Does Cloud Increase Vendor Lockin Risk?

For all the marketingspeak from technology providers about open systems blah blah blah, seasoned CIOs know that every software purchase is accompanied by a certain level of risk of getting locked in to that particular vendor. The risk is caused by user comfort, proprietary programming language and opaque database structures, among other factors. Cue to … Read more

Marketable Items Let You Have Your Content And Eat It Too

In his blog post titled Wasted Words – Why Marketing Content Longer than 3 to 5 Items Does Not Work, Gartner Research Director Hank Barnes makes a strong case to technology vendors for simplifying their story and emphasizing only two or three things that matter most in their marketing collateral. He goes on to explain how … Read more

Frictionless Loyalty Programs – MakeUseOf Case Study

The leading British technology and Internet apps blog Make Use Of recently launched a loyalty-cum-rewards program where readers earn points for sharing its articles on social networks. In the past, I’ve come across rewards for filling forms, completing surveys and taking other actions but this is the first time I’m seeing a website rewarding social sharing … Read more

How Security Can Actually Increase Vulnerability

Security increases friction. That’s not news. I’ve myself written many blog posts – click here, here and here – on this perennial tradeoff involved in payments. However, I recently found a new security measure that actually creates new sources of vulnerability. Ironic but true. Since December 2013, India’s central bank RBI has made it mandatory … Read more

Three More Ways How Tech Can Help Banks Accelerate Legacy Transformation

In How Tech Can Help Banks Accelerate Legacy Transformation, I’d described three issues with open systems that hold banks back from migrating their legacy applications to open systems. Here are three more: #4. Sudden Loss of Functionality In this brilliant article titled When Product Features Disappear – Amazon, Apple and Tesla and the Troubled Future for … Read more

How Tech Can Help Banks Accelerate Legacy Transformation

During a meeting with the CIO of a Top 5 bank in Germany, I was introduced to a lady who was retiring that same weekend. The CIO averred that she was the last employee in the bank who knew the nitty-gritty of a certain mainframe application. This was music to my ears. The company I … Read more

Increasing Sales-Marketing Alignment: Big Bang Doesn’t Work

Fixing the misalignment between Sales and Marketing is a challenge that probably harkens back to the inception of business itself. The 4.3 million results you’ll find when you Google for “Sales Marketing Alignment” speak to the humungous amount of chatter on this subject. On the other hand, there were merely 20 searches for this keyword … Read more

How A Small Problem In Mail Merge Led To A Big Lesson In Content Marketing

For close to two years, we’ve been sending out a periodic e-newsletter to our prospects, customers and business associates once a month. Even with this relatively low frequency, this newsletter has proved to be very effective for staying in touch with contacts and nurturing leads, among other things. As testimony, we recently signed a deal … Read more

To Personalize Or Not To Personalize Is The Question

Personalization has always been a hot topic since the dawn of the Internet. It has been garnering greater interest lately as recent advances in HTML5, Big Data and Mobility technologies have raised the ability of brands to improve timeliness and relevance of their customer engagement efforts to the next level. News, social updates, color scheme, … Read more