Telco, media and Digital experts
I would like to understand the efficiency of PPM (Project Portfolio Management) in real life. To what extent does this tool help in project management?
In my experience portfolio management is rarely used very well in a lot of industries and particularly telecoms. If used correctly with appropriate Project Management then it should improve choices and also build in contingency into the portfolio. If it is not used diligently it may help with choosing priorities but not impact on the actual management of projects. Or, it may simply become another burdensome overhead for your PMO. PPM needs to have buy in and senior sponsorship to have real teeth including preferably CFO, CIO and business leaders.
The efficiency of PPM as a tool largely depends on the output (product / service quality) divided by PMO input (process). The efficiency and results could therefore vary from one PMO to another.
Coming from IT background, It is essential to use AI-powered software (Forecast, ProJacked, etc) which does 80% of the work (predictability, transparency, error elimination), leaving PMOs with 20% of the work (quality management, reporting, communication and decision-making). This in return saves a lot of time, money and effort for project management team.
Hi Mahmoud,
Smallest denominator of a portfolio would be an individual project and in my humble experience, the whys and expected outcomes are not deliberated in enough detail at start. At portfolio, the criteria used to define priorities among project should be fixed and agreed by all functional heads at company level. Portfolio Management becomes in-effective if you are chasing rapidly changing goal posts. hope this helps. Best Regards, Dinesh
Looking for options for improved customer experience, cloud, multi-channel.
Hello Nuria
We are working on defining the digital strategy for a Cloud telco in UK. We can share some ideas by phone and maybe you will find some of them useful for your project
W wielu miejscowo?ciach prowadz? dzia?alno?? firmy, które trudni? si? wynajmem kontenerów. Wywóz gruzu Pozna? s? dosy? przydatne, bowiem s? stosunkowo tanie i s? one wr?cz konkurencyjne w zestawieniu do kontenerów z odmiennych miast. Wynajem kontenerów Pozna? jest dosy? ?atwy, gdy? starczy tylko zadzwoni? do konkretnej firmy oraz z?o?y? zapotrzebowanie. Firmy wychodz? naprzeciw swoim klientom i wykonuj? zg?oszenia za po?rednictwem Internetu oraz przez telefon. Takie firmy realizuj? zabieranie gruzu z niezwykle ró?norodncyh obiektów. Wykonalny jest równie dobrze wywóz odpadów poremontowych Pozna?, czyli takich, które pozosta?y danemu klientowi po remontach.
Hello Nuria ...I am not sure of any single tool that is available for digital transformation. Digital transformation is a very loosely defined word. First of all the existing process/tools/people/priorities/goals of the target customer to be understood well. Based on the study you need to decide what changes to be done and how.
Back in 2016, Nielsen published a paper with various stats related to video on demand. Some of their findings included:
It's been a few years since these stats and today we find them to be true. Actually, a report shared by Statista, shows that the number of subscription video on demand (SVoD) households worldwide is projected to grow from 250 million in 2018 to 450 million in 2022.
It is no question that we're in the middle of a streaming revolution, with various big players in the video on demand game. But what is not clear yet, is what will set them apart and what value they will bring to stay on top of the race. Let's explore some options:
In 2006, Netflix launched "The Netflix Prize", a competition that awarded 1M dollars to programmers who could improve their recommendations engine. Today, as we navigate the world of big data and AI, we can recognize the importance of using data in a way that can benefit and provide value to the customers.
Josh Pressnell from Streaming Media goes even further out in what VOD players need to achieve to convert and maintain customers engaged. He writes:
"A truly good recommendation engine—and a better user experience—relies on real artificial intelligence, which necessitates more data, from multiple locations. It goes beyond relatively simple “users who liked this also liked this” algorithms and stretches into “deep data.” … Integrations with social channels may be low-hanging fruit here, offering a much more complete vision of who a viewer really is and what they might want to watch. Linking VOD accounts to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest profiles is a simple way to introduce more data points and make a huge step toward a more personalized experience, and a user’s likes and Twitter followers can paint an interesting picture of what a viewer might want to watch while using information that’s somewhat less-sensitive to today’s privacy issues."
Convenience and cost are two of the benefits of video on demand for customers, but also, lately we're seeing an important trend related to innovative and exclusive content. A great example of this is the launch of Roma by Alfonso Cuarón, which was exclusively launched in Netflix and has yielded incredible results.
Without doubt, Netflix and others are moving into a content creation revolution which is a trend that we'll need to watch closely.
Will we witness more films ditching the traditional movie theater launches? I guess we will need to wait and see but the trend seems to point in that direction for some producers.
But as we continue to enjoy a plethora of services, the question of innovation and differentiation will continue present. What will come next?
Rumor has it that we're experiencing the demise of physical stores to the e-commerce boom. Digital is thriving and Amazon continues to grow, which only helps to support the idea that everything will be online in the future. In a report published by KPMG, titled The Truth About Online Consumers, it states that the number one reason people shop online is that they can shop 24/7. In spite of that, 94% of all retail sales still take place in stores.
Paul Martin, UK Head of Retail, KPMG in the UK believes that multichannel is what will bring the most success:
“Companies should be channel agnostic, meaning it does not matter if they start with online or offline, what matters is that all channels are interlinked to give consumers the convenience they need. Online plays a major part in the customer journey or ROPO (research online, purchase offline). The most successful multi-channel companies established their online channels as early as the late nineties, went on to establish ‘click and collect’, eradicated silos across the entire organization and established a channel agnostic incentive program so retail staff do not consider online as a separate business.”
Customers want to have a different experience when shopping and omnichannel seems to have the recipe to save brick-and-mortar stores. A study conducted by Harvard Business Review, dove into the shopping behavior of over 46,000 customers who made a purchase during a 14-month period. What they found was compelling:
"Customers who were exposed to omnichannel spent an average of 4% more on every shopping occasion in the store and 10% more online than single-channel customers. Even more compelling, with every additional channel they used, the shoppers spent more money in the store. For example, customers who used 4+ channels spent 9% more in the store, on average, when compared to those who used just one channel."
We've talked about the importance of innovation in retail and how new technologies can provide more precise data and interesting solutions to attract customers and increase sales. Everyone is talking about VR and AR, and when it comes to saving physical stores and supporting omnichannel, these technologies have a lot to show for. From new ways of trying on items to providing new experiences in shopping, here are some examples of how VR and AR are transforming the industry:
Physical stores are still generating more revenue than e-commerce and as we can find out from reports and research, there's still hope for brick-and-mortar, as long as they move towards transformation. It is time to broaden the channels and innovate in customer experience. It seems that instead of competing against e-commerce, it is time to embrace it and make it work.
We can only wonder what retail will do to continue this renovation and continue engaging customers in new ways.
Carlos Kusí 
