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Global Voices Online » Blog Archive » Pulse of the Saudi Blogosphere
This week was even quieter than last week in the Saudi blogosphere. However, we can still find some interesting posts from here and there. Unfortunately, most of our featured posts for this week are in Arabic. I know that most of you can’t read Arabic, so I tried my best to translate the most significant parts of every post.
Prometheus compares between the Arab World and other parts of the world when it comes to publish hatred material (Arabic). He tells us is about two Singaporean bloggers who were jailed and fined after being accused with using their blogs to spread hatred and threaten the social peace. “It is different here,” he writes. “Some internet forums have been publishing threads by unknown writers, where they attack other religions and sects.” However, nothing is done about it. He also comments on the news about Bush’s administration plans to bomb al-Jazeera TV station, and asks, “why should a big superpower with such a great political and diplomatic influence brush aside all other effective means of pressure and persuasion, and resort to force to silence a small TV station?”
Fouad al-Farhan has dedicated a post to the Swiss president (Arabic), who criticized the Tunisian government for their human rights record and their position from freedom of expression, and described him as a “free man.” After finishing his speech, the Swiss president went to sit on his chair next to the Tunisian president, who did not look disturbed at all. “He is a dictator. Do you expect that he would cry?” al-Farhan wrote.
Farooha comments on the case of Mohammed al-Harbi, a chemistry teacher, who was unfairly sentenced with three years in jail and 750 lashes. She calls everyone to help. “Save the chemist, and would be inventor by leaving these good people your two cents!” she wrote.
After the terrorism attack in Jordan, Abu Joori says the reaction of Jordanians to the attack was different from that one Saudis had (Arabic) when they had similar attacks in the past few years. He thinks the attack has helped Jordanians to form a national unity; something that Saudis did not do. He says, “I think we, as Saudis, have missed yet another excellent opportunity to develop the feeling of nationalism, and to emphasis the concept that we all share this part of the world, and it is our duty to protect it and serve it.”
“Even here at the Saudi blogosphere, we find some people who clearly announce their hatred to a certain sect, a certain region, or even to the American president George Bush, forgetting there are groups who attacked this nation, every citizen lives here, and they did not even said a word to condemn these attacks,” he added.
Metallic Kitty writes about racism against Arabs in Europe. “It sucks how most countries consider Arab people dogs,” she says. “Isn’t that embarrassing? Isn’t that shameful?” she asks. Meanwhile, ubergirl87 says she is “sick and tired of Hollywood portraying Arabs as ignorant, evil people.”
Finally, here is our weekly selection of random, quick snippets from around the Saudi blogosphere: Dotsson posts an imaginary and funny interview with Michael Jackson, who recently moved to what he called “our tiny neighbor Bahrain!” Jo describes the sense of independence she felt when she was able to cash a cheque. Trilancer is wondering what “exactly is happening to Arabian TV,” and thinks that Arabian channels are “competing in showing the most smut possible without triggering a riot.” And Tyt notices that the majority of Saudi bloggers in English are females. “We need to hear the opinions of the Saudi male bloggers,” he says.
November 28, 2005 at 01:38 PM in Blogging & feeds | Permalink | TrackBack (33) | Top of page | Blog Home
Another desperate attempt to discredit Massachusetts OpenDocument adoption
It was on the front page of the Boston Globe newspaper today, and the lead article on their web site--an investigation that normally would be buried in the City & Region section of the paper. So you can't miss it: IT manager Peter Quinn of the Massachusetts state government is criticized for not fully reporting trips he took during his promotion of the OpenDocument format.
Microsoft, after a late start (like most technology companies) has poured millions into lobbying over the past decade. Rumors even suggest that several government IT managers who dared to consider open-source alternatives to Microsoft heard promptly from both the company and their own bosses to pull back. So it would be highly gratifying to Microsoft and those trying to maintain the status quo if someone could turn the tables and try to smear the proponents of open source and open standards with similar influence.
Because the whole thrust of choosing an open document standard is to improve transparency in government, one could hardly find a cleverer complaint than to accuse the proponents of lack of transparency.
A nice side effect of the controversy is to intimidate government staff and punish them for doing what they should be doing: going out into public forums and exchanging ideas with the communities affected by their decisions. Especially in a major paradigm shift, and especially when dealing with open standards that have far-flung communities.
People opposing change have claimed that moving to an open standard would raise costs, playing up the obvious observation that any investment in the future requires a temporary increase in short-term expenditures. Then representatives for the disabled raised the concern that tools providing the OpenDocument format don't support all the accessibility options that Microsoft Office contains; this gap is being addressed surprisingly fast.
Pamela Jones of groklaw pointed out that representatives for the disabled were demonstrating an unseemly helplessness in raising their complaint. Because several open-source tools support OpenDocument, anyone who wants accessibility added can pay someone to do the job rather than complaining about it.
So they're running out of FUD, and it became time to shoot the messenger. The Boston Globe article is short on details--suggesting that there isn't much legal basis for the whole complaint to start with--but the argument goes like this; state officials have to receive written authorization for trips paid by outsiders, and have to give a detailed estimate of the costs of travel. Quinn, as director of IT for the state government, made a dozen trips during the last two years, receiving written authorization for some. It is not clear whether he received verbal authorization or written authorization for the others. He paid for some trips himself and accepted payment from the conference sponsors, duly reporting these payments.
Now someone in state government is claiming Quinn should have listed all the companies that sponsored the conferences, to allay fears that these companies were trying to gain underhanded influence. By this standard, a speaker who gets free admission to a conference such as LinuxWorld Expo or O'Reilly's Open Source conference would have to list that his trip was paid for by Intel, Sun, Dell, and any other of the one or two dozen companies listed as sponsors--even Microsoft!
Yes, companies are involved in open source. Contrary to the critics, open source does create markets, and companies will rush in to make money there. So the publicity around this investigation may inadvertently weaken another form of anti-open source FUD.
Attending a conference, however, does not necessarily mean one comes in contact with a company representative. Usually, to actually interact with that company, an attendee has to take the deliberate step of arranging a meeting; otherwise he's unlikely even to get a demo at a booth. A speaker at a conference is likely to come in, deliver a speech, and leave without ever seeing a company representative.
I managed to reach Quinn's former boss, Eric Kriss, which the Globe did not. (Choosing to break a story over Thanksgiving weekend, when protagonists are on vacation and government offices that could answer questions are closed, definitely does not contribute to clarity.)
Kriss, whom I know because he's contacted me with a book idea earlier, pointed out that:
*
Most of Quinn's trips occurred after Massachusetts made the decision to adopt OpenDocument. There is no possibility that the trips would influence the decision that had already been made.
*
While some two-way communication occurs at any conference--and is beneficial to the public--the primary purpose of the trips were to let Massachusetts government tell the rest of the world what it was doing.
*
Far from being junkets, these trips were normally squeezed in on weekends around his normal duties and represented a contribution of his free time to the community.
I'm not going to express an opinion on the law, which is none of my business, particularly because I err on the side of supporting more information rather than less. Lapses in authorization and reporting should be investigated by the state, and the Globe should report the investigations. But it seems that their fundamental misunderstanding of the dynamics of technical conferences has threatened to create an unwarranted hysteria. Sponsorship of a technical conference does not mean the sponsor is paying the speakers, or has any influence over them.
What we're left seeing is a lot of scurrying to transform an important issue of government documentation into a spurious issue of staff documentation, with publicity flourishes to warn that anyone trying to open up government has to be ready for every kind of backlash.
Andy Oram is an editor for O'Reilly Media, specializing in Linux and free software books, and a member of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility. His web site is www.praxagora.com/andyo.
November 27, 2005 at 02:55 PM in Business Models | Permalink | TrackBack (19) | Top of page | Blog Home
A new report from Nielsen//NetRatings says RSS users are significantly more engaged in online news than non-users, visiting an average of 10.6 news sites compared with 3.4 news sites for non-users. RSS users also visit news sites three to four times more frequently than non-users.
PRESS RELEASE:
RSS Users Visit Three Times as Many News Web Sites as Non-Users, According to Nielsen//NetRatings
Men, Longtime Internet Users Most Likely to Use RSS
NEW YORK - September 20, 2005 - Nielsen//NetRatings, a global leader in Internet media and market research, today reported that RSS users are significantly more engaged in online news than non-users, visiting an average of 10.6 news sites compared with 3.4 news sites for non-users.
"Convenience is the primary reason respondents gave for using RSS feeds," said Jon Gibs, senior research manager, Nielsen//NetRatings. "Once the technology has been adopted, users can easily add new content. This allows news-hungry Web visitors to sample a wide variety of news sources," he continued.
Not only do RSS users visit more news Web sites than non-users, they also visit those sites more frequently. RSS users visited the top 20 news Web sites nearly three times as often as non-users and all other news Web sites four times as often. This means that sites outside of the top 20 properties may be among the greatest beneficiaries of RSS.
Notably, 83 percent of survey respondents who were identified by clickstream data as RSS users were unaware that they were using RSS technology. This can be explained by sites such as MyYahoo!, where users can customize content without knowing anything about the RSS feeds that make that customizing possible.
Among RSS users who understood the technology, 78 percent were male, and 48 percent were longtime Internet users who have been going online since at least 1994. Among unaware RSS users, 54 percent were male and 36 percent were longtime Internet users. These figures were lowest among respondents who did not use RSS feeds, with just 46 percent male and 34 percent longtime Internet users.
"Men tend to be early and aggressive technology adopters, but it may come as a surprise that the youngest Internet users were not the most RSS savvy," said Gibs. "RSS users are particularly focused on breaking news, and trend toward an older demographic," he continued.
November 26, 2005 at 09:44 AM in Blogging & feeds | Permalink | TrackBack (14) | Top of page | Blog Home
Firefox plans mass marketing drive - Internet - News - ZDNet Asia
By Ingrid Marson, ZDNet UK
Wednesday, November 23 2005 07:48 AM
The Mozilla Corporation is gearing up to launch a large-scale marketing drive when Firefox 1.5 is released.
Christopher Beard, the vice-president of products at Mozilla Corporation, told ZDNet UK on Monday that there is a "strong likelihood" that Firefox 1.5, the next major version of the open source browser, will be released on 29 November.
Beard said the Corporation is planning a "big marketing push" that will coincide with the release of 1.5. This will include a community marketing campaign that will encourage Firefox fans to tell the world about their favourite browser by publishing home-made videos on a Mozilla Web site.
"You will have real people telling you about Firefox's features--what's cool and great," said Beard. "People can create the video and upload it to the Mozilla site. The video will then be reviewed and put on our Web site, with a link from their location."
The videos will be hosted on the SpreadFirefox community marketing site, which will display a world map with a dot marking each location where a video has been created.
Beard said he doesn't know how many people will get involved in this campaign, particularly as it is dependent on contributors having video equipment, such as a camcorder or a Web cam.
"It's hard to tell. With The New York Times' ad campaign we thought it would take weeks to raise the money, but in less than 48 hours we had already raised enough for an ad," said Beard. "With this [campaign] it's also uncertain--are we going to get hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands of videos?"
As the videos are likely to be posted in many languages, Mozilla will use international volunteers to filter the videos. It has already recruited teams to cover 20 European languages, according to Tristan Nitot, the president of Mozilla Europe.
Prizes for the best videos will be awarded at the end of the campaign. The Mozilla Corporation is also launching a separate competition to create a 30-second advert for Firefox, which will be open to everyone but will be particularly targeted at film students.
As well as the video campaigns, the Mozilla Corporation plans to launch a consumer-oriented Web site next week. Mozilla.com, which currently hosts a placeholder page, will in future be the main entry point for the Mozilla organisation, rather than Mozilla.org, Beard explained.
"Part of our marketing strategy is to target more of a general consumer audience, who don't necessarily have a technical understanding, so we are looking to make our Web sites more approachable," said Beard.
Mozilla is also hoping to improve its consumer focus by offering a major release every six to nine months, rather than every two years--as was the case when it was part of Netscape. In keeping with this new strategy, Firefox 2.0 is scheduled for release in the middle of 2006 and Firefox 3 is planned for the first quarter of 2007.
There have been more subtle change in Mozilla's marketing strategy over the last year. In 2004, before the release of Firefox 1.0, the Mozilla marketing contact predicted that Firefox would obtain 10 percent market share by the end of 2005. This week, Beard refused to provide any new targets, merely saying that Mozilla is "looking forward to continuing growth".
This change appears to have been partly driven by the proliferation of browser statistics, with companies pointing out any decrease in Firefox and many conflicting statistics available over Firefox's overall market share.
"It's difficult to get good statistics. People can use statistics in different ways," said Beard
November 25, 2005 at 04:40 PM in Browsers | Permalink | TrackBack (15) | Top of page | Blog Home
Stories from the early days of Google.
So, now I was Google's online brand manager. What exactly did that mean? I didn't have a clue, and evidently no one else did either. It was as if some corporate biological alarm clock had gone off: "You know, we're at that point where we need to have somebody to do all that stuff that's not engineering. Let's get us some of them marketing folks. And since the world is divided between online and offline, we'll get one of each."
November 25, 2005 at 02:03 PM in Portals | Permalink | TrackBack (11) | Top of page | Blog Home
Wired 13.12: Who's Afraid of Google? Everyone.
By Kevin KelleherPage
It seems no one is safe: Google is doing Wi-Fi; Google is searching inside books; Google has a plan for ecommerce.
Of course, Google has always wanted to be more than a search engine. Even in the early days, its ultimate goal was extravagant: to organize the world's information. High-minded as that sounds, Google's ever-expanding agenda has put it on a collision course with nearly every company in the information technology industry: Amazon.com, Comcast, eBay, Yahoo!, even Microsoft.
In less than a decade, Google has gone from guerrilla startup to 800-pound gorilla. In some ways, the company is a gentle giant. Whereas Microsoft infamously smothered new and open standards, Google is famous for supporting them. And the firm is softening its image, launching a philanthropic arm, Google.org, with nearly $1 billion earmarked for social causes. But that doesn't reduce the fear factor, and Google knows it. Omid Kordestani, the company's global sales guru, said at a recent conference, "We're trying to find ways so we are not viewed as a gorilla." Given its outsize ambitions, that's one search Google might not be able to handle.
Is the sky falling? That's how it looks to panicked tech companies across the Valley as they contend with Google's ever-expanding power and ambition.
VIDEO
Today, Google Video is a motley mix: clips of monkeys performing karate and robot dogs attacking iguanas. Tomorrow? No one knows, but everyone is worried.
Who's threatened: Comcast and other cable providers, Yahoo!, TV networks that still shun the Net
Signs of panic: Comcast wants to be the Google of television. Yahoo! bristles at any mention of Google Video. Networks were stunned to find Google compiling a database of their programs.
Reality check: Google Video is up and running. The question is, How much content can it attract - or pay for - to fill the database. Watch for a strategic acquisition, even something big. TiVo?
CLASSIFIEDS
When secrecy-obsessed Google let news of "Google Base" slip, it looked like an aggressive entrée into online classifieds. The test service can search ads like used-car and personals listings, which would mesh with Google Local and might even kick-start Orkut, Google's social network.
Who's threatened: craigslist, eBay, Monster, Tribe.net
Signs of panic: Within hours of the Base bombshell, eBay's market value dropped by almost $2 billion. And even before that, the classified sites were nervous. CareerBuilder and others fretted about letting Google host their feeds.
Reality check: This may be an extension of Froogle rather than a stand-alone product. But it could expand to everything from travel to eBay-like offerings.
TELECOM
Free Wi-Fi in San Francisco, instant-messaging software, a widely anticipated VoIP foray - Google's telecom initiatives seem designed to make life radically easier for users.
Who's threatened: Comcast, SBC, Verizon, Vonage, what's left of AOL
Signs of panic: Surprisingly few so far, partially because Google says it has no plans to offer Wi-Fi beyond San Francisco. Still, Comcast coined the word Comcastic - is that its answer to Googlicious?
Reality check: Something's clearly afoot, and it could be big. With great power comes great regulation - so Google recently opened a DC lobbying shop to combat "centralized control by network operators."
OPERATING SYSTEMS
If anyone can fulfill the dream of turning the Internet into the operating system, it's Google. If the company chooses to develop an OS, the move will cement Google's other initiatives into a powerful whole.
Who's threatened: Apple, Microsoft
Signs of panic: When one of Microsoft's key operating system engineers defected to Google last year, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer threw a chair across an office and vowed to kill Google.
Reality check: The migration of applications from PCs to the Net is already happening - and it's key to Google's future. But the likelihood of a Google OS depends on what Microsoft accomplishes with its new OS, Vista.
PRINT
What if a search engine trolled not just every page on the Web, but every page in every book? Amazon.com tried it first, then Google said it would "make the full text of all the world's books searchable by anyone."
Who's threatened: Amazon, Microsoft, book publishers
Signs of panic: Against the interests of a legion of obscure writers, the Authors Guild sued Google. The Association of American Publishers, with more to fear, did the same. Microsoft and Yahoo! have joined a group that's creating its own book search service.
Reality check: Making every book searchable sends a clear signal that Google has the brawn to organize the world's information. But a vicious backlash could drown out that message.
PRODUCTIVITY PROGRAMS
Google joined with Sun Microsystems in October to jointly promote and distribute apps like the Google Toolbar and Sun's free OpenOffice software. Wider distribution of the toolbar, Google's most potent Trojan horse, gives the search engine access to a world of desktops.
Who's threatened: Apple, Corel, Microsoft
Signs of panic: Microsoft launched its own toolbar and protested the decision of the Massachusetts Information Technology Department to dump Office for open source alternatives.
Reality check: It may be a fiendishly clever way to attack one of Microsoft's highest-margin products, but this tactic can't be a top priority. Google Toolbar will thrive without Sun.
ECOMMERCE
Froogle threatens no one yet. But what if, as the development of Google Wallet suggests, Google handled your every online transaction? The potential revenue from Google's cut of each purchase would make AdSense look like AdCents.
Who's threatened: Amazon, Buy.com, eBay
Signs of panic: After reports speculated that Google might take on PayPal, eBay said it would pay up to $4.1 billion for VoIP rebel Skype. Wall Street's read: With PayPal under fire, eBay needed a new growth area.
Reality check: Rather than take on PayPal directly, the company may start with something less ambitious, like handling payments for premium video content. But after that? Watch out.
November 24, 2005 at 08:17 PM in Portals | Permalink | TrackBack (9) | Top of page | Blog Home
Computer Worm Poses as E-Mail From FBI, CIA
'Sober X' Web Threat Spreads Quickly
By Arshad Mohammed and Brian Krebs
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, November 24, 2005; Page D01
It's being called the worst computer worm of the year -- a fast-spreading Internet threat that looks like an official e-mail from the CIA or FBI but can leave your computer wide open to intruders.
The bogus e-mail claims the government has discovered you visiting "illegal" Web sites and asks you to open an attachment to answer some official questions. If you do, your computer gets infected with malware that can disable security and firewall programs and blast out similar e-mails to contacts in your address book. It can also keep you from getting to computer security Web sites that might help fix the problem, and it may open your Windows computer to intruders who can steal your personal data.
The worm -- named "Sober X" -- has spread so far so fast that the CIA and the FBI put prominent warnings on their Web sites making clear that they did not send out the e-mail and urging people to not open the attachment.
Across the Atlantic Ocean, Austria's equivalent to the FBI is investigating a flurry of similar bogus e-mails sent in its name to people in Austria, Germany and Switzerland, the Associated Press reported.
"This particular virus is a mass-mailer worm and is the largest one we have seen this year," said Alfred A. Huger, senior director of engineering at Symantec Corp., which sells Norton AntiVirus software. "It's as bad as it gets. With this particular type of virus on your system, there is a high probability that your personal information will be stolen."
Craig Schmugar, a virus-research manager at McAfee Inc.'s Avert Labs, said his company, which also makes anti-virus software, had logged more than 73,000 consumer computers reporting detection since the worm was discovered Monday.
British e-mail security company MessageLabs Ltd. said it has intercepted more than 2.7 million copies of Sober and its variants, noting that "the size of the attack indicates that this is a major offensive, certainly one of the largest in the last few months."
Still, the Sober worm was listed as only a "medium-risk" worm by security companies, which noted that it was not as widespread as others in recent years, notably MyDoom, which hit computer systems early last year.
Sober is known to affect only those computers running the Windows operating system. It appears that Apple and Linux computer users were not affected.
The e-mail informs the recipient that the user's "IP-address" has accessed more than 30 illegal Web sites and that the attachment contains a list of questions that need to be answered. The e-mail also includes an authentic phone number for the FBI or CIA.
And that has kept government switchboard operators busy.
FBI operators have been routing calls and complaints to its Internet Crime Complaint Center in West Virginia, which received more than 4,000 complaints about the worm on Monday. The ICC typically receives 18,000 complaints each month, said FBI spokeswoman Cathy Milhoan.
The FBI is investigating the source of the attack, which closely resembles an e-mail worm that surfaced in February, Milhoan said, though she declined to comment on the progress of that investigation.
Brian Krebs is a reporter for washingtonpost.com.
November 24, 2005 at 12:08 AM in Virus | Permalink | TrackBack (101) | Top of page | Blog Home
Live from BAI Retail Delivery : New Payment Technologies: Worth a 2nd Look
With the payments world undergoing a rapid transition to electronic transactions, banks need to reexamine the benefits and risks of innovative options that they had once dismissed as too "leading-edge," speakers said in Wednesday’s panel discussion entitled "A Payments Wake Up Call."
"It is clear that innovative payment tools will be important in the near future and banks need to reckon with them as we try to differentiate ourselves and stand out from the crowd," said Wayne N. Malone, senior vice president of transaction innovation for New York City-based Citibank.
The panelists’ list of innovative technologies worth watching included:
1. cross-border remittance cards
2. contactless payment cards
3. micropayments
4. health care cards
5. bank loyalty programs that use databases to store points that customers accumulate when they make certain transactions or purchase new bank products
6. payroll cards
Steve Mott, principal of Stamford, Conn.-based BetterBuyDesign, said consumers and business customers will soon demand many of these new payments options. "It’s all about transacting now, friction-free, whenever the customer wants to. Those financial institutions that haven’t figured out how to master this transition will find their best customers — whether they be consumers or corporations – moving to new providers," Mott said.
Andrew Dresner, vice president of New York City-based First Manhattan Consulting Group, said banks need to examine the risks and expenses associated with each new technology to determine which offers the most potential for their organizations. He said some options may be too costly to implement due to insufficient value of the transactions for which the payment options are intended.
Yet such is the magnitude of the potential in electronic payment options that banks are well advised to at least give them a second look, the panelists agreed. Jay Norman, managing director for North America for Chicago-based DiamondCluster pointed to studies showing that payment-related revenue accounts for 30% to 40% of all the revenue received by the top U.S. banks, worth about $70 billion annually.
Norman also noted that electronic payments transactions are growing rapidly, with the number expected to rise from 112 billion in 2000 to more than 150 billion by 2010. "Not every bank can be a market leader across the payment value chain, so banks must make strategic choices," Norman said.
November 23, 2005 at 11:15 AM in Payments | Permalink | TrackBack (10) | Top of page | Blog Home
Live from BAI Retail Delivery : Branches Are for Errands, Not Sales
Banks may be eager to tout their comfy branches, with their free coffee, newspapers on hand and plasma TV screens. Yet all too often, they lose sight of what the customer really wants: service that’s simple, easy and fast, said James McCormick, president of New York City-based First Manhattan Consulting Group LINK TO (www.fmcg.com/).
In a Thursday afternoon session entitled "Keys to Gaining Share: Which Strategies Are Working; Which ‘Best Practices’ Are Problematic," McCormick said mystery shops conducted by FMCG found customers generally unimpressed by attempts to turn the bank branch into Starbucks. He said customer comments included remarks like: "I don’t come to my branch for the coffee and treats," and, "Why would I come to the branch to sit down and read the paper?"
The problem, McCormick said, is that many banks are trying to provide a sales environment when the typical customer is in an "errand mode." According to FMCG’s research, customers want to sit down and consider a new product in only one in 100 visits to a bank branch. "So if you build your system around the sales event, that approach is going to be sub-optimal for all but 1% of the time. It’s a nonstarter," McCormick said.
During mystery shops, the number one customer-suggested improvement, McCormick said, was faster service, meaning shorter wait times in the lobby and drive-through.
It doesn’t help that many banks are bewildering customers — and their own employees — by piling on increasingly sophisticated features to products. "It adds to the challenge of staying current," McCormick warned.
From conducting 1,400 mystery shops in opening new accounts since 2003, FMCG found that only 3% of these visits featured what McCormick calls a "good profile session," which means waiting less than 15 minutes to see a representative, having an effective needs-based discussion and getting a follow-up call after the account is opened.
Banks that are winning with customers have "a mindset of simple, easy and fast," McCormick said. "Their product lines are more basic, their policies and procedures are streamlined. And it doesn’t take a lot for the customer to understand how everything works."
One day last October, FMCG conducted mystery shops at 15 branches of one bank with the goal of opening an account. The bank was then pushing a new checking account that had identity theft protection features. Trouble was, none of the employees could satisfactorily explain those features.
"They just failed in front of the customer," McCormick said. "The customer is sitting there thinking, ‘Gee, I don’t know if I want to bank with a bank that is so complicated they don’t even know how their own features work.’"
For more on the complications of delivering good customer service on the frontlines, see "Give the Customers What They Want," in the Nov./Dec. 2005 issue of Banking Strategies.
November 23, 2005 at 10:56 AM in Financial Services | Permalink | TrackBack (10) | Top of page | Blog Home
BAI Online | Banking Strategies | November/December 2005 | RETAIL DELIVERY SPECIAL REPORT Part II
BY PAUL MCADAM
BAI's The Frontline Experience consumer research calls for a rethinking of the one-size-fits-all approach to relationship-building; some customer segments will be receptive, others won't. And all involved — consumers, management and employees — say the frontline needs help.
| SYNOPSIS | BAI's The Frontline Experience research reveals that 70% of consumers are not receptive to the notion of having a relationship with their primary banking institution. The fundamental strategic question exposed: How can a retail bank simultaneously align its resources to adequately serve customers who want a relationship versus the more utilitarian set of customers who simply want convenience, products and service? Five distinct customer segments are identified.
“Relationship banking” is the bedrock of most financial institutions’ retail strategy these days. The proposition that banks should strengthen their relationships with customers by selling them more products and services, thereby increasing the loyalty and profitability of those customers, seems obvious. Why wouldn’t an institution want to do that? What else would or should be done?
Consider, though, that only 31% of retail banking consumers say they are highly receptive to the idea of developing a relationship with their bank. This is a key finding of BAI ’s The Frontline Experience research project, which is based on a national consumer survey AboutThe Frontline Experience. The study further found that perceptions of inefficient, unfriendly and poorly trained branch staff are key drivers of dissatisfaction and even mistrust, in some cases, among the 69% of consumers that are either indifferent or highly skeptical of the notion of developing a relationship with a bank.
This research builds on the findings of BAI’ s 2004 research survey of 520 senior retail banking executives, which revealed that 90% of U.S. retail banking institutions emphasize relationship banking or service quality as their primary value proposition. The 2004 The Frontline Factor identified a gap between the expectations of senior management and the ability of their front-line employees to effectively deliver.
In representing the views of 3,748 consumers, our 2005 work provides added insight on the difficulty banks have had in implementing relationship banking strategies. The Frontline Experience reveals yet another gap between strategy and execution. The majority of the general public does not have a positive view of the customer frontline experience at banking institutions.
For their part, frontline employees also are frustrated. Our analysis of employee attitude surveys Frontline Employees Say They’re Not Prepared revealed that over 25% of frontline branch staff are dissatisfied with key components of their employers’ sales process, training, goal-setting, staffing and compensation programs — key programs that are intended to equip them to enhance customer relationships. When this finding is combined with the other facets of The Frontline Experience research project, the ramifications are troubling.
While this research doesn’t demonstrate that relationship banking itself is a flawed strategy, it does suggest that success will require the overcoming of execution deficiencies, which have to do with bank staff. From the perspectives of customers, the primary deficiencies with banks’ relationship-based approaches are not due to product- or convenience oriented factors, but rather to the quality of interactions with frontline staff. Customers raise issues about whether that staff is knowledgeable and well trained and whether it executes transactions and service requests quickly.
The one-size-fits-all approach to developing relationships will not work, the research makes clear. We recommend that industry executives approach relationship- building initiatives from a customer segment perspective. Alignment of resources being deployed into frontline products, staffing and training with the needs and preferences of at least five distinct customer segments is likely to yield more effective relationship-building results.
How do Customers Define Relationship?
Traditionally, the underpinnings of competition in retail banking have been convenience, product pricing, service quality and the overarching theme of establishing trusted relationships. But as banks have developed national or regional distribution networks, achieving sustained competitive advantage through pricing or convenience has become increasingly difficult.
Attaining long-term differentiation through a value proposition based on sustained price leadership is generally feasible only for banks that possess either massive scale advantages or superior operating efficiency. And given the omnipresent availability of banking services in most major markets, few institutions can rely on convenience as a competitive advantage.
Small wonder, then, that many banks are looking to the softer domains of service quality and relationship-building to differentiate. Once reserved for private banking or high net-worth individuals, relationship-building approaches have now migrated to the mass market, with the promise of delivering deeper customer loyalty and a greater share of the consumer wallet.
But what does the concept of having a “relationship” with a bank really mean to a customer? A dictionary
will typically use the following phrases to define the word “relationship:”
* Connected by common origin, such as marriage or kinship;
* The connections, dealings or associations bringing together persons or groups in personal or business affairs;
* A particular state of affairs among people related to or dealing with one another.
These definitions imply themes of affinity, family connections and of people working together to achieve common goals. Do customers and bankers really have mutually consistent definitions of what constitutes a relationship? Our research suggests not Bankers’ Relationship Expectations Out of Synch With Consumers’'.
Banking executives interviewed for the project tended to refer to customer relationships in terms of bank-oriented benefits, such as “having a multi-product relationship with a customer” or “gaining as much of a customer’s business as possible.” Only a few bankers defined relationship in terms of customer benefits, such as “relationships are all about what’s in the customers’ best interests.”
The research demonstrates that trust and confidence are the foundational elements of a relationship from customers’ perspectives. But these are not abstract concepts. Customers view the concepts of trust and confidence as part of a hierarchy that starts with the bedrock principles of safety, accuracy and professionalism and builds into more complex principles of fairness and authenticity. Ultimately, customers want to have confidence that the bank and its staff are acting in their best interests.
Relationships are built on experiences. Unless customers’ perceptions of trust and confidence are secured in the lower levels of the hierarchy — safety, accuracy and professional interactions during routine transactions — banks will not be granted permission to evolve the relationship into the advisory stage.
This does not suggest that convenience, product features and pricing are not important. Our research found that some major customer segments acknowledge the convenience and product performance provided by their bank. They’re just not interested in forming a relationship with their bank, which is ultimately a process determined by the customer. Bankers cannot make a customer relationship; they can only generate a consistent set of experiences that ultimately guide a portion of customers to this desired state.
The Frontline Experience demonstrates that customers’ perceptions of the quality of the interactions they have with branch staff have a tremendous impact on their overall receptivity to establishing a relationship with the institution. The importance of in-person interactions with branch staff to relationship-building is highly apparent, not only in frequent interactions with tellers for routine transactions, but also in the higher-value interactions that are involved in all of the major stages of a customer’s lifecycle with a bank — shopping prior to a new product purchase, account opening, new customer on boarding, the purchase of additional products and the closing of product relationships.
The ability of frontline staff to provide the five Ps of prompt, positive, polite, perceptive and personal service in routine as well as high-value interactions is essential. But meeting these basic customer expectations will not be sufficient to differentiate a bank from other providers. These interactions must also cultivate trust and confidence, and ultimately involve frontline staff that will take ownership of the customer need or problem.
It’s an enormous task to ask every frontline employee in every branch to not only handle but also to take ownership in every customer interaction in a manner that builds trust, confidence and relationship receptiveness. In fact, it’s impossible. Yet banks must necessarily focus on what is possible. There are steps that can be taken to meaningfully enhance customer service and nurture relationships that will grow.
First, realize that there is a major group of customers that define relationships differently than bankers. Many don’t want a relationship. Second, understand the building blocks of customers’ relationship hierarchies. And third, realize that the progression of customers through that hierarchy will vary. This speaks to the need to understand customer segments Meet the Relationship Segments.
The frontline experience's consumer survey and analysis of the population's attitudes and preferences regarding the establishment of a relationship with a bank found three basic strata of opinion. Thirty-one percent of customers are highly enthusiastic about the idea of developing a relationship with a bank, 29% of consumers are indifferent, and 40% of consumers are highly skeptical of the concept of having a relationship with a bank. Those three strata can be further refined into five distinct segments.
Relationship Enthusiasts
The 31% of customers enthusiastic about establishing a relationship with their bank can be characterized as people who long for the good old days of banking that revolved around branches, interactions with people and a strong bank presence in the local community.
These traditional customers strongly prefer interacting with their bank through people rather than through technology and view their banks as possessing financial expertise. They tend to have personal relationships with branch personnel and like to be recognized when they enter a branch. Overall, they are loyal, very happy with the service they receive from their bank and display a strong tendency to patronize community banks. More than 80% of these customers are extremely satisfied with the experience they have with their primary bank and more than 70% of them are extremely likely to recommend their bank to friends or family members.
Banks have an excellent opportunity to maintain their relevance with this group of customers as long as they allow them continued access to traditional channels in which they feel comfortable. They may need help navigating the new developments in both financial products and technology to identify what is most relevant to their situations.
This 31% of the population can be further subdivided into two segments. We’ve named the first segment, which comprises 22% of the population, Relationship Enthusiasts. These customers are not highly confident in their own ability to make financial decisions and are very receptive to receiving recommendations regarding financial services from their bank or from friends or family members that they trust. They are highly likely to take action based on these recommendations. For Relationship Enthusiasts, banks have fulfilled all five stages of the relationship hierarchy, leaving these customers very receptive to advisory overtures from their bank. In addition, they are willing to consolidate deposit and loan balances with their primary banking providers.
We’ve named the second segment of customers, comprising 9% of the population, Confident Relationship Enthusiasts. These customers possess high confidence in their own ability to make financial decisions. They will definitely listen to recommendations regarding financial services from their bank or from friends or family members, but they are strongly independent and like to make their own decisions on financial matters.
These customers do have strong affinities with their banks and value the interactions and recognition they receive from branch personnel. Banks have an excellent opportunity to expand wallet share with this segment of customers, who are highly likely to recommend their bank to friends or family members.
Relationship Indifference
Our research revealed that 29% of the population is indifferent to the concept of developing a relationship with their bank. We have named this segment of customers Service Seekers. As the name implies, this segment is highly receptive to service-based value propositions. In fact, of the five customer segments that emerged from our research, Service Seekers display the greatest willingness to trade off product pricing and product choice in order to receive higher service quality.
Branches are very important to Service Seekers. These customers want to be treated well when conducting business within branches and they enjoy personal interaction with branch staff. In particular, the interactions that Service Seekers have with tellers are critical to their perceptions of service quality. They also display the highest receptivity to weekend and evening branch operating hours.
But while Service Seekers are attracted to service-based value propositions, they believe that banks are not providing them with the level of service they deserve. As opposed to 80% -plus satisfaction ratings from the two relationship enthusiast segments, only 49% of Service Seekers are extremely satisfied with the banking experience they have with their primary bank and only 51% of them are extremely likely to recommend their bank to friends or family members.
Our research asked consumers to rate the quality of interactions with branch staff across dozens of attributes ranging from routine teller transactions to higher value sales-oriented situations, such as shopping for a new account, account opening and on boarding. As opposed to the relationship enthusiast segments that rated the capabilities of branch staff very highly across the board, the Service Seekers provided branch staff with only average satisfaction ratings. Thus, banks have not been able to transcend the third stage of Service Seekers’ relationship hierarchy and evolve to a point of gaining permission to establish a consultative and advisory-based relationship.
However, Service Seekers are an extremely important group of customers for banks due to their size ( 29% of the population) and financial potential. Service Seekers are the youngest of the five customer segments. They have combined deposit and loan balances that are 9% larger than the national average and average deposit balances that are 19% larger than the national average. Banks would be well served to strengthen their bonds with Service Seekers.
Beyond the relatively expensive and operationally complex prospect of generating dramatic improvements in service quality, the research pointed to one specific proposition that will strengthen bonds with Service Seekers. Compared to the other customer segments, Service Seekers are much more receptive to rewards programs and incentives. Our research probed consumers on several of these types of programs, including: rewards for bringing more business to the bank; loyalty points programs such as those offered by airlines; incentives and gifts for new checking accounts; and cash or gifts as an incentive to not close an account with the bank.
Across the board, Service Seekers’ preferences for all types of rewards programs were 40% to 60% higher than the national averages. This suggests a tremendous opportunity for banks to develop targeted reward and incentive-based programs that will be appealing to this segment. New account premium/gift programs, targeted interest rate premiums in exchange for new product purchases or balance augmentation and debit card rewards programs are examples of incentives that will most likely appeal to Service Seekers.
The challenges are to design a reward/incentive program that will truly encourage customers to bring new balances to the bank and to provide the frontline with the time and training to properly communicate these programs. The research demonstrates that Service Seekers have the financial wherewithal and will be receptive to bringing balances for the right reward. The research also suggests that banks should not unduly expend resources on the remaining 71% of the population that is not particularly drawn to such offers.
Relationship Skeptics
The Frontline Experience reveals that 40% of consumers are highly skeptical of the concept of having a relationship with a bank. This population is actually comprised of two sub-segments: a group that we have named Product-seeking Sophisticates, comprising 19% of the population, and a group that we call Uninterested Skeptics, comprising 21% .
The root causes of the skepticism held by each of these segments can be traced to broad dissatisfaction with their branch staff interactions. Both of these segments generated service quality ratings for branch staff interactions that were significantly lower than the two relationship enthusiast segments and the Service Seekers. Their “extremely satisfied” ratings ranged from a low of 36% to a high of 51% . These are remarkably poor scores given the tremendous resources that banks have allocated to branch process redesign and staff recruiting and training.
How can these various groups of customers harbor such widely differing perceptions regarding their banks and frontline staff? Product-seeking Sophisticates and Uninterested Skeptics have not even moved beyond the second stage of the relationship hierarchy!
Frontline preparedness is certainly an issue. Our detailed analysis of over 16,700 bank and credit union employee survey responses reveals that over 25% of branch staff are dissatisfied with the key support mechanisms provided by management that are intended to facilitate deeper relationships with customers Frontline Employees Say They’re Not Prepared. Part of the answer also lies in the distinct profiles of these two segments.
Product-seeking Sophisticates are highly engaged in managing their finances and are the most affluent and technologically savvy of the five segments. They are the customers most likely to be self-employed. They also have annual household incomes and investable assets that are 26% and 72% higher than the respective national averages in those two categories. Given their affluence, Product-seeking Sophisticates have extensive product holdings with a broad range of financial services providers. However, they do not trust banks beyond providing basic depository and lending services and they prefer to segregate their finances among a range of best-of-breed providers. They believe that brokerage companies are much more capable of providing financial advice than bankers.
The skepticism of Product-seeking Sophisticates is also rooted in the belief that banks and their staff are deficient at providing basic service levels. Of all five segments, Product-seeking Sophisticates are the least satisfied when conducting business and transactions with the staff of their primary bank’s branch offices. For example, these customers are not satisfied with the speed and accuracy of transactions that are conducted within the branch office and they believe that branch staff have negative attitudes and are not knowledgeable or well trained. As a result, they feel that recommendations provided by branch staff are neither credible nor relevant to their situations.
Due to the size of their financial wallets, many Product-seeking Sophisticates are very profitable customers for their primary bank — and exactly the types of customers with whom banks seek a relationship. However, Product-seeking Sophisticates are generally not candidates for such overtures. They have not migrated past the second stage of the relationship hierarchy. They believe that banks have become less critical in their lives and that banks’ services are fairly undifferentiated. All they want from their bank is competitive products and delivery channels that are available when needed. They prefer efficient and accurate transactions, and are not at all interested in having extensive personal contact with he branch staff. They also display a strong propensity to bank with a large bank as opposed to a community bank or credit union.
If a relationship is to be developed with these Product-seeking Sophisticates, banks must first earn their trust at the lower tiers of the relationship hierarchy before earning the right to move on to the higher tiers. Two critical elements of the solution are to provide state-of-the-art online tools and financial advisors that pass this group’s credibility criteria.
Product-seeking Sophisticates are already knowledgeable about financial matters, but they continue to build upon their existing knowledge base and seek providers that can help them to do so. In order to pass the credibility test, an advisor must provide information to help these customers build upon their knowledge, reinforce the soundness of their approach, and even challenge their point of view. These skill requirements generally surpass the capabilities of the typical branch employee.
The final customer segment that emerged from our study is a group that we call Uninterested Skeptics, which comprises 21% of the population. Like Product-seeking Sophisticates, Uninterested Skeptics are very cynical about the idea of developing a relationship with their bank. But where Product-seeking Sophisticates are highly engaged in managing their finances, Uninterested Skeptics are completely uninterested and uninvolved in banking and financial matters. They have annual household incomes and investable assets that are the lowest of all five segments.
However, on average, Uninterested Skeptics possess in-comes and financial assets that are only slightly lower than the Relationship Enthusiast segment, so the lack of financial resources alone does not explain their high degree of skepticism and distrust of their bank. For Uninterested Skeptics, dealing with finances is stressful as they tend to be much more preoccupied with getting by than planning for the future. They are concerned with what the future may hold and do not feel that they have been treated fairly by banks.
Due to their tenuous financial situations, Uninterested Skeptics are exactly the types of customers that have experienced the brunt of banks’ fee increases. As opposed to Product-seeking Sophisticates, who view banks and bank staff negatively because of a perceived lack of expertise, Uninterested Skeptics harbor a significant mistrust of banks and their staff because they feel that banks have taken advantage of them.
There are few clear avenues available to banks to improve the relationship receptivity of Uninterested Skeptics. These customers have limited financial resources and do not warrant substantial investments in relationship development initiatives. They are not brand loyal and are not at all interested in receiving personalized services. Ties to the local community are unimportant to them as well.
For banks, the best proposition for serving Uninterested Skeptics is to offer basic, convenience-oriented and inexpensive banking services. These services should emphasize basic objectives such as paying bills, getting out of debt, establishing better credit and saving a little money each month. Free checking offers will be appealing to this customer segment, but for reasons of financial necessity rather than emotive appeal.
Undoubtedly, pursuing customer-segment based initiatives is a complex exercise that adds to the already full plates of retail executives and frontline employees, but do banks really have a choice? Given the competition for customers and the need to grow organically, it seems clear that retail institutions will be forced to raise the bar.
Progressive banks will attempt to view relationship-building initiatives from the customer perspective, and some will reap the rewards if their frontline staffs are equipped with the appropriate tools. For others, a failure to change their approach to frontline customer interactions will perpetuate the commoditization of the retail banking business and lead to these institutions becoming increasingly irrelevant to meeting the broader financial aspirations of their customers.
How do the consumer attitudes documented in The Frontline Experience correlate with bank executives? In extending our research to also include interviews with 38 retail banking executives from large and regional U.S. banks, we found both similarities and differences between what the consumers and bankers said.
For example, there was a strong consensus among the executives that in order for customers to develop a relationship with a bank, they must first receive a certain level of service quality. “Many customers probably feel that they receive good service quality from their banks, but they do not consider themselves to have relationships with their banks,” one executive told us. “These customers simply expect the bank to be cordial and take care of their business. But over time, I do believe that some of these customers will think about their banks in more of a relationship context.”
Whether talking about service or relationships, most executives agreed that customers have some basic expectations of a bank — a friendly environment, efficient and error-free transactions, timely and complete information, quick answers to their questions and promises to be kept. The consumer research supports these views.
The differences emerged when we quizzed the executives regarding the definition of “relationship” in the financial services context. The primary disconnect was that most executives believe that the majority of their customers are receptive to forming a relationship with their bank and that these relationships are built by providing customers with knowledge, advice, product depth and customized solutions.
Further, these executives stated that making customers feel that they are known and appreciated by personally greeting them when they conduct branch transactions are fundamental aspects of their relationship banking value propositions. In the words of one executive, “I think it is kind of like the TV program Cheers. Our branch staff should call customers by their names. People want that personal recognition. If personal recognition is not provided, I think they will not come back to you.”
It’s certainly not inappropriate to strive to offer advice, customized solutions and personal recognition to one’s retail banking customers. But as we now know through our consumer research, the flaw in this thinking is that approximately 70% of customers are not really interested in such relationship markers. Our findings simply don’t bear out the notion that the majority of customers like to be acknowledged by name as they conduct business within a branch, that they recognize the benefit of sharing personal financial information, that they like to receive recommendations from their bank, or that they are open to consolidating balances with a single institution.
What our research does reveal is that customer relationships are built through a series of consistently executed experiences in both routine transactions and higher-value sales-oriented interactions. Customers want these experiences to instill trust and confidence that the bank and its staff are acting in their best interests.
The fundamental strategic question that our research exposes is how can a retail bank simultaneously align its resources to adequately serve those customers that want a relationship versus the more utilitarian set of customers who simply want adequate convenience, products and service? Answers from bankers that revolved around technology investments, process improvements and more effective frontline employee selection and training were common.
For some executives we interviewed, the answer to this question involved deeper structural and organizational issues. These executives believe that more control and authority must be placed with frontline employees in local markets in order for relationship-based strategies to take hold and yield the long-anticipated results. One bank executive summarized his institution’s position: “I think we got too focused on efficiency. We centralized a lot of decisions and took some decision-making authority out of the branches. We reduced expenses, but the downside was that we damaged some customer relationships. Now we are trying to reverse that trend by giving some autonomy and authority back to our branch managers.”
The rationale here is that banking is ultimately a local business. The distance of a branch office from one’s home or workplace is quite often the top criteria used by a consumer for selecting a bank. And the competitors that matter most to a local branch office are branches of other companies located within that neighborhood. Staff within individual branches will know more about local customers, such as where they live, what they buy and the types of promotions they will find most appealing. Plus, each local market is different and there’s no way that highly centralized management structures can be responsive to the relationship-building approaches that will work within local markets. Centralized data analytics and lead generations systems can surely support customer relationship-building programs, but they cannot manage them, these executives assert.
Yet executives who advocate local market approaches also acknowledge the challenges. One is how to provide local managers with appropriate information and guidance that enables their staff to provide heightened levels of service to high-value customers while not alienating customers who maintain smaller balances.
A second set of challenges involves the communication ordeals that are inherent in any effort to delegate authority across a broad span of employees. Our research reveals that frontline employees are 18% less likely than senior management to feel comfortable communicating their concerns up the chain of authority.
A third key challenge is the frontline employees’ lack of confidence in their authority to resolve customer issues. This was cited by 39% . It seems that even after decisions are made to push more decision-making authority to the frontline, management must reinforce this by providing clear processes and substantive latitude to frontline personnel to enable them to fully address customer issues as they arise.
As was elaborated on in last year’s The Frontline Factor research, executives say that the scarcest resource for cultivating long-term customer relationships is committed, focused frontline staff and managers. In fact, several bankers report continuing work on the proper alignment of coaching, training and compensation programs and the shifting of greater control to frontline staff in local markets.
he Frontline Experience, based on a national consumer survey, clearly shows that branch staff is instrumental to the success of banks’ customer relationship-building efforts. The five customer segments that emerged from the study have widely divergent viewpoints regarding the effectiveness of frontline staff.
So what’s the attitude of frontline employees, the day-to-day implementers of relationship banking? Do they feel they’ve been given sufficient guidance, processes and tools to accomplish the mission?
To answer these questions, we assembled and analyzed a database of over 16,700 employees from more than 40 banks and credit unions that have participated in BAI’s employee attitude and satisfaction surveys over the past 18 months. This database consisted of survey responses from exempt and non-exempt branch staff, including tellers, sales and service staff, supervisors and branch managers.
Our analysis revealed that over 25% of frontline branch staff are dissatisfied with key components of their employers’ sales process, training, goal-setting, staffing and compensation programs — key programs that are intended to equip them to enhance customer relationships. When this finding is combined with the other facets of The Frontline Experience research project, the ramifications are troubling.
Ninety percent of banks are attempting to differentiate based on service and relationship-based value propositions, according to our 2004 study, The Frontline Factor. However, The Frontline Experience demonstrates that 70% of customers don’t really want a “relationship” with their bank and one out of four frontline employees who interact with customers on a daily basis within branches is dissatisfied with key relationship-oriented processes and support mechanisms.
These findings suggest there are immense challenges facing the vast majority of banks as they strive to attain their service and relationship goals. Most important, the numbers indicate that a focus on improving the customer’s frontline experience must coincide with a substantial effort to improve the frontline employee experience. One executive who participated in our research crisply assessed the situation: “If there is one thing we must absolutely do to improve customer interactions and the customer experience, it’s improve the employee experience.”
Our research revealed several factors that executives should consider in order to improve frontline staff engagement in relationship-based strategies. First, the fact that 35% of frontline employees feel pressure to go beyond needs-based selling. “I feel like I’m being invasive and overstepping my bounds. The sales process is too pushy,” said one frontline employee. “I feel like I’m being forced to meet certain sales goals even though they may not be in the client’s best interest.”
This suggests a number of contributing factors — misaligned goals and incentive programs, inadequate training and pressure from an immediate supervisor — that require executives’ immediate attention. As many as 34% of frontline employees believe that the sales goals established by management are unfair and 30% believe that the frontline is not properly prepared to sell.
Training that goes beyond basic product and service quality education to address soft skills (communication, probing, etc.) and provide frontline staff with competitive information are immediate requirements. Revised soft skills training is necessary as our consumer research demonstrates that the five customer segments identified in The Frontline Experience have unique needs regarding their communication preferences with bank staff and the permissions they will grant a bank.
The process can begin with aligning new employee selection practices with the personalities and aptitudes needed to effectively communicate with these five segments. Training and coaching programs could be designed to provide frontline employees with information and skills that recognize there is no one-size-fits-all approach to cultivating customer trust and confidence.
Frontline staff workflow considerations could also be examined, since incorporating this segmentation approach into relationship management practices will have productivity implications. This could include exploring ways to simplify the transactional aspects of frontline employees’ jobs so they have extra time to interact with customers in an exploratory, needs-based manner.
It also involves providing frontline employees with actionable customer information that can be used to initiate dialogues with customers. The implications of migrating to a contextualized relationship management approach are far-reaching and could certainly extend into a similar set of examinations regarding performance management, goal-setting, customer satisfaction measurement and senior executive communication.
At the same time, employee concerns regarding workload and job stress must be addressed. A total of 27% of frontline branch staff believes that staffing levels are not appropriate given the volume of work and 26% cite excessive job stress. The requirement to simultaneously balance customers’ service quality and transaction efficiency demands with banks’ operational and compliance procedures are major contributors to stress. Twenty-nine percent of frontline staff stated that the procedures and systems that are intended to assist sales process are ineffective.
The results of our frontline employee surveys reveal a familiar scenario for banks. Low-paid frontline employees deal with heavy workloads and rigid rules to help guarantee transaction accuracy, but these same rules hinder relation ship development. With good intentions, bank management has layered on additional responsibilities for customer relationship-building but too often fails to adjust workloads, provide adequate training, mentor effectively or supply tools that enable frontline staff to focus on the customer rather than the transaction. This set of circumstances causes tension to build until many frontline staff leave, and then branch issues are compounded by the training requirements and lowered productivity that accompany high turnover rates.
The issues are complex and there are no easy answers. But in the end, banks have no choice but to constantly search and test for answers. In the words of one executive who participated in the research, “It’s the day-to-day interaction with the client that determines how they feel about us as an organization. If you are truly attempting to become an exceptional service provider, you’re not doing it at the management level; you’re doing it with the frontline staff that provides day-to-day service to clients. So we have to find ways to inspire that group of employees and help them develop pride in the organization and believe that their jobs are a critical component to our success.”
November 23, 2005 at 09:43 AM in Financial Services | Permalink | TrackBack (10) | Top of page | Blog Home
InformationWeek > RFID > Contactless Credit Cards Work In The 'Blink' Of An Eye > November 18, 2005
Chase Bank USA is testing Visas and MasterCards with RFID technology called "blink," which eliminates the need for purchasers to sign and swipe. Instead, the buyer just waves the card in front of a scanner.
By Jennifer Lawinski
CRN
The day has arrived.
Credit card users are finally free of the burden of swiping their cards and signing their name thanks to advances in RFID technology and new programs from banks and credit card companies looking to make the shopping experience a little sweeter.
Contactless cards fitted with RFID chips are now available, and solution providers should expect to see opportunities in the POS market for new systems and upgrades.
The process involves waving a credit card with the embedded RFID chip in front of a scanning device that connects it with the credit account. The card must be within 20 centimeters of the scanner in order to be read. Purchases can be made almost instantly without a swipe of a magnetic strip or a signature.
Chase Bank U.S.A. last month rolled out Visas and MasterCards with the technology, which it calls “blink,” in the New York tristate area at establishments such as 7-Eleven, AMC Theatres, CVS and Duane Reade.
“The payment business is evolving rapidly and changing monthly,” said Erik Michielsen, director of RFID and ubiquitous networks at ABI Research, Oyster Bay, N.Y. “The key to this technology, why you’re seeing such rapid growth, is that it’s really got triangulated benefits. It benefits the consumer, the merchant and the card issuer.”
Consumers benefit by not having to wait in long lines and from the customer loyalty programs tied to the system’s ability to identify purchasers using the RFID system.
Michielsen said merchants benefit by reducing cash management issues and increasing customer loyalty.
“They’re really going after younger markets with these cards and basically the ‘cool’ factor. They’re actually finding that the average purchase increases by about 20 percent with the use of these cards,” said Bill Shaw, director of professional services at Nimax, the POS division of Ingram Micro, Santa Ana, Calif.
With a growing market among retailers, where do resellers fit in? “When it comes to the reseller channel market, we’re concerned with a couple of different things,” Shaw said. “One is the [RFID card] readers, and right now this is a closed market. It’s not a channel market. It has not reached critical mass. It is still considered in trial.”
When the technology is market-ready, he said, the channel will see opportunities selling both card reader devices and software that integrates the new system with existing systems or adds information-capture capabilities.
Mohammad Khan, president and founder of payment hardware company ViVOtech, Santa Clara, Calif., said the use of contactless credit card technology should be more widespread in 2006.
“There was a good track record of contactless technology to be accepted by the consumer,” Khan said. Contactless transit cards were popular in Hong Kong, he said, and devices such as the Speedpass, which is connected to an account to pay at gas stations, are popular in the United States. ViVOtech’s readers have been approved for use by MasterCard as part of its PayPass program, he said.
“The next two years is the time to build the infrastructure,” Khan said. “By the time millions of cell phones are enabled with near-field communications technology, the infrastructure should be in place.”
Khan estimates that shoppers won’t be paying with a wave of their cell phones until 2007 or 2008.
In spite of technological bells and whistles, credit cards will still carry magnetic strips for use at more traditional points of sale and will continue to display account numbers.
“It will take awhile for stores to adopt that technology. They’re not just going to throw out their pin pads and signature capture pads because a new technology came along,” Ingram Micro’s Shaw said.
“Just as with magnetic-strip cards now, we’ve got lots of different types of devices that can read them and then software to capture that information.
It’s just a matter of incorporating a new type of technology to do the same old thing, really,” he said. “Eventually those will become open systems as magnetic-strip technology is now, and when that happens, that’s when things [will] start snowballing.”
November 23, 2005 at 01:09 AM in Smart Cards | Permalink | TrackBack (50) | Top of page | Blog Home
SANS Warns of Attack Shift to Apps, Network Devices
By Paul F. Roberts
November 22, 2005
An increase in the number of holes in software applications and network devices like routers and switches is allowing malicious hackers to gain access to sensitive systems, including government and military systems, according to the SANS Institute.
SANS warned of the switch to attacks on applications and network devices in its annual publication of the Top 20 vulnerabilities on Tuesday. Critical holes in computer backup and antivirus applications, as well as switch and router platforms, are enabling a new wave of attacks that is shifting attention from holes in operating systems like Microsoft Corp.'s Windows, Web and e-mail servers, SANS said. Software vulnerability scanning and better patching are the best way to address the holes, SANS said.
The annual SANS Top 20 highlights holes in software programs that are considered the most serious for security professionals. As in past years, the SANS Top 20 contains warnings about security holes in Windows and popular Internet applications like the Internet Explorer Web browser and Outlook Express e-mail program.
However, Microsoft shares the spotlight this year with Symantec Corp., Cisco Systems Inc., Oracle Corp. and others, after a year in which warnings about vulnerabilities in antivirus and computer backup software and the surprise publication of information on a hole in Cisco Systems' IOS (Internetwork Operating System) made headlines.
Enterprises have been preoccupied with operating system and Internet threats and have ignored the threat posed by holes in software applications by major vendors, according to Alan Paller, director of research at SANS.
For example, computer backup systems are rich targets for attack because they collect sensitive information from other systems and also must be accessible to enterprise systems that they manage, said Paller.
The SANS Institute's Internet Storm Center recorded a sharp spike in Internet scans for systems running the Veritas BackupExec software, which is now sold by Symantec, after a crop of high-risk holes were announced in June, according to Johannes Ullrich, CTO of SANS ISC.
"Everybody needs to have access to the backup server to do backups. It's a critical service," he said.
Automated hacking tools that lowered the technical bar for attacking Web and e-mail servers have been modified to target applications, said Paller from London, where SANS was planning to announce the Top 20 list with representatives of the UK's NISCC (National Infrastructure Security Co-Ordination Center).
The stakes for patching holes in software are getting higher, SANS said.
"The business of stealing data for extortion and resale is a multibillion dollar business," Paller said.
Governments also have reason to take a close look at their networks for vulnerabilities in the operating systems that run desktop and server machines, as well as software applications, experts agree.
SANS, NISCC and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a dire warning about the impact of software vulnerabilities on national security.
Paller said that unknown enemies—possibly sponsored by states hostile to the U.S. —are conducting round-the-clock electronic attacks against companies and government Web sites to gather and transmit privileged information.
He cited coordinated "phishing" attacks that placed Trojan horse programs on systems owned by leading British companies and the U.K. government in June, and coordinated Chinese attacks on U.S. government computers, dubbed "Titan Rain," that netted military flight planning software as examples of widespread hacking of "devastating attacks that are being carried out against U.S. government and military contractor sites," SANS said.
Unlike worms and viruses, the new wave of malicious attacks are super stealthy and may lurk for months or years, only "waking up" to snatch sensitive information and send it back to those orchestrating the attack, said Paller.
Focusing on application security is nothing new at Morgan Stanley, said Lance Braunstein, executive director of technical operations.
November 22, 2005 at 05:52 PM in Security | Permalink | TrackBack (24) | Top of page | Blog Home
The Great Google Wipeout - Chronicle of a corporate death foretold. By Jack Shafer
Chronicle of a corporate death foretold.
By Jack Shafer
Posted Monday, Nov. 21, 2005, at 7:35 PM ET
Click image to expand.
It wasn't like it had never happened before in the tech world. At the beginning of the 1980s, an Apple computer was the only box a self-respecting user would own. Lotus 1-2-3, WordPerfect, IBM PCs, CompuServe, Nintendo, Netscape, AltaVista, AOL, Dell, the iPod, and Microsoft all held, at one time, what seemed like impregnable positions in their markets. In late 2005, as the price of a share of Google broke $400 and every software, advertising, print, broadband, and entertainment CEO in the country cowered in his executive bathroom sobbing about what the creative destruction crew from Google was doing to his business, the popular search engine seemed invincible.
Oh, some commentators, such as Adam L. Penenberg in Slate, had gone out on a ledge to speculate that the company had peaked. But they were dismissed as deadline johnnies who had to write something contrarian to satisfy their editors. But it wasn't until Knight Ridder Inc.'s largest stockholder, Private Capital Management LP, called for the newspaper chain's breakup that the creative destruction of market forces turned on Google and began its rout. The young company that arrogantly thought it owned the Internet soon learned that its only assets were tens of thousands of computers, terabytes of hard-disk storage, a terrific page-rank algorithm that coughed up pretty accurate searches, billions in the bank, and a dandy logo.
Private Capital's proposal didn't kill Google, but it signaled the newspaper industry's vulnerability, which in turn set off a chain reaction that did slay the firm. By forcing a sale of the Knight Ridder 32-newspaper chain (Philadelphia Inquirer, San Jose Mercury News, Miami Herald, Kansas City Star, et al.), just as Google had slithered in with Google Base, Private Capital created a panic. Classified ads were a $15-billion-a-year business for daily newspapers, and the conventional wisdom held that the newspaper industry had no way to fight back against Google, let alone earlier interlopers eBay and craigslist.
But then the recently re-Webified Rupert Murdoch of News Corp.—a media revolutionary always a step ahead of his peers—arrived to buy Knight Ridder and the newspaper properties of the stagnating Tribune Company (Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, Newsday, et al.) and built the national classified database to end all national classified databases. He allowed customers to have classified ads their way: They could get them free or paid and sell the goods or services at set prices or by auction; they could have them displayed in a News Corp. paper, on the News Corp. Web site, on cell phones, and in podcasts, or any combination of the above. He could also send data from his DirecTV platform in space or by using slivers of his conventional TV stations on earth. Pricing was determined by who the customer was, what they were selling, how much they were willing to pay for placement, and whether they wanted to upload a video of the thing they were selling. Google Base stumbled, and eBay acquired the rest of craigslist in a fluster to catch up.
Next, Rupe fused MySpace.com, another savvy acquisition, into the network to expand its reach to the young people who refuse to read the newspaper. Then he rescued the Washington Post, New York Times, Boston Globe, and the Gannett and Hearst chains by inviting their classified pages to join his combine—for free. He hadn't turned altruist in his old age but was acting on the theory that the larger his network, the more valuable the individual pieces. (Murdoch could always come back and buy out the demoralized and starving Grahams, Sulzbergers, and Hearsts with his fabulous profits. He had time. He was a young 77.) He took his classified network international by integrating his London Timeses and his U.K. tabloids as well as his BSkyB satellite TV system, adding his Australian media properties and continental newspapers, too.
Like the Apple iTunes operation only bigger, RupeWeb was a sort of "Club Web." Its content was for members only and invisible to the Web spiders of Google, Yahoo!, MSN, etc. (Some people call this kind of Web the "invisible" or "deep" Web.) Many RupeWeb users started helping themselves to the new search engine he had purchased in his acquisition of Lycos. Capitalizing on plummeting hard-disk prices, faster processors, growing bandwidth, and sleek new algorithms, the RupeGrab search engine ran loops around Google. People didn't even seem to mind that RupeGrab billed its search results as "Fair and Balanced."
RupeWeb immediately put a bite into Google's billions-of-dollars-a-quarter AdSense and AdWords advertising platforms. So did Microsoft and Yahoo! search, which had reached parity with Google. Google had also lost its "don't be evil" cachet ever since founders Sergey and Larry had purchased a Boeing 767-200 and crashed it into Coit Tower while doing barrel rolls over the San Francisco Bay. They survived, but their reputations and that of their company did not.
Then Amazon threw Google a curve it couldn't hit. Google had alienated the entire book-publishing business with its universal book-scanning project, one that paid the publishers in lip service rather than cash. Amazon leveraged this alienation to convince the major New York publishers—including Murdoch's HarperCollins, of course—to make nearly every book in print available via its "Search Inside" feature, which could already be searched in tandem with Amazon's A9 search engine. Giving publishers a cut of the book sales and book rentals obtained through search was an essential part of the deal. The book feature of the A9 search engine made it another Club Web, almost as useful as Murdoch's. Amazon added music lyrics, composers, titles, and artists and extended its IMDb.com database of film and TV artists and film dialogue. It became the dominant online seller of CDs, DVDs, books, and downloadable music, movies, and TV. Information didn't want to be free, Amazon figured out. It just wanted to be sold at a variety of price points, just like feature films were—at the theater, on pay-per-view, on DVD, or free thanks to the largesse of advertisers. The only ones who mourned the passing of iTunes were the deranged iPod people.
Having plunged into too many businesses at once, Google had become distracted. Regulators throttled its local Wi-Fi initiative. Its plan to build out ad-supported computer services—word processors, spreadsheets, databases—for end users had died when Microsoft jumped in first with a superior polished suite. Google, as users of its desktop search had learned, wasn't good at writing client applications. Microsoft, now run by Scott Moore, who had defected back to the company from Yahoo!, continued to trump Google on the desktop and used its know-how and market muscle to write lingua franca search and communications software for all the smart devices, services, and nano-gizmos that people were plugging into the Web: phones, media players, medical monitors, life recorders, cars, houses, ships at sea, personal satellites, and USB-ready newborns as well as the Club Webs belonging to individuals and institutions.
The wheels really came off Google not when it got thrown out of China for accidentally offending the regime, and not when it purchased Time Warner and then sold it for a huge loss, and not when Google TV and Google Phone flamed out. The problem wasn't that the Web wasn't growing. It was growing like a hothouse fungus! Google just couldn't keep up with the zigzagging beast. The final reckoning came when a Wall Street calamity of the highest order struck: Google failed to deliver increased quarterly earnings for the first time in memory. The stock buckled and the firm retreated into Chapter 11.
Meanwhile in China, a couple of 22-year-old computer scientists had an idea for a company based on the new economy in which a terabyte costs a penny, processors are too fast to measure, and bandwidth is too plentiful to charge for …
*******
I should acknowledge my debt to Chip Bayers, whose similarly titled Wired feature from almost a decade ago inspired this one. John Ellis started my fever-dream with his weekend piece from the Wall Street Journal. Also, I own Microsoft stock, most of which cost me more than today's closing price. Google me or send me e-mail via Google's soon-to-fold e-mail service: slate.pressbox@gmail.com. (E-mail may be quoted by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)
Jack Shafer is Slate's editor at large.
November 22, 2005 at 05:14 PM in Portals | Permalink | TrackBack (13) | Top of page | Blog Home
Finextra: Service quality blights bank relationships
Whether it's cynicism from service quality breakdowns or the desire to "play the field" with banking options, nearly seven in 10 banking customers say that having a relationship with their banking institution is low on their priority list, according to a study presented at the BAI Retail Delivery Conference in Florida.
In collaboration with Accenture, SAP, De La Rue and NewGround, the Bank Administration Institue (BAI) canvassed 3700 banking customers for their views of relationship banking, and found that 70% are uninterested or even skeptical of relationship banking.
Deborah Bianucci, president and cheif executive of the BAI says the results are a wake up call for banking organisations who list relationship banking or service quality as their primary customer value proposition
"While banks tend to view relationships in the number of accounts a person has with the bank, a consumer views relationship banking in terms of trust and confidence that the institution is acting in the customer's best interest," she says. This means that banks have to consistently deliver flawless performance in their front-line relationships with customers.
The study determined that a hierarchy of steps needs to be fulfilled for the customer to advance to new levels of trust with their bank, from a transaction-based relationship, to a service-based relationship, to the pinnacle of trust: advice-based relationship.
"Service Seekers" and "Product-Seeking Sophisticates" are two customer segments identified by the study that have low interest in developing a relationship with a bank. But, as these two segments comprise nearly half of the adult population and have significant assets to invest, it's critical for banks to identify ways to attract these groups.
For the Service Seekers (29% of respondents), the key is accessibility and perception of service quality at their branch. They tend to be the younger, but higher than average deposit balances. This group is willing to trade pricing options for attention and service. The research also revealed that loyalty and rewards-based programmes are an attractive option for banks to improve the relationship receptivity of Service Seekers.
The Product-Seeking Sophisticates (19% of respondents) are highly skeptical of their banks and prefer to distribute their investments across best-of-breed providers. They tend to be middle-aged, predominantly male, with a high deposit balances and investable assets. Product-Seeking Sophisticates are very involved with their investments, and don't believe their banks are up to the task or knowledgeable about the investments best for their situation. To attract this group, banks have an uphill challenge to earn trust at lower tiers before earning respect for their credibility and competency. Online tools and savvy financial advisers are key to attracting these customers, says the BAI.
"The common denominator for all customer segments is competent, personable and trustworthy interactions with knowledgeable frontline staff," states the research. "Yet fully a quarter of frontline employees interviewed say they felt they were not prepared to handle the demands of relationship banking."
November 22, 2005 at 02:51 PM in Financial Services | Permalink | TrackBack (7) | Top of page | Blog Home
11/27/2005 | MemoMemo | Lee Rainie
Search engines have become an increasingly important part of the online experience of American internet users. The most recent findings from Pew Internet & American Life tracking surveys and consumer behavior trends from the comScore Media Metrix consumer panel show that about 60 million American adults are using search engines on a typical day.
These results from September 2005 represent a sharp increase from mid-2004. Pew Internet Project data from June 2004 show that use of search engines on a typical day has risen from 30% to 41% of the internet-using population, which itself has grown in the past year. This means that the number of those using search engines on an average day jumped from roughly 38 million in June 2004 to about 59 million in September 2005 – an increase of about 55%. comScore data, which are derived from a different methodology, show that from September 2004 to September 2005 the average daily use of search engines jumped from 49.3 million users to 60.7 million users – an increase of 23%.
This means that the use of search engines is edging up on email as a primary internet activity on any given day. The Pew Internet Project data show that on a typical day, email use is still the top internet activity. On any given day, about 52% of American internet users are sending and receiving email, up from 45% in June of 2004.
http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/167/report_display.asp
November 22, 2005 at 01:09 AM in Portals | Permalink | TrackBack (13) | Top of page | Blog Home
Finextra: comment - Virtualisation - on the road to Nirvana
Cameron Khan, a partner with The Nexion Partnership, looks at the strategic possibilities opening up to banks from developments in virtualisation technology.
"Nirvana, a state of supreme liberation delivering extinction of all attachment".
Our 'attachment', to physical computing, hardware and software, is forecast to be a thing of the past by rapidly growing investment and development in virtualisation technology.
At the heart of this dream is the enormous productivity and cost savings a business could realise. Easy to see why Microsoft, EMC, Veritas, Sun, HP and IBM are unremittingly pushing the envelope in this new battle ground. The surge in academic research heralds the prospect of a new technology Zeitgeist.
The term virtualisation owes its lineage to the inception of the virtual machine, evolved since the 1960s into a sophisticated set of highly coordinated objects composed of code and memory. The concepts, methods and technologies for virtualising have been doggedly pursued in an attempt to overcome the dependency on a machine's physical limitation. Virtual machines mimicking and managing the behaviour of the underlying hardware and operating system has empowered niche solutions in the IT environment.
This domain has been the mainstay of the IT infrastructure expert. These specialist problem solvers look at improving and optimising the delivery of processor power, memory management, network and storage to correct localised problems. The aim to consolidate the workloads of several under-utilised servers to fewer machines, perhaps a single machine with savings on hardware, environmental costs, management, and administration. A legacy application unable to run on newer hardware can also be served by virtual machines. The virtual machine can be used for debugging operating systems without losing productivity, providing fault and error containment thus allowing for powerful debugging and performance monitoring.
It's a technical solution to a technical problem. So why should the business get excited?
There is growing realisation at executive level of the strategic possibilities of virtualisation. The hypothesis that a truly integrated virtualisation model provides a level of optimisation extending way beyond the fabric. A vision to disintermediate the application layer from its hard-wired host. To convert the existing infrastructure delivery mechanisms into an IT utility - the terms 'on tap' and 'just-in-time' creeping into the nomenclature.
Those IT executives with the vision are initiating strategic infrastructure projects that map across the enterprise. A Global investment bank is currently investigating a model for 'Shared Infrastructure' with the aim of simplifying the infrastructure and reducing provisioning time from months to days.
Critically, the IT team are planning beyond the technology, encompassing the business drivers and process and management view points to develop a service based architecture. The benefits of getting it right are obvious: improved service to the business, cost savings and reduced reliance on empirical modeling. Specifically, IT infrastructure aligned to the bank's strategy.
Driving the IT resources to a state where they can be genuinely shared across business applications and processes is predicted to be a top three CIO priority for next year. The idea of advancing virtualisation to a policy driven domain of automated service levels for deployment, provisioning, failover, disaster & recovery, work load management is compelling. Interestingly, the focus is not on achieving all the '9s' but an acceptable, well-utilised state across the organisation.
According to Gartner, enterprises that do not leverage virtualisation technologies will pay up to 40% more in acquisition costs by 2008, and roughly 20% more in administrative costs than enterprises that leverage virtualisation technologies.
A European bank recently implemented an enterprise-wide Storage Area Network (SAN) to remove significant complexity of disparate technologies and solutions spread across business units. The resulting solution has been far reaching and through a single SAN has provided virtualisation of the entire storage asset and automated allocation to the business on demand. The benefits of improved capacity planning and therefore more efficient technology have seen estimated savings in IT spend of 20%.
But its not just about IT cost reduction.
The key to addressing virtualisation is to look beyond servers or storage to the people, processes and technologies, where true benefits can be delivered.
Developing a comprehensive view of the 'as is' state of IT services and business priorities is a critical first step. Building a working model of the service dimension includes knowledge about how customer, operations, strategy, technology and business axes co-exist within a framework.
No one virtualisation strategy is going to be the same. Gathering the critical information and very quickly shaping theoretical options will identify business focused IT priorities. Importantly, this step provides IT executives with a clear understanding of the areas that could initially be developed towards the most effective service based architecture.
Companies must clearly consider how a shared infrastructure will affect the people and processes dedicated to applications and business functions. Aiming towards simplification and flexiblity of the entire infrastructure requires a throrough impact analysis of all the key dependencies. With infrastructure resources virtualised, they are driven to meet service levels within a dynamic and optimised infrastructure architecture.
The success of a virtualised environment will ultimately rely on the quality of the technology decision. It is essential to avoid vendor driven TCO statements and to clarify the true costs of implementing a solution. The need for a robust and scaleable solution is obvious. Simplification is key to achieving a cohesive solution where service levels are at stake. Good product research with a focus on the benefits of virtualising the environment will ensure the technology does not drive the solution. Traditional approaches to piloting are fine as long as they evolve in safe and predictable environments where genuine measurements can be made against the business drivers.
Not quite Nirvana but on the right road.
Related website: www.nexionpartnership.com
November 21, 2005 at 09:08 PM in Financial Services | Permalink | TrackBack (2) | Top of page | Blog Home
PC Pro: News: Search engines dominating use of the Internet
Search engines are dominating our use of the Internet, according to research from the Pew Internet & American Life Project.
The figures place search engines second only to email as the key Net application. On a typical day some 41 per cent of the Internet using population in the US turn to search engines, up from 31 per cent in the middle of 2004. In terms of numbers, the figure represents 59m people.
Email remains the essential online service, however, with 52 per cent of Americans checking mail on any given day.
The rise of search has been powered by local information, says Pew. It perhaps marks something of a milestone for Internet usage. As more and more content comes online - recently Google claimed to have trebled its index of 8bn pages, while Yahoo! claimed 19.2bn pages - users can turn to the Internet to find information close to home with a good chance of finding it.
Pew quotes data showin