Julie Ask says, “Yahoo’s board met yesterday amidst disappointing financial results that have failed to live up to the expectations of its investors. Prevailing rumors suggest that the board under pressure from investors will vote to break apart the business and sell the pieces. While it is true that the majority of Yahoo’s revenue comes from online advertising, the future is clearly mobile. Mobile phone numbers are more important than email addresses, and consumers already use their mobile phones more than two hours a day in the U.S. Global expansion depends on mobile. Power in mobile... [...]

Robert Stroud says, “Amazon Web Services is rapidly growing Since I joined Forrester 2 months ago, we have seen multiple announcements from public cloud providers. Amazon Web Services (AWS) numbers are now available. As reported by The Motley Fool, “at the RE:Invent  conference a company representative disclosed “AWS is now on pace for a run rate of $7.3 billion — up 81% year over year”. Current market leader AWS, followed by Microsoft Azure and IBM, have confirmed that cloud for many enterprises is not only an option; it is the default for new initiatives for many enterprises.... [...]

Peter O’Neill says, “Wake up, B2B marketing and sales enablement automation vendors — especially those of you in North America. Many of you have not yet seriously set up shop in Europe because you consider firms there to be late adopters of marketing and sales automation. Well, they are perhaps late from your point of view, but they have now caught up. Forrester’s Global Business Technographics® Marketing Survey, 2015 reveals the proportion of B2B companies intending to buy or expand their automation projects for, among other things: content management; sales; online marketing;... [...]

Thomas Husson says, “When it comes to location-based marketing and proximity-marketing, more often than not, marketers seem fascinated by the beacon technology. With 82% of shoppers making their actual purchasing decision in-aisle, it’s no wonder that vendors are betting on beacons and indoor positioning systems to help marketers interact with consumers in real time. A year ago, Forrester warned of the hype around beacons. Despite huge interest and numerous successful pilots, we have yet to see very many successful commercial rollouts. This is not so much about the technology (even though... [...]

Merritt Maxim says, “Last week, Courion announced its acquisition of Nova Scotia-based SecureReset, which, through its QuickFactor product, provides mobile-based two-factor authentication (2FA). This is the fourth acquisition of a 2FA startup by an enterprise software vendor in 2015: ·         Twilio acquired Authy, February 2015 (purchase price N/A). ·         Salesforce acquired Toopher, April 2015 (purchase price N/A). ·         Micro Focus acquired Authasas, July 2015 (purchase price N/A). ·         Courion acquired SecureReset, November 2015 (purchase... [...]

Patti Freeman Evans says, “2016 is looking busy for eBusiness professionals, who hold an increasingly important role as digital leaders in their organizations. They’ve been in strategic and operational roles, driving digital transformation throughout their companies. Their hand in new developments such as digital store or branch, mobile and the Internet of Things (IoT) proves that this role is core to productive, current, and rapidly evolving firm. In 2016, Forrester believes that: ■ Top digital leaders will get poached by other firms. As lagging firms wake up to the current competitive... [...]

Michael O’Grady says, “In Western Europe, November and December account for a fifth of annual retail sales. However, consumers aren’t spending more over the holiday period; they are just shifting their spending earlier in the shopping season. Forrester expects European online sales over the holiday period to grow 12.5% compared to 2014. In the UK, heavy discounting, notably as a result of Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotions, has a huge impact on holiday shopping. Holiday spending is of critical importance to retailers. In 2014, Amazon traded one-third of its retail sales in... [...]

Peter O’Neill says, “The B2B marketing research team has just published its 2016 predictions report, outlining four shifts that B2B marketing professionals can expect by December 31 of next year. This report is aligned with and part of a series of Forrester predictions reports — each discussing the effects on specific roles in a company, but all part of the greater picture: The Age Of The Customer. Forrester clients can read the full report here, they can also attend this webinar on December 10th. B2B buying has changed: Buyers prefer to do research themselves rather than rely on... [...]

Adam Silverman says, “We’ve all been told time again that the in-store shopping experience is undergoing seismic change. Technologies such as beacons, omnichannel fulfillment and in-store analytics have promised to change the definition of how a retail store engages with customers. And although iron-clad digital store success stories are few and far between, stores will continue to chase the digital store dream despite not knowing the precise endgame. A handful of market leaders are implementing digital store initiatives that will act as lighthouses to the rest of the industry, showing... [...]

Brian Hopkins says, “Three of four architects strive to make their firms data driven. But well-meaning technology managers only deal with part of the problem: How to use technology to glean deeper, faster insight from more data — and more cheaply. But consider that only 29% of architects say their firms are good at connecting analytics results to business outcome. This is a huge gap! And the problem is the ‘data driven’ mentality that never fights it’s way out of technology and to what firms care about – outcomes. In 2016, customer-obsessed leaders will leapfrog their competition,... [...]