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Copyright 2012. All rights reserved, Mobile Wallet Media, Inc. News & Opinion on the Future of Mobile Payments & Commerce!
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Moneyball-Like Innovative Disruption is Cure for Mobile Wallet Dysfunction
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PayPal, Google Wallet, ISIS, Square & more. What are the barriers to adoption and how they may be overcome?
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Bridging the POS GAP
NFC is Tortoise and the 2D Bar Code is the
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Companies and leaders, to remain relevant and profitable, must embrace innovation or risk becoming irrelevant or extinct.
Top 5 Killers of Innovation!
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Apple's decision to not include NFC in their iphone 5 has extended the runway for disruption via alternative technologies enabling Mobile Wallets and payments.
Every move that is made by PayPal or Apple affects the entire sphere of the mobile payments and Mobile Wallet world. The non-inclusion of NFC by Apple will be sure to alter and delay Google Wallet & ISIS.
All Things Digital just published an article by Carey Kolaja, Chief of Operations for Global Product & Experience at PayPal. This article is a relevant part of the public conversation about the Mobile or Digital Wallets. I will also propose a philosophy that must be adopted to solve problems and engage innovation in general and specifically in this space.
By Randy Smith,
Mobile Wallet Media
September 21, 2012
Revised 10-05-12*
About Mobile Wallet Media
Mobile Wallet Media is a news media, analyst, marketing and consulting firm focused on the future of mobile: payments, marketing, loyalty commerce, security, prepaid, virtual currency, daily deals and the convergence of them all with social and local. The Chief Editor, Randy Smith, was the primary founder, inventor and former CEO of MobilePayUSA, a TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Alley Winner.
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Mobile Wallet Media is a news media, analyst, marketing and consulting firm focused on the future of mobile: payments, commerce, daily deals, security, loyalty, marketing, prepaid cards, virtual currency and the convergence
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About
To achieve innovation in business, objectivity, honesty, rationality must take over the controls. Often pattern of "Business As Usual" must be discarded and replaced by the contemporary "pivot." If not done, even incumbent's current projects may become rubbish and irrelevant. Do you really want to be the next Yahoo, AOL or Myspace?
But don't expect innovation to be easy, straight-forward and even immediately visible. Innovation is like mining for gold or diamonds. Neither is spotted amist the dirt, but only after diligently seeking them with the right tools and focus are they discovered and captured.
Yes, innovation must be executable, but to prejudge or disregard just because the solution or talent does not come with a 'Major League Resume,' is not solid or rational reasoning. Most innovation comes from small business and inventors that had no restraints to think about how to solve the problem. This is the real competition, the possible. But if one dismisses the possible as impossible, so it will be for them, but not for the victor that wins the race and a majority of the market share by embracing it..
In Major League Baseball they follow players from the age of 12 years old and make 6-7 figure offers to the best talent by the time they are 17-18 years old; long before they have completely proven themselves to be able to produce in the major leagues. Once a player is in the minors if they continue to improve and show themselves productive, then a team that ignores this will end up losing wins for their club and eventually have this talent playing against them. But, what must be noted here is that often the early rising talent does not produce and lessor talent proves to be to be a greater asset once more mature. This type of talent makes it there by sheer persistance and a passion to never stop learning.
Of course the managers and teams that fail to properly assess talent and strategy will fail to field the best team, thus leading to a losing season. In business this means that companies will fail to win a leading percentage of market share. Managers that make decisions to not field the best product or team for any reason under their control will surely be without job or influence in due time. Unless of course they are spin artists and masters of politics. But are you not all more than exhausted from these types and this way of business? Such people are NOT INNOVATORS and actually repel innovators. Without such people present on payroll or if they support the innovators, budgets will suddenly be open for innovative, hard-working people that will actually deliver your company's innovativation. Yes great salespeople are needed, but attracting great salespeople to great products is like bees to honey.
The Mobile and Digital Wallet providers that allow POLITICS to get in the way of PROGRESS only work to bind themselves to a foundation of irrelevancy. The leading edge is the bleeding edge and is now required to embrace regardless of the size of an organization. The longer the delay of the engagement in solutions by an organization will only delay progress and success.
To quote from the movie Tin Cup and Kevin Costner "When defining moments come along you either define the moment or the moment defines you." This is a policy that every company that wants and aspires to be known for it's innovation and success must embrace wholeheartedly. Congratulations on making it this far through this article. You see the reference on top of this page to this quoting from Tin Cup serves as a filter for those not willing to open their eyes and mind to innovation and it's SOURCE.
Google Wallet revamped it's wallet and tied it to it's infrastructure already in place in the cloud via Google Checkout. But even with this change Google Wallet risks tying their horse solely to NFC. This is a risky proposition. ISIS is now at a point of becoming irrelevant unless they change course. NFC in smartphones tied to using a secure element is a model that is proving to be complex and potentially insecure, as pointed out in an article by eweek.com yesterday.
Getting back to the article by All Things Digital, Kolaja points out the type of P2P mode NFC that is not being used for Mobile Wallet transactions. As I have pointed out in previous articles -- there is another way to use this type of NFC to securely conduct mobile wallet transactions by using the partnership with Discover they just established.
I agree with Kolaja that NFC does not equal Mobile Wallet and the current secure method of NFC is complex and opens the door for security vulnerabilities.
There are many Digital Wallets out there, Google Wallet is connected to one in the cloud. Google Wallet's, Digital Wallet is connected to a phone app, that is connected to POS via NFC. This a way to complete the loop, as are QR or 2D codes or as mentioned by Kolaja, via checking into a POS cash register (using WIFI or GPS?) is another way (much like Pay with Square). As I have pointed out in previous articles, PayPal's Universal Card tied to their Digital Wallet is a great product and will be used as a bridge and carried in phone case, until mobile payments become saturated in 3-7 years.
Digital Wallets will prove to be the backbone of processing transactions, but the technology that enables mobile payments and Mobile Wallets is separate from the actual Digital Wallet and without this technology mobile payments do not exist.
*This article was revised as it contained inaccurate information about PayPal's mobile payment services.
"When defining moments come along you either define the moment or the moment defines you." Kevin Costner, Tin Cup (movie) - Don't let source of innovation derail you.
Dysfunction vs. Innovation in the Marketplace
Dysfunctional behavior is such that when present in business, it can seriously slow down or even derail progress, speed and innovation. Dysfunction that ignores opportunity and rationality is one that thwarts it's own efforts. Why would one want to operate at a capacity that is less than optimal when it may do so by simply getting over it's pride and embracing SOLUTIONS, over PRIDE, EGO, ENVY and GREED, is beyond me. Though I understand as to why it happens, I do not think that pugilistic behavior in our transparent and analytical world is an acceptable or viable behavior or practice. Pride and EGO need to be checked at the door and replaced with logic, speed, rationality, objectivity and HONESTY. Yes, honesty was capitalized, as without honesty, innovation is derailed. To sum it up: There is no JUNCTION between FUNCTION and DISFUNCTION, nor LIES or MANIPULATIVE behavior and TRUTH.
It is understandable how innovation and the best decisions and solutions are avoided by senior executives and directors. Influence, reputation and jobs are at risk, but all work for shareholders and the customer. It is when the focus of protecting one's POSITON and FEARING CHANGE overrides embracing SOLUTION and OPPORTUNITY and serving the customer first, that a company loses. But, if the the Directors and CEO of a company are wise, they will embrace and acquire the SOLUTIONS and TALENT that will give them the best chance for success. This is about acquiring the very limited talent and solutions available. No longer may tech, marketing and payment companies remain in a silo. They can choose to do so, but this may be at the peril of losing market share. Think how the Apple was hamstrung by the exclusive with AT&T for the iphone and how it let Android surpass Apple.
If one can afford to spend like the Yankees, and does not, then one is losing talent and solutions that will be competing against them. When companies decide not to play the game like Major League Baseball, then they are only injuring themselves, as their competitors, at least the smart ones, will be doing so.
This is not only about acquiring the best talent, but embracing the best "Moneyball" solutions and theories, and if possible the people that are originating or implementing them. Companies must not let their current course or objectives stalemate them from embracing opportunity and innovation. Those that do will become or continue to be irrelevant.
Moneyball, a 2011 movie about the success of the 2002 Oakland A's, is built around a theory based upon statistical analysis called Sabermetrics. To quote from wikipedia:
"Sabermetrics is the specialized analysis of baseball through objective evidence, especially baseball statistics that measure in-game activity. The term is derived from the acronym SABR, which stands for the Society for American Baseball Research. It was coined by Bill James, who is one of its pioneers and is often considered its most prominent advocate and public face. In 2006, Time named him in the Time 100 as one of the most influential people in the world. He is currently a Senior Advisor on Baseball Operations for the Boston Red Sox."
In the Moneyball the movie there was great resistance by veteran baseball scouts and the managers to the Sabermetrics theorem. But Billy Beane, the GM of the A's, fully committed to this theorem as he saw it was the only way to compete against the big payroll teams like the Yankees (5-fold player payroll). His commitment paid off and the 2002 Oakland A's won a record 20-straight games. Billy Beane was rewarded with a record offer of 12.5 million per season to be the GM of the Boston Red Sox, but he turned it down for the reason of not making a decision based solely on money. Bill James was hired to fill Billy Beane's expertise on implementing Sabermetrics and the Boston Red Sox won the World Series in 2004 and 2007. Perhaps Billy Beane and the Oakland A's will never win a World Series in our lifetime (don't count them out this year), but the Boston Red Sox proved that with both money and the right strategy and philosophy they were the best team in baseball, twice in the past decade. It is being open to thinking and acting as such that enables such and like behavior needs to be embraced by Mobile Wallet hopefuls in order to succeed.
