Customer journeys are complex and crisscross the organization. Even simple-seeming tasks, such as browsing or buying, often involve several steps, each touching a different part of the business. A customer may go online, compare products, scan a bar code, search, and call an agent. Designing a consistently positive, rewarding experience across all those touchpoints takes […]
Link: G.E.’s ‘Industrial Internet’ Goes Big – NYTimes.com
Another on G.E.’s Industrial Internet:
“The executive in charge of the project for G.E. also said that by next year almost all equipment made by the company will have sensors and Big Data software.
“Everyone wants prediction about performance, and better asset management,” said William Ruh, vice president of global software at G.E. “The ideas of speed, of information velocity, is what will differentiate the winners from the losers.”
“The so-called Industrial Internet involves putting different kinds of sensors, sometimes by the thousands, in machines and the places they work, then remotely monitoring performance to maximize profitability.”
Source: NYTimes
via Diigo
Link: GE’s Radical Software Helps Jet Engines Fix Themselves | Wired Design | Wired.com
I think I’d enjoy Jet Engine school way more, now:
“A few years back, after an internal audit of their vast and various business holdings, the folks at General Electric made something of a discovery: Their company was roughly the fourteenth biggest software maker in the world. They’d never really thought of themselves as a software company–all that coding was being done by developers hidden in silos within other silos in the corporate structure–but they figured maybe it was time to start.
So in June 2011, the company hired designer Greg Petroff and put him in charge of user experience for the whole shebang. His first project was an ambitious one: creating a system that will bring all of GE’s industrial machines, from wind turbines to hospital hardware to jet engines, onto one cloud-connected, contextually-aware, super-efficient platform.”
Source Link: Wired
via Diigo
Link: GM Opens the Door to Online New-Car Sales – WSJ.com
“By the end of this year, GM plans to extend a Web-based application, called Shop-Click-Drive, to its entire dealer network. The app would let new-car buyers use their computer screen to lock in the price of a new car, get an estimate of the trade-in value of their old car, apply for financing and even arrange a test drive or delivery of their new vehicle.
GM’s app acts as an electronic door to its independent brick-and-mortar dealers, and so represents a cautious step toward adapting to consumers whose experience with online shopping for appliances and other goods has made them less willing to visit showrooms.”
