Formula One is a technologically innovative form of motorsport, where each car features over 300 sensors onboard that generates 1.5 terabytes of data in a single race weekend 鈥� data that needs to be analyzed to detect potential performance enhancements and reliability and safety concerns.

But until the late 1960s, Formula One cars were designed on traditional drawing boards by engineers using retractable pencils and a set of French curves. This is not dissimilar to the tech industry, where for decades the value cases for investing in technology were architected for customers by busloads of engineers armed with Excel spreadsheets.

Cloud computing changed not only what technology to buy, but also how businesses engage with their vendors when making investment decisions. Enabled by new technologies like mobility and artificial intelligence (AI), customers now expect immediate responses, exponentially faster time-to-value, immersive experiences, and flexible and intuitive engagements powered by robust low-touch and self-service capabilities. Not surprisingly, industry research shows that four out of five B2B customers will want to be engaged digitally by 2025.

疯拍传媒 executes digital customer engagement via digital hubs located on six continents. The hubs are home to highly collaborative teams of diverse, digitally skilled talent that can deliver comprehensive, virtual customer engagement services. Like an F1 team, digital hubs use cutting-edge technologies to help drive accelerated business outcomes for customers with great customer experience, incredible innovation speed, and optimal levels of productivity achieved through data-driven, surgically precise execution.

Speed of Execution: Embracing Flexibility and Adaptability

Formula One teams operate in a relentless pursuit of speed, continuously refining their strategies to gain a competitive edge. Similarly, the ability to deploy teams to serve 疯拍传媒 customers virtually with the latest digital innovations allows us to reach more businesses faster at precisely the time they need us, no matter where in the world they might be and which stage of their digital transformation journey they are at.

Digital customer engagement can allow us to close the feedback loop across thousands of customers around the globe at velocity, helping to shorten their time to value from years to months and from months to weeks. In 2023, 疯拍传媒 digital hubs supported more than 22,000 digital customer engagements across the globe, setting these customers up for successful digital transformation journeys at unprecedented speed.

Speed matters and the race is on. The ability to recognize what a customer needs to grow and to work with partners that can quickly address these needs has foundationally elevated the need for digital customer engagements.

Precision in Execution: Leveraging Data and Technology for Optimal Performance

In Formula One, every aspect 鈥� from car design to the race strategy 鈥� hinges on harnessing and analyzing terabytes of data, often in real time. Similarly, in an increasingly competitive business environment, embracing precision through technological innovation allows organizations to balance accelerating their digital transformation decisions and optimizing profitability. The balance can be struck only through an almost unreasonable obsession with measuring and executing on fact-based insights.

At 疯拍传媒 digital hubs, we can track key value metrics across the entire customer journey, be it for demand campaigns, customer value propositions, personalized digital asset performance, the adoption of new productivity-driving tools, and so on. We do this not only to understand what鈥檚 most relevant to our customers but also to track the effectiveness of what we do and how we do it in the context of what our customers need.

Customer Experience: Focusing on Value, Personalization, and Great Experiences

In Formula One, success is not solely measured by speed. The sport thrives on delivering a captivating experience tailored to engage multifaceted fans from a multitude of angles, making sure everyone gets value from the event. The same is true in the digital business world.

疯拍传媒鈥檚 digital hubs virtualize and leverage 疯拍传媒鈥檚 rich heritage of industry best practices and benchmarks to help personalize the customer journey, bringing customer stakeholders in alignment with one another and delivering on 疯拍传媒鈥檚 value promises across geographies, cultures, and industries through immersive and memorable experiences. 疯拍传媒 digital hubs can accomplish this across the entire customer journey with 疯拍传媒 鈥� from the time we create awareness, to customer onboarding, to supporting customers with valuable solution and industry expertise, until we help customers realize the full value of the 疯拍传媒 solutions they adopt.

AI-Powered, Human-Led Approach: Focusing on Digitally Native and Digitally Skilled Talent

In Formula One, decisions pivot on data. But it’s the team that uses their experiences to apply that data and simulate different scenarios to discover new ways to drive superior outcomes. Similarly, while data and AI technologies fuel decisions and actions in 疯拍传媒 digital hubs, it’s human ingenuity that leverages the tech and data and elevates customer outcomes.

Just like the F1 teams, our hubs attract and employ only the best of the best, offering a high-energy working environment that thrives on intricate collaboration. The individuals who join us can gain immediate cross-role and cross-geography exposure, enabling them to become productive members of the team in record time. Continuous learning and pointed diversity, with gender parity in half of our digital hubs today, form the backbone of our digital culture, where everyone is treated with respect, skills are constantly honed, and different roles are seamlessly orchestrated to present a unified customer experience.

The rules change, and we have to as well. Every pit stop and each customer touchpoint is a chance to pivot in real time, refine, and go faster, helping 疯拍传媒 customers and shareholders gain more value at exponential velocity and great volumes. This is the 鈥�3V鈥� promise of 疯拍传媒 digital hubs and this is how we win the race!

Sam Masri is global head of Digital Hub, Customer Success at 疯拍传媒 SE.

B2B and B2C customers are demanding virtual sales interactions and smooth, consultative customer service experiences, according to a report from . Yet, 51% of businesses still struggle to provide the right data, processes, and capabilities that allow sales and service teams to deliver moments that create lasting connections.

Now, with greater ease, 疯拍传媒 customers can access the content, guided expertise, resources, and planning methods essential to building a cloud-based technology foundation for this new era of sales and services. And all of this is possible through the plan for 疯拍传媒 Sales Cloud and 疯拍传媒 Service Cloud, expanded edition.

Maximizing Value with Focused, Proactive Guidance

Offering a combination of omnichannel sales and value-added customer service is, by no means, a simple feat that can be achieved overnight. Making this transformation requires mutual understanding and close collaboration between sales and service teams, accessing data-driven insights on customer needs and expectations and delivering value at every touch point with effective technologies.

The expanded edition of 疯拍传媒 Preferred Success for 疯拍传媒 Sales Cloud and 疯拍传媒 Service Cloud can deliver that advantage with exceptional support from knowledgeable 疯拍传媒 experts throughout the lifetime of a cloud solution investment. Without processing another statement of work, 疯拍传媒 customers can move from planning and implementation to go-live and active operation with such speed and effectiveness that they can transform their customer experience faster and more efficiently.

For example, reviews and related analysis help maintain peace of mind throughout the deployment of a cloud solution, keeping organizations on the right path toward achieving their goals. This can include quality checks to help ensure integration integrity, in-depth release guidance for future feature adoption, targeted training programs on the latest topics and best practices, and service-level agreements for enhanced support.

But what makes the expanded edition of 疯拍传媒 Preferred Success for 疯拍传媒 Sales Cloud and 疯拍传媒 Service Cloud truly distinctive is the long-term, enhanced partnership it can provide to help advance and accelerate the cloud journey. Throughout the subscription lifecycle, organizations are continuously supported by experts and specialized services designed to meet their unique needs.

Access to Product Specialists

Appointed based on their technical and product-based expertise, product specialists leverage their knowledge and insights to help accelerate business outcomes and maximize the consumption of 疯拍传媒 solutions. They achieve this by recommending and overseeing the delivery and scheduling of crucial services, providing direct access to experts for targeted advice on solutions, and advising on 疯拍传媒 best practices.

This experience can allow sales and services organizations and their stakeholders to enhance the ROI of their overall investment in cloud solutions from 疯拍传媒 by:

• Acquiring functional and technical knowledge when needed
• Receiving answers to queries related to standard integration with other 疯拍传媒 solutions
• Addressing critical implementation difficulties quickly and resolutely

Solution Reviews

During prescriptive solution reviews, 疯拍传媒 experts work closely with customers to analyze their usage patterns and advise on process improvements and transformation journeys that align with their success plans and business goals. Specifically, they focus on aligning usage with best practices, measuring the impact of changes on business operations, and identifying areas for improvement.

Customers can also benefit from collaborating with subject-matter experts during these reviews, receiving recommendations and advice on changes that can help mitigate or resolve business challenges, improve the customer journey, and reduce bottlenecks proactively. This service can offer stakeholders valuable insights into simplifying and optimizing operations, reducing administrative work, boosting process efficiency, and enhancing transparency for user adoption and cloud landscape stability.

New Feature Activation

疯拍传媒 customers can also receive assistance in identifying, evaluating, activating, and maximizing the impact of the latest features to support their business operations better. Subject-matter experts help provide an enhanced adoption experience by aligning business goals with value and product capabilities, creating a tailored adoption plan, and providing guidance and enablement to activate features.

The new feature activation service can also assess and enable the impact of new configurations and simple customizations added to 疯拍传媒 Sales Cloud and 疯拍传媒 Service Cloud. By matching business needs to updates that offer better value, 疯拍传媒 experts can evaluate the potential benefits and risks of the new additions, pinpointing system changes needed to activate and test the update to measure business outcomes.

Reaching Mission-Critical Goals with Extra Impact

The right technology partner can make all the difference 鈥� especially as expectations for sales and customer service experiences continue to evolve. Providing access to expert guidance, resources, and support when and where needed helps ensure businesses drive customer loyalty and success.

The expanded edition of 疯拍传媒 Preferred Success for 疯拍传媒 Sales Cloud and 疯拍传媒 Service Cloud can deliver on that promise with a transformative approach to sales and customer service. This significant step towards creating personalized, value-driven experiences can help sales and services teams not only meet but exceed customer expectations, turning transactions into lasting connections.

Ready to amplify the impact of your sales and customer service experiences? or contact your local 疯拍传媒 representative to learn more about 疯拍传媒 Preferred Success for 疯拍传媒 Sales Cloud and 疯拍传媒 Service Cloud, expanded edition.

Amitesh Tiwari is a solution manager for the Chief Innovation Office of Cloud Success Services at 疯拍传媒.

WALLDORF 鈥� (NYSE: 疯拍传媒) today announced a new composable payment solution to help retailers stay ahead of changing customer expectations. The new solution, 疯拍传媒 Commerce Cloud, open payment framework, helps retailers become more agile as new payment options 鈥� such as buy now, pay later 鈥� gain popularity.

The framework integrates 疯拍传媒 Commerce Cloud with numerous third-party payment service providers (PSPs), including Stripe, Adyen, Worldpay and Airwallex, based on their specific use case. Additionally, 疯拍传媒鈥檚 composable architecture allows retailers to cherry-pick payment partners tailored to their unique needs and international markets, enabling them to build at their own pace, scale their business faster and avoid being confined to a single provider.

鈥淩etailers want to extend more payments options to shoppers and quickly, and 疯拍传媒 is leveraging its vast partner ecosystem to fulfill this need,鈥� said Leslie Hand, group vice president, Retail & Financial Insights, IDC. 鈥淲ith 疯拍传媒’s deep understanding of retail and commerce and new offering to have a quick connection to the PSPs, retailers can adopt the plug and play framework they need that greatly reduces the complexity of a traditional integration. It鈥檚 great to see 疯拍传媒 delivering on its promise to offer composable solutions, so customers can adjust to new market requirements when and where it works best for them.鈥�

疯拍传媒 Commerce Cloud鈥檚 seamless and native integration capabilities ensure PSPs can be rapidly adopted, and it reduces complexity by eliminating the need to integrate and deploy extensions to the commerce codebase. The framework is extensible and headless, helping ensure the front end and back end are decoupled and operate independently, creating an opportunity to cater to a wide range of channel requirements and add on new solutions, including prebuilt payment experiences available on 疯拍传媒 Commerce Cloud, composable storefront. It also ensures customers have the freedom to pick their preferred payment method, which enhances the checkout experience.

鈥湻枧拇解�檚 unmatched industry expertise is the foundation of our strategy, as it enables us to deeply understand the complexities of delivering seamless and positive customer experiences that reinforce the brand promise with every interaction,鈥� said Sven Denecken, Senior Vice President and Global Head of Product Marketing for 疯拍传媒 Industries & CX. 鈥湻枧拇解�檚 unique, industry-led approach to composability places the retailer’s digital commerce needs front and center while we work with them to manage their digital transformation, navigate pathways to sustainable growth, and deliver on industry expectations.鈥�

This no-code, low-code framework gives retailers a low-cost, adaptive, and agile payments system that can best fit their business and customer needs. It covers common payment needs and end-to-end payment processes across authorization, capture, refunds, and re-authorization as well as automatic updates with security and compliance standards.

• Example use case: A jewelry retailer that leverages a leading PSP wants to expand its payment options to offer a buy-now, pay-later payment option. They can add the new offering with a few clicks, immediately make the option available while meeting security requirements, and help guarantee an end-to-end payment experience for the customer.

疯拍传媒 Commerce Cloud helps deliver profitable digital commerce growth, from discovery to delivery and beyond, and can be implemented with agility across industries such as retail, automotive, consumer products, utilities, and many others globally through its headless and composable offering. The open payment framework for 疯拍传媒 Commerce Cloud is in beta and 疯拍传媒 customers can join now. It is planned to be generally available in H2 2024.

Read comments from 疯拍传媒 partners here.

Visit the . Follow 疯拍传媒 at .

Media Contact:
Jillian Baker, +1 (212) 653-9600, jillian.baker@sap.com, ET
疯拍传媒 疯拍传媒 Room; press@sap.com

This document contains forward-looking statements, which are predictions, projections, or other statements about future events. These statements are based on current expectations, forecasts, and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and outcomes to materially differ.听 Additional information regarding these risks and uncertainties may be found in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to the risk factors section of 疯拍传媒鈥檚 2023 Annual Report on Form 20-F.
漏 2024 疯拍传媒 SE. All rights reserved.
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Partner Quotes: 疯拍传媒 Announces New Commerce Cloud Payment Solution with Partners

WALLDORF 鈥� (NYSE: 疯拍传媒) today announced a new composable payment solution to help retailers stay ahead of changing customer expectations.

The new solution, 疯拍传媒 Commerce Cloud, open payment framework, helps retailers become more agile as new payment options 鈥� such as buy now, pay later 鈥� gain popularity. The framework also integrates with any third-party Payment Service Provider (PSP), including Stripe, Adyen, Worldpay and Airwallex, based on their specific use case.

疯拍传媒 partners are an extension of our business, bringing experience and domain expertise that help retailers innovate, transform, and simplify. 疯拍传媒’s payment partner ecosystem is made up of many providers who are solving some of the most critical industry or region-specific business needs to empower shoppers to buy and pay on their own terms.

疯拍传媒 partners are important to this initiative. Read the following comments from 疯拍传媒 partners, many of which have apps available on the 疯拍传媒 Store online marketplace, about their involvement.

Adyen

“Adyen has a strong foundation of servicing customers through our existing 疯拍传媒 Commerce Cloud integration, and the open payment framework is the first step of a larger strategic partnership with the goal of enabling digital payments for customers across a larger range of 疯拍传媒 solutions. Adyen and 疯拍传媒 support some of the world鈥檚 largest enterprise organizations, and this partnership provides a gateway for those companies to easily migrate to a single global payments platform with the flexibility and support that Adyen is known for. Working closely with 疯拍传媒, we intend to scale our already considerable payments processing volumes to the next level.鈥�

鈥� Kyle Jenke, VP, Global Head of Partnerships, Adyen

Worldpay

鈥淲orldpay鈥檚 collaboration with 疯拍传媒 using the new open payment framework for 疯拍传媒 Commerce Cloud aims to revolutionize the way businesses manage their payment processing, offering seamless and secure solutions for our customers around the globe. By combining 疯拍传媒’s industry-leading software with Worldpay’s innovative payment technology, we can provide businesses with a comprehensive payment ecosystem that optimizes efficiency, enhances security, and drives growth. We look forward to the exciting opportunities this collaboration around 疯拍传媒 Commerce Cloud will bring, and we are committed to continuing to innovate and provide cutting-edge solutions in the payment industry.鈥�

鈥� Maria Prados, SVP, Global Enterprise Go to Market, Worldpay

Airwallex

鈥淭his is an important first partnership between Airwallex and 疯拍传媒, as we mutually look to support merchants with their international expansion plans. As one of four official payment service providers added to the 疯拍传媒 Commerce Cloud solution, Airwallex鈥檚 global payments and proprietary financial infrastructure will provide merchants with even more choices and payment options that suit their growing customer base. This is the start of a long-term relationship in which we look forward to strengthening our enterprise playbook and further scaling into the Americas and EMEA while supporting 疯拍传媒鈥檚 business in APAC.鈥�

鈥� Ravi Adusumilli, EGM, Americas, Airwallex

Media Contact:
Jillian Baker, +1 (212) 653-9600, jillian.baker@sap.com, ET
疯拍传媒 疯拍传媒 Room; press@sap.com

As longtime partners, 疯拍传媒 and Mercedes-Benz have a history of shared knowledge for mutual competitive advantage. The fleet management program is grounded in the companies鈥� similar business philosophies and product road maps. 

Mercedes-Benz has committed to move the company鈥檚 B2B business to 100% digital and plans to sell 25% of all new cars online by 2025. The company selected to help support this mission. It will create a future-proof composable commerce portfolio designed to reliably power the company鈥檚 digital strategy, including a standardized offering across different markets. It will also simplify processes and reduce time-to-market.

Benefits of Digitalized Fleet Management

From the 疯拍传媒 employee鈥檚 perspective, ordering a company EV couldn鈥檛 be simpler. Instead of time-consuming manual research and back and forth communication with the car dealer, employees can use to order the EV they want directly from the Mercedes-Benz online catalog. They can choose the features they want, such as car make and model, color, and equipment packages, within 疯拍传媒鈥檚 pre-set guidelines.

鈥淭he car configurator automates the EV selection process end-to-end, eliminating manual steps and saving time while providing the employee with a highly personalized experience,鈥� said Steffen Krautwasser, head of 疯拍传媒鈥檚 global car fleet. 鈥淎utomating the approval process assures data consistency and eliminates the need for manual quality checks.鈥� 

There鈥檚 a tremendous convenience factor in captured EV data as well. In one pilot program for select EVs in 疯拍传媒鈥檚 fleet, the digital twin will automatically track mileage. Drivers will no longer need to manually enter mileage every time they recharge, and 疯拍传媒 can use this data to better manage the fleet.

Connected Data Drives Sustainable Business

Once ordered, EVs are tracked as assets in 疯拍传媒鈥檚 financial system. After delivery, creates a digital twin that can capture relevant, secure data across the EV鈥檚 lifetime. 疯拍传媒鈥檚 fleet management team can track CO2 emissions based on green energy usage, mileage, and the number of vehicles on the road. Krautwasser envisioned reporting this data to support the company鈥檚 global sustainability commitments.

鈥淧erformance data from the EV digital twin can help corporate fleet managers guide employees in choosing the best vehicle for their driving needs,鈥� said Krautwasser. 鈥淥ver time, drivers can better understand travel ranges between charges.鈥� 

Data is expected to help address so-called range anxiety, alerting EV drivers when their vehicle needs a charge and, most important, where to recharge. Mercedes-Benz is investing in charging infrastructure to create an ecosystem that would be integrated with public and private charge point providers in the U.S., China, and Europe.

The partnership also reflects a shared commitment to sustainability. Mercedes-Benz has committed to become carbon neutral by 2038, and transition to 100% electric vehicles by 2030 wherever possible. 疯拍传媒 is transitioning the company鈥檚 vehicle fleet for employees in Germany to all EVs by 2025 as part of its corporate commitment to be carbon neutral by 2030.

Omnichannel Is Fastest Path to Customer Love

The digital experience is extremely important for customers who expect convenience and quality. Organizations in many industries have shifted to an omnichannel strategy that offers people their preferred experience, whether online or in-person, building brand loyalty and repeat business.

鈥淲e want to provide a seamless journey for employees as they research, select, purchase, and enjoy their vehicle,鈥� said Krautwasser. 鈥淭he most exciting part of our EV fleet management strategy is how we can use our knowledge to enhance the employee experience. Through data and digital services, we can get closer to our employees and act quickly based on their feedback, making improvements and introducing new offerings that keep us on top of trends and support 疯拍传媒鈥檚 sustainability commitment.鈥�

EVs represent a profound business model shift for the entire automotive supply chain as automakers sell direct to customers, provide digital services from vehicle data, and explore new revenue opportunities. It鈥檚 clear that Mercedes-Benz and 疯拍传媒 are going the distance for a sustainable and satisfying driving experience.

Susan Galer is a communications director at 疯拍传媒. Follow her @smgaler.
Top photo courtesy of 疯拍传媒 employee Jude Calvin Parong.

Throughout Croatia, some businesses are venturing to a first in the European Union: offering customers . But this 鈥渃harge while you wait鈥� initiative isn’t just about attracting new customers 鈥� it’s about integrating eco-friendly practices into daily routines for a more sustainable future.

According to Ivica Bla啪evi膰, CEO and founder of CEV Technologies d.o.o., 鈥淲hile automakers promise a more-electric future, people are interested in EVs only if they reduce fuel costs, offer convenience in refueling, enhance driving experiences, and demonstrate significant environmental contributions. This latest addition to the customer experience proves how businesses across various industries can play a pivotal role in delivering that vision.鈥�

Greening the Customer Experience with E-Mobility

The transition to a low-carbon economy presents an opportunity for Croatia to enhance citizens’ lives by reducing reliance on fossil fuels and investing significantly in renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, and hydroelectric power. The country also emphasizes energy efficiency in buildings and industries, implementing regulations to curtail energy consumption.

One initiative gaining traction thanks to Croatia鈥檚 growing desire to offer charging stations is sustainable transportation. By encouraging electric vehicle usage while advancing public transport initiatives to reduce fossil fuel dependency, the country can better align with European Union directives and foster a greener economy that champions people, businesses, and communities.

疯拍传媒 partner , a rapidly growing international charge point operator and e-mobility service provider, aims to support these initiatives. The company offers bespoke e-mobility and smart energy solutions, intending to assist customers in leveraging EV charging solutions and green energy more effectively.

For sustainability-focused countries like Croatia, CEV Technologies sees enormous promise in developing solutions for many industries, including retail, hospitality, and fleet management. And it wants to apply its deep expertise in EV charging technology to create innovative e-mobility features. To realize this aim, CEV Technologies cemented strategic business relationships to help co-create smooth, intelligent, and automated charging experiences.

鈥淚n our partnership with 疯拍传媒, we develop innovative and intelligent charging experiences for our customers. The focus is on integrating the charging process with individual business models to establish value-creating, end-to-end scenarios,鈥� Bla啪evi膰 explains.

To realize the potential of convenient charging within the customer experience, CEV Technologies implemented the AI-enabled capabilities of the  solution. It can support various scenarios for vehicle charging network construction, management, billing, and reimbursement. In addition, the solution helps optimize renewable energy production through greater transparency into costs, the charging process, and network usage.

But even more stunning is the opportunity to overcome one of the most significant challenges in the e-mobility market: simplifying the payment process at charging stations. Often, this involved a convoluted process requiring membership in exclusive charging networks, managing prepaid accounts, or navigating multiple apps. Now, CEV Technologies is at charging stations. This innovative move streamlines the charging and paying process, eliminating the obstacles to pushing e-mobility closer to a user-friendly, universally adaptable experience.

In return, achieving public, private, and commercial sustainability goals is within reach. Companies can develop, integrate, and adapt business models that address all types of customer needs and sustainability expectations with outcomes including:

• Speeding up onboarding of charging stations by three times through the use of templates
• 30% less effort when setting up relevant infrastructure, including back-end systems
• 20% faster ramp-up of charging stations

For Croatians, these benefits of e-mobility could bring more value to their everyday lives. Take, for example, a typical commute home from work. The navigation system of an EV can route you toward a charging station in a familiar location and effortlessly reserve it through a loyalty platform.

Plugging your EV into the charging point, you initiate the charging process on your phone and decide to capitalize on offers for a complimentary coffee and other exclusive in-store promotions. After checkout, you receive a comprehensive e-mail overview of your charging session and shopping experience and a free charging voucher for a future purchase.

While this customer experience epitomizes the harmonious fusion of technology and convenience, it also shows how a collective dedication to creating a greener, more connected future can positively impact individuals, communities, a nation, and even the world. And more important, the appeal of a straight-forward payment method that is reminiscent of traditional fueling stations might have an even more far-reaching impact on potential drivers’ willingness to adopt electric vehicles.

Aligning Businesses with Societal Stewardship

Croatia is striding more confidently toward a low-carbon economy as EV charging services become more integrated with the customer experience. Thanks to a country鈥檚 vision and CEV Technologies鈥� innovative solutions, companies across all industries can join this eco-shift by offering products along with an integrated sustainable lifestyle.

Korbinian Koblitz is business development lead for Automotive at 疯拍传媒.

2023 proved time and again that retailers and their software partners know how to rise to the occasion in the face of increasing pressures 鈥� and that they can quickly implement new processes and operations when necessary.

疯拍传媒 has worked in the retail space for decades, helping every business across the ecosystem run at its best. Across this shared history, with our industry partners and end customers, our ecosystem has shown repeatedly the organic growth that is possible because of strong relationships.

Here are some prime examples of retail partners serving as innovation and growth multipliers last year:

Coveo鈥檚 innovative artificial intelligence (AI) platform helps deliver real value to customers, solving business challenges as only AI can. For retailers, Coveo for 疯拍传媒 Commerce Cloud can assist in finding and recommending products faster to help drive more revenue, optimize campaigns, and power generative experiences. The enterprise-class AI platform can be deployed on top of 疯拍传媒 in a secure and highly scalable fashion. The result: intelligent site search, tailored recommendations, generative experiences, and personalized, memorable shopping experiences for all customers.

Mention Me makes it possible to harness word of mouth鈥檚 true power, thanks to the world鈥檚 first Customer Advocacy Intelligence Platform. Powered by advanced AI, the platform enables businesses to identify, nurture, and activate their loyal advocates, building a virtuous cycle of customer love and superior economics so that fans keep coming back for more.

Enterprises can launch digital experiences faster with Contentful, which connects with 疯拍传媒 Commerce Cloud to enable commerce projects of any size, both for the Web and for multichannel experiences. Simply put, Contentful can make it easier for retailers to create and manage digital experiences via structured content built for speed, change, and scale. Using one hub 鈥� that integrates with hundreds of tools to help personalize and optimize 鈥� for easy collaboration, businesses can make their content work harder, so they can work smarter.

The Last Mile Delivery Fulfillment Solution from OneRail provides retailers with the ability to instantaneously scale delivery demand. By integrating with 疯拍传媒 Commerce Cloud, OneRail鈥檚 offering connects businesses鈥� e-commerce capabilities with nationwide delivery coverage, meaning retailers can have the ability to ship nationwide with complete visibility, all while providing unique, branded customer experiences. In short: efficiency, from dispatch to doorstep.

With Obsess鈥� mobile-optimized enterprise platform, retailers can easily build immersive, 3D, virtual stores proven to increase engagement, conversion, and average order value. By integrating with 疯拍传媒 Commerce Cloud, the market-leading experiential shopping platform offering can enable enterprises to approach their customers in a branded, personalized fashion 鈥� and make retail shopping fun and memorable again.

Retailers can drive top-notch in-store customer experiences 鈥� and build customer loyalty 鈥� with the 疯拍传媒 Omnichannel Point-of-Sale application by GK. The configurable application helps enterprises deploy the right business processes efficiently at the point-of-sale, working to reduce their total cost of ownership in the process. Flexible, rules-based configuration also means merchandisers can quickly react to changing business needs, ensuring a more memorable and impactful customer journey from end to end.

The OMS+ Cross-Channel Order Management Solution from DataXstream is an integrated offering built for counter, call center, and mobile sales. OMS+ reimagines the user interface to reflect real-life customer engagements and can provide the platform for making 疯拍传媒 ERP the foundation of a truly unified commerce strategy. It can also automate time-consuming activities to help ensure your team gets more done in less time, meaning increased sales, reduced costs, and an improved customer experience overall.

The Loyalty Experience Platform from Annex Cloud is built around the idea of organically driving retention and loyalty through every stage of the customer journey. The app offers engaging experiences via incentives at first touch, then as the consumer becomes a prospect, a customer, a repeat customer, and eventually an advocate. Moreover, it guides customer behavior by offering loyalty points for a variety of actions, including purchasing, referring friends, writing reviews, sharing pictures, signing up for newsletters, and more. And it all integrates with 疯拍传媒 Commerce Cloud.

Retailers looking to maximize revenue and minimize risk should look no further than the Forter Trust Platform for Digital Commerce. The real-time, automated decision platform helps reduce false declines and chargebacks by up to 90%, increasing approval rates so merchants can expand their business. It underlines fraud prevention strategies, enabling safety and security for your commerce processes so you can focus on the business decisions that truly impact growth and retention.

With Aisera, retailers can truly unleash the power of generative AI and automation by reimagining and revolutionizing their services experience. Aisera AI Customer Service provides instant self-service and autonomous resolutions to customer requests across any channel, offering a virtually unlimited supply of 鈥渁gents鈥� to leading enterprises. Seamless integration with 疯拍传媒 can also simplify efforts to help improve customer satisfaction, agent productivity, and support costs, so that retailers can exceed expectations and focus on building their business.

Paradox鈥檚 leading conversational AI recruiting software is helping clients like Nestle and Unilever automate candidate screening processes, text campaigns, 1:1 texting, interview scheduling, mobile-first assessments, onboarding, and more 鈥� all in a mobile experience fully integrated into 疯拍传媒 SuccessFactors solutions. In other words, it can help enterprises hire faster and better than ever, building a foundation for consistent and repeatable future success.

Craig Schertler is vice president of Consumer Industries Global Partner Ecosystem at 疯拍传媒.

That鈥檚 why innovation in technology, business processes, and how these come together will be key to better business results in 2024 and a sustainable future going forward. Retailers must learn how artificial intelligence (AI), cloud, robotics, the Internet of Things (IoT), virtual and augmented reality, and other tools can assist in strengthening customer loyalty and trust. Because, after all, the primary goal of retailers is to create memorable, repeatable shopping experiences that will satisfy and even delight consumers.

At 疯拍传媒, we鈥檙e seeing enterprises pursue that goal every day, using the power of AI-driven business solutions to create strong, lifelong relationships with customers. Whether you鈥檙e designing personalized shopping experiences, improving demand planning, minimizing the cost of returns, or addressing other challenges, 疯拍传媒 solutions can help you transform your approach.

Throughout 2023, 疯拍传媒 enabled retail and consumer-packaged goods (CPG) leaders to overcome today鈥檚 biggest obstacles 鈥� and position them for a brighter tomorrow. This includes partnerships and success stories with leading brands like Leanin鈥� Tree, , Cangshan Cutlery, HP, , , , , , and .

More specifically, 疯拍传媒 has worked with global leaders to help them drive meaningful customer experiences, adopt more sustainable practices, and set their organizations up for great efficiency and innovation.

• : As one of the world鈥檚 leading fashion retailers, the ALDO Group is using 疯拍传媒 to help improve customer loyalty and better deliver on consumer expectations. Specifically, the ALDO Group is using 疯拍传媒 Commerce Cloud to help improve the customer experience 鈥� from personalizing product selection to building a seamless checkout experience 鈥� and 疯拍传媒 Emarsys Customer Engagement, which is helping to increase customer loyalty and retention.
• : Schwarz IT is the technology partner and central service provider for the Schwarz Group, one of the leading retail groups around the world. Kaufland, a company of Schwarz Group, operates grocery stores in Europe, offering a wide selection of high-quality foods and everyday items at the best price. Customer satisfaction, sustainable action, and the reduction of food waste play important roles for Kaufland. To further improve demand and replenishment planning, Schwarz IT and Kaufland decided together to implement an innovative, self-learning solution with artificial intelligence capabilities.
• Swarovski: As one of the world鈥檚 premier jewelry and accessories brands, offering high-quality experiences that draw on its long heritage in luxury is key for Swarovski. In the latest step of its 40-year partnership with 疯拍传媒, Swarovski will be leveraging RISE with 疯拍传媒 and 疯拍传媒 Commerce Cloud, among other solutions. Taken together, 疯拍传媒 can help Swarovski further customer loyalty as well as create unique customer experiences, all while having a future-proof digital core with the flexibility and security to support continuous innovation.
• : 贬耻苍办别尘枚濒濒别谤, Europe鈥檚 fastest growing lingerie brand, will be using 疯拍传媒 to further offer customers personalized experiences and help keep up with the strong demand for its products. Moving to 疯拍传媒 S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition marks the first major step for 贬耻苍办别尘枚濒濒别谤 in its digital transformation journey. Through its future implementation of 疯拍传媒 S/4HANA for fashion and vertical business, a version of 疯拍传媒 S/4HANA optimized for the fashion industry, 贬耻苍办别尘枚濒濒别谤 can manage its business from design to wholesale and retail all on one platform. This helps 贬耻苍办别尘枚濒濒别谤 deliver collections faster on all channels, optimize inventory and cost, and increase margins.
• Chow Tai Fook: Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group (Chow Tai Fook), the renowned jewelry retailer headquartered in Hong Kong that has an extensive retail network in China, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, the U.S., and Canada, has adopted 疯拍传媒 SuccessFactors solutions to help accelerate its human resources digital transformation. Leveraging 疯拍传媒 SuccessFactors Employee Central and 疯拍传媒 SuccessFactors Recruiting, Chow Tai Fook is aiming to streamline core HR processes, optimize recruitment, and enhance employee experience and the productivity of its workforce, thereby driving sustainable business growth and an ability to meet future development needs.
• : Blue Diamond Growers is a grower-owned cooperative representing approximately 3,000 of California鈥檚 almond growers. It is also the world鈥檚 leading almond marketer and processor. Through its use of 疯拍传媒, including, among other solutions, 疯拍传媒 S/4HANA and 疯拍传媒 Integrated Business Planning for Supply Chain, Blue Diamond has been able to improve its supply chain, on-time delivery rate, inventory management, and demand forecasting. Taken together, it allows this century-old agricultural cooperative and global consumer-packaged goods company to provide the best value and experience to its growers and customers.
• : For almost two decades, e.l.f. Beauty has been producing premium quality cosmetics and skin care that鈥檚 clean, cruelty free, vegan, and Fair Trade Certified at an extraordinary value. To modernize its backend and help meet customer demand, e.l.f. will be using 疯拍传媒. Through solutions such as RISE with 疯拍传媒, 疯拍传媒 Analytics Cloud, and 疯拍传媒 Integrated Business Planning for Supply Chain, not only does e.l.f. expect to improve demand forecasting but also further enhance its customer experience.

Success in retail requires clarity and conviction around business planning and digital adoption. Businesses can grow intelligently and take control of their future, bringing together rich enterprise data and AI-embedded applications to empower everyone in the organization.

to see what advancements we have planned for enterprises this year and learn how our retail-focused solutions can unlock the power of AI for your business. with us today.

Matt Laukaitis is EVP and Global GM for 疯拍传媒 Consumer Industries.

These innovative capabilities, from planning to personalization, will provide retailers with holistic customer insights and data analysis to adapt and thrive amid rapid market changes.

鈥淭hese AI-driven retail capabilities build on 疯拍传媒鈥檚 industry-tailored, intelligent customer experience (CX) strategy, which provides companies with deeply integrated functionalities to enable their most critical business processes and customer journeys,鈥� said Ritu Bhargava, president and chief product officer, Industries and CX, 疯拍传媒. 鈥湻枧拇解�檚 composable architecture unlocks the creative potential of retailers, allowing them to cherry-pick capabilities tailored to their unique needs and rapidly innovate and respond to market demands, ultimately helping them to supercharge profitable growth.鈥�

The new capabilities include 疯拍传媒鈥檚 unmatched industry expertise and embedded 疯拍传媒 Business AI technology to deliver true end-to-end retail solutions. AI is only as good as the data that powers it, and 疯拍传媒鈥檚 ability to integrate experiential and operational data across the enterprise enables more insightful, AI-driven decision-making for businesses. This integration produces more intelligent, personalized experiences for customers, as the best retail outcomes require great CX.

鈥淚n today鈥檚 environment, it鈥檚 critical to have insight across the business, which is why Swarovski has continued to adopt and leverage 疯拍传媒鈥檚 end-to-end solutions, enabling us to connect our business processes,鈥� said Lea Sonderegger, chief digital officer and chief information officer, Swarovski. 鈥淪ince leveraging 疯拍传媒 software, we鈥檝e had the flexibility and security to support continuous innovation, which offers us a consistent foundation for cultivating unique Swarovski customer loyalty across all touch points and innovating to create unique customer experiences.鈥�

鈥淩etailers and brands that achieve growth and profitability in today鈥檚 economy will bring together rich enterprise data and AI-embedded applications to enable everyone across their company to deliver amazing, personalized experiences to the right customer, on the right channel, at the right time,鈥� said Leslie Hand, group vice president, Retail & Financial Insights, IDC. 鈥淚DC anticipates more aggressive investment by retailers than we鈥檝e seen in years, and working with a strategic partner that understands and can deliver end-to-end capabilities is essential for buyers.鈥�

Examples of some of the newest capabilities include:

• 疯拍传媒 Predictive Demand Planning: This solution will provide retailers with more accurate and longer-range demand forecasts across channels using a self-learning demand model. Besides enabling scalable, cost-efficient, high-volume calculations, it will offer precise forecasting and automatically identify and consider a variety of demand factors and external data. The solution will provide apps for forecast configuration, analysis, adjustment and simulation and offer intelligent alerting with root causes and recommendations.
• 疯拍传媒 Predictive Replenishment: 疯拍传媒 is adding store replenishment capabilities in a phased approach to its existing solution. The capability will replenish inventory in stores and distribution centers for an optimized, multilevel supply chain across flexible planning horizons. It will consider demand volatility, business targets, rules and constraints to determine optimal order quantities with the lowest expected costs. The capabilities improve fulfillment efficiency and on-time delivery by providing planners with a central tool to create order and delivery patterns for product flows within the supply network.
  
  Example use case: A grocer wants to establish a highly automated approach for replenishing yogurt to lower costs and waste while improving customer service. 疯拍传媒鈥檚 new solutions will automatically forecast and schedule replenishment orders with the correct quantities for the right locations while keeping costs low. Business users can then review and accept intelligent recommendations and transfer to the procurement system to create purchase orders, as well as understand any issue, address it quickly and avoid problems in the future.
• 疯拍传媒 Order Management for sourcing and availability: With , organizations can determine the optimal sourcing strategies to deliver customer satisfaction and minimize fulfillment costs. Business users can configure strategies aligned to their unique goals, including delivery time, utilized capacity, cost to ship and shipments per order and then run simulations to test the strategies before implementation.
• 疯拍传媒 Order Management foundation: With this foundation, available now, business users can create omnichannel order flows that respond to business events, such as a fraud hold, delivery or in-store pickup activity, using an easy-to-use, drag-and-drop workflow automation tool. Additionally, retailers can customize event triggers based on their unique business processes, and the corresponding actions can take place within the order management system or relevant system of customer engagement.
  
  Example use case: A coffee retailer is offering its customers real-time fulfillment updates. ensures a streamlined operation, which efficiently coordinates with the required insights to fulfill customers’ needs, even in complex cases for various items, such as subscriptions, in-store pickup and sourcing accessories. 疯拍传媒 Order Management for sourcing and availability also provides a centralized view of inventory to ensure customer demand is always met.
• TikTok and LinkedIn integrations for digital ads: The platform now integrates TikTok and LinkedIn for targeted digital ads. Marketers are empowered to segment customers, quickly engage leads, optimize ad spend, boost acquisition and retention, enhance the omnichannel retail experience and build trusted relationships for growth. Retailers can easily create, sync and expand audiences; connect with consumers on preferred social channels; complement campaigns with personalized ads on TikTok and LinkedIn for conversion; and use data-driven insights to convert leads and reengage at-risk customers.

Visit the . Follow 疯拍传媒 at .

Media Contact:
Jillian Baker, +1 (212) 653-9600, jillian.baker@sap.com, ET
疯拍传媒 疯拍传媒 Room; press@sap.com

This document contains forward-looking statements, which are predictions, projections, or other statements about future events. These statements are based on current expectations, forecasts, and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and outcomes to materially differ. Additional information regarding these risks and uncertainties may be found in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to the risk factors section of 疯拍传媒鈥檚 2022 Annual Report on Form 20-F.
漏 2024 疯拍传媒 SE. All rights reserved.
疯拍传媒 and other 疯拍传媒 products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of 疯拍传媒 SE in Germany and other countries. Please see for additional trademark information and notices.

How can I increase sales without raising overhead? How can I create year-round stability for sourcing, inventory, restocking, and order management? And how can I build better omnichannel brand connections in a competitive market where听?

Yet, with AI-enabled advances opening a world of possibilities for operational efficiencies and hyper-personalized, real-time, omnichannel customer experiences, the future of retail is anything but bleak!听

AI is set to level up the retail landscape. Retailers that embrace AI will be the first to achieve higher sales and better brand connections — now and in the future. Much of this adoption will be driven by the need to resonate with savvy consumers who want to buy from brands that share their values and offer experiences that blend seamlessly into their online and IRL (“in real life”) lifestyles.

The strategic use of AI — infused with operational, customer, and third-party data — can help retailers deliver experiences that genuinely emanate from and fit snugly into their customers鈥� everyday lifestyles.听听

At 疯拍传媒, we use business AI to help companies optimize business processes, drive profitability, and boost customer loyalty. How can AI help retailers accomplish all that? Here are a few challenges we鈥檒l helping retailers solve at听.听听

Driving Profitability with AI-Powered Operations听

It goes without saying: If the customer can鈥檛 find the right product, there is no sale. Poor product discovery can result from the complexity of managing product catalogs, which leads to inaccuracies, poor recommendations, and reduced conversion rates. Inconsistent product tagging and inaccurate descriptions, which are often handled manually by key account or merchandising managers, can ensure products are hidden beyond customers鈥� reach.听听

AI can alleviate these headaches and streamline product catalog management, improving product data accuracy and delivering a more personalized shopping experience to boot. The 疯拍传媒 CX AI Toolkit is a single generative AI layer powered by data from across 疯拍传媒 products. Built on proprietary AI models and fine-tuned large language models (LLMs), it surfaces in e-commerce features in 疯拍传媒 Commerce Cloud. The toolkit renders catalog management challenges painless with:听

• AI Product Tagging: The 疯拍传媒 CX AI Toolkit analyzes catalog images and text to tag products within a catalog automatically. The tagging system ensures that each product is appropriately categorized and labeled, reducing errors and inconsistencies.听
• AI Product Descriptions: The toolkit leverages AI to generate personalized and compelling product descriptions. By analyzing product attributes, it can automatically create product descriptions that resonate with customers and provide the details for more informed purchasing decisions, enhancing customer experience and increasing sales.听
• Bulk Editing: Bulk editing of product tags and descriptions allows the quick and efficient update of large catalogs, ensuring that customers are presented with relevant and complementary products. Automating these time-consuming tasks frees catalog managers for higher-value work.听

Optimizing Operations with AI-Informed Logistics 

Getting products to customers necessitates having the right products in the right amounts at the right time. Issues like cost-to-ship, delivery timelines, pick-and-pack expenses, and capacity management can turn into perennial roadblocks that lower efficiency for inventory and sourcing management. Big challenges include consistently managing stock levels for cost efficiency, simulating sourcing strategies for sustainability and margin improvement, and delivering the best solutions to enhance customer satisfaction.

One example of this difficult balancing act is the need for retailers to optimize the return process while proactively managing orders.听听

AI can play an invaluable role in efficiently managing inventory and sourcing by tailoring sourcing strategies. In 疯拍传媒 Order Management Services, AI is integrated to do just that, using key performance indicators (KPIs) such as cost-to-ship, delivery timelines, and pick-and-pack expenses. With target value, significance weight, and optional constraint for each KPI, retailers can uncover the most effective sourcing strategy and simulate single orders based on these strategies.听听

Beyond inventory and sourcing, AI can improve predictive order management and streamline the return process, enhancing overall efficiency and customer satisfaction. 

Meanwhile, the proliferation of channels makes mastering omnichannel advertising and sales a daunting challenge, but if retailers are not advertising where customers are, there鈥檚 no chance of making a brand connection. Fortunately, retailers can increase their omnichannel excellence with targeted ad solutions such as TikTok and LinkedIn integrations for digital ads听from 疯拍传媒 Emarsys Customer Engagement.

However strong your omnichannel game is, the opportunity to strengthen brand loyalty and drive repeat purchases drops severely when distribution problems prevent timely delivery. If, for example, a customer cannot get听those听specific shoes from their “For You Page” (FYP) in time for a big event, there will be no sale.听听

For distribution centers, balancing conflict goals such as reducing logistic costs and managing supply chain constraints and supplier restrictions can make achieving efficient fulfillment with optimal order quantities and minimal manual intervention feel out of reach. Enter the power of AI to solve complex constraints at multiple levels and ensure retailers can get products to customers with sustainable business practices and high profit margins. 

AI-infused 疯拍传媒 Predictive Replenishment enhances distribution center ordering by automating and optimizing order quantities. This includes analyzing demands from all channels, supply chain constraints, and business goals to determine the most cost-effective order quantities. The solution consumes machine learning-based demand forecasts of related 疯拍传媒 solutions. These AI capabilities help manage demand volatility and are integrated with existing 疯拍传媒 solutions for improved fulfillment efficiency. 疯拍传媒 Predictive Replenishment integrates with industry cloud solutions such as 疯拍传媒 Order and Delivery Scheduling, the future 疯拍传媒 Predictive Demand Planning, and 疯拍传媒 S/4HANA.

Boosting Loyalty with Sustainable, AI-Infused Recommerce听听

Increasingly, consumers are seeking to minimize their environmental impact and connect with conscientious brands. The need to build this brand awareness and consumer goodwill has many retailers looking to recommerce as a new business model that drives revenue and customer loyalty.

With recommerce, consumers can quickly and easily connect the dots between buying secondhand products from brands and saving money, reducing waste, and improving their overall carbon footprint. Trade-in programs that allow consumers to return their used goods in exchange for incentives also enable retailers to create closer, long-term customer relationships.听听

Such a unique opportunity, of course, comes with challenges. How do you ensure used products are inspected, matched to catalog items, cleaned, repaired, and priced based on their condition? What about the potential necessity of manual data entry to capture the details of unique items, which can introduce errors? Crucially, how can you increase sales and reduce overhead costs while running a recommerce business?听听

In some ways, these are challenges reminiscent of a typical supply chain process and its challenges that business AI from 疯拍传媒 is uniquely qualified to solve thanks to 疯拍传媒 Recommerce. For this reason, 疯拍传媒 Recommerce will be embedding AI across the solution, enabling retailers to run an intelligent and sustainable business that increases profitability, enhances brand value, attracts new customers, and promotes more sustainable consumption.听听

At NRF 2024, 疯拍传媒 will show how AI is becoming the competitive edge retailers need to grow intelligently. AI-driven insights for more efficient omnichannel fulfillment decisions, optimized assortments, personalized recommendations, and resilient and sustainable supply chains will empower organizations that adopt AI to make the right decisions and seamlessly scale.

I鈥檓 proud to say that 疯拍传媒 has been offering AI-infused capabilities for years, with more industry-leading innovation on the way.听

, where we鈥檒l be sharing how embracing relevant, reliable, and responsible AI helps businesses look toward the future with confidence.听

Ritu Bhargava is president and chief product officer of Industries and Customer Experience at 疯拍传媒.

Bosch Rexroth AG, one of the world’s leading providers of tailor-made system solutions in drive and control technology, aimed to improve its customer experience by providing technicians with the right qualifications and quality service while increasing overall productivity.

The business transformation success of Bosch Rexroth is demonstrated through how its premium-quality support has been a key driver of success.

Taking Customer Experience to the Next Level

Bosch Rexroth aims for real-time scheduling and seamless communication, which allows service technicians to respond to customer requests and resolve issues faster. Scheduling technicians based on their skills, availability, and location — ensuring the right technician with the right expertise and tools — helped the company not only increase productivity, but also take the overall customer experience to the next level.

“We need to make sure that the right quality and the right people with the right qualifications are on the road,” said Carsten Breitenbach, project manager at Bosch Rexroth, in the webinar . “The wrong planning not only costs us money as a company, but also causes customers to lose trust.鈥�

He added,鈥淚t significantly improves our response times and enables better route planning and resource allocation resulting in lower operating and maintenance costs and he continues.”

Facilitating real-time communication between customers, technicians, and support teams enables technicians to collaborate with support teams and access experts remotely to resolve complex customer issues. By having access to the customer database and service history on their mobile devices, technicians can diagnose and resolve issues quickly.鈥淭echnicians can see where they need to go, where is the site address, and who is the contact person directly on their mobile devices,鈥� Breitenbach explained.

Digitization also helped customers to easily schedule appointments. Now they can track job progress and provide feedback through self-service portals and mobile apps.

Highlighting that customers have been given positive feedback about the digitalization of the overall service, Breitenbach concluded: 鈥淲ith FSM [field service management], the technicians can focus on the job and spend more time with the customer instead of paper-processed administrative tasks. We also hear feedback from customers that they love to see us becoming digitalized.鈥�

Maximizing Workforce Productivity

Amid this exciting paradigm shift in the field service sector, many companies continue to rely on outdated, inefficient systems.

鈥淲hen the complexity is bigger, this is nothing you can handle with Excel or Outlook,” Breitenbach shared. “This is why we decided to implement the FSM application.”

Highlighting how time-consuming was the former process within the company, he further explained: 鈥淥ur technicians had to enter the hours manually into the timesheet. Now, the data is available immediately and you can directly start the invoice process. We could reduce the reporting time from weeks to days. With FSM, we achieved not only a faster process but also reduced the effort of manual input鈥�

By simplifying the processes and leveraging digital tools, Bosch Rexroth recognized that a user-friendly and intuitive digital system was crucial for its adoption and success.

鈥淚f you adopt new digital services, it must be simple,鈥� Breitenbach added. “If it’s too complex, people will simply not use it. It is very important to make the job easier, not hinder them on the job.”

Within Bosch Rexroth, different countries and business units were using their own FSM applications. The company needed to bring them together in just one pilot project and have a common field service management template.

“One of our main goals was to seamlessly integrate automated booking and back-end ERP integration without disrupting existing systems in Europe,” Christopher Thiesen, solution manager for CRM at Bosch Industrial Technology, shared in the .

Without making any changes to the ERP system but utilizing the ongoing systems, Bosch built a flexible system that enables seamless communication within each division, business unit, and country where it is needed.

Meeting Regulations and Legal Requirements with Standardization

Acknowledging the importance of keeping up with the increasing governmental regulations and legal requirements, procedures, and industry standards, Bosch Rexroth integrated field service processes to support compliance with local rules and regulations.

鈥淭he last goal was the harmonization and standardization of field service execution,” Breitenbach added. “We try to harmonize as much as possible and use standards wherever possible. This certainly helps us to achieve a common quality standard.鈥�

Bosch Rexroth now has the flexibility offered by FSM, allowing the company to adapt to different regulatory environments.

Growing Revenue Generation

Through a guided approach and data collection, Bosch Rexroth has witnessed remarkable growth in revenue generation. According to Breitenbach, “Boosting the sales lead generation helped us to generate revenue. We did not expect such a high result.”

The implementation of FSM transformed its sales process by directly guiding technicians to ask a set of specific questions. By doing so, Bosch Rexroth ensured the collection of accurate and relevant data, guaranteeing the quality of the information gathered. This valuable data is then seamlessly transferred to the customer relationship management (CRM) tool through an interface. As Breitenbach further explained, “Then the sales guys can take up the lead and follow on that potential.”

By simplifying the processes and leveraging digital tools, Bosch Rexroth has streamlined operations, enhanced customer satisfaction, and empowered its field service technicians with a user-friendly, flexible, and simple solution. Witnessing a remarkable growth in revenue generation, Bosch Rexroth achieved a common quality standard while accommodating country-specific regulations.

By embracing the power of , Bosch Rexroth has established a competitive advantage and continues to thrive in the ever-evolving business landscape.

Oyku Ilgar is a marketing specialist for Digital Supply Chain at 疯拍传媒.

Through Cyber Week, customers achieved over a 35% year-over-year (YoY) increase in the number of orders processed, an astounding amount of $110 million in peak gross merchandising value (GMV) per minute, and a 9.3% YoY increase in overall site traffic. Essential for driving site traffic and increasing conversions is customer engagement, and on Cyber Weekend, supported customers with a nine percent YoY increase of overall send volume across all channels. What鈥檚 more, 疯拍传媒 Commerce Cloud customers achieved a 5.04% higher conversion rate versus 2022, and retailers saw a 5.2% higher conversion rate during Cyber Week.

This success was possible due to the reliability, scalability, and intelligence of for individually curated shopping journeys across the globe.

But at 疯拍传媒, it is not just about the numbers. Deriving insights from data is at the heart of 疯拍传媒 and the start to the holiday shopping season provided a treasure trove of learnings and understanding about how people are shopping and how retailers can optimize their experiences.

By serving some of the largest brands in the world through this holiday season, here is what we learned.

Insight One: The Definition of 鈥淗oliday Season鈥� Is Expanding

Traditionally, Black Friday is considered as a starting point for the holiday shopping season. However, recent research has revealed the holiday shopping is starting sooner and extending over the course of several weeks.

According to , an 疯拍传媒 commerce media partner,  the longest path to purchase during the holidays is . This includes Singles Day, originated in China, on November 11 and El Buen Fin, Mexico鈥檚 version of Cyber Weekend from November 17 to November 20.

In 2023, 疯拍传媒 Emarsys Customer Engagement saw a spike on Singles Day, nearly surpassing 1 billion customer engagements — for example, email, SMS, mobile push, and web push — two weeks ahead of Black Friday. This figure was then eclipsed not once but twice during El Buen Fin, which saw overall an approximate 30% YoY increase in messages delivered.

When looking at just email growth during this season, the growth of volume for the entire month of November was nearly twice what it was for Cyber Weekend. This not only underscores that holiday shopping is starting earlier, but how brands are scaling up sooner and avoiding sharp peaks, which is a win for deliverability too.

Newly emerging celebrations and extended shopping seasons also mean a higher and longer strain on e-commerce sites. However, 疯拍传媒 Commerce Cloud prepared the customers to combat this challenge during these peak sales times leading up to Cyber Week, and delivered 100% uptime. In fact, customers that ran holiday sales events during El Buen Fin achieved 112% growth in conversion rate, with 10% higher traffic volume compared to the regular daily average of 2023.

Insight Two: Email Still Reigns, But Omnichannel Engagement Is Rapidly Growing

While overall 2023 holiday sales are expected to , online sales are expected to double and . More digitally advanced customer journeys and increasingly tech-savvy buyers present an exciting opportunity for businesses to engage with shoppers more often and on their preferred channels.

Aiming to capitalize on this opportunity and remain top of mind with shoppers, 疯拍传媒 Emarsys customers sent a record number of omnichannel messages, resulting in a nine percent YoY increase in customer engagements from 2022. Email remained the top promotional channel in terms of volume and saw a respectable 10% YoY increase.

In addition to email, brands are also now investing heavily in omnichannel engagement strategies to meet customers where they prefer to shop. Mobile messages like SMS (35% YoY increase) and in-app (15% YoY increase) were utilized effectively alongside email, as were Web channel engagements, like Web push, which saw a whopping 74% increase in usage in 2023.

Insight Three: Personalization Proves Less is More

It is important to acknowledge that success does not equate to the quantity of messages, but also the quality. Bucking the notion that more is simply better, marketers using 疯拍传媒 Emarsys increased utilization of data-driven segmentation by 20% compared to Cyber Weekend 2022, enabling more targeted offers and personalized messages. While conversion rates would naturally be expected to dip given the extra volume, this targeted and personalized approach contributed to minimal or no change compared to baseline conversion rates during a typical weekend.

Similarly, AI-powered product recommendations, delivered across channels, and also helped consumers find the right product or best deal  among the seemingly limitless choices — with confidence and ease. 

With consumers shopping for an extended period on more channels, brands have both an obligation to meet them where they are in their journey and an opportunity to earn their business and loyalty by investing in data-driven, omnichannel strategies that better match them with personalized offers on the items they wish to buy.

Insight Four: B2B Shoppers Share the Holiday Fever During Cyber Week

Black Friday is usually seen as an influential opportunity to create a revenue boost for retailers. However, 疯拍传媒 has the privilege of working with many B2B commerce companies in addition to a large number of retailers.

According to our data, other industries outside of retail also experience the benefits of Black Friday and Cyber Monday pushes. While the retail industry had the highest volume of orders, consumer products and wholesale distribution came in close behind. Additionally, the chemicals industry saw a huge spike in AOV over the weekend and achieved a GMV increase of 51% YoY, while life sciences industry saw more than 120% YoY GMV growth.

These data points indicate that Cyber Week trends are no longer limited to retailers, as various industries now achieve bigger sales volume and revenue during this period. Moving forward, organizations across all industries must put their best foot forward during Cyber Weekend activities to support profitable growth.

Insight Five: Black Friday Isn鈥檛 Just About the U.S. Thanksgiving Holiday Anymore

The data from 疯拍传媒 Commerce Cloud also reflects the globalization trend. While North America led the biggest GMV number on Black Friday, the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region is comparable. In fact, the highest number of orders, about 800,000, was placed in EMEA. Additionally, the Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ) region on Cyber Monday achieved over 130% growth in conversion rate compared to last year.

疯拍传媒 Emarsys customers were also ready to leverage this trend and engage with customers around the world. On Cyber Monday, total send volumes saw significant YoY increases in multiple regions: by 20% in EMEA, over 27% in Middle and Eastern Europe (MEE), and over 15% in Asia.

The data also highlighted differences in how consumers shop and buy in different regions. Unsurprisingly email continued to be the most used channel across the board, though EMEA proved to be the only region, outside of the Americas, that saw high growth in email volume year-on-year with a 13% increase.

The MEE region saw a slight decrease in the use of email (-12% YoY) in favor of SMS, mobile push, and in-app messages. In APJ, where a mobile-first mindset is often the norm, usage of in-app (58% YoY growth) and mobile push (176% YoY growth) went up significantly compared to email growth (two percent YoY). Even in EMEA, SMS (53% YoY growth) and in-app (388% YoY growth) mobile messages outpaced email growth, underscoring the importance of an omnichannel strategy.

This data illustrates the global influence of Black Friday, what used to be considered an U.S.-specific sales event. For businesses across the globe, it is crucial to recognize this shift and consider customer behaviors, so they can adapt and evolve their commerce and channel engagement strategies to gain customer loyalty and boost profitability.

Next Step

As market trends evolve, organizations must proactively adopt strategies for profitable and sustainable growth. With the right blend of modern technologies, agile business processes, and customer centric strategies, businesses significantly benefit from extended shopping season, through personalized omnichannel engagements, increased conversions, and lifelong customer loyalty. 

Moreover, with the right choice of cloud technologies, organizations can remain secure and compliant, while delivering reliable, scalable, and personalized experiences that are optimized for their industries.

To learn more about how 疯拍传媒 Customer Experience solutions can help, please .

Balaji Balasubramanian is senior vice president and global head of Commerce and Industry Cloud at 疯拍传媒.

*All data presented here is approximate and is based on various assumptions. All data is unaudited and is subject to adjustment. All financial figures are in USD. Data represents online and offline sales made by 疯拍传媒 global merchants.

鈥淭he value, relevance, and velocity demanded from a cloud leader extend to both the solutions provided and the end-to-end customer engagement. Industry research shows that by 2025, four out of every five B2B customer engagements will be executed through digital channels,鈥� said Sam Masri, global head of Digital, Customer Success, 疯拍传媒. 鈥淥ur customers need to achieve the business outcomes from their digital transformation much faster with streamlined interactions, reduced engagement complexity, and robust tech-enabled capabilities that make the buying journey agile, personalized, and memorable.鈥�

With operations spanning more than 10 sectors and 80 business units across Europe and the Middle East, ONEX Holding entrusted 疯拍传媒 with its five-year digital transformation plan. For the 35 legal entities in its oil and gas division, ONEX adopted , among other solutions, complemented by to support its sustainability strategy. In six months from the initial digital contact, ONEX鈥檚 digital transformation journey was mapped out and the implementation successfully kicked off. Such velocity was gained through digital customer engagement with about 90% of the entire process being completed virtually, through 疯拍传媒鈥檚 digital hubs in Cairo, Egypt, and Barcelona, Spain.

疯拍传媒 digital customer engagement is executed via digital hubs, attractively located on five continents. The hubs are home to highly collaborative teams of diverse, digitally-native talent that help deliver end-to-end, virtual customer engagement services. By continuously applying AI and the latest technologies, these teams help drive our customers’ business outcomes at an exponential velocity while maintaining memorable and personalized customer experiences.

鈥淥ur experience with 疯拍传媒 was frictionless and seamless,鈥� said Waqas Butt, ICT and digital transformation leader at ONEX Holding. 鈥湻枧拇� digital engagement gave us an incredible jump start on our digital transformation and removed all the lags you typically experience with a traditional, in-person buying journey. With the immersive, tech-driven capabilities, we had access to the demo versions of 疯拍传媒 solutions that had already been mapped to our KPIs, enabling us to experience what these cloud solutions could do for us in an engaging way and at our own pace.鈥�

鈥淭he best part of our experience was having immediate access to 疯拍传媒’s 50 years of leadership in enterprise processes. We had 疯拍传媒鈥檚 industry, solution, and value best practices at our fingertips, made available fast through digital modalities and powered by cutting-edge technologies,鈥� added Butt. 鈥淎lthough digital, the experience felt more like we were seated at the same table with top minds in 疯拍传媒 who had profound knowledge of all the regions and sectors ONEX operates in, including energy, oil and gas, power generation, and even infrastructure management and investments.鈥�

Part of ONEX鈥檚 digital transformation journey includes the development of a new way of working, called 鈥淒igital Workplace,鈥� focused on embedding digital approaches into routine business processes to gain efficiencies and promote sustainability.

鈥淒igital transformation is not a transaction; it is a partnership in which both parties need to be like-minded. When we finally shook hands in person with the 疯拍传媒 digital customer engagement team, we did it because we spoke the same language 鈥� we both understand the power of starting a digital transformation, digitally. We know we are in good hands on our path to redefine how ONEX runs,鈥� stressed Butt.

鈥淭he relationship between ONEX and 疯拍传媒 is a beautiful example of how virtual immersive engagements can enable and scale human relationships and interactions, not diminish them. We call this human-led, digitally-powered customer engagement with a mandate of ensuring that all 疯拍传媒 customers have the same path to success with 疯拍传媒, regardless of where they are or when they needs us,鈥� concluded Masri.

Edina Manuel is part of Digital, Customer Success at 疯拍传媒.

疯拍传媒 Global LoB Partner Excellence Awards are a partner recognition program focusing on 疯拍传媒鈥檚 strategic business priorities for the following lines of business: 疯拍传媒 SuccessFactors, 疯拍传媒 Customer Experience, and Intelligent Spend and Business Network.

疯拍传媒 Global 疯拍传媒 Customer Experience Partner Excellence Awards select finalists and winners for their valuable contributions in realizing 疯拍传媒鈥檚 vision for cloud growth based on data and key performance indicators.

Winners and Finalists

疯拍传媒 Global 疯拍传媒 Customer Experience Partner Excellence Award 2023 for Sales Success 鈥� Large Enterprise

• Winner: NTT DATA
• Finalist: Acorel
• Finalist: Dotan B.S. Solutions

疯拍传媒 Global 疯拍传媒 Customer Experience Partner Excellence Award 2023 for Sales Success 鈥� Midmarket

• Winner: Deloitte
• Finalist: NTT DATA
• Finalist: Felece Yazilim Ve Dani艧manlik

疯拍传媒 Global 疯拍传媒 Customer Experience Partner Excellence Award 2023 for Delivery Quality

• Winner: Sybit GmbH
• Finalist: Axians Digital Business Solutions
• Finalist: Reply

疯拍传媒 Global 疯拍传媒 Customer Experience Partner Excellence Award 2023 for Customer Success Management

• Winner: Deloitte
• Finalist: Altivate
• Finalist: Avvale

疯拍传媒 Global 疯拍传媒 Customer Experience Partner Excellence Award 2023 for 疯拍传媒 Business Technology Platform Customer Success

• Winner: Seidor
• Finalist: NTT DATA
• Finalist: All for One Customer Experience

疯拍传媒 Global 疯拍传媒 Customer Experience Partner Excellence Award 2023 for Go-to-Market

• Winner: IBM
• Finalist: Tech Mahindra
• Finalist: PwC

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Media Contact:
Angelika Merz, +41 58 871-7216, angelika.merz@sap.com, CET
疯拍传媒 疯拍传媒 Room; press@sap.com

This document contains forward-looking statements, which are predictions, projections, or other statements about future events. These statements are based on current expectations, forecasts, and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and outcomes to materially differ. Additional information regarding these risks and uncertainties may be found in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to the risk factors section of 疯拍传媒鈥檚 2022 Annual Report on Form 20-F.
漏 2023 疯拍传媒 SE. All rights reserved.
疯拍传媒 and other 疯拍传媒 products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of 疯拍传媒 SE in Germany and other countries. Please see for additional trademark information and notices.

These new capabilities will help businesses automate time-consuming tasks and quickly analyze data from across the enterprise to gain valuable, actionable insights that deliver more intelligent, personalized experiences for customers.

Unlike other generative AI technologies that only utilize the data found in one siloed system, these new AI capabilities leverage 疯拍传媒鈥檚 wealth of experiential and operational data, as well as data from third-party sources, to provide businesses with a holistic view of their customers. Proactive, contextual, AI-powered insights from across the enterprise help organizations optimize business processes and adapt to unique business needs and rapid changes in the market.

鈥淧utting customers at the center of business transformation requires delivering a strong, personalized customer experience with intelligent CX,鈥� said Ritu Bhargava, President and Chief Product Officer, 疯拍传媒 Industries and 疯拍传媒 CX, 疯拍传媒. 鈥淭hese new AI capabilities within the 疯拍传媒 CX portfolio will allow businesses to unlock their full potential, improve customer loyalty, solidify themselves as industry leaders and reap the benefits of generative AI with intelligent CX solutions that have a tangible impact on businesses. These capabilities are the next step in redefining intelligence to deliver a delightful customer experience, effortlessly.鈥�

The new capabilities, which include tailored use cases for commerce, sales, customer service and marketing teams, are the next step in delivering intelligent CX and enabling teams to work more effectively and efficiently. This will help ensure customers can deliver exceptional customer experiences that differentiate their businesses, create brand loyalty, deepen customer relationships and ultimately drive profitability. These new capabilities, which can be applied across the entire 疯拍传媒 CX portfolio, include the ability to:

Automate Labor-Intensive Tasks with Curated Role-Based AI Tools
New AI capabilities include more than 10 CX role鈥揵ased tools that aim to increase productivity and efficiency by automating routine tasks, leaving time for more nuanced aspects of business. For the service team, when a customer issue arises, AI can help summarize the situation and align the team on the problem, provide an overview of customer sentiment, suggest a solution and even track how quickly the issue is resolved. This step increases efficiency, boosting the business鈥� bottom line and giving workers more time to focus on strategic initiatives.

Supercharge Catalog Management and Product Discovery with AI
Catalog health is one of the most arduous tasks for commerce managers. Items that are not tagged properly won鈥檛 show up in searches and incomplete product recommendations take away from conversions. Commerce managers can ensure high levels of product visibility and discoverability by using the new AI capabilities to review product tags and catalogs, generate and customize product descriptions and help guide customers to the right choice for their needs.

Retrieve Answers in Natural Language with Proactive AI
Using AI to identify and answer customer questions within conversations will free up sales and service teams to focus on more value-adding tasks. For example, a salesperson might receive an e-mail from a customer asking about products. This new capability, intelligent Q&A, reads the e-mail, points out the important questions and gives the salesperson a suggested written response that includes the latest product information.

Surface Customer Profile Intelligence in Context
About 76% of global consumers prefer personalized marketing communications,, an 疯拍传媒 company, showing that it is imperative for businesses to have a 360-degree view of their customers. With AI-generated customer profiles supported by the real-time 疯拍传媒 Customer Data Platform, businesses can combine data from all business applications and surface these profiles to customer-facing teams. This holistic view allows workers to quickly understand customer preferences, enabling a more personalized and relevant service. If a customer reports a delayed delivery, front-line workers can use the AI-generated customer summary, which includes information on order histories, previous interactions and preferences, to quickly resolve issues and provide a better customer experience.

鈥淥rganizations are looking for a trusted platform technology and AI partner which they can adapt and grow with today as well as thrive with in the future,鈥� said Alan Webber, Program Vice President, Digital Platform Ecosystems, IDC. 鈥湻枧拇解�檚 approach to connecting data across the enterprise, both in 疯拍传媒 systems and beyond, provides a foundation customers can build on for the long term. Furthermore, 疯拍传媒鈥檚 decades-long experience designing business processes from AI can be leveraged to reduce AI鈥檚 time to value.鈥�

疯拍传媒 is also infusing AI capabilities into existing products across the 疯拍传媒 CX portfolio with the ability to:

Fortify Customer Identity and Access Management with AI
The 疯拍传媒 Customer Identity and Access Management solutions are debuting new AI risk-based authentication capabilities. These new functions secure user identity data and help prevent threats by gaining intelligence across all digital properties and brands. Users will have a unified customer view and consent profile, making data connected and adaptable for real-time customer engagements. Providing this level of customer data privacy and security is essential to preserving our customers鈥� trust. 疯拍传媒 solutions hold our customers鈥� most sensitive data, so we take this extremely seriously and it remains our top priority.

Create Personalized Content Creation Powered by Generative AI
Using generative AI, the 疯拍传媒 Emarsys Customer Engagement platform gives marketers the ability to create targeted, compelling email content that delivers the right message to the right audience. The 疯拍传媒 Sales Cloud and 疯拍传媒 Service Cloud solutions will also embed two new generative AI capabilities: AI-generated summary and e-mail response generation will help users identify relevant information, have more effective customer interactions and ultimately deliver superior customer service.

To learn more about these capabilities, read 鈥�Revolutionizing Customer Experience: The AI Advantage.鈥�

Visit the . Follow 疯拍传媒 at .

Media Contact:
Jillian Baker, +1 (516) 554-4450, jillian.baker@sap.com, ET
疯拍传媒 疯拍传媒 Room;听press@sap.com

This document contains forward-looking statements, which are predictions, projections, or other statements about future events. These statements are based on current expectations, forecasts, and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and outcomes to materially differ. Additional information regarding these risks and uncertainties may be found in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to the risk factors section of 疯拍传媒鈥檚 2022 Annual Report on Form 20-F.
漏 2023 疯拍传媒 SE. All rights reserved.
疯拍传媒 and other 疯拍传媒 products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of 疯拍传媒 SE in Germany and other countries. Please see  for additional trademark information and notices.

In the 疯拍传媒 Customer Experience organization, we focus on our deep industry knowledge and vast customer data to devise AI strategies. These strategies are based on :

• Relevant: Make agile decisions, unlock valuable insights with data aligned with business outcomes, and automate tasks
• Reliable: Use AI that is trained on your industry and company data, driven by 疯拍传媒 process expertise, to tirelessly satisfy and surpass customer expectations
• Responsible: Run responsible AI built on leading ethics and data privacy standards throughout our customer engagement process

Using these principles, we are building and bringing AI innovations to market in two ways for our customers.

First, we are developing portfolio-wide AI capabilities that can be accessed everywhere by business teams through a common interface, including a standalone app and Joule. These capabilities, built on top of proprietary AI models and fine-tuned large language models (LLMs), leverage 疯拍传媒鈥檚 experiential and operational data as well as third-party data. The result is proactive, contextual, and AI-powered insights from across the enterprise, which help organizations optimize their business processes. These features will be available for purchase as a 鈥減ackage鈥� with the ability to use only what you need.

Second, we鈥檙e making our current products 鈥� 疯拍传媒 Sales Cloud, 疯拍传媒 Service Cloud, 疯拍传媒 Commerce Cloud, 疯拍传媒 Emarsys Customer Engagement, and 疯拍传媒 Customer Data Platform solutions 鈥� even more valuable by natively embedding new AI features. These features will be available within the products.

New Portfolio-Wide AI Capabilities

Supercharge Catalog Management and Product Discovery with AI

With CX AI models, commerce managers can spend significantly less time on catalog enrichment and maintenance. Product attributes can be automatically extracted from images and textual descriptions, enriching product catalogs. Product descriptions can be automatically generated and published to a commerce storefront for an engaging purchasing experience. And image-based semantic search can help users easily discover new and existing products.

These capabilities (available December 2023) will result in better product discovery, produce personalized recommendations, reduce time spent on repetitive data entry, and help increase cart sizes at checkout.

Automate Labor-Intensive Tasks with Curated Role-Based AI Tools

Service, sales, and commerce teams now have access to job-specific AI tools to automate time-consuming and repetitive tasks. Most enterprise tools can write generative AI-powered content. The 疯拍传媒 Customer Experience portfolio now offers localized AI agents to bring business context with hyper-relevant content. 

For example, when a customer issue arises, AI swoops in to create an overview of the situation and provide remediation guidance, for increased efficiency and a healthier bottom line (available December 2023).

Retrieve Answers in Natural Language with Proactive AI

Sales and service teams will benefit from CX AI models that automatically detect questions and suggest responses.

This goes beyond generative search. The 疯拍传媒 Customer Experience portfolio now proactively detects questions and retrieves answers in natural language. The answers are derived from business data, including data in CRM, various communication channels, various document formats, and knowledge articles. CX AI models powering these capabilities are trustworthy because they transparently provide the sources from which answers are derived.

These capabilities will proactively identify and answer customer questions within conversations to free up sales and service teams to focus on more value-adding tasks (available December 2023).

Surface Customer Profile Intelligence in Context

With AI-generated customer profiles powered by real-time data from 疯拍传媒 Customer Data Platform, teams can effortlessly dive into customer preferences and deliver a more tailored and relevant experience.

The power of intelligent customer profiles and insights is fully realized when they are personalized in natural language and surface contextually, prompted in CX applications. The 疯拍传媒 Customer Experience portfolio uniquely delivers this value through native data connectivity across 疯拍传媒 S/4HANA and CX in 疯拍传媒 Customer Data Platform.

This means the ability to equip sales representatives to know when to offer the right discount and incentive to close a deal based on the total lifetime value of the customer (available December 2023).

New Embedded AI Capabilities

In addition to developing AI capabilities that extend across the 疯拍传媒 Customer Experience portfolio, we鈥檙e also embedding throughout our solutions AI that has the ability to do the following things.

Create Personalized Content Powered by Generative AI

Marketers can now use the new generative AI capabilities in 疯拍传媒 Emarsys Customer Engagement to create compelling content, such as subject lines and content blocks. In addition, with new AI capabilities like semantic search, they can quickly discover new products that deliver the right message to the right audience. For example, marketers can search for a specific keyword or a generic description, such as 鈥渋tems that are new in stock鈥� or 鈥渂est-selling products in <a specific product category>.鈥�

The new subject line and content block generation allows marketers to leverage generative AI to create targeted, compelling email content that produces profitable personalization (beta available first quarter of 2024, with general availability planned for soon after).

Generate Instant, Context-Aware Email Responses with Embedded Generative AI

Sales and service users already benefit from automatically generated email summaries and responses. Now, these features are supercharged with generative AI to be more contextual and relevant.

Relevant and accurate summaries are extracted from publicly available information and 疯拍传媒 business data. With this natural language summary of contacts, accounts, opportunities, and cases, users can effortlessly sift through information and identify what is relevant. Email response recommendations are automatically generated based on the most recent communications with a customer, allowing sales and service representatives to engage with customers naturally and effectively (incrementally delivered in the 疯拍传媒 Sales Cloud and 疯拍传媒 Service Cloud releases).

Fortify Customer Identity and Access Management with AI

CIOs and security officers understand how crucial it is to secure their customer鈥檚 digital identity, footprint, and assets.

The latest enhancement to the 疯拍传媒 Customer Identity and Access Management solution is an AI risk-based authentication capability. This feature is designed to fortify end-user identity data and provide an intelligent shield against potential threats across all our digital platforms and brands. 

With a unified customer view and consent profile, end users can confidently navigate real-time engagements, knowing that their data remains secure and private (available now with additional enhancements planned for second quarter of 2024).

These are just a few innovations the CX team is working on. The next announcements I am very excited about are AI capabilities in the new 疯拍传媒 Enterprise Service Management solution.

The shape, pace, and extent of AI transformation will vary from one industry to another, while remaining compliant with local and global regulations. We strive to build our products with relevant, reliable, and responsible AI that goes beyond buzzword-laden ambiguity.

Using this AI, we at 疯拍传媒 CX are committed to continually providing industry-tailored, connected, insightful, and adaptive products that will serve as a powerful toolkit in your digital transformation journey.

Stay tuned for more exciting updates!

Ritu Bhargava is president and chief product officer of Industries and Customer Experience at 疯拍传媒.

With over 60,000 products that can be shipped directly to any location, this once garage-based business is now a successful enterprise with seven distribution and pickup locations and over 100 employees across the United States. Online Metals offers raw materials like alloy steel, brass, copper, nickel, titanium, and zinc cut-to-size or in small and medium quantities and various shapes. Customers span the creative genius of private individuals like artists and engineers to multinational corporations and government agencies.

Online Metals is a company that is truly obsessed with customer experience. Its north star is the notion that 鈥渢he last thing you do is the first thing the customer sees. So, let鈥檚 do it right!鈥�

Powering Industry Disruption 

Online Metals has already established itself as a digital powerhouse. It is now making even bigger waves by trailblazing the way it goes to market and engages with its customers. Fueled by its desire to continuously improve, Online Metals invested in 疯拍传媒 Commerce Cloud with marketplace solution provider Mirakl in order to deliver its most recent innovation: the first-of-its-kind metals and plastics catalog marketplace. The online catalog marketplace has opened the door for new sales channels and raw material manufacturers to sell their products directly via the Online Metals e-commerce platform.

From an industry perspective, the 疯拍传媒-powered digital platform has empowered Online Metals to expand into disruptive new models within the metals industry. More specifically, it has enabled the team to sell products that have been traditionally non-transparent with pricing and also difficult to order in small quantities. As a result, the team can now support a growing number of micro-manufacturers throughout the U.S. that rely on a just-in-time, small-quantity metal supplier.

鈥淭he 疯拍传媒-licensed version of Mirakl we used allows us to quickly onboard new sellers who want to reach the millions of metal buyers Online Metals reaches. We take care to only bring on the best sellers who provide the products our metal buyers want,鈥� said Gregory Raece, president of Online Metals. 鈥淚n fact, so great was the demand to sell on Online Metals that Mirakl even awarded us a 鈥楩ast Start鈥� award at their Mirakl B2B Summit in Chicago this April.鈥� 

The addition of the metal catalog marketplace has enabled the Online Metals team to better serve its customers. Sellers like have already seen the benefits of using the new sales channels. 

鈥淭he Mirakl team is beyond excited to be at the heart of this first-of-its-kind marketplace pioneering the digital transformation in metals and plastics supplies,” said Marc Teuli猫res, general manager B2B, Mirakl. “By pairing the Mirakl suite of solutions with a remarkable vision for digital transformation, Online Metals has created a win-win-win: buyers can find the precise products they need, suppliers are uncovering new sales opportunities, and the business is on a path to streamlined growth.”

Driving Continuous Innovation 

Every expanding business encounters obstacles in its growth journey. But with 疯拍传媒 technology, Online Metals has been able to support its unique business models, developing an excellent technical footprint that empowers its customers, enables flexibility and innovation, and showcases what truly matters: its distinctive and quality customer service and products.

Hear more customer stories at the .

For more information on how 疯拍传媒 Commerce Cloud can transform the way your business engages with its customers, visit the .  

Geert Leeman is chief revenue officer for 疯拍传媒 Customer Experience.

Now the organization is expanding its strategy to create a digital virtuous circle founded on a simple principle: the only way to deliver a seamless, personalized customer experience is to do the same for employees. It鈥檚 designed to provide artificial intelligence (AI)-based training and career development at the precise intersection of customer expectations and employee skills and aspirations.

鈥淯sing technology and empirical evidence, we can provide a positive, personalized employee experience that motivates people to deliver that little extra effort, going above and beyond for the benefit of our customers,鈥� said Tim Gregory, managing director of HR Innovation and Workforce Technology at Delta Air Lines. 鈥淚f you do well by your people, they will do well by customers. This is the cornerstone of our skills-based organization.鈥�

Generative AI to Help Customers and Employees

Speaking at this year鈥檚 , Gregory said that Delta Air Lines is developing a generative AI proof of concept slated to automatically transform generic skill descriptions into more accurate capabilities that reflect the job鈥檚 requirements based on real-world, updated employee and customer data in context.

鈥淲e want to include the concept of intuitive reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) that allows the hiring manager to provide feedback to the machine, going beyond just fine-tuning,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hat way, our employee鈥檚 time goes towards benefiting our customers and achieving our business goals.鈥�

Here are highlights from Gregory鈥檚 presentation where he shared how Delta Air Lines was investing in the company鈥檚 employee experience to the delight of customers and for the organization鈥檚 competitive advantage.

Linking CX to EX Generates Customer-Centric Business Results

According to Gregory, research found that skills-based organizations were 107% more likely to place talent effectively and 98% likelier to retain high-performing talent and have a reputation as a great place to grow and develop. It鈥檚 impossible to argue with the strong business results of Delta鈥檚 strategy that links the customer and employee experience. ranked Delta the sixth best employer in the world. The airline is No.1 in on-time arrivals and a trusted consumer brand.

Just as data reveals what matters to customers most, so does it surface insights to help Delta create a positive employee experience, whether someone was just hired or has ambitions to move up in the organization. For example, Delta has already exceeded one of its objectives to fill 25% of corporate and management positions with people who are currently in customer-facing roles.

“Delta people are highly diverse with many kinds of backgrounds, educational levels, and capabilities,鈥� said Gregory. 鈥淏ringing our frontline employees into management makes solid business sense because they have a customer-centric perspective that they鈥檒l incorporate into their managerial role. That will enable us to have a strategic direction focused on our customers. These folks can leverage their existing knowledge so that the learning curve and time to productivity is lower than if we were to hire externally. It鈥檚 more cost-effective to move someone up through the organization, and it gives us a deep bench of talent for succession planning.鈥�

Gregory added that 90% of non-executive management roles at Delta Air Lines no longer require a college degree.

Career Path Intelligence with 疯拍传媒 SuccessFactors

To help employees move from an hourly, customer-facing role to the salaried corporate position of their dreams, Delta Air Lines is building a dynamic, skills-based experience for continuous employee learning using the talent intelligence hub in . Individual employees have a growth portfolio, which is a profile that includes their current skills and competencies mapped to formal and informal learning opportunities within and outside the organization, some recommended by AI-based algorithms. 

鈥淲e are incorporating disruptive technologies like our AI-driven skills ontology that automatically incorporates industry trends with embedded intelligence,鈥� said Gregory. 鈥淲e can say which skills are most important to Delta Air Lines and the employee can easily combine those with their current capabilities, strengths and styles, and aspirations to create a personal career path. All of the content is based on Delta-specific skills and personalized to each employee鈥檚 career goals.鈥�

How to Build a Modern, Skills-Based Organization

Centralizing employee profiles with opportunities to learn and collaborate on one intelligent platform provides Delta鈥檚 employees with development paths that reflect the organization鈥檚 business strategy. 

鈥淲e鈥檝e taken our approach to customer experience and applied it to the employee experience, building a modern, skills-based organization,鈥� said Gregory. 鈥淥ur digital virtuous circle means that we invest in our employees, the employees invest in our customers, our customers invest in us by choosing Delta Air Lines, and our shareholders keep investing in us to keep the whole flywheel turning.鈥�

Susan Galer is a communications director at 疯拍传媒. Follow me @smgaler.

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Gibson Brands uses 疯拍传媒 Emarsys technology to better understand what its customers 鈥� or 鈥渇ans鈥� 鈥� want and where each person is along in a unique journey.

鈥淲e have fans that have never touched a guitar, all the way up to our artists,鈥� Gibson鈥檚 Global Head of Direct-to-Consumer Josh Ehren said to 疯拍传媒. 鈥淭hat is a massive span of different, individualized types of fans that we connect with.鈥� Savvy use of data helps Gibson see how well it’s connecting with fans, informing the company’s road map and how to optimize.

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鈥淚f you have your consumers 鈥� in our case 鈥榝ans鈥� 鈥� benefit at the heart of everything that you do, everyone is going to win,鈥� Josh Ehren, Gibson Brands global head of Direct-to-Consumer, told 疯拍传媒 at NRF 2023. 鈥淚t is not just a technology that goes into it; it is an understanding of how you communicate.鈥�

communications strategy is playing lead, informing how tech enables its fan engagement, Ehren stated after a fireside chat with , now part of 疯拍传媒, at 疯拍传媒鈥檚 booth. And the Nashville-based guitar manufacturer鈥檚 fanbase extends beyond its legendary Les Paul collab and into its family of brands that include amps, pedals, , and more.

鈥淲e have the most amazing, loyal, obsessed fans for our instruments and for our brands,鈥� Ehren said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 our job to make sure that we connect with them in the ways that they want to connect with us 鈥� and [in] an easy way for them.鈥�

This is where technology joins the band.

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When Tech Plays Rhythm

Technology helps Gibson understand what each fan wants, what makes an individual鈥檚 journey unique, and how fans interact with the brand, according to Ehren. And fan journeys can range from a noob who has never touched catgut all the way to an artist who makes her living strumming six strings.

鈥淭hat is a massive span of different individualized types of fans that we connect with,鈥� Ehren said in an . 鈥淲e take that information, and that鈥檚 how we can actually craft how we stay connected with them.鈥�

This might mean inviting the aforementioned novice to a try a lesson via or to watch a video on , according to Ehren. Or it could include recommending select accessories to an artist for a specific guitar in his quiver.

鈥淭hat鈥檚 really how we are utilizing that [tech] to connect,鈥� Ehren said. 鈥淲e go through all the way to the end of that spectrum.鈥�

Gibson wasn鈥檛 the only brand at NRF singing the praises of a strategy/tech duet. Other retailers also see tech-driven engagement as essential for growth.

Everything from A to G

Before the pandemic, American home improvement retailer Lowe鈥檚 Companies Inc. updated its legacy e-commerce platform, according to Chairman and CEO Marvin Ellison. Similar to Gibson鈥檚 broad customer spectrum, Mooresville, North Carolina-based Lowe鈥檚 serves everyone from full-time contractors to a new homeowner鈥檚 first do-it-yourself (DIY) project.

鈥淚f we had not made those investments in retail fundamentals, it would have been a catastrophically bad environment for our customers and for us as a company,鈥� Ellison said during . 鈥淲e put the investments in place…continuing to grow our online and omnichannel capabilities, merchandising, selection 鈥� making sure we serve our pro and DIY customers at the highest possible level.鈥�

Such savvy use of tech and data can help organizations ensure they鈥檙e serving all segments of their customer base, as Gibson鈥檚 Ehren noted. He advocates for both internal stakeholders and those across Gibson鈥檚 vast dealer network to let the data tell them what is and isn鈥檛 working.

鈥淭hat data is really going to help us understand: Are we connecting with our fans? To what extent are we connecting with our fans? Is it working?鈥� Ehren said. 鈥淭hat will inform our road map. That will inform how we optimize…Data is absolutely imperative in everything that we do.鈥�

This includes how Gibson meets customer experience challenges, especially those that are even bigger than competing for share-of-wallet.

Putting Customers First Ensures That Everybody Wins

鈥淚t starts with the share-of-time,鈥� Ehren said. 鈥淭o me, that鈥檚 the biggest hurdle.鈥�

The point of sale can鈥檛 be the end of a customer鈥檚 journey, according to Ehren. Gibson wants its fans to rock on 鈥� and on, and on.

鈥淚 care way more about getting over the hurdles of getting a share of their time because that means that I鈥檓 telling the right stories [and] connecting with them,鈥� Ehren said. 鈥淚f we can keep people playing…they鈥檙e happier, they鈥檙e engaged, and it works for us as well.鈥�

All of this engagement supports the entire business 鈥� regardless of where they buy, according to Ehren. His job as global head of D2C is to help them decide on the right products for their individual needs.

鈥淚f they want to understand a little bit more about this guitar, a little bit about more about this amp, etc., and then go to gibson.com or to the , or to one of our dealers 鈥� wherever they want to make that purchase 鈥� they are absolutely able to,鈥� Ehren said. 鈥淎nd I encourage it because, again, everyone wins.鈥�

Derek Klobucher is a video producer at 疯拍传媒.

To increase customer service quality, the company wanted to share information and optimize business processes across its sales, service, and marketing activities.

Moving from Manual Processes to Integrated Activities

At PILLER, different departments were using their own IT solutions.

The service department had manual processes, such as Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, to dispatch service technicians. The technicians were logging into a central server to retrieve data and recording customer support by e-mails and conversations. The sales department had a basic access environment due to custom-made products with individual serial numbers. There was no master data; tailored sales quotes were done on paper, posing challenges for data updating and quality. The marketing department was conducting its business, like capturing trade-fair leads or planning and executing campaigns, by hand and with spreadsheets. All these manual activities were time intensive and prone to human error.

To enable the marketing, sales, and service teams to perform to the best of their abilities, PILLER wanted solutions that allowed it to share important information. It wished to harmonize all customer-related processes, from initial contact and order management to delivery of spare parts and follow-up.

鈥淔or new products or customers, it鈥檚 important that real-time master data in our core software is mirrored in our sales, service, and marketing systems. We can do this by integrating 疯拍传媒 Customer Experience solutions and 疯拍传媒 Field Service Management with 疯拍传媒 S/4HANA,鈥� said Frank M眉nzner, in-house 疯拍传媒 consultant for Lead to Cash at PILLER Blowers & Compressors GmbH.

Adopting Cloud Solutions to Achieve Innovative Customer Service

PILLER employed the solution to help address the needs of its sales team and integrate functionalities, such as managing quotes and orders, in one place. The solution offers a search capability and a modern, intuitive user interface.

The company is using the to help create service tickets, which are the single point of customer contact, with product serial numbers and metadata. Integrating this mobile app with the solution can enable technicians to receive service ticket information on an Apple iPad, so they can have everything they need to carry out their work. This can also translate to good customer support.

By deploying the solution and integrating it with 疯拍传媒 Sales Cloud, PILLER now proactively shares data, such as service tickets, lead opportunities, and customer contacts, between the sales and marketing teams. This lets the company contact a customer with a warranty option or service cost reduction, for example.

PILLER has now integrated the three 疯拍传媒 Customer Experience solutions for sales, service, and marketing and with , the company鈥檚 enterprise resource planning (ERP) software.

PILLER partnered with to gain advice about new functionalities and implementation support, while provided guidance around leveraging the potential in terms of business transformation and digitization.

Gaining Comprehensive Customer Visibility with Integrated Solutions

The major advantage in connecting the 疯拍传媒 Customer Experience portfolio, 疯拍传媒 Field Service Management, and 疯拍传媒 S/4HANA is that real-time data can be available across all these solutions. While master data, such as for a new product, customer, or material, is entered and kept in 疯拍传媒 S/4HANA as the core software, it鈥檚 automatically pushed into the other integrated solutions.

This is helping PILLER deliver highly efficient and innovative customer service and business models. The company gains a comprehensive view of worldwide customers in real time while interacting with them at each stage of their journey in a targeted manner.

There are now customer-related processes across departments, sites, and systems as well as consistent communication throughout the company, thanks to standardized forms and templates. The business is achieving agile sales with faster response times and better allocation of target groups. It鈥檚 also making decisions for customer management based on facts and analyses.

Other benefits the company achieved were:

• 360-degree view of customers worldwide in real time
• 90% less paper with digital processes
• 30% reduction in effort by using digital processes

鈥淲e鈥檝e always combined tradition with innovation when manufacturing our blowers. With 疯拍传媒 Customer Experience solutions, our customer management operations are superior to those of our competitors. We鈥檙e able to keep a close eye on processes and respond quickly and accordingly,鈥� said Thomas Henzler, CIO at PILLER Blowers & Compressors GmbH.

Rolling Out Customer-Centric Solutions

Combining and the 疯拍传媒 Field Service Management mobile app with 疯拍传媒 S/4HANA is helping deliver real-time data for integrated processes.

The integration of the 疯拍传媒 Field Service Management mobile app with 疯拍传媒 Service Cloud is being piloted with three service technicians and garnering positive feedback so far.

Watch an of 疯拍传媒 Sales Cloud to help build lasting customer relationships and to maximize customer lifetime value with connected service. Read about the benefits companies achieved with . View a  and  to learn how to maximize productivity and asset uptime with 疯拍传媒 Field Service Management. .

Karin Fent is senior director of Global Customer Success Digital Supply Chain at 疯拍传媒.

Furthermore, the Gartner Critical Capabilities for Digital Commerce report, which assessed 19 vendors, ranked 疯拍传媒 first in three out of five use cases 鈥� B2B Digital Commerce, B2B and B2C on the Same Platform and Complex Business Models 鈥� as well as third in B2C Digital Commerce.

鈥淭his is the ninth time in a row 疯拍传媒 has been rated a leader by Gartner, with 疯拍传媒 being the only vendor to have consistently remained a leader in the Gartner Digital Commerce Magic Quadrant since 2014,鈥� said Sven Denecken, Chief Marketing and Solutions Officer, Industries & Customer Experience, 疯拍传媒 SE. 鈥淲e believe that this recognition is further confirmation that 疯拍传媒鈥檚 differentiated intelligent CX solutions consistently provide tangible value to our customers across the globe by bringing together and unlocking the value of disparate data siloes from across the enterprise. Whether consumers are buying or subscribing, or they already own or use a product or service, 疯拍传媒 provides its customers with solutions that align to every touch point of the consumer journey, from finance to supply chain to commerce, and delivers amazing customer experiences every time.鈥�

As customer expectations rise and digital commerce growth contributes to a greater percentage of overall sales, organizations must focus on generating ongoing profitable growth and adopt a commerce platform that helps deliver bottom-line results. The 疯拍传媒 Commerce Cloud solution helps deliver profitable digital commerce growth, from discovery to delivery and beyond, and can be implemented with agility across industries and geographies via its headless and composable offering.

鈥淟evi鈥檚 adopted 疯拍传媒 Commerce Cloud as a backbone for our direct-to-consumer business, as well as our wholesale and stores OMNI businesses,鈥� said Levi Strauss & Co. 鈥淲e鈥檝e seen solid results, including our best holiday season ever from a platform stability perspective, as well as achieving zero downtime on feature releases. We continue to evolve the platforms in conjunction with the recommendations from the 疯拍传媒 architecture team.鈥�

Digital commerce software from 疯拍传媒 is part of the portfolio. It goes beyond traditional CRM solutions by taking an industry-first approach to accelerate value to customers by enabling end-to-end, integrated business processes. The software brings together customer, experiential and operational data as well as AI and machine learning.

鈥淎t Levi鈥檚, we handle our core customer data and have an internal customer data platform,鈥� said Levi Strauss & Co. 鈥淲ith 疯拍传媒 Commerce Cloud, we are looking forward to maximizing the usage of that data to understand our customer preferences, sizes, past purchases, trends and potential future purchase behaviors and reach them everywhere in unique ways. We aim to deliver a frictionless experience with rich data and personalization at every point of engagement.鈥�

Additional customers of 疯拍传媒 Commerce Cloud include , , , , , D. Swarovski KG, and more.

To find out more, download a , including the in-depth Gartner analysis of the digital commerce landscape.

Visit the . Follow 疯拍传媒 at .

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This document contains forward-looking statements, which are predictions, projections, or other statements about future events. These statements are based on current expectations, forecasts, and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and outcomes to materially differ. Additional information regarding these risks and uncertainties may be found in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to the risk factors section of 疯拍传媒鈥檚 2021 Annual Report on Form 20-F.
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Intelligent customer experience (CX) made its grand debut at this year鈥檚 to an enthusiastic crowd of customers, partners, reporters, and analysts.

Even before seeing the audience鈥檚 excitement at my keynote product demo, I knew we were bringing something special to the stage because intelligent CX is rooted in unique industry needs, connected across departments and technology systems, fueled by insightful data, and adaptive to meet the changing needs of customers and businesses. It also infuses connected operational and contextual data from across the entire enterprise with AI insights to support a seamless customer experience.

While we鈥檝e been exploring and offering AI-driven solutions at 疯拍传媒 for years, I鈥檓 delighted to see the interest in this technology spike with all the recent buzz around . Even more galvanizing for me is seeing the excitement grow among businesses like , the world鈥檚 premier jewelry and accessories brand, which is tapping into the power of AI to create deeper connections with its customers.

鈥淎I is undoubtedly a value driver for customers and companies, helping to elevate personalization at the highest level,鈥� said Dr. Lea Sonderegger, CIO and chief digital officer at Swarovski. 鈥淭hanks to sophisticated algorithms, we can now better understand our customers as never before, anticipate their needs, and, recently, provide a human-like conversational interaction.鈥�

Overall, while there is a clear business benefit for consumers to share data, the real question is: “What鈥檚 in it for them?”

Striking a Mutually Beneficial Balance for Data Sharing

Without data 鈥� the right data, and enough of it 鈥� all the AI in the world will not amount to one single meaningful insight that can help brands create the personalized experiences needed to drive business growth, provide value to consumers, and build customer loyalty.

Yet the sort of rich data that empowers industries such as retail and consumer packaged goods (CPG) to harness the capabilities of AI relies on the goodwill of customers to share their data. And not every customer is willing to give it up.

Nearly half of consumers (46%) are wary of the positive role AI plays in their retail experiences, of more than 10,000 consumers in the U.S., U.K., Australia, and Germany by , 疯拍传媒鈥檚 omnichannel customer engagement platform.

While these consumers are apprehensive about how brands use their data, they still want to benefit from the convenience, value, and brand connection that comes from sharing it with companies. Respondents would be more likely to purchase from a brand that offers personalized extras (62%), personalized recommendations (63%), loyalty programs (72%), and discount codes (77%). Further, 76% percent of global consumers surveyed prefer personalized marketing communications from brands and 73% want to know that a brand 鈥済ets them鈥� as a person.

These results highlight how consumer assumptions and fears regarding data sharing and AI may conflict with their desires for more individuated, value-driven experiences. Retailers can, and must, help customers make the connection between sharing data and reaping the benefits of its use.

鈥淲e currently leverage data and AI to provide personalized product recommendations on our website and in our newsletters and also in the store through our clienteling services to enhance the brand and shopping experience of our queens, our customers,鈥� Sonderegger shared.

People are typically more amenable to sharing their data when it provides direct value — in savings, efficiency, and stronger connections with brands. But transparency is critical to building the much-needed trust between a customer and a brand. Sharing how data is being used anytime a customer creates an account, signs up for marketing communications, or agrees to data sharing reassures customers that their data is being treated securely and compliantly.

Retailers that can provide this transparency and direct value will enjoy the kind of widespread brand loyalty that comes from more personalized, value-oriented interactions, which can be the key to giving customers the brand experiences they truly want, when they want it, and where they want it.

Unlocking Customer Experience with AI

The enable retailers to personalize these curated experiences. Customers can tap into AI-tailored touchpoints whether on the couch, the beach, in-transit, or in-store.

Across the suite, 疯拍传媒 CX combines trusted data and responsible AI to unlock the customer experience. Creating personalized customer experiences is a challenging and time-consuming task, but essential to achieve high customer satisfaction. 疯拍传媒 Digital Assistant for CX, for example, provides marketers and sellers with holistic insights and recommendations, and automatically generates personalized product content and interactions. The benefits for companies include increased sales conversions, improved customer experience from personalized interactions and product content, and up to 鈧�300,000 in expected savings for average 疯拍传媒 Service Cloud customers.

The portfolio also unlocks the value of intelligent CX with AI with:

• Intelligent recommendations and a seamless customer experience based on insights from commerce, sales, and service data
• More customer-centric decision-making from a single source of unified data coupled with real-time insights via 疯拍传媒 Customer Data Platform
• Hitch-free, personalized, real-time service and support with 疯拍传媒 Service Cloud based on integrated operational and customer data
• Guided selling enabled by intelligent recommendations, opportunity insights, and real-time contextual data, with generative AI-personalized messaging

From better demand forecasting to higher customer satisfaction, AI promises transformative advantages for all industries. estimates the economic value of generative AI for the retail and consumer packaged goods industries alone at $400 to $660 billion a year. I

鈥檓 proud to say that we鈥檙e already helping our customers anticipate and rise to their customers鈥� expectations with embedded AI that is relevant, reliable, and responsible — but this is just the beginning. Business AI continues to evolve, and we鈥檒l continue to anticipate consumer expectations, driving strong business outcomes, and taking customer experience from simply AI-powered to AI-empowered.

Ritu Bhargava is president and chief product officer for 疯拍传媒 Industry & Customer Experience.

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Find out how cutting-edge tech makes Bosch鈥檚 Accessory Advisor so easy: a few simple questions — like an online conversation — get you exactly what you need.

鈥淭his means that our customers spend less time searching for a product,鈥� Ganna Lobachevska of Bosch Power Tools Accessories explains. 鈥淎nd when they purchase the product, it鈥檚 the right one.鈥�

Learn more about how digital assistants and 疯拍传媒 Marketing Cloud connect to improve Bosch鈥檚 data analytics, business insights, and customer experience here.

鈥淢ore and more of our users are coming online…[and] they still want to have the similar guidance and the systems they had in-store,鈥� Ganna Lobachevska, the touchpoint owner of Product Finder and Product Guidance at , told 疯拍传媒 at NRF 2023 for a new video. 鈥淥ur overall goal is to make it easier for our users to find the right accessory for their job.鈥�

Of course, making something easy to do on the front end is seldom easy to build on the back end. And that was Bosch鈥檚 challenge when helping online shoppers narrow their search for the perfect jigsaw blade, drill bit, or abrasive wheel from a truly massive accessory portfolio.

鈥淎ny company with a wide range of products has to think how they can simplify the user journey…and how they can make it easier for the customers to find the right product,鈥� Lobachevska said. 鈥淲ith the Bosch , we provide a solution that makes it easier and faster.鈥�

Building that easier, faster solution meant finding a high-tech way to satisfy a peculiar demand by online shoppers.

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When Brick-and-Mortar Set the Bar (Almost) Too High

Selecting a specific power tool accessory for a specific job 鈥� and ensuring it鈥檚 compatible with your specific power tool 鈥� are big reasons that people historically shopped at brick-and-mortar stores, according to Lobachevska. It makes sense, right? You can consult with a knowledgeable human sales associate.

But Bosch鈥檚 e-commerce customers expect the same in-store-style expertise via a quick and painless online exchange, according to Lobachevska. And she doesn鈥檛 seem worried.

鈥淭he Accessory Advisor guides the user through a series of very simple questions,鈥� Lobachevska said. 鈥淚n the end, they have three perfect recommendations for the work they want to do.鈥�

It鈥檚 pretty much an online conversation that yields the right product, according to Lobachevska. And Bosch found the right tech 鈥� and partners 鈥� to make these virtual dialogues happen.

Tech to the Rescue

鈥淲e realized that there is a need for a better user guidance,鈥� Lobachevska said of Bosch鈥檚 decision to go with , a Boston-based digital commerce search platform and partner solution in 疯拍传媒鈥檚 industry cloud. 鈥淚t offered us the best.鈥�

Zoovu鈥檚 Semantic Studio translates technical jargon into e-commerce-friendly prose, which saves time for both Bosch data managers and shoppers. A few artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted questions later, and these accessory hunters have enjoyed a smooth, seamless customer experience.

鈥淭his means that our customers spend less time searching for a product,鈥� Lobachevska said. 鈥淎nd when they purchase the product, it鈥檚 the right one and they are more satisfied.鈥�

This increases efficiency, according to Lobachevska. It also cuts down on returns and poor online reviews.

Powering Forward

Whether in-store or online, Bosch digital assistants and 疯拍传媒 Marketing Cloud connect to improve Bosch鈥檚 data analytics, business insights, and customer experience, . Those digital assistants have already helped enhance the customer experience for more than 1 million Bosch shoppers across more than 35 global markets, boosting engagement up to 65% as well as increasing customer loyalty and satisfaction.

And still more can be done by connecting all of that to the Accessory Advisor, according to Lobachevska.

鈥淲e would like to connect the Bosch Accessory Advisor with our CRM system, which is basically 疯拍传媒 Marketing Cloud,鈥� Lobachevska said. 鈥淭his will allow us to gain business insights, to build better personas, and to make the user experience even better because it鈥檒l be more personalized.鈥�

When I鈥檓 in the market for new sport shoes, I stick to the brand that I know is the most comfortable for me. There鈥檚 nothing worse than buying a pair of sneakers and going jogging with them for the first time, only to realize in the first few minutes of your run that they don鈥檛 fit properly.

On the other hand, if I鈥檓 shopping for groceries, it鈥檚 how healthy the product is, then the selection, freshness, and price that matter the most. Time is also a factor 鈥� the quicker I can find exactly what I need, the better.

But what happens if another sport shoe manufacturer sets up a loyalty program, allowing me to collect points and offering discounts? Or, what if a new grocery store opens that allows me to save even more time by eliminating the checkout counter? Would that make me change my buying behavior?

What I鈥檓 talking about is loyalty in the context of customer experience. It鈥檚 different for every industry. How can you as a supplier or service provider ensure that you are offering the best experience possible to your customers?

Loyalty Is a Very Noisy Space

Recently, I spoke to Riad Hijal, head of Commerce Solution Management at 疯拍传媒 Customer Experience. 鈥淟oyalty is a very noisy space. I think for retailers, for example, to be successful and ultimately drive customer lifetime value through loyalty, they need to cut through that noise,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e as consumers are faced with dozens of rewards or loyalty accounts 鈥� most of them aren鈥檛 really driving any kind of real modification in behavior. We don鈥檛 buy more just because we have a loyalty account with someone and are collecting points; we are merely using it as a discount mechanism. That鈥檚 how to do loyalty wrong.鈥�

Loyalty requires a reimagination of the loyalty experience and underlying process. To stand out from the crowd, companies need to be leveraging measurement. In addition, what are the themes that we need to focus on to rethink loyalty to truly drive long-term customer value? What does the measurement look like? According to Hijal, historically, efficient and tangible measurement has been lacking in loyalty programs due to the complexity of the topic.

What Should Loyalty Solutions Really Be Offering?

By leveraging data and analytics, a loyalty platform helps businesses understand why customers regard certain experiences as more memorable and important than others. This allows businesses to dig deeper into the different elements of behavior-driven customer loyalty.

And, the truth is, data is siloed within a multitude of systems within your organization. As a company, you need to be able to reconcile all of it, across both transactional and behavioral dimensions so that you can understand which customers are truly profitable and worth your focus. With 疯拍传媒 Customer Data Platform, for example, which is part of RISE with 疯拍传媒, you can prioritize your customers with intelligent insights delivered by the platform. See more about 疯拍传媒 Customer Data Platform in .

As such, there are key capabilities necessary for modern experiential loyalty platforms. These are rewards and incentive management, personalization, gamification, communication and engagement, feedback and surveys, data-driven insights, and integration and convenience.

PUMA and Mention Me: An Industry Cloud Solution

As a leading sports brand, PUMA wanted to transform its fan base to a key growth-driver by not only attracting new customers, but also improving brand awareness and loyalty.听Mention Me, an industry cloud partner solution, in combination with 疯拍传媒 Emarsys Customer Engagement, helped PUMA launch referral programs in six European countries.

PUMA has integrated Mention Me with 疯拍传媒 Emarsys Customer Engagement, its customer relationship management (CRM) platform. This helps equip PUMA to serve seamless customer journeys that drive more referrals, such as sending reward reminders and encouraging referrers to introduce more friends. PUMA is also able to feed first-party referral data into the CRM platform in real time 鈥� growing its database and giving a whole new level of insight. The combination of these solutions is giving the company remarkable growth, increasing its ROI through referral to six times its investment just nine months after launching the campaigns. .

Valora: Revolutionizing Convenience Store Shopping

Valora wanted to better meet customer needs by combining the convenience of a physical store with the simplicity of a digital business model. This was the beginning of its newest brand of cashier-free convenience store 鈥� avec box. To help realize the project, Valora chose 疯拍传媒 Customer Experience solutions, used the rich knowledge available with 疯拍传媒 Services and Support, and worked with Webtiser AG and Pagnos GmbH on a proof of concept. The goal was to start with a single store, using a minimal viable product collaboration approach, then scale the solution further.

Now, Valora is winning new customers by offering them an even more convenient and flexible shopping experience 鈥� without the hassle of waiting in line at the cash register. Plus, with customers registering with the avec app, Valora is able to get new insight into what customers want. Not only does make it possible to give personalized recommendations, but it is also now easier than ever for Valora to reward customer loyalty and keep people coming back for more. .

Measurement Is Key

Effectively measuring and then learning from customer behavior with loyalty solutions to improve reward experiences is the key to taking customer loyalty to the next level. 鈥淪ince loyalty is such a mature space, measurement is key,鈥� said Hijal. 鈥淢ost loyalty programs are abundant and don’t achieve much, but focusing on measurement is what the next generation of loyalty programs is all about.鈥�

Speaking of next generation, 疯拍传媒 Customer Experience solutions are also artificial intelligence (AI)- and machine learning-fueled. These types of insights can help you make each customer feel like they are your only customer. They can help you engage and understand consumers on their terms while respecting their privacy preferences during the customer journey, to retain and upsell using machine learning and smart automation.

So, the next time I鈥檓 in the market for sports shoes, maybe the AI-fueled loyalty program will be able to convince me to try something new鈥nd stick with it.

Sven Denecken is senior vice president and chief marketing and solutions officer for 疯拍传媒 Industries and CX.

Speaking at this year鈥檚 during a keynote with Sven Denecken, senior vice president and chief marketing and solutions officer for 疯拍传媒 Industries and Customer Experience, Scheier modestly described her revolutionary strategy.

鈥淚 decided to have a small goal of changing the fashion industry to be inclusive of the 1.8 billion people on earth who are living with a disability,鈥� said Scheier. 鈥淗aving a partner like 疯拍传媒 helps us navigate the world and understand that people with disabilities are living in a world that actually wasn鈥檛 made for them. Our equation is that fashion plus technology equals adaptive, and 疯拍传媒 is the platform to help us expand and understand the power of inclusion, especially with the largest minority on our planet.鈥�

Building an Ecosystem of Changemakers

Runway of Dreams develops programs and events that celebrate people鈥檚 differences with fashion shows that exemplify the power of collaboration across industry ecosystems. Unlike typical runway events with one fashion designer, numerous world-renowned brands come together to sponsor Runway of Dreams fashion shows that debut clothing designed for people with disabilities. Scheier is also founder and CEO of GAMUT Management, the first-of-its-kind consulting company to work exclusively with and for people with disabilities.

鈥湻枧拇� has come in to help our shared clients understand the huge business opportunity around people with disabilities,鈥� said Scheier. 鈥淭he button was invented in the 13^th century, giving technology a huge opportunity to get involved in this space and be a changemaker. And GAMUT is a platform for that. Just because things have been done in a certain way for years, doesn鈥檛 mean that鈥檚 how they have to remain.鈥�

Future-Ready Mindset for Industry Differentiation

The fashion industry is just one example of how 疯拍传媒 helps customers stay one step ahead of market dynamics where industries are converging, embedded artificial intelligence (AI) is an indispensable tool, and partner ecosystems are vital for business growth.

鈥淭o be future-proof, companies need to have a future-ready mindset,鈥� said Denecken. 鈥淚ndustries are the vertical edge that provides differentiation for the business鈥nd 疯拍传媒 offers that deep industry knowledge to help organizations鈥avigate every emerging trend, turn the unexpected into opportunities, and differentiate to grow at that vertical edge backed by our . We are reshaping every industry.鈥�

Industry Convergence Transforms CX

Denecken used the central digital showcase at the event as an example of how convergence is rapidly reshaping industries, redefining boundaries between traditional value chains for sustainable, intelligent, and networked business. This improves the customer experience and helps build the circular economy.

鈥淐onvergence is happening in every sector. There are many scenarios such as energy where fuel stations are becoming retail stations, [straddling] the oil and gas, automotive, utilities, and retail industries,鈥� he said. 鈥淭o digitally transform鈥nabling people, partners, and the entire system to collaborate on product and service experiences, you need to think across industry boundaries to create added value that will differentiate your brand. 疯拍传媒 has the digital industry solutions and business process understanding to help you deliver value that drives profitable growth.鈥�

Generative AI with a Business Purpose

Industry convergence is also behind 疯拍传媒 industry networks, where organizations from industrial manufacturing, life sciences, consumer products, and high technology go beyond traditional partnerships to collaborate across boundaries, sharing data and tools for faster innovation, including embedded generative AI that has a business purpose and delivers results.

鈥淭urning AI technology advancements into business impact is a challenge for many companies, especially if they lack in-house expertise,鈥� said Denecken. 鈥淲e have built business AI capabilities directly into the 疯拍传媒 portfolio, combining that with our industry knowledge to power critical functions that include transportation management with generative AI, predictive replenishment, intelligent product recommendations, and 疯拍传媒 Digital Assistant, which can provide a unified natural language interface for all 疯拍传媒 solutions.鈥�

Industry-Specific Data Fulfills Customer Promise

Denecken explained how 疯拍传媒鈥檚 mission is to help industries become more customer-centric, linking data company wide. In a fascinating demonstration, Andre Bechtold, senior vice president and head of Solution and Innovation Experience at 疯拍传媒, showed how the company鈥檚 on-site delve into real-world scenarios for industries, connecting data across business value chains between consumers and organizations to strengthen customer relationships and generate revenue from new cross-industry business models.

鈥淲e鈥檙e making the customer experience more industry tailored, starting with automotive, consumer products, retail, and utilities,鈥� said Denecken. 鈥淭his allows companies to meet individual customer needs at any touchpoint. Personalized experiences result in increased order sizes, return visits, customer loyalty, higher profit margins, and greater wallet share.鈥�

Driven by cloud-based technologies, industries are blazing new business trails with boundary-crossing innovations like inclusive fashion for consumers.

Susan Galer is a communications director at 疯拍传媒.听Follow her @smgaler.

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When a vintage look isn鈥檛 enough, Replacements offers the actual vintage pieces.

The Greensboro, North Carolina-based retailer has preserved and archived about 11 million pieces of china, crystal, silverware, and other collectibles. State-of-the-art 疯拍传媒 Emarsys Customer Engagement helps Replacements make decisions, improve efficiency, and better connect with customers.

Enter Replacements Ltd., which offers to help customers identify, restore, or repair damaged pieces of history. Since its founding in 1981, the Greensboro, North Carolina-based retailer has preserved and archived more than 450,000 patterns; these represent about 11 million pieces of china, crystal, silverware, and other collectibles.

鈥淲e want our customers to continue their traditions, to gather with their family and friends, to give that gift to their family member, to help them start their own collection,鈥� Replacements Chief Marketing Officer Lihn Calhoun told 疯拍传媒 for a new at NRF 2023. 鈥淪o we want to find the customers, understand what they鈥檙e looking for, and match that together.鈥�

Data and analytics are vital in Replacements鈥� efforts to connect customers with the right piece, according to Calhoun. This includes how Replacements stores and archives each item; how the company presents products and services to the customer; and how 鈥� and how often 鈥� to send personalized, meaningful communications.

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How To Better Understand Your Customers

Replacements puts a premium on learning about its customers鈥� interests and collections, according to Calhoun. Doing so is crucial to helping each shopper find exactly the right item among the aforementioned 450,000 patterns and 11 million pieces.

鈥淗aving that information in our technology platform 鈥� and being able to aggregate that in a useful way 鈥� allows us to better connect each piece to that new person to create that new story,鈥� Calhoun said . 鈥淲e鈥檝e been doing that right from the start, in terms of collecting that customer information, understanding the patterns of interest, and making that connection.鈥�

The COVID-19 pandemic hastened Replacements鈥� transition to ecommerce and, therefore, smoother, more relevant connection with customers, according to Calhoun. is now a big part of the company鈥檚 tech-driven effort to share the highly specific product information it has painstakingly archived 鈥� and to empower its customers.

Innovating to Empower Your Customers

Three types of customers visit Replacements online, according to Calhoun. There are generally shoppers who are looking to buy, people looking to sell their vintage pieces to Replacements, and others who are simply browsing or researching.

鈥淥ne of the things that they鈥檙e looking to do is to identify a pattern…[Before the pandemic] you would call us, you would describe it, you would send us a picture,鈥� Calhoun said of the process, which was time-intensive for both customers and Replacements. Today, the company鈥檚 Web site features a camera icon that handles the photography and speedy pattern recognition for china and crystal. 鈥淚t went from potentially days to minutes.鈥�

Benefits of the rollout include helping sellers and researchers identify patterns faster as well as freeing up time for employees to accomplish other tasks, according to Calhoun. And a pleasant surprise was that customers looking to buy were exploring pieces that they might not have otherwise discovered 鈥� which has positively impacted revenue.

鈥淲e have improved efficiency internally,鈥� Calhoun said, 鈥渁nd we鈥檝e given that power to the user on our Web site.鈥�

How Data Informs Decisions

鈥�Replacements uses technology to improve people鈥檚 lives by making it easier for them to gather with their family and friends, create that memorable experience, and pass along traditions,鈥� Calhoun told 疯拍传媒 during the video interview. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 what differentiates us, really…We do that so that we can preserve all these amazing pieces.鈥�

Just the sight of a long-forgotten pattern can evoke strong memories, according to Calhoun. Walking through Replacements鈥� 500,000-square-foot warehouse, she noticed someone unpack the same pattern that her great-grandmother used.

鈥淚mmediately I saw my grandmother鈥檚 dining room table 鈥� how she pre-set it every evening in preparation for breakfast 鈥� and the memory was that strong, that visual,鈥� Calhoun said. 鈥淭hose memories help us; they feed our heart and our soul.鈥�

That鈥檚 why data is crucial to Replacements for both finding vintage items for shoppers 鈥� nurturing core customers and collectors 鈥� and simultaneously introducing its massive inventory to new audiences, according to Calhoun. These are different demographics who all desire to own pieces of history.

鈥淵ou should still have your stories, your brand connections, your human connections, the emotional connections,鈥� Calhoun said. 鈥淏ut the data helps you better target and provide the communication to your customer at the right time, the right way.鈥�

It is with great pleasure and pride that I share the news that TrustRadius, the leading independent research and review platform, has named 疯拍传媒 Customer Experience (疯拍传媒 CX) as the winner of its 2023 Top Rated award under multiple CX market categories. It is an honor to receive this recognition from the B2B and B2C business professionals who use our solutions daily to help drive profitable growth for their organizations.

What Do These Awards Mean?

With these awards, the TrustRadius user community recognizes 疯拍传媒鈥檚 commitment to help businesses deliver digital innovations for their customers, make intelligent business decisions that drive profitable outcomes, and gain confidence to grow and scale their business.

鈥淭hese awards are based directly on customer feedback and help software buyers make better purchasing decisions by highlighting products that provide high levels of customer satisfaction,鈥� said Megan Headley, vice president of Research at TrustRadius.

This year, 疯拍传媒 CX has earned awards across the following market categories: Customer Experience Management, Help Desk, Customer Engagement, Identity Management, Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM), Social Login, Customer Data, Order Management, eCommerce, Sales Intelligence, Lead Management, Sales Forecasting, CPQ, and Customer Relationship Management (CRM). To learn more about these recognitions, visit the page.

I wanted to take this opportunity to express my deepest gratitude to our ever-expanding customer base for their unwavering partnership and collaboration. This award is a testament to their trust in 疯拍传媒 CX. Their feedback, insights, and challenges have shaped our solutions, driving us to continuously innovate and improve. Together, we have reimagined customer engagement, transforming interactions into meaningful connections that foster loyalty and drive business growth. We remain committed to providing the highest level of support, expertise, and innovation to help customers thrive in a dynamic market.

Here are a few reviews from our users:

Read all customer reviews of , , , and on TrustRadius.

Get an overview of 疯拍传媒 CX or .

Sven Denecken is chief marketing and solutions officer for Industries and CX at 疯拍传媒.

When Tchibo worked with 疯拍传媒 to develop the NFT Launchpad, it wasn鈥檛 simply 鈥渟tirring the pot.鈥� Tchibo鈥檚 innovation-driven DNA and 疯拍传媒鈥檚 50-year history of tackling business challenges with the best of leading-edge technology was the perfect pairing to help unlock the potential of Web3.

The result was the NFT Launchpad, which allows users to mint, administer, and manage Web3-based non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in a Web2-friendly application. The lighthouse project was capped off by the premier launch of a Tchibo NFT collection dubbed 鈥淭chibo Royalty Club.鈥� Using the NFT Launchpad, Tchibo minted 1,000 unique NFTs on the Polygon blockchain. To get an NFT, collectors entered their e-mail addresses on the Tchibo Royalty Club鈥檚 NFT Launchpad page. After receiving a link by e-mail, recipients were able to claim and view their NFTs on the launchpad or transfer them to their digital wallets. 鈥淕olden鈥� NFTs were redeemable for prizes like Tchibo coffee cans and Lapressa-branded pens.

I鈥檓 so proud of the results and the significance of this collaboration. Because it combines the best functionalities of Web2 and Web3, NFT Launchpad lowers the barriers for companies and collectors alike to get in on the Web3 revolution. For context, the Internet we鈥檝e come to know over the past quarter century is Web2. Web2 technology drove the democratization of the Internet, allowing users to contribute and interact with content. Web3 decentralizes the Internet, making transactions more secure and verifiable by using a distributed blockchain network to validate those transactions. Web3 also allows companies to take advantage of the new digital consumer asset class based on blockchain technology and smart contracts that includes NFTs, tokens, and more.

The project also revealed a compelling array of applications perfectly suited to the rising challenge of meeting customer expectations. Among the most pressing concerns for all retailers today is capturing an ever-fractured share of consumer loyalty. More than ever, engaging customers while remaining profitable increases the urgency for companies to transform the customer experience. Fortunately, the capabilities of Web3 suggest a bounty of use cases.

From loyalty programs to digital twins, NFTs can help increase brand loyalty, engagement, and revenue. Crucially, Web3 can also propel companies on their digital transformations, keeping their brands relevant even for digitally sophisticated Gen Z and Alphas as well as the generations of consumers beyond. As marketing and loyalty tools, NFTs can be issued as brand rewards, promotional or exclusive collectors鈥� items, and advertising with which younger consumers are likely to engage. Digital twins, for example, are unique ways for companies to engage, interact, and build relationships with audiences.

Digital twins are digital representations of physical objects. NFTs of digital twins, used as promotional items, invitations, passes to special events such as exclusive sales, or redemptions for discounts and physical goods, can be low-cost entries into the Web3 universe. As sales or service tools, digital twins also present excellent possibilities for improving the customer experience post-purchase. Imagine the next time your car鈥檚 engine light comes on. Instead of driving it to the repair shop, you share a digital twin that a mechanic can use to virtually investigate and diagnose the problem. You can bet if I鈥檓 getting consistently reliable service without leaving my home, I鈥檓 a repeat customer.

Internally, companies can also use NFTs as POAPs (Proof of Attendance Protocol) to boost employee engagement. Tchibo has issued POAPs to increase engagement in trainings, while 疯拍传媒 has a similar program that allows in-house tech talk attendees to collect NFTs.

From marketing to commerce to service applications and more, it鈥檚 evident that Web3 has great potential to unlock key drivers of success 鈥� engagement, revenue, loyalty, and digital transformation 鈥� in the new digital landscape.

NFTs as Sustainable Swag

The NFT Launchpad holds a further benefit that speaks to changing consumer and business values. With no production, packaging, or shipping, NFTs can make a claim to sustainability that rises when coupled with the more energy efficient proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism. POS uses about as much energy as a Google search. Minting an NFT on Polygon, as the team did,鈥痷ses only , amounting to one-forty-four-thousandth of the carbon footprint required to mint an NFT on a proof-of-work (PoW) network.

How proof-of-stake so vastly outperforms proof-of-work in energy efficiency comes down to the way transactions get validated.

• Proof-of-work, used by networks like Bitcoin, involves miners solving complex mathematical problems to validate transactions and create new blocks. This process is energy intensive, requiring a substantial amount of computational power, as every miner in the network performs these computations in a race to mine the block and win the block reward.鈥疧nce the first miner finishes the computation, all other miners stop processing the block and move on to the next block of transactions.鈥疶he process repeats itself, using significant amounts of energy in the process.
• Proof-of-stake networks, on the other hand, are more energy-efficient. In PoS, validators are chosen to create new blocks based on the amount of cryptocurrency they hold and are willing to “stake” as collateral, which they lose if other validators determine the block was maliciously processed. Since only a single node in the network creates the block, no complex, energy-intensive, simultaneous processing is performed. PoS consumes significantly less energy than PoW, making it a more sustainable option for blockchain networks.

Further, NFTs have a longer lifespan than physical goods, as they can be stored, transferred, and traded without degradation in quality.

Alpha Release of NFT Management Solution by 疯拍传媒

This year at 疯拍传媒 Sapphire, 疯拍传媒 introduced its alpha release of the non-fungible token management solution, an enterprise-ready, no-code, software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution for creating, managing, distributing, and claiming Web3 digital assets. Via the solution鈥檚 dashboard, companies can create NFT collections and campaigns and administer and distribute NFTs to customers. NFT collection and campaign managers can configure the experience of NFT claimants by customizing benefits linked to NFTs, adding destination links, and more.

I couldn鈥檛 be more excited to be testing the alpha release with our partners at Tchibo. I鈥檓 also excited to share a preview with you. Scan the QR code to receive a limited edition, custom NFT from the alpha release of the NFT management solution by 疯拍传媒. NFTs will be distributed to the first 50 people to claim one of these cool, sustainable, custom digital artworks.

With heartfelt thanks to Tchibo, I鈥檓 looking forward to our next innovation project. Tchibo鈥檚 German slogan, 鈥淛ede Woche eine neue Welt鈥� means 鈥淓very week is a new world.鈥� It refers to the changing selection of goods, refreshed weekly, in its stores. This sentiment also rings true for business technology, and I鈥檓 excited to see what鈥檚 next for Tchibo and Web3.

Ritu Bhargava is president and chief operating officer of 疯拍传媒 Industry & Customer Experience.