Tuesday 8 September 2015

The next wave of disruption

The Next Wave.

We are constantly bombarded with news around the current platforms creating disruption. We all know them (sharing, connecting, aggregating, etc).

Today's blog post is not about these current disruptions. What I want to start is a deeper contemplation as to what the potential next wave of disruption will be.

Most of the people who read this will have spent the last 10 to 30 years honing an extremely sharp set of specific skills that is very marketable. If you have analysed the job market trends, you are probably also spending a lot of time collaborating with other professionals at the top of their game. You are probably collaborating, not competing.

Consider this:
With over 7 billion people on the planet, your skills, abilities and experience are not completely unique. If you are lucky, you just happen to be the only person in your local area with them.

What if you were able to convert all those skills, abilities and experience into a system / platform to allow others to operate at close to your capability? Lessor skilled or experienced people would be able to follow your framework to execute at a higher level and help them grow. I am currently dealing with companies who are building these Software as a Service (SAAS) platforms to replace highly skilled and difficult to recruit positions and allow those roles to be executed by more junior people who can grow into those roles over time.

If you are not creating a disruptive platform out of your unique skills, abilities and experience off the back of your personal brand, someone else will and YOU personally will be disrupted.

Be ready to surf that future wave or make sure you have your tissues packed.

Have a great day!

Ross.
www.TheMcKinnonGroup.com.au

Tuesday 1 September 2015

Digital Execution. Brisbane City Council vs Queensland State Government

Hi Everyone,

When executing digitally, always exceed the customers current expectation and map their entire journey.

Queensland State Government
This story starts with me running on time (but with no spare time) for a meeting and driving 84 klms per hour in an 80 zone. I turned a corner a little quicker than I probably should have and was promptly pulled over by a police officer from highway patrol.

I wasn't pulled over for speed or my cornering technique.... My car had been unregistered for 79 days.

79 days!!!! I was aghast! How did that happen? I believed I paid it back in May. I thought through the full implications of this including insurance coverage and I was suddenly very embarrassed and extremely grateful to the officers that had pulled me over.

At this point, the officer informed me that I could download an APP for my phone to keep track of my vehicle registration. 

If this has happened to me, then I wonder how many other people were having the exact same experience each day.

This is poor digital execution by the state government. 12 months ago, I was actually happy when I no longer had to worry about taking off and putting on the new sticker on the windscreen. But I now realised that the little sticker for all these years has been performing a dual purpose. It was also my visual reminder to ensure I paid my registration on time. Every time I hopped into my car, I had a visual reminder of when my registration was due and if it ever became overdue. It is the same for when my car service is due.

My next thought was how did they fail. The people executing the digital transformation for the state government did not completely map out the customer journey. Part of the current customer journey is the daily visual reminder (not looking at an App on your phone once per year). They trusted that the one posted reminder (the bill) would be sufficient. This is such an important process that it either needs a visual reminder or a push notification to break into the limited attention span of the customer. It is an annual task, so installing an App is not the answer. This will never be one of the key App's of the consumer.

How can this gap in the journey map be solved? There are plenty of options.
Push notifications - email, SMS, automated call, something to let the owner of the vehicle know that they have missed an annual appointment. They have all our data... Notify us the day it is overdue.

As a side note, the two gentlemen from Highway Patrol were really nice and professional. I was let off with a warning (the transport department consider it an acceptable defense that I believed I had paid for it). They escorted me to my meeting for safety reasons where I paid my registration online extremely smoothly.

Brisbane City Council
This story starts with me running on time (but no spare time) to catch a ferry to get to a meeting in the city. I had parked in a 4 hour BCC carpark. I didn't have the time to pay as the ferry was approaching the terminal and I was second in line. I took a photo of the iPark service and figured I would work it out on the way.

I had it worked out before I even got on the ferry. Talk about easy. Create an account and SMS +61 427 247 275 with
2hr 5201 123ABC (123ABC was my licence plate and 5201 the parking terminal)

As the two hours was approaching, I realised that this meeting was still resolving itself and I wouldn't get back to my parking on time.... 'DING' went my phone. 'Your parking is about to run out, would you like to top up?' A reply SMS by me and the parking meter was topped up and was no longer an issue.

When I got back to my car I sent a 'Clockoff' SMS and received a refund for the left over time. Admittedly, it was only $1.38 refund, but isn't this such a clear example of exceeding customer expectations. I am never going back to the old way of paying for parking. The Brisbane City Council have done an excellent digital adoption to a daily problem experienced by many people.

Summary
For all of your digital transformations, do you have a complete customer journey map with all the touch points including all the senses and expectations of your customers?

Have a great day!


Ross.
www.TheMcKinnonGroup.com.au