Blurring the Lines between Online and Offline

Mobility comes down to the lines between online and offline blurring rapidly, with organizations sprinting to put the infrastructure in place to catch up with the trend.

The blurring of the online and offline is happening all around us in a bi-directional manner – where the customer expects to interact with the business however and whenever they wish and get the same experience regardless of where they are or what they are doing- and for the business to be able to deliver exactly the same information and services to the customer regardless of how or where they choose to interact.

Is this new? Maybe not, but the O2O (online to offline) concept was truly brought it to life by the Tokyo Metro and their recently launched innovative offering for consumers.

Tokyo Metro carries 6.22 million passengers daily. This past September they announced a new service with two partners: the convenience store operator 7-11 Japan and the Ito-Yokado supermarket chain.

The partners will distribute coupons to Wi-Fi device users at subway stations. It is being initially launched at 7-11 Japan’s 14000 wifi hotspots and over WiFi in Tokyo Metro’s 180 stations.

Customers can use these coupons at any of the WiFi locations of 7-11 or at the metro. Both retailers are developing content for the Metro to help drive passengers to their physical stores.  Initial results indicate that up to 80% of content users who visit a store make a purchase.

Despite the fact that both these businesses competing the same customers, they realize the value of strategically partnering together with the metro to target their combined almost 1 million loyalty members.

Other services planned include letting metro customers play games to gain Ito-Yokado coupons.

This is a very interesting example of how businesses are innovating to develop new business models that seamlessly integrate both the online and offline worlds.

The Connected Mobile Experiences (CMX) solution is Cisco’s answer to helping enable organizations capitalize on this blurring of online and offline worlds.

Customers in various industries are using CMX in innovative ways, from using the offline behaviors of their customers to inform and define targeted online messages, as well as using online patterns and methods to influence the usage of the physical stores and drive additional revenues.

For more information on CMX, visit www.cisco.com/go/cmx.