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Reimagine Marketing: Welcome to the Reimagine Marketing Podcast Jan 12, 2021

Show notes

We’ve moved! Find us at https://reimagine-marketing.transistor.fm/ as we continue to ponder the future of customer experience.

“A brand isn’t what you say it is, it’s what people say it is when you stop talking.” – Justin Theng

In this debut episode of Reimagine Marketing, marketing pundits Steven Hofmans, Wilson Raj and Justin Theng dive into the key challenges that marketers are facing today, including the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on brands and customer loyalty.

In this episode, Steven, Wilson and Justin start off by sharing the quotes that define their craft and discuss:

How to decipher between hype and innovation, the importance of customer satisfaction and frictionless customer journeys.
The full-circle evolution of marketing and why customer delight should underpin everything you do.
Tapping into an essence and an ethos that defines your brand to the folks who matter, and the importance of brand authenticity and empathy.

Join us next time as Wilson Raj welcomes Bernard Marr – best-selling author, keynote speaker, futurist, and strategic business and technology advisor– to the Reimagine Marketing podcast. Wilson and Bernard will discuss how to connect with the new digital customer. In a “socially distant” world, the use of smart and immersive digital technology and AI-fueled automation isn’t an option – it’s inescapable. If consumers amplify their digital expectations, then brands must keep pace.

Here are some of the resources we mentioned during the episode.

Experience 2030 Interactive Portal
Discover a wealth of resources to help you to future-proof your customer experience strategy.
Customer Experience - Now and Into the Future
Read this e-book to learn about five key trends to focus on for the coming decade.

Check out additional episodes of the Reimagine Marketing podcast series at reimagine-marketing.transistor.fm.

Subscribe to the Reimagine Marketing podcast so you never miss a future episode.
Visit https://www.sas.com/en_us/explore/reimagine-marketing-podcast.html to learn more about our guests, upcoming episodes and more.
If you’d like to be a guest on a future episode, have an idea for a future topic or would like to share feedback about our Reimagine Marketing podcast, send us an email: reimaginemarketingpodcast@sas.com.

About our hosts:

Steven Hofmans is a customer experience advisor on a mission to make every citizen a happy customer. Steven believes today’s customer experience needs to be personalized, zero effort, frictionless, proactive and about the customer. He helps marketing, sales and service departments to explore how they can revolutionize their marketing processes in order to reach that customer experience of the future. Using inspiring presentations and practical examples, he wants to show what proactive customer experience could look like.

Wilson Raj is global director of customer intelligence for SAS, responsible for global marketing to establish, evolve and evangelize SAS’ analytics-powered marketing solutions. Raj has held global leadership positions in marketing at Fortune Global 500® companies including Microsoft, Novell. Medtronic, and Philips, and advised C-level executives about digital strategy while at award-winning agencies Publicis Groupe, VML/Young & Rubicam and Wunderman. Raj has been featured in major media publications such as Adweek, CMSWire, CNBC.com, Forbes, InformationWeek, MarTech Advisor, MarketingProfs, ZDNet and more.

Justin Theng has spent the last 20 years helping grow the revenue of hundreds of organizations ranging from large household brand names to small businesses and startups. As a multi-award-winning marketer, speaker and author, Justin’s belief is that customer analytics empowers customer delight. His brand experience extends across Spotify, Volkswagen, Coca-Cola, Telstra, ABC, Yahoo and McDonalds. Justin manages to remove the confusion and hype around AI and marketing with his easy to implement frameworks for attracting, converting and delighting.

All presentations represent the opinions of the presenter and do not represent the position or the opinion of SAS.

Electrifying AI: The Holy Grail Dec 17, 2020

Show notes

This episode is the last crusade of Electrifying AI’s first season and we’re in search of answers about the Holy Grail: energy storage. Our industry expert, Sal Gill, believes energy storage is set to transform our world. So what will the electric utility industry look like when the dust settles? We examine the possibilities that are on the horizon for the industry itself and for its customers.

Join us again in early 2021 when Electrifying AI returns for its second season! Until then, be sure to visit sas.com/utilities to learn more about the connection between the greatest machine ever built (the electric grid) and the greatest enabler of our time (data analytics).

Here’s a list of links to references for the topics we covered in this episode:

All presentations represent the opinions of the presenter and do not represent the position or the opinion of SAS.

Electrifying AI: Your next greatest investment Dec 03, 2020

Show notes

While the electric utility industry is undergoing a fundamental shift, so are its customers. How they use (or in some cases produce) energy, their expectations and their preferences are all changing … quickly! Nowhere is that more evident than with the adoption of electric vehicles. At the same time, global carbon emissions have dropped more than 8% during the coronavirus pandemic. So, is a world of clean energy transportation — accelerated by COVID-19 – just around the corner? In this episode, Simon Hughes and Sal Gill discuss shifting consumer attitudes and behaviors as well as how the electric utility industry is responding to this new landscape.

Join us in two weeks for the final episode of our inaugural season, The Holy Grail. We’ll examine how the electric utility industry will look when the dust from this current transformation settles and we’ll discuss the possibilities on the horizon.

Here’s a list of links to references for the topics we covered in this episode:

All presentations represent the opinions of the presenter and do not represent the position or the opinion of SAS.

Electrifying AI: Energy Independence Anthem Nov 19, 2020

Show notes

The electric utility industry, for all of its innovations over the years, has an entrenched business model. In this episode of Electrifying AI, we look at changing business models for the industry and examine what “energy independence” means.

More to the point, we discuss:

Microgrids
“Prosumers,” peer-to-peer power trading and transactive energy
Energy as a service
Virtual power plants

Join us in two weeks for our next episode, Your Next Greatest Investment. We’ll look at shifting consumer attitudes and behaviors, and how the electric utility industry is responding to this new consumer-driven energy landscape.

Here’s a list of links to references for the topics we covered in this episode:

All presentations represent the opinions of the presenter and do not represent the position or the opinion of SAS.

Electrifying AI: Saving our Planet Nov 05, 2020

Show notes

As concerns about the climate and environment become more pronounced we’ll take a look at how this is impacting the electric utility industry and how the industry is responding. Themes include changes in the industry, the brave new world of renewables, and democratizing energy.

More specifically in this episode we’ll be looking at:

Heavyweight investors are swinging behind renewables
Accelerating renewable adoption, including growth in offshore wind and solar PV, the arguments around utility scale renewables vs distributed renewables, and interconnection challenges for renewables in the US
California rolling blackouts

Join us next time for our next episode which we are calling Energy Independence Anthem. The electric utility industry, for all of its innovations over the years, has an entrenched business model. We’ll look at changing business models for the industry and what “energy independence” means.

Here is a listing of links to references for the topics we covered in this episode:

All presentations represent the opinions of the presenter and do not represent the position or the opinion of SAS.

Electrifying AI: Electricity Pandemified Oct 22, 2020

Show notes

In this, our second episode we're going to cover the Covid-19 pandemic and its affect upon the power industry.

Clearly, the Covid-19 pandemic has involved personal tragedy for some people, and significant economic and lifestyle impacts for all. In terms of the Power Industry, effects have included:

Effect on individuals
- Job losses mounting / furlough People not paying bills - rents ...etc.
- Banks, Insurance and power companies allowing customers to defer payments
Effect on Power Companies
- How to fund/support large-scale, expensive infrastructures?
- Will prices have to rise / write-off bad debts?
- Power companies will be forced to look at operational efficiencies: Cash flow forecasting
- Fraud identification - corporations & companies; supply-chain for utilities Procurement Integrity - Revenue Assurance?
Changing patterns of:
- Electricity Generation Electricity Consumption…Introducing the Duck Curve! The Duck Curve (generation)
- More and more solar installations - middle of day is peak generating for solar When the sun goes down, where's the power gone?
- Generator's Response Base load may not be enough?
  - Huge ramp up required from traditional generators. Demand ≠consumption - because people can generate their own power
  - Conventional generation cannot switch on & off Not agile enough: Also - oil/coal are high polluters Many are being retired - to help countries achieve clean-energy goals
  - New Paradigm for Generators Reduced need for conventionally generated power? Renewables increasingly in the mix alongside regular capacity but need to plug gaps in energy provision quickly?
  - Demand-forecasting
  - Accurate weather forecasting - affects solar & wind effectiveness
  - Impacts of - storms/hurricanes/fires SAS concepts of analytics, forecasting & constraint-based optimization

In our next episode, Change is in the air! We’ll discuss how climate change is no longer a millennial, Gen Z, save the world topic or some poster with a polar bear. It has moved up the agenda and is now getting significant backing from the largest private equity funders, to the tech industry, and even major oil and gas players. We will explore what the future holds for green and uncover how we can turn a song into a modern-day miracle.
Here is a listing of links to references for the topics we covered in this episode:

All presentations represent the opinions of the presenter and do not represent the position or the opinion of SAS.

Electrifying AI: An Electric World Order Oct 08, 2020

Show notes

When we were thinking about the huge changes that we see in the Electric Power industry, and how we could communicate these, we realized that podcasting was the only way to go. That way, we can keep it brief & informal, but at the same time keep things candid, honest and only loosely scripted. The hope is to deliver insightful & informed commentary that demystifies energy industry transformations (the what) and decodes them (the now what).

This, our inaugural episode, looks at:

People and places for energy AI
- Recognition today is stronger with IT or back-office related domains, but is this the best place to start?
- The core people, those that actually design and operate the grid find themselves trying to sort the AI hype from reality.
Consumer involvement: Not just where they buy their power, but can even generate their own - solar, wind, micro-grids sell back.
Demystifying the connection between the greatest machine ever built and the greatest enabler of our time, data analytics.

Over the coming weeks, we’ll explore a range of issues, including:

The political landscape
How businesses are changing their own energy profiles
Operationalize Analytics
Scale & size
Supernatural powers
Complexities of managing and operating these physical estates
Infrastructures are huge and organizations seek to optimize
Optimizing costs /resources
Intelligent sensors machines

Join us next time for our next episode which we are calling Electricity Pandemified, where we will explore how Covid-19 has shaped and will go on to shape the Power Industry Electricity Pandemified - in amongst all the gloom and concerns about jobs, recessions, there are opportunities.

Here is a listing of links to references for the topics we covered in this episode:

All presentations represent the opinions of the presenter and do not represent the position or the opinion of SAS.