‘Digital challengers’ are looking to extend their reach at the expense of traditional high street banks, according to leading banking industry experts.

GlobalData’s Retail Banker International asked leading industry figures for their views on the coming year, and digital banking was high on the agenda.

For some time already, programmatic is seen as a savior of online marketing, which is why we decided to highlight the opportunities and limitations of programmatic display in an article. In particular because many marketing executives still do not seem to understand clearly what programmatic advertising can and what it can’t do. This is understandable, given the technical complexity, misleading terminology, and sometimes unrealistic expectations.

Tom Szirtes, founder of the immersive technology company Mbryonic, believes we are at a tipping point where immersive technologies will become the dominant mediums of the 21st century, which is why he left a successful career in the video games industry around 5 years ago to start his company.

Skeptics foresee the demise of the brick-and-mortar shop due to the convenience of online shopping, but this impression is misleading. Retailers can give their businesses a new impetus by optimizing the buying experience with some help from new technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), as the following points prove:

Transmedia storytelling - also known as transmedia narrative or multiplatform storytelling - is the technique of telling a single story or story experience across multiple platforms and formats using current digital technologies.

The proportion of digital contact points, significant for the success of your own business model, is growing. As a result, the online customer journey has become an integral part of the customer intelligence strategy today. In addition to the online advertising contacts that take place along the entire digital customer journey, one's own website plays a central role here, too. Whether in traditional eCommerce or lead generation, the focus is always on the user. With the help of digital analytics, the behavior and needs of users can be better understood so that in-depth recommendations for action can be derived, thus, leading to improved service, a better product, and an optimized customer experience.

A customer journey map is a visual representation of every experience your customers have with you. It helps to tell the story of a customer's experience with your brand from original engagement to a hopefully long-term relationship. Unfortunately, once you get into the details, customer journeys can be quite complex, since customers can come into contact with your business in many ways and from many different starting points: for example, marketing, referrals, search, social media, customer service enquiries and above-the-line campaigns. Hence, to make sure no interaction slips through the cracks, you need to map out every touchpoint or experience along the customer journey.

The market capitalization of the world's top 100 corporations has risen from $ 1.04 trillion (5%) to $ 21 trillion in one year. This is one of the core results of the Global Top 100 ranking by market capitalization, published by the accounting and consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

While the retail industry felt threatened by the digital world a few years ago, digitization is by now increasingly evaluated as an opportunity. They must embrace new technology to step up to the plate of identifying the right trends at the right time and the right way to capitalize on this opportunity - and not lose sight and feel for their own business by overdosing on data and technology.

Providing content on the Internet free of charge is made possible by advertising. However, not targeted or obtrusive advertising endangers the proper functioning of this model. Rather, it favors the massive use of adblockers.

The discussion about the optimal advertising space is becoming more and more intense. One thing is certain: one-sided relationships between advertisers and publishers are no longer sustainable - full transparency, quality and efficiency are the norm.

Worldwide spending on augmented reality and virtual reality (AR/VR) is forecasted to be $18.8 billion in 2020, an increase of 78.5% over the $10.5 billion International Data Corporation (IDC) expects will be spent in 2019.

The latest update to IDC's Worldwide Augmented and Virtual Reality Spending Guide also shows that worldwide spending on AR/VR products and services will continue this strong growth throughout the 2019-2023 forecast period, achieving a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 77.0%.

In Singapore, the Department of Statistics revealed an increase in online sales in November, attributed to the higher online sales from major online shopping events. Since customers engage with brands through various offline and online channels, meeting the needs and expectations of a digital consumer has become a mandate for retailers of all sizes.

The new IDC 2019 Future SMB Pulse survey shows that 84% of SMBs in Asia Pacific (excl. Japan) recognize the need to use digital technologies to make significant changes in their companies' processes and operations to become more competitive. While 39% of those have already started their journey and are at different stages of digital maturity, 42% are just planning to start. The survey reveals further that the top priorities of SMBs in the next 18 months include improving revenue growth, increasing efficiency/productivity, and reducing costs/expenses.