Tesco Loyalty

Amongst loyalty programs, Tesco’s Club Card is considered to be the gold standard. The Club Card loyalty program is more than ten years old now and serves as a huge competitive advantage for Tesco. The brains behind Tesco’s Club Card program is an outside contractor – Dunnhumby.

What Dunnhumby did for Tesco was new for the industry, but not an entirely new concept all together. The idea of “loyalty programs” previously existed within the airline industry, however never before had a robust loyalty program been established for an industry with such frequent purchases as grocery. This allowed Tesco to obtain an enormous amount of information about its customers.

Soon after testing began on the Club Card program, Tesco's then-Chairman Lord MacLaurin, said "What scares me about this is that you know more about my customers after three months than I know after 30 years." The value of the loyalty program quickly became clear: loyalty programs’ competitive advantages exist in marketing intelligence.

With this new marketing intelligence Tesco was freed to engage with customers in new, personalized ways. Customers were offered discounts and coupons customized to their buying habits and also offered different discounts to encourage them to explore new products and categories. With this type of personalized marketing, soon loyalty to Tesco emerged within the UK market. If shoppers weren’t shopping at Tesco they were missing clear opportunities to save money.

ERP Systems - to implement or not to implement?

Ok, this is not my (nor any sane person’s) favorite topic to write about, but here it is.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems SHOULD be the backbone or nervous system of every scaled multinational organization. They SHOULD be an asset, a competitive advantage, and a go-to storehouse for organizational history and long-term memory. This is what they SHOULD be… but the question is how often ARE they these things?

Companies like Oracle, Accenture, Sage & SAP secure their business models with the sale and promotion of all encompassing ERP systems. Since the “Y2K” scare, masses of consultants and programmers have built customized ERP systems on every continent, charging licensing fees and billing hours totaling in the billions of dollars every year. And yet with all this investment it is a real challenge to find someone with a positive ERP implementation story.

So, is the solution for organizations to avoid ERP systems all together? Well clearly not, as organizations require enterprise wide systems to function more efficiently. But it is to say that in practice the dream of a fix-all system that will solve problems rooted more realistically in communication, organizational design, and corporate culture is folly. ERP systems should be relayed on no more than individual employees – they have advantages and disadvantages and they will work for your firm for only a finite amount of time.

Facebook

In retrospect it’s actually difficult to believe that I initially resisted Facebook. For a while I refused to set-up a Facebook account and it actually took a friend setting up an account for me to get involved. This was only 5 years ago and now I can’t imagine my life without it.

My Facebook account began as a glorified storage place for photos, random disjointed comments, and party requests. Now my Facebook account is a relatively accurate representation of me as a person. My “friends” now include buddies, classmates, travel associates, ex-girlfriends, future girlfriends, and workmates (yes, I folded to the pressure and combined my work and personal life!). My photos are both flattering (tagged by me) and unflattering (tagged by others) and show many of the interesting and not so interesting places I’ve visited. Even my past status updates serve as a history of my thoughts, feelings, and impromptu & all-too-often inappropriate humor.

Just over 2 years ago Facebook became a mobile part of my life. This was the point when my Facebook transitioned from a simple jeff.com to a real living archive integrated with my life. This is when the connectivity of photos, comments, updates, requests, and events moved out from behind my computer screen and into real time life, every hour of everyday.

In the past two years Facebook has become integral to the way I live. I can only imagine how much more integrated and representative of my life my Facebook will be in 2+ years.

I have a teen crush on Google

Ok, I must admit that when it comes to a subject like Google I feel like I felt back in middle school admiring the popular girl. “She is SO pretty. She is SO popular. She is SO stylish”

It’s pathetic I know, but I really have a teen crush on Google.

Of course I haven’t told her this outright. No, I’d be far too timid to just come out and tell her, but honestly I think she knows already. I mean look, I gaze at her several times everyday. She must have noticed me by now. I write her often exposing my deepest thoughts and most guarded desires. I make it all so obvious to her. She hears all I say to my friends about her and what my friends respond with as advice.

How could she not know? Of course she knows that I love her. Of course she knows my true feelings. She knows exactly what I am thinking, everything I am doing, and where I am doing it. Of course she knows. She knows everything about me.

My love, I know you are listening. I hope you are good at keeping secrets.

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“Let’s get in shape for the GYM…”

5 years ago this was the mantra of just about every tech start-up. They were referring to the dream of being acquired by Google, Yahoo, or Microsoft. Well now-a-days, the GYM is not looking so enticing and most would rather just get FAT (Facebook, Apple, & Twitter).












Google is facing backlash from both consumers groups and government regulators. Yahoo has lost market value to the tune of $22 billion. And Microsoft? Well, Microsoft in my humble opinion is stagnating.

Certainly I am biased. There could be no greater advocate for Microsoft than me (as they are headquartered in my hometown and currently employ many of my close friends). Microsoft introduced nearly every computer-literate person alive to everyday personal computing. They invented and marketed nearly every popular computing capability in use today. They have accomplished all this and more… and even so, I am writing this on an Apple laptop – that’s really saying something.

So what is wrong with Microsoft? Well for starters it seems from the outsiders perspective that the drive for innovation within the organization is gone. Comfortable with their cash-cow Windows operating system, maybe the constant stream of cash has lured them into a sense of complacency, if not over confidence. Without a major product innovation in years, more nimble competitors have zoomed past Microsoft in key areas, with feeble responses from Redmond.

Whatever the reason, Microsoft will need to re-evaluate its place in the market in order to find a niche for future growth. To regain the trust and spark interest from consumers like me, an exciting technical advancement will be required.

If not soon, the FAT cats will dominate the day. And this day is rapidly approaching.

Never be alone again!!! - try FourSquare

Do you remember the good old days when we would make plans, go to meet at some place, and stay there all night?... well I don’t, because I am not 50+ years old. But if I did remember those days I’d be glad they are over.

Now that the stone age is finished and the sparks of the digital age are really flying, we can freely move about our physical world confident that our cyber world will take shape to keep us in constant contact with friends and family. From text messaging to mobile Facebook and Twitter, we are never out of contact, never bored and never alone. Whether a function of the digital revolution or simply our reaction to it, programmers and users are shaping mobile connectivity to make it easier and more approachable to daily life.

Recently I downloaded FourSquare for my iPhone. The concept behind this app is to create a social community of mobile users which overlays a digital environment on top of our physical world – in laymen’s terms: give every establishment a small message board/blog for patrons to communicate.

Screen shot from my iPhone

I’ve been “checking in” at my favorite establishments (including my business school). This gives me access to information from others who are/have been visiting the same location. In addition I score points each time, which elevates my status within the system, culminating in earning the ‘mayorship’ of a location – I’m coming after you Enrique Dans!!

In my view this has HUGE potential for marketers. Retail companies struggle everyday to gather customer insights and promote loyalty programs that are both relevant and easy to use. FourSquare allows customers to interact in a digital world with their fellow patrons and with the retailer. Open communication is encouraged and loyalty is rewarded – all at NO COST!

My former, over-caffeinated employer would be wise to take note of the FourSquare model.

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