CX Files

Julian Burnett is Vice President of Global Markets in the Distribution Sector at IBM. He is an expert on the retail industry with senior experience in several retailers. Before IBM he was the CIO at House of Fraser, the CTO at John Lewis, and the CTO and Sainsbury's… In the podcast, he talks about subscriptions, budget retail, Amazon, and the future for retail CX. www.linkedin.com/in/julian-burnett-2182511/ www.ibm.com

Stephen Loynd is the founder and principal analyst at TrendzOwl. He is based in Washington DC and for many years he headed the digital transformation practice at Frost and Sullivan. In this episode, Stephen introduces TrendzOwl and explores the Fourth Industrial Revolution - how is technology changing society and forcing brands to rethink how they manage the customer experience? How can executives stay ahead of the competition when the rules of competition are being changed at such a pace? www.trendzowl.com/ www.linkedin.com/in/stephenloynd/

Dave Rizzo is the President of the Asia Pacific region for Teleperformance. The CX giant just launched their Teleperformance Innovation Experience Center (TIEC) in Silicon Valley California. In this episode, recorded in California, Dave explains the need for innovation in CX and why they launched the TIEC now. https://teleperformance.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-rizzo-7037763/

Sarah Burnett is EVP at Everest Group with a focus on digital systems, AI and automation. She is the chair of BCS (British Computer Society) Women, she founded the BCS AI Accelerator, and she is a tech mentor at Durham university helping women into careers in IT. Sarah recently published a research paper title the PEAK Matrix Assessment for RPA, assessing all the top Robotic Process Automation companies - over 20 of them. In this podcast she talks about the RPA market now and in the future. https://www.everestgrp.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahburnett/

Vit Horky is the founder of Brand Embassy, which was recently sold to NICE InContact, where he is the Senior Director of Digital Experience. Based in Prague, in the Czech Republic Vit is an author (Check the January episode about his book) and expert on CX. This episode was recorded in person in São Paulo - Vit explains what he is working on, the sale of the business to NICE, and some new work he is doing on omnichannel. www.niceincontact.com www.linkedin.com/in/vithorky

Nicola Collister is the group COO at Woven, based in the north west of England. Woven is a customer service company that aims to focus on value creation rather than just cost reduction - as we know this is quite different from the usual pitch a customer service supplier makes. Nicola wrote a recent blog on LinkedIn where she said that the focus on the cost of customer service is killing innovation. In this podcast she explains this further and asks how companies that are experts at CX can be strategic partners, not just suppliers. https://wearewoven.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicola-collister-7b34ba2/

Mark Angus is the CEO and Managing Editor of Knowledge Executive based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Knowledge Executive recently conducted research on behalf of the CX Blockchain Institute - featured here last week. In this episode, Mark talks about the new research and how CX executives can use blockchain. https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-angus/ https://knowledge-executive.com/ https://www.cxblockchain.org/

Shelli Ryan is a co-founder and principal at the CX Blockchain Institute. This is a new organisation focused on exploring how CX can benefit from the use of blockchain. Shelli is based in Las Vegas. In the podcast she explains how blockchain can be a game changer for CX. https://www.linkedin.com/in/shelliryan/ https://www.cxblockchain.org/

Ian Barkin is the Chief Strategy and Marketing Office at SYKES, based in Tampa, Florida. He has a long history in innovation and automation strategy and if you have taken an RPA course on LinkedIn then he probably wrote it. In the podcast Ian explores RPA, innovation, and the future development of customer experience processes where technology blends with more traditional human customer service. https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianbarkin/ https://www.sykes.com/

Clinton Cohen is Managing Director of iContact BPO in Johannesburg, South Africa. He published a recent blog focused on the way recruitment is changing in CX and how agents need new skills to cope with emerging tech and multiple channels. In this episode, I ask him about the points he raised. Are we really about to see an end of contact centre attrition? If skills are increasing so fast in contact centres then how do you keep those people and give them a career? https://icontactbpo.co.za https://www.linkedin.com/in/clinton-cohen-ba181095/