Does Cloud Increase Vendor Lockin Risk?
For all the marketingspeak from technology providers about open systems blah blah blah, seasoned CIOs know that every software purchase is accompanied by a certain level of risk of getting…
Marketable Items Let You Have Your Content And Eat It Too
In his blog post titled Wasted Words – Why Marketing Content Longer than 3 to 5 Items Does Not Work, Gartner Research Director Hank Barnes makes a strong case to technology…
Warts And All, The Banking System Works
I must be an "early adopter" in Running From Pillar To Post To Link Aadhaar Card To Bank Account: A year later, the early and late majority of LPG subsidy beneficiaries…
Omnichannel Fiasco #2: M-PESA
In Omnichannel Fiasco #1: Standard Chartered Credit Card, I'd described a recent omnichannel experience that started well but went downhill soon thereafter. In this post, let me describe another omnichannel…
Frictionless Loyalty Programs – MakeUseOf Case Study
The leading British technology and Internet apps blog Make Use Of recently launched a loyalty-cum-rewards program where readers earn points for sharing its articles on social networks. In the past, I've…
Credit Where Credit Is Due – HSBC Case Study
In over two decades of using credit cards, I missed a payment for the first time a couple of months ago. This happened on my HSBC credit card, which I've…
Fifty Beats Three Hundred At Tirumala-Tirupati
I recently visited the famous Lord Balaji Temple in Tirumala and the Goddess Padmavati Temple in Tirupati. Here are a few highlights from my trip: Money can't buy you darshans…
Best Practices For Reducing SaaS Churn
In the good old days, an onpremise B2B software vendor would go through a long-drawn sales process but, when he bagged the deal at the end of it, he'd grab…
How Security Can Actually Increase Vulnerability
Security increases friction. That's not news. I've myself written many blog posts - click here, here and here - on this perennial tradeoff involved in payments. However, I recently found…
Shopper’s Stop – Loyalty Or Disloyalty Program?
Since I wrote Loyalty Or Disloyalty Programs? and Beware Of Losing Sales With Bad Loyalty Programs, a couple of companies have used mobile technologies in very innovative ways to design loyalty programs that…