The Future Reimagined
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Daniel Roth, Editor in Chief of LinkedIn moderated the discussion with Julie Sweet, CEO Accenture and Michael Miebach, CEO of Mastercard as they talked about how the pandemic has changed the way we work and the acceleration of the digital economy.
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Changing the way we work
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Covid-19 revolutionised the workplace overnight, and many companies have had to accelerate their approach to working digitally. Suddenly, technology became a lifeline as we were forced to work from home. 
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Sweet stated two key pivots in the business end of work:
<ol>
<li style="font-weight: 400;">A huge shift towards the cloud and re-platforming businesses; from 20% of businesses today to an estimated 80% by 2025</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;">The role of AI is changing. It allows companies the ability to monitor supply chains and predict new behaviours.</li>
</ol>
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On the consumer end, behaviours have shifted in a matter of months compared to the years we had predicted. The increased adoption of ecommerce is here to stay, with two thirds of the current market predicted to stick.
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Secrets to Success
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A survey from January 2021 found that most people think that remote working is here to stay, and that ecommerce will continue to grow over the coming years. So what exactly do companies need if they want to successfully transform in this landscape?
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Sweet described the change as ‘Compressed Destruction’: the transformation of multiple parts of your business at once. Leaders must have the courage and humility to adapt and build; this mindset is key to moving forward. Current digital leaders have the advantage of already being established, which they must capitalise on, but they must also ensure that digital adoption works for everyone.
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Miebach explains that the opportunity to do this has grown since the pandemic struck. Bigger businesses are partnering with smaller businesses to work together &#8211; for example, Mastercard is helping small companies gain access to credit and funding. This type of relationship could be expanded across the digital economy to create many solutions with different work models.
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Driving Towards Quality
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With the rise of the digital economy, there are shortcomings that must be addressed. The principles of remote work are different, and online access is not universal. In fact, a 2020 study found that a third of all Black people in the US did not have access to the internet. Going forward, governments and NGOs must work together in a different way to effectively support communities.
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Systemic changes are required within both businesses and society if we are to create real change. Researching and highlighting wealth and opportunity gaps allows for the improvement of your own products and services which in turn, addresses the disparity and incubates future equality. 
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Simply put, moving commitments into actions is good business, and by broadening and diversifying your talent pool, you allow innovations to diversify. In ten years, we’ll be looking at a completely different landscape once again, and by championing equality and innovation, you set your business up to thrive.

Beacon @ CES: Future Reimagined

It goes without saying that 2020 has fundamentally changed how we shop, but in what ways? In another fantastic session from CES Digital, we got the top trends from retail over the last 12 months
<h2>Movement in where people spend</h2>
Health and wellness have become extremely popular verticals for consumers. As people are not able to go to the gym there has been a shift in people investing in outdoor sports such as cycling, golf, running.
Unsurprisingly, social spending has decreased dramatically with bars, restaurants and cinemas all suffering. However, this is expected to pick up significantly at the end of 2021 (dependent of course, on the vaccine rollout).
<h2>Digital-first retail strategies</h2>
Through necessity, people are becoming more comfortable online. From the weekly food shop to window shopping, online retail has increased with little indication of slowing down. Investment in a resilient and flexible supply chain is key. This is a vital asset in an uncertain world, allowing brands to react to the market in a nuanced way.
<h2>Doing good is good for business</h2>
Social responsibility was a huge talking point in 2020. Focus turned to the POC and Black communities, allowing light to shine on Female and Black owned brands that would otherwise go unnoticed.
As we went into our first lockdown, pollution levels plummeted giving rise to the question “why aren’t we taking better care of our planet?”. Eco-citizenship became increasingly important to modern customers – a trend that we think is here to stay.
Gender fluidity was another important area of discussion, with Harry Styles’ eponymous December cover of VOGUE sparking debates internationally, as well as the Tik Tok trend “I want to be pretty the way boys are pretty”. Gender expression has become a talking point across many age groups.
Size inclusivity has long been minimised within the fashion community. With high-street brands such as Nasty Gal and high-end brands like Dolce and Gabbana all making plus sized collections a permanent part of their repertoire, inroads are being made in normalising all bodies.
<h2>New ways to interact</h2>
They say necessity breeds innovation, when brands are unable to physically interact with their customers they must turn to other methods. 2020 saw a rise in many schemes such as:
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;">QR codes</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;">Apps</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;">Reward Schemes</li>
</ul>
Something these trends all have in common is an importance on the customer experience. By investing in technology and workflow processes, the customer experience can be optimised and enjoyed. 
You can be what your customer needs, when they want it, how they want it.

Beacon @ CES: Retail Trends: The New Shopper

The Beacon team have been enjoying the all digital CES 2021! While we&#8217;ll miss the Las Vegas sun, we&#8217;re still excited for all the insights we&#8217;ve gained in this highlight of our calendar!
To catch up on our reviews and takeaways from the conferences take a look at our blog list below or view our video round ups.
<ol>
<li><a href="http://www.beaconagency.co.uk/post/beacon-ces-the-2021-consumer-playbook">The 2021 Consumer Engagement Playbook</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.beaconagency.co.uk/post/beacon-ces-ctas-vision-for-the-tech-industry">CTA’s Vision for the Tech Industry</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.beaconagency.co.uk/post/beacon-ces-state-of-the-union">State of the Union</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.beaconagency.co.uk/post/beacon-ces-power-media-performance-in-an-age-of-privacy">Power Media Performance in an Age of Privacy</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.beaconagency.co.uk/post/beacon-ces-building-trust-in-smart-home">Building trust in Smart Home</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.beaconagency.co.uk/post/beacon-ces-retail-trends-the-new-shopper">Retail Trends: The New Shopper</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.beaconagency.co.uk/post/future-reimagined-blog">The Future Reimagined</a></li>
</ol>
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<h4>Our Round-up Videos</h4>
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Beacon @ CES: A roundup of all our content from the 2021 Event

Panelists 
<ul>
<li>Andrea Smith &#8211; Tech journalist</li>
<li>Ohad Amir-CTO Essence</li>
<li>Michelle Guss Director- Crestron Electronics</li>
<li>Michael Mahan -Schneider Electric </li>
</ul>
As Smart Home specialists and enthusiasts, Building Trust in Smart Home was an unmissable session for us. As we move into a new era of smart home, building trust will be crucial for increasing adoption &#8211; but how can we do it effectively?
<h2>How do we define a smart or connected home</h2>
One of the big themes we’ve been expecting is leveling up “smart” homes so that they are intelligent. Michelle Guss kicked off this discussion by noting that Crestron has been focused on making things in the home automated. In fact, Ohad Amir goes as far as to say that smart home needs to be intelligent in order to warrant the name. Why am I having to ask my light to turn on every day at 8pm, asks Michael Mahan: the house should just know. In short, it’s not just about control; there needs to be some level of intelligence. 
Michelle and Michael also drew attention to the desire for wellness in the home: people are interested in things like air quality, energy and water usage, and lighting as a natural consequence of spending so much time in the house. 
<h2>How do we address compatibility and consumers confusion? </h2>
We’ve mentioned on our podcast how consumers are willing to trade a level of privacy for an additional benefit, but Michael reminds us that making them feel secure is a crucial part of the education piece surrounding the industry. According to Ohad, using the Cloud raises a red flag for many users &#8211; something Essence has been trying to work around in recent months. 
Trust is the cornerstone of the entire Smart Home industry. Without trust, says Michael, we prevent people from getting the full benefit of Smart Home. The industry as a whole most err on the side of bias towards more consumer privacy and transparency as it is these two qualities that will accelerate the adoption of these devices and technologies. 
<h2>Trust vs perceived risk</h2>
Consumers need to have confidence that they’re sharing their data with a reputable company, and that this data will still be protected, says Michelle; this knowledge will make users more willing to exchange for better experiences. Her advice for brands is to be more open about their privacy and date rules, and spend time on building their reputation within the market. You’ll also need to educate your consumer on the devices they can add to their existing system, and take responsibility  for those connected devices.
Convenience will always be key, but never forget that consumers want control. Building your brand and your external positioning with this in mind can only be beneficial to you in the long run. 
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Beacon @ CES: Building trust in Smart Home

The death of the cookie has made life increasingly difficult for advertisers: something the team at DoubleVerify are acutely aware of. Until very recently, many advertisers were powering their campaigns with third-party audiences that could be used to build digital profiles that would fuel their ad targeting. However, with changing consumer opinions regarding privacy and new government regulations such as GDPR and CCPA, we have been forced to find new solutions to ground our campaigns. 
DoubleVerify highlight the importance of building a foundation of quality; four metrics that must be considered holistically.
<ul>
<li>Fraud: Was your ad placed where it could be seen by real people? Could it have been seen fraudulently?</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Viewability: How viewable was the ad? Did you have a substantial audience available?</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Brand Safety: Did your ads appear on any sites that would go against your brand, or that would be harmful for your brand?</li>
<li>In Geo: Was it served in the right geographic location?</li>
</ul>
The current solutions to build a foundation of quality fall into two main camps: either they are highly accurate, but not very privacy friendly; or they’re privacy safe but are not actionable in real time. So what solutions remain? 
Two main camps were discussed here. The first was the resurgence of Contextual Targeting, but not as our forefathers knew it. Now driven by semantic sciences and other contextual clues, we can find highly relevant places to serve our ads. Research confirms that users are more likely to engage with ads if they are placed alongside relevant content. 
Secondly, we can take viewability further as a metric to instead focus on Authentic Attention. By factoring both engagement and exposure, we can present a privacy-safe way of understanding how viewable our ads are. Those with a high exposure were placed more broadly, while those with high engagement featured a more compelling creative, message, or story. This makes Authentic Attention a much deeper metric than viewability, which can survive in a post-cookie era. 
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With privacy continuing to rank as one of the hottest topics in marketing, DoubleVerify present a superb alternative to some of our more traditional metrics and practises in a way which benefits both consumer and advertiser.

Beacon @ CES: Power Media Performance in an Age of Privacy

This year’s State of the Union understandably focused on how technology is changing in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The livestream started with Bloomberg’s Michelle Cortez interviewing Andrea Wainer of Abbot Laboratories about the development and subsequent rollout of COVID-19 tests within the US and worldwide.
It’s worth noting here for our UK readers that not all of this technology is readily available on our side of the pond just yet &#8211; but as CES is based in the US, this was a big area of focus both in this presentation and throughout the conference. 
<h2>How US Labs have responded to Covid-19</h2>
Having tracked the virus from its early stages; Abbot started to scale up their efforts in February 2020. When asking their Scientists what they needed, most issues were surrounding the materials and equipment needed rather than funding that was made readily available by the US Government. A test was created within 30 days and then had to allow for clinical utility testing and manufacturing to take place. 
As testing efforts continue to increase, the methods of testing expand. One of the latest developments is a test that works similarly to a pregnancy test. It is cheap, readily available and, most importantly, can be administered at home as the results are sent digitally. This could be a factor in preventing the spread of the disease, as  well as allowing mass testing quickly and cheaply.
<h2>Digital Health</h2>
David Rhew, the Chief Medical Officer at Microsoft went on to talk about how Microsoft technologies are being adapted to improve Digital Medicine. This included: optimising workflows surrounding manufacturing and distribution, and managing the flow of people getting immunised to create a safe, stress-free process.
When optimising their US workflows, Rhew cited Microsoft’s work with FedEx Surround, an operating system that allows them to track and monitor vaccine deliveries in real-time.
Managing the flow of people getting vaccinated is also a key factor in scaling-up and improving the experience of all those involved. This has many factors, for example:
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;">Managing lines and flow</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;">Keeping up with the demand</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;">Block scheduling</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;">Following up with a second dose.</li>
</ul>
There is almost certainly a role for technology to play in augmenting these systems. People want individualised recommendations on their best course of action. By implementing an AI Chatbot on the CDC website (amongst others), Microsoft have been able to give people pre-registration and pre-verification; a system which has since been rolled out to 25 different countries.
By building their US database, they have been able to prioritise at-risk individuals as well as supplement their efforts with campaigns helping people without access to tech. They can use data patterns to target interventions using thought leaders, influencers and clinicians to encourage mass immunisation and herd immunity across the States.
The State of the Union provided a peek behind the curtain into how science, medicine and technology are working together to surpass the bottleneck of demand. With the rollout of various vaccines it will be interesting to see how digital health evolves to meet the new challenges it faces.
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Beacon @ CES: Future Reimagined

Beacon @ CES: Retail Trends: The New Shopper

Beacon @ CES: A roundup of all our content from the 2021 Event

Beacon @ CES: Building trust in Smart Home

Beacon @ CES: Power Media Performance in an Age of Privacy

Beacon @ CES: State of the Union