In fact some of the most memorable Olympic highlights included Japan beating New Zealand in rugby, the GB women’s Hockey team’s victory over the Netherlands and Michael Phelps’ defeat by a 21 year old Singaporean. New countries are becoming unexpected competitors. We’ve also seen contenders using partnership to hone their competitive edge – GB’s Brownlee brothers secured gold and silver in the triathlon by seeing each other as partners, but also as each other’s greatest rivals. Mixing up the playing field makes it more interesting for fans but is worrying for the established leaders in the field like Sarah Storey, Jonnie Peacock and Jody Cundy.

Similarly, businesses are facing a more competitive landscape than ever and new companies are coming to the fore, transcending markets. One of the factors that is making the environment more competitive is the use of social media – boosting both the popularity of the Games, and engagement with fans and businesses alike.

For the Olympic and Paralympic Games, social media is helping to grow the profile of individual sportsmen as well as the Games in general. Fans are engaging with the Games in more ways than ever. There are apps a-plenty to keep track of the results, watch on demand and generally engage with the conversation. For businesses, social media is an equally critical part of the marketing toolkit. It can provide “free” engagement with customers without the costs of travel, marketing or PR.

However, there are downsides to social media for companies, which are part of the reason for the increasingly competitive landscape. Social media allows competitors insight and access to information about the thinking of a company for free – content on a plate. It is therefore critical to make sure that your company is approaching social media in the right way.

Know your audience

Many companies fall down with social media because they have not fully defined the specific audiences for each platform and the precise aims of engaging with them. Even within platforms there are different audiences – for example on Twitter, there are both casual consumers and companies who may both be relevant for different areas of your brand. You may need multiple accounts to address different audiences and different approaches at different times – just as the Olympics and Paralympics know it is addressing fans, but also potential sponsors. 

Align targets

Having social media operating in a silo just does not work. Social media goals need to be in sync with marketing aims and the KPIs should be constructed accordingly. This will depend on what you are trying to achieve. Sales targets are straightforward to align with – for example, by measuring click-throughs from a tweet or LinkedIn post to a product page. Brand awareness can be reflected in a growth in the number of followers or participants in a group. For the Games, the more noise from fans, the better! 

Ensure relevance

People expect personalised content. If you’re signed up to the various Olympics and Paralympics newsletters your inbox is probably full every day but it’s only the ones that you’re already really interested in that you’ll click on. By the same token it seems obvious that the content you share with customers needs to be relevant to them. Using data and analytics is critical to determining what is working and what is not.

Rio will soon move out of the Olympic spotlight following the Paralympic Games which kick off this week and Tokyo has wasted no time in starting its charm offensive ahead of its 2020 Games. The “Super Abe” stunt at the closing ceremony, when Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe dressed up as Super Mario, firmly set the tone for the coming publicity campaign. Social media will be a key part of building a buzz and this clear “Cool Japan” brand gives it a strong platform to shape social activity around. In the meantime I’m looking forward to nail-biting finishes and more surprises in the Paralympics.

Read more:
3 lessons in social media engagement that businesses can learn from the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games

November’s defeat to Wales was reversed and they are now in a strong position. Whether you’re following the Six Nations or not, there’s plenty business managers can draw from the renewed England team.

Trust

Coming back from the defeats of the World Cup, the players really needed to trust their new coach and each other. It goes without saying, trust is vital in any team situation. Eddie Jones seems to want to give team members the opportunity to play to their strengths, and trusts them to perform. Choosing Billy Vunipola, who has previously been criticized for his fitness, as one of his three vice-captains is a strong demonstration of Jones’s trust in his players. This decision, though risky, has proved beneficial for both the team and Vunipola himself as he has found confidence in his role. In the business world, just like Jones, we too are ultimately responsible for the end result. While it can be hard to let go, building trust within teams remains one of the best ways to maximise their abilities.

 Communication

It is widely acknowledged that clear communication is crucial for good team management. You might think that the sheer physicality of rugby means that coaches are men of few words and that suits the players just fine. In reality however, it’s lots of open communication, not just between coach and players, but also with all the support team involved, that will ensure that everyone is aware of the one goal they are all working towards and the progress they are making. Similarly, engaging communication in the workplace, is communication that cuts across department, team and even company silos. And it’s not necessarily in person either – enterprise social media, video conferencing and gaming environments are all excellent ways of fostering meaningful, digital communication.

Inspiration

Every team needs inspiration. For the Six Nations Tournament, the eloquence of the coach and his pithy remarks before any big match can be a game-changer – literally. And it’s something we shouldn’t forget either. Never go into a team meeting without having prepared at least some of the words you’ll say. It’s easy to forget, but when you were a newbie, I’m sure you looked to your team leaders for words of wisdom and encouragement and to be sure you were in synch with their objectives. Things haven’t really changed on the rugby field or in the meeting room.

 Collaboration

While you are the leader, it’s important to remember that your team is made of up individuals who each have a huge amount to contribute. Jones, having brought a successful turnaround for the team, still insists that it is the team that deserves the most credit, especially the former captain, Chris Robshaw. Robshaw has been praised by Jones for his work on and off field, being known for helping out teammates after training so that they can improve their skills. If you think about it, I’m sure you know who your winger, scrum-half, prop and fly are. Collaboration is about enabling colleagues and peers to work together on and off the field and share some sense of ownership of the team’s successes and failures. As Jones caters to the individual temperaments and strengths of his players, nurturing each one’s role in the team, so too can managers develop their employee’s qualities to create a balanced, high-performing team that is bigger than the sum of its parts.

Listening

While communication is necessary if players are to be effectively instructed and inspired, we should remember that it’s not a one-way street. A coach who doesn’t listen to his players can’t keep in touch with morale or feedback with solutions to problems affecting the team. It’s the same in business. As well as keeping in touch with your team’s moral through regular communication, listening and providing feedback is essential. Eddie Jones, even after leading England to great success, is still pushing the team to strive for even greater things in the Grand Slam on Saturday. Whilst celebrating the teams’ well-deserved title, Jones took the time to openly discuss past failures with the players to see what they could improve on individually and as a team in the future. Whether it is through concrete actions or simply an acknowledgment of particular issues, letting your team know you care about their opinions will build loyalty and help you move on together, to greater successes.

Read more:
Coaching your way to success: Is there something in England’s approach to the Six Nations for businesses?

While it is strong for some services, communication-related applications still largely remain on-premise. Research from Avaya partner Six Degrees indicates that less than half of UK mid-sized businesses are using the cloud for their telephony.

This is surprising because the benefits of cloud computing apply to business communication services in just the same way they do to the most popular cloud applications, like webhosting, CRM and disaster recovery.

Traditionally many business applications like unified communication or video conferencing have been part of the large enterprise armoury, out of reach for the midmarket business with smaller budgets. However, thanks to tailored medium-sized solutions and flexible cloud delivery methods, this is now changing.

Why should midmarket and smaller business be interested? Well, for a start the cloud delivery model really is a playing-field-leveller as it makes software more affordable. Its on-demand model requires almost no setup or capital expense. Most smaller organisations are growing fast. By utilising cloud infrastructure, they don’t have to make the big capital leap of hardware upgrades as they expand. Not only do cloud services grow with them, the subscription is often much cheaper than traditional licenses. They also require less IT management and can be deployed very quickly, all of which enable midsized businesses to compete more effectively with larger companies.

However moving to the cloud is not necessarily such a straightforward decision. Companies often

have significant capital investments in existing solutions. Additionally, the data involved might need extra security levels or legislative compliance that rule out public cloud options. In some cases private cloud offers a smooth transition to hybrid, and then possibly fully public cloud, enabling them to experience some of the benefits of cloud computing without the potential risks.

The recently launched Avaya Midmarket Cloud Solutions are a good example of the staggered migratory approach that is available to businesses these days and makes the transition easier for many organisations. It offers two deployment options that provide unified communications and contact center clouds specifically designed for the midmarket. These options allow the movement to cloud at the business’ own pace. They enable the deployment of new capabilities based on business needs, while leveraging existing investments in call control, phones and more. Companies have more control over expenses and the rate at which full migration to cloud occurs, in addition to quickly bringing on new locations.

Cloud computing is already helping many medium-sized companies reduce cost and complexity in their IT departments while gaining the business flexibility and agility needed to grow and offer services that deepen their engagement with their customers. 2016 could be the year that many more embrace the opportunities it offers.

Read more:
A cloudy solution for medium-sized businesses

These are what I think will be the three biggies:

Wearables

Remember the 2004 film Supersize me? If you think our current consumption of Apple Watches, Fitbits, Pebbls etc., is a healthy appetite for wearable tech, 2016 is going to leave you fuller than you’ve ever been before. Over the next four years, sales of wearables worldwide are predicted to reach a staggering 175 million, up almost eight-fold from last year – the UK is about to go supersize on wearable technology.

I think that we’ll see the wearables market expand in several ways. When it comes to the devices themselves, we are expecting a whole host of launches, many from non-tech companies like Tissot with its smart watches and Nike with its Accelerate shoes. These launches will increase both the access to and the appeal of wearables for UK consumers.

If you’re a B2B company and are wondering what this has to do with you, let me assure you that the boom in wearables won’t just be coming from consumers. A large portion of the expected growth will be driven by businesses. Wearables, in headset form, first came to life in the contact centre and have been a growing part of business life ever since. These days the use cases are boundless – especially in areas where early-adopter workers need hands-free access to information. For example remote healthcare workers in rural general hospitals could use communications-enabled wearables to video call specialist, surgical teams when operating on a patient. Or, police officers could be assisted by wearables while on traffic duty. Most people just think of wearables as being a new, exciting channel for customer engagement but actually, there are almost endless possibilities for the use of wearables in businesses.

Data Science

Regardless of any budget constraints you may have, I’m sure that at some point in 2016 you’ll want to call on the services of a data scientist. In fact I think that they’ll be so in demand by the end of the year that we’ll start to see a data science skills shortage. Why? Because of the power of Big Data. You may be sick to death of hearing about the potential of Big Data, but it really is changing the business landscape. Data science offers businesses a massive point of differentiation in terms of their ability to deliver the ideal customer experience. That’s why more and more companies are going to be putting resource behind dealing with the mountain of data they have at their fingertips. It’s also why in the long-term, I’m sure it’ll be the companies that employ big data statisticians that succeed and, as they realise this, everyone – yourself included – will want to work with a data scientist.

Seamless customer experience

How many online profiles do you have? Probably more than you think: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Skype or FaceTime for a start, but what about all the accounts you have with retailers and other organisations? These days everyone has several versions of the ‘online me’ as well as the original ‘in-person me’ and we’re starting to see these merge. Next year, I think brands will be hard at work getting to know both the online and the in-the-flesh you and combining these two into one person. And I’m sure consumers will be very relieved when they do, as it will mean a higher level of service.

For most companies this ‘joined-upness’ is still very much a ‘work in progress’. For many, siloes and legacy IT are preventing them from connecting the dots and, as a result, they’re still facing a huge gap between customer expectations of a seamless on- and off-line experience and the reality of what they can offer today.

But, in 2016, I think we’ll see companies striving to deliver an omnichannel customer experience – understanding customer behaviour and preferences through every touch point, including physical ones. For example, they might send welcome texts and offers to customers via their mobile phones when they enter a high-street shop. And these texts will be personalised and highly relevant, because they’ll be based on the customer’s online history. The customer experience is evolving to be all about one seamless customer journey that connects all the possible touchpoints.

Read more:
Three biz-tech trends to watch in 2016

While these events may have taken place “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away” I believe Jedi guiding principles are still relevant to the challenges that CIOs and IT Directors in midmarket firms face today.

In tribute to the Six Episodes we’ve already seen, and in preparation for the Seventh: The Force Awakens, here are my five Jedi lessons:

Feel the power of the Force

Throughout the films, the battle of good and evil wages with the ultimate goal of defeating the Empire and restoring order to the Galaxy. It is this that gives the whole series a purpose. By the end of Episode Six, plot twists and characters that seemed arbitrary in earlier films suddenly fit into the bigger picture.

I’d argue the same is true in business. Killing Jabba the Hutt is reckless, unless Luke’s victory serves a greater purpose (which of course it does). Similarly, investing time and energy on small integration projects, isolated upgrades and one-off deployments will only deliver limited results. The bigger picture is essential. Like Luke’s battles on the way to killing the Emperor, every project you undertake should help to attain the company’s overall business goals.  Anything else is just distraction.

Progress one challenge at a time

Finding Obi-Wan Kenobi, destroying the Death Star, leading the attack to rescue Han Solo, learning who his father is – the list of milestones Luke passes in his quest to destroy the Empire is long but key to his success.

Milestones in IT projects are equally important. Mapping them out in advance helps us identify the key players we need to bring into a project at particular times to ensure success. They offer the opportunity to evaluate and course-correct as the project evolves: we learn lessons and apply them on the next stage of the journey, just like Luke.

Be a Yoda

The powers of the Sith (here I include the Emperor and Darth Vader) are so great they force both Anakin and then Luke to learn quickly. They also make unlikely characters band together, like Han Solo and Leia, or Lando Calrissian and Luke. Then, when the Empire is finally defeated, they all need to adapt to a different way of life, re-establishing an ordered and fair Federation. What better analogy can there be for the role of the constantly evolving IT department?

What’s more, in a continually changing environment, the vision of an experienced leader – like Yoda – becomes even more important.

It’s the role of the CIO or IT Director to empower their team, giving them the freedom to experiment with new technology and processes and allowing them to adapt to changing market imperatives, rather than working to strict rules and processes.

Take on a Padawan

Mentorship is one of the strongest themes of the Star Wars films. From Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan Kenobi, through Obi-Wan and Anakin, to Yoda and Luke, Jedi knights with more experience not only see it as their duty to develop the next generation, they positively relish it. Even the baddies are on to it: Darth Sidious tutors both Darth Maul and Anakin.

Both Jedi and Sith understand the importance of mentoring and the benefit for both mentor and mentee – if you remember Anakin saves Obi Wan Kenobi’s life and vice versa on several occasions – and so should today’s CIOs. There is plenty of evidence available documenting the benefits of mentoring to indviduals and organisations and plenty of advice on how to be a good mentor too. (In case you’ve forgotten, a Padawan is a Jedi apprentice).

Negotiate before you get your light sabre out

Throughout the Six Episodes of Star Wars, Jedi knights are constantly negotiating. For example, in the Phantom Menace Qui-Gon, who needs to get his ship repaired so he can leave Tatooine, barters with the dealer Watto to reach a deal as he has no cash.

The art of negotiation (without Jedi mind tricks) is also an important skill for any CIO or IT Director: negotiating with team members who want to use a particular platform, language or operating system, negotiating with users who want to use devices or apps that you feel are a security risk, negotiating with the CEO who wants a project delivered tomorrow….the list is endless.

Being a complete pushover won’t help your department but equally laying down the law, with no room for flexibility, won’t earn you any favours either. Learning to negotiate successfully and understanding what your ‘red-lines’ are, is key to your success in this role and the success of your team as a whole.

Read more:
Jedi lessons for businesses

I also bet that your company has a website and probably a Facebook or Linkedin page and a Twitter account, and that employees are able access email and some other apps when they are out and about.

Thanks to digital and mobile technologies, every company – including your own – regardless of the industry they operate in, is becoming a digital company: a company that uses digital technologies to engage with employees, customers and suppliers. These three key stakeholder groups, who now expect to engage with organisations on and offline, via a range of mediums including phone, direct mail, e-newsletters and social media, in a seamless way, are driving this shift.

In reality however, few companies have mastered the art of delivering this effortless and coherent experience across multiple channels, where information about customers or employees is shared between channels and the level of service they receive is consistent across them all. In fact, according to an Economist survey from last year, only about one-fifth of small-businesses say their company delivers a seamless omni-channel experience.

To be honest, this is not entirely surprising. Digital transformation is complex, requiring changes not only to technology and business processes, but also to corporate culture.

According to Constellation Research, a firm that specialises in technology-enabled change, digital transformation is really about the business model shift that allows organisations to change the way they engage with customers. Citing the example of Uber, Constellation says, “They didn’t just add on a mobile tracker to schedule drivers more efficiently, they used a technology-enabled business model to disrupt the industry and engage with customers in a fresh way.” Of course, as a start-up it was easier for Uber to do this. What’s really hard for most companies is adapting their existing IT and business processes.

So what can they do to ease the pain?

A good first step is often to roll-out an open-standards mobile platform so that existing software can easily be made available to employees in the form of mobile apps. The chances are you already have this capability in your business.

So then what? Use the mobile platform to develop cross-channel apps. This is why it’s vital to have an open standards approach: it means you don’t have to worry about integration issues, even if you’re working with different suppliers. Cross-channel apps will make your data available to a much wider range of employees, regardless of how and where it was collected and stored.

Another key component of that transformation is the integration of mobility into the customer experience. As well as the mobile optimisation of your website, it’s worth thinking about creating specific mobile apps for particular customer service issues or requirements. The Domino’s pizza ordering app or the Addison Lee cab booking app spring to mind here. It’s not just consumer brands that this is relevant for too – plenty of B2B organisations also have very successful customer apps, including Sage and Microsoft.

At the same time it’s important to address any company culture that might inhibit digital transformation. In most organisations, different departments are responsible for different parts of the customer experience and the related data and are often unwilling to cede control or even share. Since a true digital business relies on open-ness and a single view of the customer, it’s vital that these attitudes are changed – from the top down.

Finally in order to make the transformation to a digital enterprise as painless as possible, I would recommend creating a digital transformation map that details where you are today, your end-goal and how you plan to get there. You may be surprised at the number of dependences required for each step of the journey. However don’t be discouraged: whether planned or not, the extent to which today’s businesses are already digital enterprises is pleasantly surprising.

Ioan MacRae, Head of the midmarket at Avaya

Read more:
The road to becoming a digital business