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

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

Mobile Wallet Has Few Takers – Even At Starbucks

In a world that’s awash with exuberant projections in 2022 for products that are not yet launched in 2013 – no, I’m not just looking at you, ISIS – GigaOm injected a touch of reality by providing some actual figures for mobile wallet payment volumes: US$ 500M in USA last year (Source: GigaOm / Berg … Read more

Season’s Greetings!

Season’s Greetings and Best Wishes for a Happy and Prosperous New Year 2014. We’re happy to share the following highlights of 2013: Our Location Based Task Reminder app LBTR360 made it to the Computerworld Top 100 Android Apps list We released the QR360 Framework that provides QR code best practices. While we have a vested interest in this … Read more

Amazon Drone – Delivery Revolution Or PR Stunt?

On the weekend preceding 2 December 2013, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced plans to use Unmanned Aerial Vehicles – aka drones – to deliver packages, thereby cutting delivery times to 30 minutes. Like many people, I thought this was a great idea. Amazon’s plan to use drones is self-admittedly futuristic. Retail Systems Research, Reuters and … 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