Great article from Forrester analyst, Brian Walker, introducing the concept of “agile commerce.” Some excerpts—

“Customers no longer interact with companies from a channel perspective; instead they interact through touch points. These touch points include channels such as stores, branches, call centers and websites, but also emerging interactions including apps, social media, mobile sites, SMS messages and interactive advertising across smartphones, tablets, cars and even appliances.”

“It is time for organizations to leave their channel-oriented ways behind, optimizing their people, processes and technology to serve today's empowered, ever-connected customers across this rapidly evolving set of customer touch points.”

“This involves orchestrating the customer relationship across touch points, not channels. ...It involves presenting the customer with the ability to discover products, transact and get service in a relevant, contextual manner.”

“But legacy technology challenges, operational hurdles, incentives, complicated analytics, budget cycles and channel-oriented thinking gets in the way. As a result, businesses often design, develop and support these touch points uniquely, often without integrating them into a common enterprise technology and operational environment. They often ignore or forget to think about the customers' real needs and goals.”

These types of multichannel applications with a consideration for great and consistent customer experience across touch points are exactly what Universal Mind specializes in.

Walker's recent report, “Welcome To The Era Of Agile Commerce” can be found here.

Illustration “Engaging The Ever-Connected Consumer Across Touchpoints” source: Forrester Research, Inc.