The impending Age Of Abundance was prophecied in the scriptures thousands of years ago.
Image via CrunchBaseSoraya Darabi: Mobile Productivity Tools
Image via WikipediaBanking Technology: Mobile Banking For The Unbanked: Of the 6.9 billion people on our planet, just 30% (2.1 billion) have bank accounts. But 75% – 5.2 billion people - have mobile phones. ..... In Africa, bank penetration runs at between 10 and 50% – while mobile comes in at 40-100%. In Asia-Pacific, the figures are 20-60% for bank penetration and, again, 40-100% for mobile. And in Latin America, it's between 30 and 60% for bank and 60-80% for mobile. ..... it will be 2015 before most consumers in the developed world use their mobile phones to manage payments. ...... By contrast, while there is no great sense of urgency about mobile banking and payments among consumers in developed markets, in the developing world there is a strong appetite for mobile. ....... In these emerging markets, mobile banking could bring about a fundamental shift in the consumer experience - giving many millions of people who have never had access to bank accounts or to credit and debit cards the opportunity to quickly, easily and efficiently pay for goods and services and tap into the convenience economy those of us in developed markets now take for granted....... a disruptive technology that could unseat them and make way for more agile players with a closer relationship with the end customers and a track record of servicing them? ...... In March 2007 Safaricom, the leading mobile operator in Kenya, launched an SMS-based money transfer system that enables consumers to deposit, send and withdraw funds using their mobile phones. Use of M-PESA skyrocketed, with the system quickly being adopted by more than 35% of Kenya's adult population. The winner here is clearly the mobile operator. ....... The right regulation needs to be in place if mobile banking and payments services are to be really safe for consumers. ...... . The banks have strengths that the mobile network operators cannot boast, but they also need to tap into the agility and the reach of the mobile network operators, and the technology of the device providers....... when it comes to innovation in mobile payments and financial inclusion, collaboration is key: whether it is between banks or between banks and the other key mobile industry players.Just like mobile phones have been tools for democracy activists across the Arab world - very much still unfolding - the mobile phone can also be a tool to cure poverty. I think it is the most potent of all tools. And I expect its capabilities to, if anything, expand.
Image via WikipediaReuters: Grouponomics: 18 months ago, Groupon didn’t exist. Today, it has over 70 million users in 500-odd different markets, is making more than a billion dollars a year, has dozens if not hundreds of copycat rivals, and is said to be worth as much as $25 billion. What’s going on here? There’s obviously something clever and innovative behind Groupon — but what is it? ...... “Groupon doesn’t do anything that four of us with a phone couldn’t do” ...... the more people Groupon signs up, the more targeted its deals can be ...... the idea that coupons only become activated once a certain minimum number of people have signed up for them. This is essentially a guarantee for the merchant that the needle will be moved, that their effort won’t be wasted. With traditional advertising or even with old-fashioned coupons, a merchant never has any guarantee that they will be noticed or make any difference. But with a Groupon, you know that hundreds of people will be so enticed by your offer that they’re willing to pay real money to access it. That kind of guaranteed engagement is hugely valuable, and more or less unprecedented in the world of marketing and advertising. ....... one sector, which I think is Groupon’s biggest: restaurants. ....... Before Groupon came along, there was no effective way for merchants to reach consumers in their area, while excluding everybody else. If you’re a neighborhood restaurant, you don’t want to entice people who live miles away: you want to reach locals. And while Groupon isn’t quite there yet — especially in New York, where a restaurant more than a few blocks away can feel like a schlep — it’s orders of magnitude better at targeting than anything which came before it. And it’s improving every day. ........ one of life’s great mysteries is why the New York Times is spending tens of millions of dollars building and promoting its easily-circumventable paywall, when it could have built a first-rate Groupon clone instead. The NYT has the exact home addresses — and the associated email addresses — of hundreds of thousands of well-heeled newspaper subscribers in a rich city of tiny neighborhoods. It also has a sales force which talks to local businesses regularly. It should own this space in New York City, instead of ceding it to arrivistes from Chicago who have much less specificity as to where exactly their subscribers live ........ when a few hundred people have signed up for your deal, you get a huge amount of mindshare from them. Many will redeem the Groupon very quickly, but a lot of them will wait a while, thinking about you in the back of their minds all the time ....... Groupons provide an important nudge to jolt people out of their day-to-day habits and try something new ....... By forcing people to pay for their Groupon, restaurants lock in new customers in a way that old-fashioned coupons never could. ....... a Groupon is a commitment device ...... very good at driving traffic during slow periods ...... he timed its Groupon “to create a surge of business in an otherwise soft couple of months after the holidays.” ....... 66% of merchants offering a Groupon said that the offer was profitable for them in and of itself — not including any subsequent repeat business from new customers. ....... diners spending their Groupon at a restaurant averaged a check 80% greater than the face value of the Groupon itself. ...... if that Groupon helps you to discover a new neighborhood gem where you go on to become a regular, then that’s a genuine and highly valuable service that it has performed, no matter how much money you spend on your first visit. ....... social media is at heart a fantastic way for companies to compete on quality rather than marketing glitz. ........ the best way to get great word-of-mouth is to deliver fantastic service. For a small company or even a large company which is great at what it does and never does any marketing per se, social media is a godsend. ........ Groupon’s CEO, Andrew Mason, attributes his company’s success not to the genius of the idea itself, but rather to Groupon’s ability to execute — to keep both consumers and merchants happy. ...... more than 95% of merchants would run their deal again or recommend Groupon to a fellow merchant. ...... enormous amounts of effort into ongoing customer service, rather than just putting four sales guys in a room with a telephone and putting them on commission. ...... Groupon itself, as much as its merchants, is counting on repeat business. And that comes from having a positive reputation which can spread like wildfire over Facebook and other social networks.
