast stores of consumer data. The Squares and their ilk are in the market because they seek to disrupt the payments industry – either by usurping Visa and Mastercard or by adding a whole new group of consumers and small businesses to the electronic payments industry.

So who’s going to win?

In the short term, no one is. Cash and cards remain at the centre of the payments ecosystem. That’s not going to change in the short term. However, systems like Square, which incorporate card readers but also go beyond those to visual recognition and automated payments, will be common in the not-too-distant future. A lot of money is at stake and a lot of companies are fighting for a piece of it.

When winners do appear, there won’t be many of them. Much like the smartphone ecosystem battle, retailers and consumers will gravitate to one or two systems. So the race is on to find out who’s able to get your money from your phone.

This article originally appeared here on the Huffington Post.

Is unlimited growth a thing of the past?

The venerable Martin Wolf, the FT’s hugely respected chief economics commentator, has written a very thought-provoking article looking at a study by Robert Gordon of  Northwestern University. One of the central arguments is that the technology revolution will not drive growth in the way previous industrial revolutions have. It is an argument that many in the technology and public policy circles will disagree with, but the article is sensible, thoughtful and a must-read.

Is unlimited growth a thing of the past?

The alternative close

Ever Been fobbed off by the someone who says they’re happy to meet you but never agrees to a date and time? It happened to me all the time when I worked in recruitment. One day, when ranting again that so and so wouldn’t agree a time and date, a colleague told me about the alternative close.

The idea is simple. If you’re selling something, then there’s no reason your buyer should work to help you. Even something as simple as opening their Outlook calendar and finding an available slot or two can be too much like hard work. The alternative close helps by offering simple, binary choices.

So, the hot lead agrees to meet you. Excellent. Now, let’s get that meeting in the diary.

Me: Next week or the week after?
Hot Lead (HL): Next week

Me: Tuesday or Thursday?
HL: Thursday

Me: Morning or afternoon?
HL: Morning

Me: 10am or 11?
HL: 10am

Boom! The meeting’s been bagged by offering options so the hot lead feels like they’re in control, but there’s only ever two options and, most importantly, not meeting is never an option.

Brains vs. Brawn

A few years ago, the Welsh Rugby team were sponsored by Brains, the Welsh brewery. It was a great tie up.

Once, Wales played an away game in France, where alcohol sponsorship is banned. So they couldn’t have ‘Brains’ on their shirts.

The clever marketing people at Brains took their logo and switched it to “Brawn”. Same font, layout, etc. Everyone knew what it meant and who it represented.

Brains vs. Brawn. Clever, memorable and a good description of rugby.

This post was originally published here on Predatory Thinking.