The Mobile Breakfast - 7th April 2016

 The second edition of The Mobile Breakfast took place at one of London’s most iconic steakhouses, The Hawksmoor, Guildhall. Or as GQ magazine says… “The best power breakfast in London...”

 Centaur welcomed a host of industry leaders including:

• Chair, Chris Baxter, MD, Catalyst Mobile
• Idriss Juhoor, Apps team Lead, Lastminute.com
• Santosh Singh, Head of Mobile Engineering, Travelex
• Richard Das, Mobile Tech Lead, Travelsupermarket.com
• Orene Gauthier, Head of Mobile Engineering, Badoo

Building on the success of the last Mobile Breakfast, the group met to discuss two of the hottest topics in the industry right now: Approaches to Omni Channel delivery and Mobile or Web first?

 The discussion opened with a brief introduction from Chris Baxter, MD at Catalyst Mobile, and a quick recap on what Omni Channel means, and how it differs from Multi Channel delivery. From the offset it was very clear that although organisations talk about Omni Channel, every business has a different approach to it. The importance placed on Omni Channel and the resulting strategies vary greatly depending on target markets and market sector. Santosh Singh, Head of Mobile Engineering at Travelex, said:

 “So the biggest challenge we face at the moment is how we create the same experience when a customer walks into the shop as they do when they hold their mobile. We are putting a lot of thought and hard work into this challenge. We are focusing on understanding exactly what customer’s want from each channel, whether that’s mobile or the physical shop. We have customer data about their behaviour. We use AB testing and conduct live testing with customers with new updates. So we do everything we can to build a picture of what customers want from each touchpoint.”

 Santosh revealed that Travelex have created a start-up culture within mobile development to assist with their Omni Channel strategy. Although still very much integrated within the main business, becoming a start-up has enabled his company to react to customer demands and expectations quicker. With stakeholders from all parts of the business involved in building roadmaps, Travelex is creating consistency across their products and each customer touchpoint.

Interestingly, Orene Gauthier, Head of Mobile Engineering at Badoo revealed a different approach to Omni Channel:

“At Badoo we have a different approach to Omni Channel. Our customers stay on one platform, so we don’t always launch all features onto all platforms. We test different features on one, and the most successful we’ll deploy on all platforms. However nothing goes out without testing.

Generally we test on our Windows platform. They are very quick and have a rapid release cycle so we can get features out very quickly."

Panel members were intrigued by the contrasting approaches, and Chris posed the question of how Badoo manage to react quickly in the market:

 “We have two rockstar developers. They communicate very well, they know when to cut and when to ensure the highest quality. They know the golden Line between speed of deployment and standard of code. We have enough active users on our Windows platform which means we can run effective testing on features.”

 It was clear from the discussion that operational capability has a big impact on the deployment of an Omni Channel strategy, but Richard Das, Mobile Tech Lead at Travelsupermarket.com believes it goes beyond just engineering considerations:

 “Everything that’s been mentioned so far has been focussed on engineering solutions to Omni Channel. I very much see it as an organisational challenge. Omni channel needs to come from strategy from the very top of the business. The owners of the business need to build Omni Channel strategy into all elements of their business plan, not just software delivery.”

 So according to Richard, before businesses can create a consistent consumer experience across different platforms there needs to be a strategy from the top of the business down across all parts of the business. One of the key elements to this is the API used to build mobile apps. The panel described how getting API mobile ready is so important, and is often overlooked by business. Idriss Juhoor, Apps team Lead at Lastminute.com described his experience:

 “Lastminute.com decided to do mobile 3 years ago. Rather than just start building mobile apps, they decided to rebuild the API so it’s mobile ready. Our previous API just wasn’t suitable for mobile software. It proved a very good investment. Building mobile software on that API was very easy.”

 A lack of understanding of architecture level at the top of the business is a recurring theme. Companies will assume that they are ready to start building mobile apps, when in fact there are several different steps that need to be taken before development can happen, let alone successful omni-channel delivery.

 With Omni Channel strategy sparking plenty of discussion, the conversation then moved onto Mobile vs Web First. This topic, and how companies have changed their attitude to Mobile vs Web since mobile became a serious platform, has been continued to be a point of focus within the industry.

 The panel were in agreement that their business attitudes to mobile have changed. Mobile vs Web first isn’t just about what is being designed first when building new products, but taking into consideration the different functionality of mobile platforms and how that is a driving factor when designing new products. Chris used the example of TripAdvisor:

 “TripAdvisor initially wrapped their website inside an app and it didn’t work out too well. They then re-designed the app taking into consideration the different functionality of mobile platforms and it’s resulted in great success. I think there is a good lesson to be learnt in the TripAdvisor example for both Omni Channel and Mobile vs Web first.”

 Businesses have changed their attitude from seeing mobile as a nice add on to their web operations, to focusing their business processes and designs on the capability of mobile platforms. Santosh agreed, but felt it depends entirely on what market you are targeting:

“It depends on the market. Take India for example, everyone has a mobile but very few have a desktop. If you are targeting the emerging markets you generally target mobile more than web. In terms of web vs native clients, there are security concerns with web apps. For example the two factor authentication on native is much better on than web. However it does depend on the company, if the information is static then a web app will suffice. If there is anything more than that then native is the only way to go.”

 The idea of competition between Web vs Mobile was discussed. The panel generally agreed that although there has been a more holistic attitude generally, there is often competition between teams and platforms within organisations. The industry shifting to mobile proved a popular topics. Although mobile has been around for a while, some big businesses are only now starting to take mobile seriously. The pace of the change within mobile, and consumer expectations of mobile are so great, that over the next 10 years the panel agreed that the destiny of many businesses will depend on how they embrace mobile technology.

 The panel discussion raised some fascinating questions, and some equally fascinating answers. In Omni Channel, there’s a consistent theme across the industry about the challenges that companies face when building Omni Channel strategy, as well as mobile apps in general. Mobile vs Web first reminds me of the iOS vs Android debate of 3 years ago. Ultimately, it depends on your target market and target consumer, however embracing change and keeping on the bleeding edge of each platform will be biggest factor in technology businesses reaching success.

 Another insightful and enjoyable event in the wonderful surroundings of Hawksmoor. If you’re interested in attending the next Centaur Mobile even please get in touch with our events team: [email protected].