The customer is no longer king, but a dictator - I don't know where I heard that saying, but somehow it stuck with me. I no longer talk about kings and dictators at trade fairs and customer meetings, but sometimes I use this dramatic quote as a direct introduction into a discussion with retailers on the change in the relationships between the buyer and seller. My message is that from some time now, companies running online stores have needed to...

Pay-as-you-drive rates are currently the next big thing for insurance companies. Everyone is trying to jump on the bandwagon. As a department head at Itzehoer Versicherungen, I know how to realistically classify this issue, because we were one of the first insurance companies in Germany to deal intensively with it. In my blog post, I reveal what we learned about technology, data protection, loss claims, processes and customer loyalty in our...

The digital transformation of the insurance industry is already well underway. This is not just visible in journals and blogs – customers are already experiencing it in their day-to-day dealings with their insurers, such as through innovative apps and an increasing range of digital policies. New payment methods are also changing customer expectations in downstream transactions. For me as Sales Manager Collection Insurances at Arvato...

Multiple Atlanta-based Finance & Analytics executives accepted our invitation to learn more about how Data & Analytics transform financial processes, making our networking event in Atlanta a great success. It fostered the creation of an active community for Financial Advanced Analytics and provided participants with insight into how they can tackle current analytics-related challenges in their businesses. For those who were unable to...

Content marketing has been popular for a long time and it’s easy to understand why: by offering your customers and visitors relevant and engaging content, you give them a good reason to return more often, stay for longer, and become more loyal to your company and its products. In recent years, influencer marketing – marketing that is done by partnering with influential people known as influencers – has become popular. One of the biggest...

Choosing the right payment service provider is a matter I can discuss with my colleagues and our clients for hours on end. In the last few week, I have already shown in my blog article why depending on the industry it can make sense to use a payment service provider who processes a certain payment method at favourable conditions, and now I would like to explain to you why almost all online retailers cannot do without a PSP at all. The reason:...

If you want to have a long-term success story with your online store, working with a payment service provider (PSP) is essential. This is the unanimous opinion of the e-commerce industry, which I hear time and time again as the Head of Product Management. The arguments do sound coherent: online retailers will in the best case only conclude a contract, the PSP on the other hand processes all the standard payment methods, and sometimes also...

A couple of weeks ago I reported on my involvement the E-Commerce Working Group organized by the EC3  – Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre. Once a year I spend ten days with Europol and other private companies as part of the Retail Week of Action, where we help hunt eCommerce criminals. There we are able to speed up the usual process by reporting suspicious activities directly to the authorities. Online merchants, banks, logistics...

Big data, this term has now become an integral part of corporate terminology, and not just in IT. I am also faced with this term daily in my work at Arvato Financial Solutions. But what is big data? I will answer this and other questions in this post. You will also learn how you can use large quantities of data for predictive analytics, especially in the insurance industry and especially for the optimization of dunning processes. By using big...

At first sight, Financial Advanced Analytics can seem overwhelmingly complex. Not only do we have to consider factors that are relevant to advanced analytics projects in general, but we must also consider industry-specific factors within finance processes. These include layers of legislation, an emphasis on accountability and traceability in relation to decision-making (even down to individual cases), and the fact that decisions made within...