Digital Transformation Trends that Future-Proof Your Business

Posted on September 21, 2023 by Kopius

The core of future-proofing your business lies in the incorporation of cutting-edge technological trends and strategic digitization of your business operations. Combining new, transformative solutions with tried-and-true business methods is not only a practical approach but an essential one when competing in this digital age. Using the latest digital transformation trends as your guide, start envisioning the journey of future-proofing your business in order to unlock the opportunities of tomorrow.

#1 Personalization

The importance of personalized customer experiences should not be understated. More than ever, consumers are faced with endless options. To stand out from competitors, businesses must use data and customer behavior insights to curate tailored and dynamic customer journeys that both delight and command their audience. Analyze purchasing history, demographics, web activity, and other data to understand your customer, as well as their likes and dislikes. Use these insights to design customized customer experiences that increase conversion, retention, and ultimately, satisfaction.

#2 Artificial Intelligence

AI is everywhere. From autonomous vehicles and smart homes to digital assistants and chatbots, artificial intelligence is being used in a wide array of applications to improve, simplify, and speed up the tasks of everyday life. For businesses, AI and machine learning have the power to extract and decipher large amounts of data that can help predict trends and forecasts, deliver interactive personalized customer experiences, and streamline operational processes. Companies that lean on AI-driven decisions are propelled into a world of efficiency, precision, automation, and competitiveness.

#3 Sustainability

Enterprises, particularly those in the manufacturing industry, face increasing pressure to act more responsibly and consider environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) goals when making business decisions. Digital transformations are one way to support internal sustainable development because they lead to reduced waste, optimized resource use, and improved transparency. With sustainability in mind, businesses can build their data and technology infrastructures to reduce impact. For example, companies can switch to more energy-efficient hardware or decrease electricity consumption by migrating to the cloud.

#4 Cloud Migration

More and more companies are migrating their data from on-premises to the cloud. In fact, by 2027, it is estimated that 50% of all enterprises will use cloud services¹. What is the reason behind this massive transition? Cost saving is one of the biggest factors. Leveraging cloud storage platforms eliminates the need for expensive data centers and server hardware, thereby reducing major infrastructure expenditures. And while navigating a cloud migration project can seem challenging, many turn to cloud computing partners to lead the data migration and ensure a painless shift.

Future-Proof Your Business Through Digital Transformation with Kopius

Innovating technology is crucial, or your business will be left behind. Our expertise in technology and business helps our clients deliver tangible outcomes and accelerate growth. At Kopius, we’ve designed a program to JumpStart your customer, technology, and data success.

Kopius has an expert emerging tech team. We bring this expertise to your JumpStart program and help uncover innovative ideas and technologies supporting your business goals. We bring fresh perspectives while focusing on your current operations to ensure the greatest success.

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A Step-By-Step Guide to Customer Experience Personalization

Posted on August 6, 2023 by Kopius

Winning the interest and loyalty of customers means more than just offering a superior product or service. The secret lies in a powerful strategy called personalization – a dynamic approach that tailors the customer experience to meet individual needs and preferences. As businesses across industries strive to create lasting connections with their customers and meet their evolving expectations, the importance of personalization in the customer experience should not be overstated. Read on to explore the compelling case for customer personalization and a step-by-step guide on how your business can embark on this journey to elevate the customer experience.

Let’s face it, generic offerings are outdated. Today, customers yearn for something more; they want an experience that resonates with their unique tastes. Personalization is the magic ingredient that taps into this desire. By tailoring products, services, and interactions to individual preferences, businesses create a sense of connection that fosters lasting loyalty. And beyond that, research from McKinsey found that companies who implemented a personalization strategy generated 40% more revenue than their counterparts who placed less emphasis on this approach. All signs point to tailored customer journeys.

Data lies at the heart of personalization, offering insights into customer behaviors. More than ever, companies have access to a wealth of customer information, such as past purchases and browsing habits, that act as the building blocks to these insights. Leveraging advanced analytics and artificial intelligence, businesses can uncover valuable patterns and trends, guiding them to craft personalized experiences for their customers.

Building a successful personalization strategy requires thoughtful consideration and calculated execution. If you are just getting started, follow these steps to build an improved and tailored customer experience that will drive remarkable results for your business:

Step 1: Gather as Much Customer Data as Possible.

At the core of every successful personalization strategy lies a deep understanding of your customers. To lay this solid foundation, start by gathering valuable data from multiple touchpoints along their journey, including website interactions, purchase history, and customer feedback. Take advantage of powerful tools like customer relationship management (CRM) software, website analytics, and social media insights to gain a holistic view of your customers’ preferences, behaviors, and pain points.

Step 2: Divide Your Customers Into Audience Segments.

With an abundance of data at your fingertips, it is time to move on to segmentation. Divide your customers into distinct groups based on shared traits like demographics, purchase behavior, and interests. Audience segmentation empowers you to personalize your messaging or offerings, address individual customer needs with accuracy, and create a sense of relevance.

Step 3: Get Personal With Your Messaging.

Now that you have completed the segmentation process, it’s time to get personal! Start by creating interesting content with tailored product recommendations, and design exclusive offers that cater specifically to the unique preferences of each of your audience segments. By doing so, you will create truly personalized experiences that captivate your audience and leave an impression.

Step 4: Automate Dynamic Content Delivery.

Offer real-time digital experiences that resonate with your customers’ interests and past interactions. Embracing innovative technologies like artificial intelligence allows you to analyze customer data, predict behavior, and implement an effective personalization strategy that delivers tailored experiences on the fly. AI-powered chatbots take personalized support a step further, offering instant assistance to resolve customer concerns and boost overall customer satisfaction levels.

Step 5: Track Your Personalization Campaigns.

Monitor the impact of your personalization strategy on customer engagement, satisfaction, and business performance. Evaluate key metrics like conversion rates and customer retention to assess their effectiveness. Utilize any insights gained to identify areas for improvement and modify your approach accordingly.

The possibilities for designing a personalized digital experience are limitless. AI-powered chatbots provide real-time personalized support, making customers feel valued and cared for. Dynamic content delivery ensures website experiences are based on individual preferences. Personalization will enrich the customer journey, increasing engagement and conversion rates. If you are ready to deliver personalized experiences, Kopius is here to help. Let’s team up to create extraordinary customer experiences for your business!

JumpStart Success with Kopius

At Kopius, we’ve designed a program to JumpStart your customer, technology, and data success.

Our JumpStart program fast-tracks business results and platform solutions. Connect with us today to enhance your customer satisfaction through a data-driven approach, drive innovation through emerging technologies, and achieve competitive advantage.

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Elevating Customer Experience Through Digital Transformation

Posted on July 28, 2023 by Kopius

With customers having countless options at their fingertips, the importance of delivering seamless customer experiences cannot be overstated. Offering a great product or service is no longer enough. In today’s fast-paced online world, businesses must go above and beyond to ensure each touchpoint in the customer journey is exceptional if they want to stand out from the competition. One key solution that has emerged to help companies stay relevant and meet growing customer expectations is digital transformation. IBM defines digital transformations as a customer-driven, digital-first strategy that uses “AI, automation… and other digital technologies to leverage data and drive intelligent workflows… that drive faster and smarter decision-making.” But why should companies who are looking to improve the customer experience invest in digital transformation? The benefits of shifting to a digital-first business model are plentiful, impacting those both inside and outside of the organization. Let’s delve deeper into how adopting a digital transformation strategy can supercharge the customer experience and benefit your business.

Offer Seamless Omni-Channel Experiences

Meeting and exceeding customer expectations requires delivering a consistent and continuous experience, regardless of which channel they choose to utilize. By integrating mobile applications, social media, websites, and other online platforms, digital transformations allow customers to interact with businesses through their preferred channels. Providing this level of convenience means customers can start their journey on one channel and easily continue to another without skipping a beat.

Deliver Personalization and Customization to Increase Customer Engagement

Research by Accenture showed that 91% of customers preferred brands that offered relevant offers and recommendations. Digital transformations help businesses unlock the power of customer data, by collecting and analyzing vast amounts of information to derive meaningful insights in a matter of seconds. By tapping into advanced data analytics and artificial intelligence, companies can gain valuable knowledge about buying behavior, preferences, and trends. This helps pave the way for targeted promotional campaigns, individualized interactions, and tailored product recommendations, cultivating elevated customer satisfaction.

Decrease Downtime, Increase Efficiency

Inquiries, requests, or the occasional complaint are inevitable, but how your business handles them can be a make or break for your customer. Swift and efficient customer service and support is a must. Digital transformations empower businesses to optimize processes and minimize response times, resulting in expedited customer interactions. Through automation technology, AI-powered chatbots, and self-service options, companies can deliver immediate support around the clock. Thus, customers are able to engage with brands at their desired time and place.

Digitally transforming the customer experience is a necessity for businesses wanting to thrive in the digital era and offer seamless, tailored experiences. Ensuring speed, customization, and convenience across multiple channels leads to improved customer satisfaction and loyalty, driving tangible return on investment (ROI) for your brand. Are you ready to elevate your customer experience to new heights? Contact Kopius so we can create remarkable customer experiences that will drive your goals and revenue forward!

JumpStart Your Digital Transformation

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Valence Group and MajorKey’s Latin American Division Combine to Create Kopius, a Nearshore Technology Powerhouse

Posted on March 19, 2023 by Kopius

Rebrand to Kopius Launches New Full Service Nearshore Digital Transformation Partner to Commercial and Public Sector Clients

Seattle, March 20, 2023 – Today marks the launch of Kopius, a nearshore digital solutions business co-located in Seattle and Buenos Aires. Kopius has been formed through the combination of Valence, a Seattle-based digital consulting firm, and the Latin American division of MajorKey, a Chicago-based technology services business. Both companies are part of The Acacia Group, specialist investors in digital transformation companies. Acacia is backing the formation of Kopius to service rapidly growing client demand for the exceptional nearshore digital consulting and delivery teams the combined business offers. MajorKey’s U.S. business will remain focused on the Identity and Access Management market.

The launch of Kopius transforms the combined company’s value to its commercial and public sector clients. It brings together a highly skilled team drawn from the U.S. and Latin America, capable of working at scale and speed to tackle complex challenges across the array of digital technologies central to effective enterprise transformation. Today Kopius supports nearly 100 U.S. commercial and public sector clients with more than 600 consultants, designers, and engineers. Kopius delivers end-to-end capabilities across digital experience and strategy, technology solutions, and engineering and operational services.

“This is an exciting day for everyone at Kopius. It crowns the integration of two great companies to create a new digital powerhouse. The whole team is united around the mission to solve digital tech challenges creatively,” said Jim Darrin, Kopius CEO. “Our true value to clients lies in our ability to achieve strategic clarity, build practical solutions for today, and continuously plan for what’s next. That way, we help clients get more value from their technology investments and navigate the future with confidence.”

“Central to our strategy for Kopius is sustaining a challenging and rewarding home for the best technical talent in the business across the U.S. and Latin America,” said Matias Mazzuchelli, Kopius Chief Operating Officer. “Our work helping some of the world’s biggest brands retain their edge creates an exciting and diverse range of opportunities for consultants, designers, engineers, and developers to work at the cutting edge of technology and innovation. We’re excited to welcome new people to the Kopius family as we grow.”

“The launch of Kopius exemplifies our approach to building stronger businesses that achieve a greater impact for their clients and create new opportunities for their people,” said Tim Matthews, partner with Acacia. “Client demand is growing for the kind of agile, scalable, and high-value digital services that Kopius offers. With such an outstanding team, we know that they will make a major impact in their market.”

The leadership of Kopius combines industry-leading experience in technology strategy, solution design, engineering, and technical recruiting and team-building. Together, they will be relentlessly focused on designing quality solutions delivered by teams drawn from the best onshore and nearshore talent, technically skilled for the problems they solve, and culturally compatible with the clients they serve.

About Kopius

Kopius is a nearshore digital solutions company. We are resourceful and practical leaders of digital transformation. Kopius operates across all stages of the digital transformation journey with integrated consulting, design, and engineering services delivered by nearshore consulting and delivery teams. Applying creativity, curiosity, and resourcefulness to everything we do, we guide clients on their technology journey, helping them adapt to change and exploit new digital advances, driving continuous value from their technology investments. For more information, visit www.kopiustech.com.

About The Acacia Group

The Acacia Group is a specialist investment firm building stronger businesses by harnessing the power of digital transformation. We work closely with management teams as engaged and supportive partners, fostering resilient cultures of collaboration and innovation to make companies more valuable to their clients, employees and co-investors. By empowering skilful leaders, nurturing exceptional talent, investing in innovation and building distinctive brands, we create the qualities business need to achieve lasting success. For more information, please visit The Acacia Group or follow us on LinkedIn.

Cloud Migration and Cloud Services

Posted on March 14, 2022 by Kopius

By Luca Junghans

A look inside these cloud capabilities

By joining forces, Kopius and MajorKey offer an even greater set of cloud services for businesses that want to power their digital transformation with cloud technologies.

MajorKey works with clients to migrate business applications to the cloud, and Kopius builds services on the cloud. This is one reason these businesses are such a powerful combined force.

The cloud refers to software and services that run on a (usually) regionally located server owned by the cloud service provider, instead of on an on-premise server owned by a customer. Cloud servers are in data centers all over the world. By using cloud computing, companies don’t have to manage physical servers or run software applications on their own machines.

It’s big business. In fact, one of our partners, AWS contributed 14.5% of revenue to Amazon’s overall business in 2021, which would have operated at a $1.8 billion loss in Q4 without it – and AWS revenue was up nearly 39% compared to 2020.

There are many ways to use and understand the business impact of cloud technology. We are breaking down the distinction between cloud services and cloud migration for you here!

Cloud Migration and Cloud Services

Simply put, cloud migration is what happens when a company moves some or all of its software onto cloud servers.

In other words, cloud migration is moving your software to a managed server operated by the cloud provider; and cloud services are technology solutions built on top of those managed servers. There’s a whole range of capabilities bridging the two.

Let’s take a closer look.

Cloud services range in how much they abstract away from the customer. A good example is Amazon Cognito, which is a user management cloud service. Amazon Cognito has implementations of basic user functions such as login, logout, sessions, and security, so a customer doesn’t have to worry about a deeper technical implementation of these features and can focus on managing users.

Cloud services are so flexible that there are seemingly infinite ways to deploy them for a business. Cloud services are the infrastructure, platforms, and software hosted by cloud providers, and there are three common solutions:

Infrastructure as a service: The renting out of virtual machines and space to customers, while providing a way to remotely manage the resource. When a company migrates to the cloud, they are using this service.
Platforms: Providers like AWS and Azure build specialized software on top of their own cloud hardware and offer the software to customers as a service. These are specialty services and can provide patterns for things such as Data Analysis, Compute, IoT, APIs, Security, Identity, and Containerization. We wrote about Digital Twins in a previous post, which referenced Digital Twin platforms offered by AWS and Azure.
Software as a service (SaaS): Software can be built on top of the platforms offered by the cloud providers. Software developers can also partner with other third parties to provide fully built instances of software that typically come with subscription rates, customer support, and personal configurations of the software. Examples of this include Atlassian Jira and Confluence, Dropbox, Salesforce, and G suite.

These services can be transformative for businesses in general, but it’s not always easy to know the best way for your business to use them. The added benefits to this migration range per case, and here are four examples:

Scalability: Cloud services often offer on demand scaling options that can satisfy unexpected or planned growth. Depending on your product, this can be a lot easier than upgrading on-premise hardware, but not always cheaper.
Cost: Although we expect the costs to be passed to the consumer in some way, the logistics of maintenance and upgrades to the cloud systems is handled by the provider. In many cases this can translate to a huge amount of money saved for the customers.
Performance: Performance-enhancing services like CDNs and regional hosting, when understood and configured properly, can have tangible and positive performance impacts.
Local Management: Being on the cloud means access to the digital portals to manage the services (most times). This creates a lower bar of entry for employees to manage and observe the resources.

Many businesses start their digital transformation journey by migrating infrastructure or applications from on-premises servers to the cloud. Notably, cloud migration can also refer to a situation where a business needs to bring the cloud resources they manage into an on-premises environment. It can also describe a situation where a business moves its data resources from one cloud provider to another.

Cloud migration to use cloud services is a process that presents many upsides, and is worth investigating! The process will add additional complexities – specifically, security and governance will generally be instituted upfront as a base for the rest of the migration. We design and engineer performant, scalable, and maintainable applications that save businesses money, fill in knowledge gaps, and provide users with a positive experience.

Here are two examples of cloud services that we’ve built for clients:

Building cloud applications with AWS lambda: We have bridged the gap between multiple third-party APIs and created new databases that consolidate data and deliver it to a web application. Cloud services remove the need for our clients to interact with these multiple services, which saves them time and money. At the same time, we used AWS Cognito to help our customer manage roles and users in a secure and trusted way. This removed the need for our engineers to write our own user management software, a cumbersome task.
Data pipelines: We identify problems in our customers’ current database providers and migrate data to a more performant and better structured database in cloud-to-cloud migrations.

We will continue to build and migrate while we investigate the future of the cloud. What are the new services and platforms? Who can benefit the most from them? How can we do it right? We will be prepared for the cloud migration and services needed from the real world to the metaverse, and beyond.

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The Right Data Retention Policy for Your Organization

Posted on October 12, 2021 by Kopius

by Steven Fiore

Every business needs a strategy to manage its data, and that strategy should include a plan for data retention. Before setting a data retention policy, it’s important to understand the purpose of the policy and how it can contribute to organizational goals.

There are four values that drive most businesses to do anything:

To make money and increase revenue
To save money by decreasing costs
Because they must comply with regulations
Because they want to use the business as a platform for social good

While each of these values will be represented in any organization, some investigation will usually reveal that one or two of these values outshine the rest. Which values are most important will vary from one organization to another.

Organizations need to start by clearly stating the goals of their data policy, and then build a policy that supports those goals. We help companies unearth business drivers so data policies can contribute to the company values and goals rather than compete with them.

In this post, we explore best practices in establishing and maintaining a data retention policy through the lens of these business drivers.

What are the goals of your data retention policy?

Value: Make Money

Companies that rely on advertising revenue like Google and Facebook want to keep as much data as necessary to maximize revenue opportunities.

Companies that mine their data can spot trends in their data that inform product enhancements, improve customer experience (driving brand loyalty), and reveal revenue opportunities that would have otherwise been hidden.

In both cases, the data retention policy should focus on what data can contribute to revenue, and how much of it is needed. Balancing aggregate data versus more granular data is the key so you retain enough data to achieve your objectives without retaining unneeded data that adds cost, complexity, and security or privacy risks.

Value: Save Money

Many businesses focus on the bottom line and prioritize efficiency to avoid wasting time, money, and energy.

Businesses that want to save money can use data retention to make the organization more efficient. While data storage is inexpensive, it isn’t free – and access can be more expensive than storage. So, for an organization that wants its data policies to help save money, the policy might focus on retaining only the data that is necessary to avoid extra storage and management overhead.

Further, retaining more data than you need to can be a legal liability. Having a data retention and disposal policy can reduce legal expenses in the event of a legal discovery process.

There’s also an efficiency cost to data – the more data you have, the slower the process will be to search and use that data. So, data retention policies can and should be part of a data governance strategy aimed at making the data that is retained as efficient to manage and use as possible.

Value: Comply with Regulations

Many industries have their own regulations while some regulations cross industries. Businesses that must have a data retention policy may need it to comply with laws that govern data retention such as the Sarbanes Oxley Act, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), or IRS 1075. Even US-based companies may be subject to international legislation such as the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and companies that have customers in California need to understand how the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) can impact data retention. Government agencies in the US are also bound by the Freedom of Information Act and some states have “Sunshine” laws that go even further.

Businesses that are motivated to comply with regulations will need their data retention policy to reflect federal, state, and local requirements, and will need to document compliance with those requirements.

Value: Business as a Platform for Social Good

Whether an organization was established as an activist brand or has been drawn to social responsibility as investor demand has risen social responsibility, many companies are finding ways to use data to understand their social and environmental impact. This impact is often also reported on through Environmental Social Governance (ESG) reporting, Carbon Disclosure Projects, and reporting structures like GRESB (Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark).

In these cases, organizations that use their business as a platform for social good, may identify key metrics such as energy consumption or hiring data that can be used to inform reports on social responsibility.

In closing

By understanding your organization’s values and priorities, you can ensure that its policies support those values. Every company has data to collect, manage, and dispose of, so it’s critical to have a roadmap for how to address data requirements today and into the future. This framework is a starting point to that effort because there’s nothing worse than going through the effort to implement a complex policy, only to discover that it moves the business further from its goals.

JumpStart Successful Data Retention

At Kopius, we’ve designed a program to JumpStart your customer, technology, and data success.

Tailored to your needs, our user-centric approach, tech smarts, and collaboration with your stakeholders equip teams with the skills and mindset needed to:

Identify unmet customer, employee, or business needs
Align on priorities
Rapidly prototype solutions
And, fast-forward success

Gather your best and brightest business-minded individuals and join our experts for a hands-on workshop that encourages innovation and drives new ideas.

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