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The challenge was to engage CIOs in a new way, leveraging the potential of Cloud, Social, Mobile and Big Data technologies. The goal was to enable these CIOs to become the architects of innovation within their businesses. The strategy needed to be comprehensive, encompassing digital display, out-of-home advertising, press, content creation, and strategic partnerships. The ultimate goal was to initiate new sales conversations with Europe's most senior IT professionals and generate significant pipeline revenue.

Red Oxygen, a company that has been helping businesses connect with their customers via SMS for nearly 20 years, identified a significant challenge in the business communication landscape. The company recognized that while businesses of all sizes and industries strive to connect with their customers, the traditional methods of communication were becoming less effective. Emails, for instance, could go hours or even days without being read. On the other hand, 90% of text messages are read within the first 3 minutes, making SMS a more reliable and immediate form of communication. However, the challenge lay in implementing SMS into existing applications or software, which typically requires significant developer time and resources. This was a major barrier, especially for smaller companies that lacked in-house resources, and larger companies that couldn't spare their developers from other projects.

Airport AI, a leading AI-powered customer service platform used by over 40 airports globally, was seeking to enhance its customer engagement and support. The company aimed to integrate a communication channel that could simplify customer engagement, answer frequently asked questions efficiently, and expand its reach among passengers worldwide. The desired channel needed to offer ease of use for passengers seeking flight status updates, offers from airport restaurants and shops, directions, and other airport-related information. It also needed to provide real-time communication for faster service updates, two-way communication for interactive and automated passenger engagement, and a reliable and familiar channel with a broad reach and growing global adoption. Lastly, the channel needed to facilitate fast, frictionless connections between passengers and AI bots.

Angel Broking, one of the largest retail broking houses in India, was faced with the challenge of digitizing its offerings to appeal to tech-savvy individuals who are new to stock trading. The firm aimed to provide a convenient, easy-to-use platform for these digital natives to start their trading journey. The desired platform needed to offer a two-way, real-time digital messaging solution that would allow customers to onboard conveniently, trade easily, and resolve their queries quickly. The channel also needed to provide easy onboarding, ease of use for accessing educational resources, real-time communication for faster service updates, two-way communication for interactive and automated customer engagement, reliable service, fast connections between customers and an authorized person, and the use of rich media for superior customer experiences.

Anghami, the leading digital music platform in the Middle East and North Africa, faced a significant challenge in communicating effectively with its artists. The company used email to inform artists about promotional campaigns and activities, but this method proved to be time-consuming, labor-intensive, and inefficient for tracking and measuring events such as new artist releases, milestone download numbers, and updates on follower and listener numbers. Anghami prides itself on providing a personalized experience and often went the extra mile to contact artists manually via Instagram Direct Messages about their achievements. However, this approach was not sustainable in the long run, and the company was in dire need of a reliable, unified, and efficient communication method to engage with artists.

AppZone, a leading Nigerian fintech software provider, was facing challenges with its transactional SMS and Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) platforms. The company provides these services to financial institutions across Africa for customer communication. However, until 2020, they relied on various solution providers in different markets, leading to mixed levels of success. The main issues were the lack of reliability and high support times and costs. AppZone needed to improve its reliability and reduce support times and costs for its platforms. The company aimed to achieve at least 98% uptime and required a provider that could offer local support at the country level.

Asia Insurance 1950, a Thailand-based insurance company, was grappling with inefficient and costly policy renewal processes. The traditional method relied heavily on face-to-face or telephonic communication between staff, clients, and intermediaries, often requiring documents to be printed and posted. The E-Policy process, when done over conventional channels, was time-consuming. Furthermore, communication post-policy activation was complex. When an accident was reported, clients could not immediately receive information about their dedicated surveyor, leading to increased calls to the company and wasted resources. The company recognized the need to automate their processes to serve customers better and faster, save resources, time, and money. However, customer privacy was a significant concern when considering digital services.

Bajaj Auto, one of the world's largest two-wheeler and three-wheeler manufacturers, was facing a significant challenge with its customer engagement and conversion rates. The company primarily relied on SMS for all its communication with customers, including promotional messaging. However, as the number of customers scaled, the number of conversions via SMS started to decline drastically. The existing communication process over SMS required customers to click on a link provided in the text message, which would redirect them to a landing page. Once they opened the landing page, they had to fill out a form with multiple fields to download the information they needed about Bajaj Auto’s products. This long-drawn process often led to customers dropping off before filling out the form. Another challenge was the low deliverability of one-time PINs (OTP) for customers who wanted to subscribe to updates from Bajaj Auto, leading to constant customer complaints.

BankBazaar, an Indian application-based end-to-end financial service provider, was seeking ways to increase customer engagement and return on investment (ROI). The company uses multiple communication channels to offer its products, including SMS, email, WhatsApp, and push notifications. Despite the effectiveness of SMS in terms of engagement and ROI, the company's in-depth research revealed that their customers, who were more digitally aware, desired additional features beyond just text. The challenge was to find a communication channel that could offer more features while maintaining the effectiveness of SMS.

Beam&Go, a payment and digital marketplace that serves over 286,000 users across various countries, was grappling with several customer service challenges. The company was struggling with long customer response times due to agents having to switch between different tools and platforms to resolve customer inquiries. This led to extended working hours for agents and made it difficult for management to track their performance and workload. Additionally, the lack of data centralization resulted in a poor customer experience as agents often had to start conversations with customers from scratch due to siloed data. Beam&Go also used different providers for different channels to conduct their campaigns, which led to high costs and underperforming campaigns due to the inability to consolidate tools and data into a single interface.

Biolab, a leading medical diagnostic laboratory in Jordan, faced several challenges in maintaining customer engagement during the pandemic. The company's call centers were overloaded, especially during peak hours, leading to extended lag times for customers. Additionally, Biolab experienced a rapid expansion of its customer base due to its responsibility for PCR testing at multiple entry points into Jordan, in addition to its existing labs, drive-thru facilities, and house call service. This resulted in a significant influx of testers. Furthermore, Biolab's application was not appealing to patients, who preferred other channels to provide and receive information. The company needed to optimize its customer journey, automate communications through user-friendly processes, and provide round-the-clock support.

BlaBlaCar was grappling with the challenge of improving its customer experience and minimizing customer complaints. The company had previously made efforts to address message delivery and network coverage issues, but the problem persisted. There were instances where notifications about ride cancellations by drivers failed to reach passengers, leading to customer dissatisfaction and negative reviews. Additionally, a significant number of users in Russia and Ukraine expressed the need to communicate with BlaBlaCar via Viber. The company was therefore in search of a reliable partner with global coverage and omnichannel communication capabilities that could integrate SMS, Viber, and other preferred user channels. The ultimate goal was to enhance transactional notifications and significantly improve the customer experience.

Bukalapak, one of the largest online marketplaces and ecommerce companies in Indonesia, was grappling with security breaches and low conversion rates. As an ecommerce business, ensuring the highest level of security for their users was paramount. This involved sending one-time PINs (OTP) for transactions, logins, and registrations, as well as for any account detail changes such as email or phone numbers. However, low OTP delivery rates were causing bottlenecks in the customer journey, preventing users from registering to the platform and completing transactions, thereby negatively impacting revenue and profits. Bukalapak had set a target success threshold for logins, checkouts, and transactions, which required OTP delivery to be fast, reliable, and cost-effective.

CambioReal, a Brazilian-based remittance company, faced a significant challenge when they entered the remittance market in Brazil. The company's attractive offers led to a surge in potential users flooding their customer support lines with inquiries about fees, transactions, and exchange rates. The high volume of customer inquiries made it difficult for users to get timely responses to their questions. Additionally, the company's complex user registration process, which required the submission of several documents, was not in line with typical user habits in their market, leading to a high drop-off rate. CambioReal needed a solution that would allow them to quickly respond to customer inquiries and simplify the user registration process while ensuring security.

CarDekho, India's leading auto tech company, was facing a challenge in meeting customer communication demands. The company, which provides end-to-end car research services, was relying on traditional channels such as SMS and email to notify prospects about deals. However, with the changing communication preferences of customers in the Indian market, these channels were proving to be less effective. Customers were seeking new ways of communicating with brands, and CarDekho needed to adapt to these changes to maintain its position in the market.

Carsome, Southeast Asia’s largest integrated car e-commerce platform, was facing challenges in optimizing their customer service and lead generation process. The introduction of a new service to 'Buy Cars' led to an increase in customer queries about how to buy cars online. However, the lack of availability on their customers' preferred channels led to unanswered questions and a loss in leads. Additionally, the absence of a centralized platform to handle customer queries resulted in agent inefficiency. Agents had to manually address social media questions without conversational history and were unable to provide real-time support. This negatively impacted agent productivity and led to longer customer wait times. Furthermore, Carsome didn’t have a way to verify numbers of potential customers left on their website, leading to agents having to make verification calls. This resulted in the collection of bad leads and an expensive authentication process. To provide end-to-end solutions to their customers and used car dealers, Carsome needed an end-to-end omnichannel customer experience strategy to effectively engage potential customers and increase sales.

Every day, thousands of South Africans face the tedious task of renewing their vehicle licenses. The traditional methods involved either spending hours in queues at regional licensing departments or getting it done at the Post Office. Both options were time-consuming and inconvenient for vehicle owners. ChatFin, a solution, application, and investment provider in the financial services industry, identified this gap in the market. They saw an opportunity to offer a digital intermediary service for vehicle owners, aiming to automate parts of the process and enable customers to complete the renewal on their preferred channel.

CIAK Auto, a leading regional spare parts distributor in Croatia, was facing challenges in providing efficient customer service due to communication limitations. Their customers, primarily auto mechanics, often required assistance in identifying specific replacement parts. The process of explaining over the phone was time-consuming and often led to long waiting times, which was inconvenient for their busy customers. Additionally, CIAK Auto wanted to facilitate the process of sending pictures to better assist their customers. The company was in search of a solution that could reduce calls and waiting times, improve response times, and enable picture sharing on their customers’ preferred channels.

Citrus, the largest electronics retailer in Ukraine, was faced with the challenge of bridging the gap between online and offline shopping experiences. Despite having a strong online presence with a robust eCommerce website and a mobile app, Citrus wanted to attract more customers into their physical stores to build stronger customer relationships and increase in-store footfall. They had over 500,000 active customers on their mobile app and were keen on leveraging this direct and real-time communication channel to promote new products and announce items on sale. The challenge was to effectively use this platform to drive more foot traffic to their physical stores.

Club Comex, the loyalty program of one of Mexico's largest paint manufacturers and distributors, Comex, was facing a challenge of low engagement and sales among its existing customers. Despite using SMS messaging campaigns to deliver offers and information directly to its members, the company found that the SMS experience was not optimized to encourage a high rate of click-throughs, which typically sat at only 2-3%. Operating in the paint and coatings industry, they felt their communications should be vibrant and enriched with images and videos for customers to fully understand their value proposition. While SMS messaging remains the fastest and most universal means of reaching a company’s customer base, they were looking for a more illustrative messaging channel. They wanted a campaign that offered new options for communicating in a more visually impactful way.

ComparTfon, a Mexican telecoms service provider and a division of Compartamos Banco, faced a significant challenge when the COVID-19 pandemic forced the closure of its offline sales channels. Despite their customers being adept mobile users, they were not accustomed to online shopping. The company needed to transition to a digital-only business model and guide its customers through the online purchase journey. The primary goal was to improve website conversion and reduce cart abandonment. To achieve this, ComparTfon needed to help customers navigate the online customer journey using a communication channel they trust, provide valuable real-time support in a cost-effective and scalable way, and capture customer feedback to identify improvement opportunities.

The Life Insurance Department at Covéa Group, one of Europe’s largest insurance providers, was facing a challenge with low conversion rates and a need for an end-to-end conversational customer experience. The company was keen on enhancing their existing SMS and Email marketing campaigns to stand out in the marketplace. They aimed to transition from transactional and product-based communications to a more advanced conversational approach to engage with customers. The department had previously run a campaign over SMS and Email for their life insurance products in 2020, but the results were not satisfactory. The campaign involved customers receiving an email or SMS with a link to the landing page, where they could interact with a chatbot. However, the need to switch between different channels led to low conversion rates. The department wanted to enhance this conversational experience by delivering it over a single channel.

Croatia Osiguranje, the leading insurance company in Croatia, decided to launch a 100% digital vehicle insurance option, Laqo, in response to new consumer behavior and trends. However, the company faced the challenge of digitalizing customer service communication in an industry that is traditionally based on personal agent-customer relationships. The company aimed to decrease resolution time and increase sales by moving customer queries to chat apps, their customers' preferred communication channel. The goal was to limit the number of phone calls and emails, while enabling real-time customer service with live agents. The challenge was to maintain the personal touch in customer service while transitioning to a digital platform.

dahmakan, a food delivery service in South East Asia, was facing a challenge with low conversion rates. The company was primarily using email and push notifications to communicate with their customers about order confirmations, delivery updates, and promotions. However, they noticed that SMS had a better conversion rate for certain types of messages in the local market due to high delivery rates and the customer’s ability to easily save and refer to messages. The use of SMS as a communication channel was secondary as it was expensive through their previous service provider.

Hoover CS, a global provider of sustainable industrial packaging and fleet management solutions, was committed to sustainability and aimed to provide 'more value with less waste'. They wanted to move their customers away from single-use containers. However, they faced a challenge in accurately measuring Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions. This was crucial for them to assess their progress towards their internal climate goals, create reports for audits, stakeholder requests, and annual ESG reports. The complexity of their operations, spanning across multiple sites, countries, and states, made it difficult to gather and analyze the necessary data.

The case study revolves around a multinational bank with expertise in investment banking, investment management, and private wealth management. The bank, which operates in approximately 20 to 40 offices worldwide, has been providing advisory services, strategies, and solutions for nearly a century. The bank had developed a process and analysis framework to determine each of its portfolio company’s relevant ESG-related risk exposures and opportunities. This positioned the bank to make strategic investment decisions based on these insights. However, the bank wanted to expand on sustainability and gain better visibility into its own carbon footprint. The first step in this direction was to understand its carbon footprint baseline.

AlbionVC, a venture capitalist firm focusing on early-stage B2B software and healthcare companies, was looking to embed sustainability into its operations to become a truly sustainable firm. The company, which manages over $1B in funds and has over 50+ companies in its portfolio, believes that enduring and category-leading businesses have sustainability principles at their core. However, AlbionVC was facing challenges in calculating and reducing its corporate carbon footprint (CCF) across its operations. The firm was not looking for quick wins or easy choices but instead focused on the long-term, which required a comprehensive and effective solution to start its sustainability journey.

Net Impact ESMT Berlin, a student club at the European School of Management and Technology (ESMT Berlin), was seeking a method to measure their carbon emissions to create a data-driven approach to sustainability. The club, which is a key driver of the sustainability initiative at the business school, needed a tool that would allow them to accurately calculate and reduce the school's emissions. The goal was to engage all stakeholders, including students and staff, in the process. The challenge was to find a carbon accounting software that would be easy to adopt and would provide the necessary data to drive change within the school. The club's president, Luka Zrnic, had been in contact with Lubomila Jordanova, the CEO and Co-founder of Plan A, a company that provides such software.

Ganni A/S, a rapidly growing fashion company since 2009, has been making strides in sustainability in the fashion industry. The company has been tracking its carbon footprint and offsetting emissions since 2016. In 2019, Ganni became a signatory of the UN Fashion Charter for Climate Action, setting a goal to reduce CO2 emissions per kg of clothing by 30% in line with the UNFCCC Race to zero by 2050. However, Ganni wanted to take a step further by gaining a more detailed understanding of their emissions and setting up an ambitious carbon strategy. The company aimed to become the most sustainable fashion provider by 2025, setting aggressive reduction targets.

Payhawk, a leading global spend management solution for enterprise businesses, is experiencing rapid growth. As the company expands, it is committed to aligning its growth with sustainability. The challenge lies in ensuring that the company's growth does not lead to an increase in its carbon emissions. Payhawk aims to incorporate sustainability into its core operations and DNA. The company's employees are equally engaged in this mission, with the goal of becoming a green financial solution for all. The company needed a way to measure and reduce its carbon emissions as it continues to grow.