This is a 20 minute Presentation by Mark Bonnell with guest Mauricio Muñoz that discusses some of the key components of a digital strategy for multiple channels web and mobile. Looks at key themes and considerations for building web and mobile channels. The key themes are: strategy and purpose, architecture, cadence, metrics, infrastructure as code.
Presented at the digital transformation event - http://www.seminariotransformaciondigital.cl/
45. Invention comes in many forms and at many
scales. The most radical and transformative
of inventions are often those that empower
others to unleash their creativity – to pursue
their dreams.
Jeffrey P. Bezos
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Amazon.com, Inc.
I am Mark Bonnell, CEO of Modyo.
I am a Canadian that realized 30 years ago that Chile was amazing. I was lucky to marry a Chilean girl 22 years ago & we’ve made Chile our home.
Today I lead a 70 person software company helping financial institutions and large companies transform their digital channels.
I asked my friend Mauricio from Amazon to join me today to discuss one topic which is Infrastructure as Code.
I’d like to share my favorite quote by John Doerr.
For the next 20 minutes I really just want to talk about Ideas & Execution.
So let’s start with a reality check from CIO Magazine this year - January 2018.
They mentioned a study by Wipro Digital that polled 400 senior executives.
So let’s start with a reality check from CIO Magazine in January 2018.
So how do we improve our chances of success
I’d like to talk about 5 themes...
Strategy and Purpose
Architecture
Cadence
Metrics
Infrastructure as Code
As themes
When we think about our Digital Channels, Strategy and Purpose go hand in hand
We should ask 3 strategic questions:
What is the problem we want to solve with our digital channels?
How big and important is the problem impacting how many customers?
How can we lower the uncertainty with our solution? Can we increase the odds that our solution will generate the business impact we want?
So as we’re asking these questions what we want to be doing is Framing our Digital Channel Strategy.
We want to be thinking about:
The Scope that is Necessary to add value.
The Minimum Viable Product required to Launch & Iterate.
The Hypothesis testing about our digital channel solutions and whether we’re meeting the needs of customers.
If we evolve our initial thinking from Strategy to Purpose, there are additional points to consider.
What will be the core purpose of our digital channels?How will I get the most Leverage from our channels?
Think of Leverage in terms of efficiency and simplicity for clients and employees. Think of Leverage as using technology to fundamentally change value to customers.
And think of purpose for your Digital Customer
We want to get clarity on the key experiences.
We want to map out how key target customers will succeed.
We want to look for Impact moments that customers will remember.
When we’re thinking of purpose we also want to be “Framing our Purpose”.
Framing means opening up to possibilities but then setting constraints so we can execute and measure.
For example we may want to frame the purpose of one channel to be “Get a mortgage easily in less than 10 steps.”
We can then drill down and look at:
Know How Required to make it happen - Select a Product Owner who Understands the business.
New processes that need to exist and organizational changes
Metrics we will use to validate our hypothesis
I’d like to share an experience from last week.
I had bought a ticket with my points for my father in Canada.
He came to Chile and his plans changed and I had to change the ticket.
Historically most likely I would have to use the call center or go to the branch.
When I walked into the branch in Alto Las Condes they mentioned they were going to charge me $50.
So before spending the $50 I decided to grab a coffee at Starbucks and see if there was an option to change the ticket.
In less than 5 minutes I had changed the ticket at no cost.
LatAm gave me a 1x option to change the ticket and they generated a more loyal customer through a simple, memorable experience.
The Key Experience is that “People’s plans change” - Someone at LatAm decided to focus on this experience.
Read quote
I want to move on and talk about architecture
Architecture is core to execution.
Architecture works for you or against you and is a key driver of Leverage.
You want to think of architecture from your customer’s point of view and put them at the center.
However Architecture is full of trade offs. One of the classic tradeoffs is Cloud vs. On Premise.
What part of my architecture will be in the cloud? What leverage will I gain?
So let’s just take a minute and consider what we believe to be at a winning architecture.
A winning architecture powers the execution of strategy & purpose long term.
We want to decouple technologies so it’s easier to iterate and change.
We want Digital Channels to power amazing customer experiences where…
Product Owners & UX Designers & Front End Developers can more easily design & iterate customer experiences in widgets connected to APIs.
The Microservices & APIs is where you have engineers creating the API endpoints that make these customer experiences possible.
The core business systems is what you have to work with.
The bottom line is your execution is totally dependent on your architecture.
Your digital teams will either have more Leverage to succeed or be dragged down.
So I’d like to talk about Microservices for 1 minute.
- why are they so important?
“Microservices seeks to make applications easier to understand”.
Microservices helps you parallelize development in your digital teams powering faster cadence in how you produce value.
If we think of architecture from the customer point of view the purpose is make it Easy to Do business With where every interaction builds on the last.
And a central customer profile becomes the mission control for a frictionless customer relationship.
Going deeper into the concept of Execution,
At Modyo, We’ve become a big fan of cadence or rhythm in how work gets done.
When we consider cadence we’re talking about “Pure Execution”. Cadence is your digital output.
It is the purpose behind Scrum and Kanban.
It’s about generating more predictability using additional tools like checklists to detect key issues early.
It’s about working with teams that are capable of establishing objectives and key results behind those objectives.
So if we ask if there’s a formula for building winning digital channels, The answer is...
… dependent on People understanding their expected output and “units of work”. In the end designing & building digital channels is about “Doing the Right Work in Predictable Ways”
So when we’re creating digital experiences we want to create rules that break down work into units
where we’re designing Great Experiences in Widgets on the front end
and working with teams to make sure the APIs get built.
The objective is to generate a faster cadence of value delivered to customers.
Our platform at Modyo is based on this premise. Our aim is to radically accelerate how digital transformation happens in channels ….
We’re also big fans of Checklists.
Our Memory is risky
You want a base from which to improve
We believe that a useful tool is checklists.
Atul Gawande
So let’s discuss metrics for a minute or two
I only want to share 2 thoughts on Metrics.
Metrics power Clarity of Purpose
And Metrics Lower Uncertainty.
When we think of purpose metrics we’re asking
“Is our growth strategy on track with our core purpose.
When we think of lowering uncertainty we’re asking
“Is the digital channel working the way we hope?”
If we consider purpose metrics they can be either simple or complex.
Examples of simple purpose metrics that are easy to understand may be…
Digital customer acquisition of mortgages
Digital customer growth rate of mortgages
An example of a Complex purpose metric may be
% of conversion from remarketing to a specific customer list
When we move on to Metrics that lower uncertainty a classic example may be
Where do we lose people in the our funnel” Or
What media buy do I attribute to the generation of online mortgages.
With that said the final theme which is an important one is Infrastructure as Code and to speak about this I have Mauricio Muñoz.
Capital Expense vs. Pay-as-you-go
Capacity Planning vs. Scale as you need
Provisioning in hours/days/weeks vs. Provisioning in minutes
High effort to manage risks vs. Repeatable/Auditable/Consistent
Local vs. Global
“The value of Infrastructure as Code can be broken down into three, measurable categories: Cost (reduction), speed (faster execution) and risk (remove errors and security violations)”
Let me finish with a quote by Jeff Bezos, which demonstrates how AWS thinks about fostering innovation for others. This can be teams within Amazon but then more importantly, developers, businesses, and enterprises outside of Amazon.
Strategy and Purpose is about Framing the Problem Worth Solving and Defining Key Experiences & Structure to Execute.
Architecture determines our capacity to accelerate innovation.
Cadence helps us structure the right work in more predictable ways.
Metrics clarify purpose & lower uncertainty.
Infrastructure as code is about balancing speed and security.