ESG Seminar – e-Business Strategy

The 1st Executive Study Group (ESG) seminar in 2015 with January Topic of e-Business Strategy named “How Burberry & Starbucks Innovate Superb ‘Customer Experiences’ Digitally” was held by the ESG, Asia Pacific Institute for Strategy Limited (APIFS) and the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corp (HKSTPC) on 7 Jan 2015. I would like to summarize the seminar for sharing below.

Before the seminar, Dr. Mark Lee briefed the 6th anniversary of Executive Study Group (ESG) and discussed how to improve sales performance. He quoted Prof. Philip Kotler (Kellogg School of Management Northwestern University) statement that “When Sales and Marketing work well together, companies see substantial improvement on important performance metrics: Sales cycles are shorter, market-entry costs go down, and the cost of sales is lower.”

Then we tried the online survey to examine how well Sales and Marketing Work Together using mobile. We got the immediately result and report would sent to our email.

After that Dr. Mark Lee briefed the content of seminar included "The Heart of e-Business Strategy”, “360 Customer Experience Strategy”, “DNA Inside Great Strategy” which included “Touch Points”, “Reach-and-Engagement”, “Customer Data-Mining” and “Physical-and-Digital-World Integration”, as well as, “Cross-Industry Sharing”.

The Heart of e-Business Strategy had started since 2007. Because iPhone launched and transforming the Customer Experience. New Customer Experience were possible from Social Media, Mobile Computing, GPS data and Customer Analytics.

Dr. Lee briefed the 360 Customer Experience Strategy using Burberry Case. Ms. Angela Ahrendts (CEO, Burberry in 2014 and working for 6yr) identified some factors why Burberry behind competitor included Lack of Innovation, Strong Competitor and Lack of Economies of Scales.

Then she asked two questions that “What is our vision?” and “What do we have that our peers don’t?” (Differentiation Strategy) Then she found the unique positions to target Millennial Consumers and used Millennial’s Mother Tongue “Digital”! Once the digital strategic set, they focused on Digital Marketing, led by Millennial and invested uncommon budget allocation (said >50%). For instance, revamping Burberry.com used eleven languages, New Product Sampling at Facebook, Online request for Global Shipments, and Top Management appeared on YouTube & Facebook, as well as, to be the first to see the New Collections at Tweeter.

There were Four Strategies Inside 360 Customer Experience included (1) Touch Point Strategy, (2) Reach-and-Engagement Strategy, (3) Customer Data-Mining Strategy and (4) Physical-and-Digital-World Integration Strategy.

(1) Touch Point Strategy
Burberry employed this strategy in Fashion Show such as Autumn/Winter 2015 show including Chinese actress and model Angelababy. They teamed up fans with WeChat, Weixin in Chinese to offer an immersive fashion experience for fans (Fans Strategy). The following slide showed that it allowed followers to customize a digital “Made For” plaque with their name! The other case was Burberry Kisses.
“The experience has to be what our customers want it to be.” Said by Gary Loveman (CEO, Caesars Entertainment)

(2) Reach-and-Engagement Strategy
Starbucks was employed as case for discussing Reach-and-Engagement Strategy. Mr. Adam Brotman (Chief Digital Officer, Starbucks) digital strategy included to connect with customers, transform their experience and drive the company. Firstly, they employed Loyalty Program using MyStarbucks App with shop locations, gift, payment and rewards.

Their fan development result got 54 million Facebook fans, 3.4 million Twitter followers, and 900,000 followers on Instagram. Starbuck is the number one ranking among socially enagaged companies. Moreover, My Starbucks Idea site engaged fans by making them speak out.

(3) Customer Data-Mining Strategy
Marketers can make better customer decisions to create and target special offers with precision. Data-mining Strategy allowed the company to scale its personalized and then they could touch a larger group of customers. (So call Mass Markets with VIP Service)

(4) Physical-and-Digital-World Integration Strategy
Good integration should be single view of customer. One World of Burberry (digital & physical) means that customers were about to visit all the different parts of the business as they would do in its HQ.

Lastly, Dr. Lee said 360 Customer Experience was an engaging customer experience created value for both customers and firms. It could drive retention and stimulate customer loyalty.

Before the cross-Industry sharing, Dr. Lee gave us an exercise to find out two most impressive customer-experience strategies and one least impressive experience. And then group discussion was performed.

Reference:
The Centre for Logistics Technologies and Supply Chain Optimization, CUHK - http://www.logitsco.cuhk.edu.hk/
HKSTP - www.hkstp.org
Asia Pacific Institute for Strategy Limited (亞太策略研究所有限公司) – www.apifs.org (Remark: It redirect to the online survey.)