Shopper’s Stop – Loyalty Or Disloyalty Program?

Since I wrote Loyalty Or Disloyalty Programs? and Beware Of Losing Sales With Bad Loyalty Programs, a couple of companies have used mobile technologies in very innovative ways to design loyalty programs that truly foster loyalty. But Shopper’s Stop is not one among them. The pioneer of India’s organized retail industry recently introduced a mobile app variant of its … Read more

Coin Solves A Pain. But Is It A 100 Dollar Pain?

In Mobile Wallets Should Fix What’s Broken – And It Ain’t Payments, I’d highlighted why paying with plastic cards comes naturally to most people and why mobile wallets are not offering any compelling reason for people to switch to them instead of continuing to use plastic cards for their everyday payments. I’d also pointed out in … Read more

Google Search – Upheaval Does Not Equal Abuse

Every update to Google’s search algorithm – Penguin and Panda to name the latest two – is accompanied by major upheavals in the rankings of websites on the Google Search Engine Results Page. Take the case of Mahalo for example: After the Panda update, the human-powered search directory found itself shunted off from the #1 position … Read more

FAASO’s Wins “QR360 Code Of The Week” Award

FAASO’s is the winner of “QR360 Code Of The Week”, the award series we kicked off with Precious Platinum last month.   The winning QR code appears on the upper right hand corner of the quick service restaurant chain’s menu. Scanning it takes users to the app store page of MOBILE wrAPP, the company’s smartphone ordering-cum-loyalty … 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

Eight First Impressions Of Starbucks India

Starbucks marked its entry into India by opening a few stores in Delhi, Mumbai and Pune over the last few months. I visited one of these stores recently. Here are my first impressions of Starbucks India based on this visit. [slideshow_deploy id=’1337′] This store is a lot roomier than the many Starbucks outlets I’ve visited … 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

Precious Platinum Wins The First “QR360 Code Of The Week” Award

We’re seeing an explosion in the use of QR codes lately, especially in magazines, posters and B2B newspaper ads. However, we’re also seeing a drastic difference in the way different brands implement the technology in terms of size, placement, CTA, and so on. Harvard Business School, Vodafone and a few other brands bungle even the … Read more

Beware of Credit Card Reward Redemption Theft

In Will The Sad State Of Logistics Hurt eCommerce?, I highlighted how DHL, FedEx and other multinational courier companies are 8-10X costlier than the local ones, and are, therefore, affordable only for high-value consignments. I recently went through an experience which highlighted the risk of sending anything valuable via couriers. I placed my credit card … Read more

Is The US “Closed Loop” Payments System Making Americans Less Creditworthy?

For several years, American travelers have been having a tough time trying to use their magstripe credit cards in EMV Europe. In India, as highlighted here, many ecommerce and bill payment websites have recently started refusing American credit cards. This is because these cards don’t have Mobile OTP, a two factor authentication mechanism that is now … Read more