Journey towards platform excellence

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Journey towards platform excellence An insight into the journey that The Economist took to select a pool of ‘best-of-breed’ partners to build a scalable ecosystem that helps us project a superior customer experience and trigger unprecedented growth Subrata Mukherjee VP Product Management, The Economist

Transcript of Journey towards platform excellence

Page 1: Journey towards platform excellence

Journey towards platform excellence

An insight into the journey that The Economist took to select a pool of ‘best-of-breed’ partners to build a

scalable ecosystem that helps us project a superior customer experience and trigger unprecedented growth

Subrata MukherjeeVP Product Management, The Economist

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GoalsWhy the Economist considered this initiative

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Goalsfor this initiative

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Customers would gain better experience and are more satisfied

Accurate Access across

platforms

Self helpSmoother service

Better looking personalized content, emails & targeted Ads

More product and payment

options

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Goalsfor this initiative

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Marketing can make a wider portfolio of products available with superior customer services

Less time spent on Customer access & fulfillment issues

Better segmentation & tracking

Targeted messaging gaining attention

Wider portfolio of products with quicker time to

market

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Goalsfor this initiative

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Best of breed solutions within

platform

Digital solutions could focus on building a digital ecosystem and become a driver for growth

and efficiencies

Cleaner central master dataBetter targeting, insights & reports

Service oriented Architecture enabling &

smoother integration

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Goalsfor this initiative

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The Economist Group as a business will gain cost efficiencies and become leader in digital

enablement

Become Industry leader in subscription best practices and gain

from relationships with industry leaders

Cost savings by replacing existing systems & partners, better financial

reconciliation and better Brand commitment with Customer centric

processes

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guidelinesfor our discovery

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Technical Suitability

?

• Solution Completeness/Fit• Vendor Product Roadmap• Architecture Deep Dives• Support/Maintenance Considerations

Manageability?

• Manage scope• Initial Prioritisation/Value• User Stories• Functional Deep Dives

Affordability?

• Cost Negotiation• Effort breakdown• Total cost of ownership• Long term Support staff

Deliverability?

• Implementation approaches• Mapping delivery to

requirements• Customer References• ConfidenceCapability

?• Domain knowledge• Similar project• Team experience• Forward looking

vision

Discovery

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Our journeyHow The Economist went through the journey

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Discovery extended

June 2014

14 Front end added to the mix to tackle lack of front end skills

Zoocha, Acquia, Mozu, Echidna, EPI Server, Media Chase, Kentico, Web

cube, Ektron CMS, eZPublish, E-spirit, Cignex, Endava

The EconomistCASE Selection

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Discovery phase

May 2014

10 Subscription Partners identified based on Industry reports and market

research

Cleverbridge, MPP Global, Hybris, Cignex-Magento, Atypon, Zuora, Digital

River, Elastic Path, Aria, Chargebee

our 20 month

journey

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Feasibility phase

Aug 2014

Felt one partner did not have it allCame around to the idea that we needed to

assemble a pair of Front end with back end partners who understood the publishing business

Formed two partnerships pairsEzPublish / Zuora and E-Spirit / MPP Global

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Jul 2014RFP Phase

7 Partners in each bucket2 week response period with 100+

questionsFocus was on how much was “out of the box”, how much “configuration” and

how much “customization”

The EconomistCASE Selection

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Elaboration phase 1

Nov - Dec 2014

Elaboration workshops were conducted with MPP Global and we realized our revenue recognition

models and CPQ would be difficult to replicate without customization.

Otherwise it was a great flexible platform but did not meet our complicated business rules. Back to the

drawing board page011

Sep-Oct 2014Awareness Road show

Each pair participated in two sessions – business and a technical presentation

A panel of about 10 executives voted on a dozen different parameters. Scores were tied

at the end with no clear winner. Price tag broke the tie

The EconomistCASE Selection

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Elaboration phase 2

Feb-Apr 2015

Elaboration workshops were conducted and most of the complicated scenarios were solved.

We met with three Hybris’ Solution providers and the implementation costs were wide in range. From

$800K to $3M, which caused uncertainity at steering level

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Jan 2015Second guessing pairs

Instead of going back to the other pair, we went back to see if any possible pairs were

missedHybris came back with better offering and

that they have paired with Zuora at Research in Motion.

Decided to pair Hybris with Zuora

The EconomistCASE Selection

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CASE provisionally approved

June 2015

Elaboration workshops were conducted with Novactive who is our implementation partner for eZpublish and a elaborate fully functioning demo

was organized to show some key use cases.

Contract signed for eZPublish work to begin

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May 2015Delivery approach changed

Since the price did not work for the entire package out we decided to phase the project – first tackle the eCommerce and front end and

then tackle the subscription management platform

EzPublish was selected and we went back to the possibility to consider one of our

original pairs

The EconomistCASE Selection Its

happening folks!

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Proof of Concepts phase

Aug – Nov 2015

We came up with about a half dozen proof of concepts encompassing our most complicated use

cases

Our Customer Services firm had concerns on Zuora due to the number of steps in the B2C

subscription management flows and we did a gap analysis for each crucial step.

All POCs were solved with one-click orchestration flows

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July 2015Zuora signed with terms

We were confident that Zuora had potential to solve all of our business challenges but we were adamant that we did not want to invest

in complicated revenue recognition customizations

Zuora took up the challenge and decided to invest in their platform to upgrade their

offering. We agreed on the acceptance criteria

The EconomistCASE Selection

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The real journey begins…

Jan 2016

Team formed and an Agile project schedule created factoring in the prioritization provided by a cross

functional team

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Dec 2015Extension platform bornZuora invested in their platform to build an

extension platform to address similar needs from customers

Will allow Zuora to build out-of-the-box functionality for some without impacting all

others. The Revenue recognition package is one of the first in that platform

The EconomistCASE Selection

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OutcomeWhat products and services we ended up with

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Best of breedecosystem

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CustomerDatabaseCRM

EcommercePages with CMS

Access controlPaywall, metering

EconomistWebsite & Apps

Customer ServicesSelf Service

Print Fulfillment

Data WarehouseInsights & Reports

Email & pushnotifications

Media Activation& Digital Targeting

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Best of breedend choice

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Master Data sourceSegmentation toolCustomer Service toolCall center scriptsKnowledge center

In-bound Call center Outbound telemarketingAgent & offline order processingLabel run managementDistribution managementLetter shop mail processing

Sales Management toolJourney Builder toolTemplate building toolBuyer flowsMy Account portalRegistration / activation pagesPaywall & Regwall toolPersonalized paywallsA/B & Multivariate testingOrder metrics & tracking

Email delivery toolTransactional emailsRenewal emailsNewsletter personalization toolPush notification toolData cleansing & de-dupingAddress & email verification

Circulation ReportingBusiness intelligenceABC reportingMetricsRevenue & Sales Forecasting

Subscription managementCredit / debit card processingAlternate / regional paymentsEarned & Deferred revenueTaxation and VATCash managementMonth / Qtr / Yr end closing

Cloud infrastructureIntegration hub Canonical modelLogin & Single signonEntitlements management

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Revenue recognitionIssue based

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Setup Products

Select Revenue Model & Rules

Upload Publication Calendar

Revenue Milestones &

Schedule

Transaction Reporting & Accounting

Customer Service

Z-Billing Z-Payment Z-Finance

Salesforce

Zuora

Revenue-Impacting Events

(e.g. Cancel/Refund)

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Questions?How can we help you succeed in your journeys