Hycom Insights How we make things happen We share with you our knowledge, experiences and vision. Knowledge Positioning – Focusing – Orchestrating: How to fulfil customer needs in digital channels? It is impossible to design engagement mechanisms and journeys that fit into the needs of each individual. Switching channels within one purchasing activity and differentiated behavioural patterns make it difficult for today's marketers to create unified, consistent, and long-term journeys for experience personalization. Knowledge Things that matter most in omnichannel customer engagement Customer engagement in an omnichannel environment has been undergoing profound change for years. Especially the COVID-19 pandemic has triggered what many sectors have tried hobbling towards digitalization. Omnichannel puts customers with their expectations and new upcoming needs further in the foreground by offering them the possibility to communicate and interact with a company at any time in real time and entirely according to their preferences. Knowledge Energy and utilities - a changing industry that requires new technological solutions The energy and supply market is facing fundamental change. On the one hand, new providers are continuously emerging, and existing companies are offering new products and services. On the other hand, customers are becoming more demanding and require more information, on-demand experiences, fast customer service and, on top of that, the best-priced products. To succeed in this space, utilities need to be able to quickly deliver new digital capabilities that keep pace with customer needs and differentiate themselves from the competition. Knowledge Lessons from designing an omnichannel sales platform in telecom Delivering a truly omnichannel platform in telecom, which will serve both the customers as well as employees via all touchpoints and sales processes is a daunting task. Within a typical telco offering, contracts can be purchased or extended with or without a device, paid in cash, instalments, with additional TV subscriptions and VAS bundles. Often you can also bundle utilities and financial services on top. This can be done via multiple channels, with different variants for individuals, and businesses. That is why, compared to a standard retail eCommerce, it is a much more complex transformation project. Knowledge Ways to Cost-Optimize Software Development Custom software development is far from quintessential and, thus, the use of the word “custom”. There might be a few similarities between some software applications, but each custom-developed software is a brand-new undertaking. A recent Harvard Business Review article revealed that one in six IT projects has a cost overrun of 200%. Agile development introduces a whole new set of additional challenges to budgeting and planning. Standardization and economies of scale are hard to come by, but there are some universal routes to get there. Knowledge 6 essential features of modern retail product catalog Faced with the Covid-19 pandemic, the retail world faced a new challenge. Due to lockdown, we all felt as if time was moving slower but not everyone realizes that a revolution in the e-commerce world has come with the whisper of empty streets. Many companies realized that they would not survive without moving their business whole or to some extent to the internet. Knowledge 4 things you have to do to prepare for digital transformation Digital transformation. Omnichannel. Behind boastful marketing messages, very rarely we hear about real-life difficulties and struggles from people in the trenches. And the harsh reality is, real digital transformation is hard. Particularly transformation in telecom companies is on another level of difficulty to get right – as anyone involved in the overhaul of systems in telco industry will surely agree. Knowledge 7 reasons why it is worth implementing headless CMS Present Telco, Energy&Utilities or Media companies are among the most dynamically developing sectors of the global economy. The range of services offered by these companies is constantly expanding, which also has an impact on the behaviour of customers, who have increasingly higher expectations. Knowledge Composable Commerce with Elastic Path Following text is an excerpt from conversation of Artur Urbański – VP Consulting Hycom with Shaneil Lafayette from Elastic Path on customer experiences enabled by composable commerce architecture. For full interview please watch the video. Knowledge Is your organization ready for microservice architecture? Many enterprise e-commerce platforms are based on complex monolith software developed by large teams that are constantly struggling to keep up with the needs of the business. For companies dealing with a large share of mobile traffic, the increasingly competitive market can put them under pressure. As a way to manage in this new digital landscape, other organizations have switched to a microservice architecture, allowing them to deliver software rapidly, frequently and reliably. Knowledge How can you build a highly effective Product Catalog Management strategy? When trying to optimize a complex business process such as a Product Catalog, digital strategies are key to scalability and agility. Knowledge How to get customer centricity right in omnichannel for telecom businesses Upgrading the channel system infrastructure to the next digital level has never been challenge-free. This also holds true in the telecommunication area, where players have been developing a system set-up and targeted at selling and marketing feasibility for an ever-changing product portfolio. In such a dynamic and competitive industry, making innovations happen has been crucial, but long-term thinking was never the guiding principle. Knowledge Remote is the new office Some time ago, before the pandemic broke out, our company had already been working on a concept to enable everyone to work from home. We have introduced a procedure so that every employee would feel comfortable if they have decided not to come to the office and rather stay at home for a day or even longer. But now the option of staying at home has turned into a must. Knowledge Utilities 4.0 – can a buzzword have an impact on the energy sector? With the help of a well-planned digital roadmap, the way to a modern utility is just a few steps away. Knowledge How to write a good Software Design Document One of the main tasks of the Business-System Analysts is preparing Solution Design docs. This kind of documentation describes how to convert system requirements into pieces of working software. A well-prepared Solution Design saves time needed for communication between project team members. It also assures that the project deliverables will meet customer needs. Knowledge Web Summit 2019 “What do you do when the most powerful institutions in society have become the least accountable to society?” This rhetorical question asked by Edward Snowden during the opening night of the 2019 Web Summit sent a strong message of warning to the audience which patronized the whole event. It was probably clear to everyone that not only did he mean governments and authorities, but also private companies whose representatives were just about to start their marketing talks. Knowledge Trends in the energy industry: renewables and energy storage We are living in a VUCA world, where we must deal with volatility, uncertainty, complexity and the ambiguity of general conditions in everyday business situations. Changes and their directions are hard to predict, so strategy management is harder than ever before. It may be seen in energy industry as well. The energy sector seems to be resistant to fast changes and short trends, however some kind of changes, often driven by social pressure or technology innovations, are inevitable. The increasing role of renewables and energy storage are important trends in the energy industry. Knowledge Feedback in building startups Do you have a great app idea? Don’t get caught in the most common traps! You wake up early in the morning after a sleepless night – your head is bubbling with thoughts of an innovative product that could disrupt the market. With a shaking hand, you are scratching a draft of functionalities. Steve Jobs would be proud of you, that’s for sure. Now it’s time to develop your new app and enjoy thousands of users. Knowledge Episode 6: Transparency A common question that any manager or executive might ask (or be asked for that matter) is: “How well is the team doing?”. That’s a fair question which leads us to the 3rd pillar of Scrum: Transparency. Knowledge Episode 5: Scaling up Obviously, once you are confident with having a proper Scrum Team in an agile environment, you might want to take it further and expand – and why wouldn’t you? Scaling your Scrum setup can help you get more stuff done and at the same time enforce the agile culture in your project and organization. Knowledge Episode 4: 4 out of 5 One question regarding Scrum that comes up quite often, whether it’s during an academic discussion with my “colleagues from the industry” or just some theoretical pondering of my own, is: if you had to eliminate 1 Scrum event – which one would it be? Knowledge Episode 3: Setup & kick-off So, you have now decided to give Scrum a try. You have identified a business opportunity and you have a vague product vision that will allow you to seize that opportunity if acted upon within a defined time period. How to proceed from that point on? What steps should be taken into account when facing that challenge? Knowledge Episode 2: Thoughts on Agile / SCRUM – The benefits and drawbacks Have you ever wondered why Scrum? What’s the overall reason behind Scrum and Agile becoming a trend in product delivery, and a popular way of working? Why are so many companies, big and small, starting to focus more and more on a completely different approach to not only create products but to change their whole organizational culture? Let’s give that a thought. Knowledge Episode 1: Hello SCRUM This series of articles is my attempt to share with you some of my thoughts, experiences and practices, which I have gained during the last 5 years while working agile. It would be a personal achievement and a huge satisfaction for me, if it would help some of you to improve your work and/or project in any way. I am always open to your feedback and I welcome any discussion. Knowledge Self-care – advanced consumer service Energy sector evolving dynamically. Utilities consumers’ expectations play crucial role in this proces. They constitute catalyst of digital change of entire sector and open this sector for innovations and new products. Knowledge Pros and Cons of accepting Bitcoin payments in your online store Having as many payment methods as possible is one of the key factors to improve conversions and sales in your online store. On the other hand you don't want to expose your business to any kind of fraud. Big companies can afford the tools to deal with risk, but small businesses must limit as much of it as possible. Knowledge Conversational Trends 2019 - Part 3 In this part we will cover the main conversational trends for 2019. These are predictions based on data available and previous technology patters, so take them with a grain of salt. Knowledge Conversational Trends 2019 - Part 2 In this part we will cover the main conversational trends for 2019. These are predictions based on data available and previous technology patters, so take them with a grain of salt. Knowledge Conversational Trends 2019 - Part 1 The mobile era brought many new use-cases and good design practices, but the defining trait is definitely the introduction of much smaller screens.This size-restriction created a new set of rules that designers and usability experts need to adhere to. Knowledge The end of e-commerce as we know it Since introduction and proliferation of smartphone, the landscape has been shifting towards mobile. And all we responded with was Responsive/Adaptive Web Design. Latest data shows it proved inefficient in the long run. Knowledge It is not certain that everything is uncertain Everything has been changing so fast, the world is volatile (change goes up and down, the speed and scale of change can vary), uncertain (because there are many unknowns about to happen next), complex (multiple drivers of change affect each other) and ambiguous (lack of clear meaning, accompanied by a great potential for misreads of the situation). Knowledge Big data chances and risks At every point in our life, more or less consciously, we leave some traces – our data. Let's look at this very sensitive area. Knowledge Driving innovation within an IT company "We are an innovative company and our team is a group of enthusiastic and motivated talents who enjoy creating the most modern IT solutions for our clients" Knowledge E-commerce trends 2018 2018 is yet another year of development of the e-commerce industry. Observing the changes in online sales, several trends have been noted, which will dominate the industry this year. Knowledge Cloud, cloud, cloud… A very popular word in today’s world of application design and development. It is a miraculous remedy for all modern e-commerce problems, a magic box where an application is "thrown" into and … it works! Knowledge How to prepare for a Mobility trend? Futurist Daniell Burrus distinguishes something that he calls Hard Trends, the trends that will happen, from Soft Trends, the trends that might happen. This is the fundamental element of his methodology to predict the future… and be right. Knowledge Blogging as a tool for employee development All companies look for ideas on how to support employee development and how to show its appreciation for its staff. At Hycom, one of our aims in this regard is to engage well-experienced experts and high-potential specialists in setting up and running the company’s blog. Knowledge Competencies of a business analyst in the creation of innovative solutions R&D departments of numerous organizations are struggling to provide innovative products and services which should become a source of competitive advantage. Teams who are creating such solutions often include a business analyst whose task is to gather requirements from stakeholders. Knowledge Art of Presales Along with growing digitalization, the Clients' expectations as to the form of proposed IT or Ecommerce solutions also grow. So, how to stand out from the competition and make the best impression on the Client? How to be innovative? What should a perfect presentation for a customer look like to meet these expectations? Knowledge Career in IT When you think of an IT job, what comes to mind? Well, many of us would imagine a programmer in a sweatshirt sitting in a basement and working all day long in front of a computer, but the truth is that the IT sector offers much more than that. In this article, you will find a short overview of some of the most exiting IT positions! Let's talk! Book a free consultation © Hycom 2021 Privacy policy: PL EN DE For Shareholders You may decide on the use of cookies by selecting the appropriate settings on your browser. I accept