Romanian Distribution Committee Magazine, Volume 12, Issue 4, Year 2021

Magazi ne

Romani an Di st r i but i on Commi t t ee

VOL UME12 I S S UE4 2021

CONTENTS Pr i or i t i z at i onoft hePr ec i s i onMar k et i ngEf f or t sandRi gor ous Br andBui l di ng,Bas edonCommi t mentt oAut hent i c i t y

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I nf or mat i onandCommuni cat i onsTec hnol ogyi sMer gi ng Dat aSc i enceandAdv ancedAr t i f i c i al I nt el l i gence Towar dst heCor eofKnowl edgeBas edSoc i et y-Par t4-

1 5

Gl obal Suppl yCr i s i s :Chal l enges&Way st oOv er come

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Ecommer ce,Qcommer ce,NewTec hnol ogi esandOmni c hannel Cons umer s ’ Per s onal i z edEx per i ence

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Ci r c l eConf er enceMal t a,ERAWebi nar sandmor e

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TheodorPURCĂREA

Vi c t orGREU

Cos mi nTĂNASE

I oanMat ei PURCĂREA

Ber ndHALLI ER

Ro ma n i a nDi s t r i b u t i o nCo mmi t t e eMa g a z i n eVo l u me1 2 , I s s u e4 , Y e a r2 0 2 1 T h er e s p o n s i b i l i t yf o rt h ec o n t e n t so f t h es c i e n t i f i ca n dt h ea u t h e n t i c i t y o f t h ep u b l i s h e dma t e r i a l sa n do p i n i o n se x p r e s s e dr e s t swi t ht h ea u t h o r .

Editorial: Prioritization of the Precision-Marketing Efforts and Rigorous Brand Building, Based on Commitment to Authenticity

In our last RDCM Issue, starting from how we are always feeling great talking with our experienced, knowledgeable, and well-informed Readers, we made reference to many significant aspects, such as how important is to remember key details of lessons learned but forgotten and to navigate the innovation landscape, including by both using crisis as a learning experience in dealing with a changing environment, and making distinction between resilience thinking and efficiency thinking, valorizing both dynamic capabilities, and customers’ and partners’ ecosystems. And as this year’s end is a going on instilling acquired knowledge in us, we chose to add new information in the discussion: • At the beginning of this year, McKinsey’s representatives (Bibby et al., 2021) recommended the prioritization of the precision-marketing efforts (in order to seize granular growth opportunities not only on the basis of capturing new data and searching for new behavioral relationships, but also on enablement of rapid experimentation). And that within the context in which other McKinsey’s representatives (Ader et al., 2021) underlined the role of the so-called full-funnel marketing approach (which combines the power of performance marketing and brand building through linked teams/close team collaboration, measurement systems, and KPIs), as a total shift in how marketing works (brand marketers adopting, for instance, test-and-learn capabilities); • Visual Capitalist (Routley, 2021) examined some probable reasons for Facebook’s rebranding (Facebook the parent company, not the social network) to Meta, starting from some preeminent categories of rebranding (see figure below). According to Routley, the most important reason among several Facebook undertook this rebranding was the association with negative

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externalities, and his founder (once the most admired CEO in Silicon Valley), and then behind the metaverse hype there is some substance (the ambitions first signaled by Facebook in 2014, on the occasion of acquiring the virtual reality headset maker Oculus);

Figure no. 1: Some of the categories of rebranding that stand out the most Source: Adaptation from Routley, N., 2021. Saying Bye to Facebook: Why Companies Change Their Name, Visual Capitalist, October 27 (work cited)

• Latana’s recent Guide to Rebranding (Latana is a valuable AI-powered brand tracking tool) presented interesting rebranding case studies, such as MasterCard, as shown in the below figure (Latana a, 2021), also drawing our attention to the need, among other things, to have a rigorous understanding of rebranding, including from the point of view of developing a holistic brand strategy etc.;

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Figure no. 2: Rebranding Case Study MasterCard Source: Adaptation from Latana, 2021. The Ultimate Guide to Rebranding. [pdf] December 23, 2021, pp. 27-28 (work cited)

• Also recently, CB Insights (2021) tracked a16z’s investments (a16z is a numeronym representing the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, a legendary investor firm) over the past five years to see where this venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz identified the next big opportunity: NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens), crypto exchanges, and other blockchain-based technologies; The metaverse; Self-driving vehicles etc.; • Digitization, AI, and automation are seen by manufacturers as top drivers of productivity and profitability for the coming three years (McKinsey & Company, 2021); • Gartner (Reeves, 2021) reminded us that as today’s consumers are very much in favor of authenticity and simplicity, now it’s time to relook at the brand strategy through the lens of authenticity to better deliver (considering: clarity, consistency, caring, curiosity, communication, confirmation); • Latana also quoted the Founder of the research and strategy consultancy The Shopper Collective, Peter Wilson, as saying as follows: “Driving awareness, both aided and unaided, can be a positive contributor to usage and ultimately loyalty. Loyalty (and brand equity) will emerge

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as a result of a positive experience of interacting with or using your brand. Ultimately you want people to try you, love the experience, and continue using you” (Latana b, 2021).

This year marked the important historical event of the 30th Anniversary of the Romanian-American University (RAU), Rector Costel Negricea (Honorary Member of the Romanian Distribution Committee), a true promoter of a digital transformation, confirming RAU Brand activation.

There are so many lessons one can learn from the so-called phygital retail, that is a rising battlefield where all the above-mentioned aspects and ideas will continue to be rapidly experimented. As shown by Mixson (2021), in its fight against Amazon (which has surpassed Walmart in sales for the first time in the summer of this year), Artificial Intelligence (AI) represents Walmart’s new weapon. It is well-known that Walmart’s Intelligent Retail Lab is a reputed real-world shopping environment where technology driven CX is improved, as in the case RetailAI® Fresh solution that can identify produce within seconds of it being placed on the scale (based on new AI technology using computer vision).

And allow us to end by making again reference to the valuable CB Insights: “As the Covid-19 pandemic has charted its unprecedented path around the world, it’s carried with it the question: What will Covid-19’s legacy be? From healthcare to education to entertainment to manufacturing, technology innovators are stepping forward to help answer that question… In some cases, the technological changes inspired by Covid-19 will come in the form of an acceleration of existing trends — for example, industrial automation and contactless payments.

In other cases, like virtual reality, 3D printing, or telehealth, the crisis may change the course of the industry, enabling companies to demonstrate value that, until now, consumers have been unable or unwilling to see” (CB Insights b, 2021).

Theodor Valentin Purcărea Editor-in-Chief References Ader, J., Boudet, J., Brodherson, M. and Robinson, N., 2021. Why every business needs a fullfunnel marketing strategy. [pdf] McKinsey & Company, Marketing & Sales Practice, February 2021, pp. 1-5. Available at: <why-every-business-needs-a-full-funnel-marketing-strategy.pdf> [Accessed 2 March 2021].

Bibby, C., Gordon, J., Schüler, G., and Stein, E., 2021. The big reset: Data-driven marketing in the next normal. [pdf] McKinsey & Company, Marketing & Sales Practice, March 2021, pp. 1-5.

Available at: < the-big-reset-data-driven-marketing-in-the-next-normal.pdf> [Accessed 30 March 2021].

CB Insights a, 2021. The Future According To Andreessen Horowitz, December 16, 2021. [online] Available at: <https://www.cbinsights.com/research/report/andreessen-horowitzinvestments/> [Accessed 17 December 2021].

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CB Insights b, 2021. 25 Industries & Tech Shaping The Post-Covid World, December 14, 2021. [online]. Available at: <https://www.cbinsights.com/research/report/industries-tech-shapingworld-post-covid/?> [Accessed 21 December 2021].

Latana a, 2021. The Ultimate Guide to Rebranding. [pdf] December 23, 2021, pp. 27-28, 33.

Available at: <The Ultimate Guide to Rebranding.pdf> [Accessed 24 December 2021].

Latana b, 2021. The Ultimate Guide to Brand Awareness. [pdf] October 23, 2021, p. 12.

Available at: <The Ultimate Guide to Brand Awaraness.pdf> [Accessed 10 December 2021].

McKinsey & Company, 2021. COVID-19: Briefing note #84, December 8, 2021. [pdf] McKinsey & Company, Risk Practice, December 2021. Available at: <covid-19-briefing-note84-december-8-2021.pdf> [Accessed 9 December 2021].

Mixson, E., 2021. Walmart's New Weapon in its fight against Amazon? Artificial Intelligence (AI), The Artificial intelligence & Data Analytics Network (ADA), 11/02/2021. [online] Available at: < https://www.aidataanalytics.network/data-science-ai/articles/walmarts-newweapon-in-its-fight-against-amazon-artificial-intelligence-ai?> [Accessed 3 December 2021].

Reeves, J., 2021. The Ted Lasso Guide to Brand Authenticity, Gartner Blog, November 22, 2021. [online] Available at: <https://blogs.gartner.com/julie-reeves/2021/11/22/the-ted-lassoguide-to-brand-authenticity/?> [Accessed 16 December 2021].

Routley, N., 2021. Saying Bye to Facebook: Why Companies Change Their Name, Visual Capitalist, October 27, 2021. [online] Available at: <https://www.visualcapitalist.com/sayingbye-to-facebook-why-companies-change-their-name/?> [Accessed 17 December 2021].

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Information and communications technology is merging data science and advanced artificial intelligence towards the core of knowledge based society -Part 4-

Prof. Eng. Ph.D. Victor GREU Abstract The paper analyses the context of generating refined knowledge, when leveraged by the information and communication technology (ICT) evolution, as the main driving factor of the human society by the complex consequences of its services, products and applications and support for the Information Society (IS) on the way towards the Knowledge Based Society (KBS).

Because today it is more and more complicate and also difficult to maintain the exponential pace and the progressive increase of performances, the ICT actual research struggles reflect the necessity of innovative approaches, sometimes beyond the usual technological paths and resources, keeping alive the necessity to refine knowledge, in order to achieve a sustainable progress not only for ICT but also for the whole World they are aiming and influencing, by all kinds of consequences. It is crucial, from the actual stage of ICT progress, to consider that beyond the usual approaches could mean unlimited innovations, sometimes changing paradigm and generally using data/information/knowledge even from unexpected areas, i.e., using outmost results of the human or artificial intelligence. Such large and unusual approach of the research is, by our opinion, the logical option for keeping the ICT pace and extend performances and features from the actual high levels and facing also unprecedented and complex challenges at Earth scale, like climate changes, Earth resources fading or Covid 19 pandemic. In fact, the natural aim of optimizing ICT for achieving a sustainable progress at Earth scale for IS/KBS, considering all complex challenges and consequences, leads to the logical approach of using human imagination and all resources, this way innovating and refining knowledge all the time, i.e., just what we could witness today and tomorrow.

Considering the unlimited areas or issues which could be part of the innovative solutions for ICT advances, in this paper we point, by some examples, just the tip of this iceberg, meaning at least the perception of this larger picture, from both ICT designer and user perspective, but clearly encouraging the perseverance in optimization, recognizing the crucial importance to this goal for Earth ecosystem and humankind evolution.

This global and holistic approach is inherently a very difficult and complex chain of processes, supposing a relative level of the multi-criteria optimization, as many of the performance parameters and features have nometric and consequently are not measurable, while the whole picture is fast changing, just because of the ICT exponential development which induce its pace all over the Earth. Here, for example, beyond technical and economical parameters, we might think at informational, environmental, ethical or social criteria (to include just few) to comply.

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Approaching the roots of knowledge, i.e., from experience and education, the above general approach is detailed by analysing some relevant examples, showing concrete trends of the actual state and vision of ICT development, as premises and context. This way, considering the evolution of ICT engineering, a prominent conclusion is that the information/knowledge is now faster generated and it contain new challenges, including the increasing complexity of knowing. Because, for most of people, Internet became a utility like water or electric power, its continue improvement is one of the prominent challenges of ICT, in spite of the impressing performances achieved, as speed, which support amazing applications like videoconferencing or home working.

COVID-19 pandemic has generated, among other disturbances of life on Earth, changes which amplify some of the Internet existing challenges (the need for lower latency). This influence is a prove of the above mentioned global/holistic approach we have proposed for ICT progress and more than this, it lays in a zone where only an excessive imagination could forecast the evolution.

The Internet example (analysing a weather map for the Internet) is revealing how far the actual challenges (low latency expectations) could appear versus the past ones, i.e., the last became surpassed by just the consequences of our “progress” in more complex applications, incidentally affected now by pandemic. Here the conclusion is that it is a logical option to use our imagination beyond any actual apparent limits and especially simply reconsider (refine) knowledge and ask one more time if are they all (i.e., some complex applications, like online gaming) very necessary, as it is sure they rise the costs of ICT development (and beyond!) by many different ways and consequences. Analysing the deepness of these examples, we could wonder if other applications fields, like human and Earth health or people education, should be a priority versus gaming on line (for example), considering the Earth resources fading and the other mentioned challenges? Such optimization criteria do not mean to stop improving ITC performances or entertainment applications, but it is sure they will be useful to better manage Earth resources and even Internet improvement options.

An important result is that, under deep analyses and complex context and criteria, innovations could be enabled, even in the most difficult areas, like Internet actual performance improvement, using the power of other ICT advances, like AI, in order to globally optimize the network use. In addition, the struggle for adapting Internet to the actual and future challenges is a clear link between AI/ICT innovations and refining knowledge for the core of knowledge based society, as it is difficult to imagine the optimization of the huge network of networks at Earth scale, on all possible paths, without the expected progress of AI and other ICT advances like Big Data, using the leveraging support of DS. Analysing the Quantum Computing example and presenting the advantage of Intel silicon spin qubits, we can notice the often-used ICT way of compensating complexity by exploiting some of the already achieved technological advances, even when, this way, a compromise must be supposed, but a step ahead is provided. Also, the essential of this example is the iceberg tip image we can observe about this revolution, called Quantum Computing, that is coming, step by step, along with other emergent AI/ICT advances, which will leverage progress and the refined knowledge for the core of IS/KBS. These examples confirmed how important it is to timely watch the exponential evolutions of ICT, as their speed could generate or influence, along with well-known benefic consequences, other challenges for the Earth ecosystem and even for the ways the evolution of humankind is potentially affected, including climate changes, Earth resources fading, social unbalances, human health/education/behaviour, geopolitical security and so on.

Some of these challenges, reflected above from relevant examples (promoting wisdom when approaching science and technology versus human values, like empathy or solidarity ), are referring first to the human nature/behaviour, which we also consider crucial for the future of Earth ecosystem, as human is the main factor of innovation and decision and this way the fundamental role of the human nature and evolution is influencing all other challenges, starting from the ICT pression of time/speed (which determines the opportunity of reactions to changes) and ending with social unbalances. On the other side, the role of science and technology for the World progress is by far essential and constructive, but, in the complexity and dynamic of processes of development at Earth scale, all implied factors and consequences must be timely analysed.

This way we have just arrived to the most complex and difficult processes of decisions, where the refined knowledge, for the core of KBS, could be generated, but this does not happen always, mainly because of human nature. These processes are critical because defining the appropriate “refined knowledge”, in such multidimensional cases on Earth, meaning a generic model 3D+time+restrictions, is almost impossibly to manage, but this does not mean we have to ignore these challenges. The necessity of wisdom (realistically including human values), versus simply having intelligence (expressed in only applying science and technology to the real problems), as we also expressed many times, is also confirmed by the analysed examples. Although almost everybody could agree with the necessity of wisdom, as refined knowledge, in the World development decisions, including AI/ICT/IS/KBS, sometimes the real problem is left at the old/last stage, mainly because it is too difficult to define and solve, which is mostly true. What we could not accept is to ignore the new potential consequences/problems, as we have to timely analyse the context of AI/ICT/IS/KBS and refine knowledge, even when the dynamic, the speed/time or the incumbents represent obstacles for achieving this goal.

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As the humankind life on Earth is highly depending on science and technology and this dependence will naturally increase in the future, by our opinion, the actual realistic question is which are the level of dependence, in every case, where we have to worry and ask: what if this support of technology fails one moment? There are more and more fields and cases where we are depending too much on technology and this relative assertion is relevant for critical infrastructures, as power grid or even communications/Internet. In fact, the answer is aiming to prevent such events and provide the compensation solutions, i.e., just to refine the core knowledge for such context and contribute this way to the sustainable progress of AI/ICT/IS/KBS. More than these, many of the emergent projects, as autonomous cars and generally smart city/home, rely on complex systems and these premises determine high difficulties and challenges to design and optimize them. This way, a special branch, the complexity science (Engineering Resilient Complex Systems), is increasing in the actual context and is expected to improve the solutions for future complex systems. The main roots of actual systems complexity, as difficulty factors to analyse them, are given by their structures of systems of systems and the inherent interconnections, which rise major problems for finding the mathematical models and algorithms useful in the design approach.

As a final conclusion, for the ICT/IS/KBS sustainable development it is necessary to combine the power of technology advances (first including AI) with new complexity science achievements, under the innovative approaches provided by human intelligence and imagination, in order to obtain the appropriate refined knowledge which should leverage solutions to the actual challenges of Earth ecosystem.

Keywords: information and communication technology, knowledge generation, artificial intelligence, knowledge based society, Internet latency, democratizing the Internet, quantum computing, silicon spin qubits, complexity science JEL Classification: L63; L86; M15; O31; O33

“The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.”

- Isaac Asimov

1. Advancing Information and Communications Technology everywhere with more intelligence Sometimes we are marvelling about the performances of individuals in different sports, as often they seem quite impossible, but there are people that think that such trials are not for them, but in the same time there are few which imagine that they could reach similar performances, if there is a determination.

Such dilemmas inspired me for a larger view and analysis of the complex ways and mechanisms Information and Communications Technology (ICT) is so amazing advancing, due to the people’s determination.

It is sure that all these ICT advances, including artificial intelligence (AI), Big Data and Data science (DS), by the unprecedented spreading of ICT services, products and applications will be the main support, generating data, information and eventually knowledge, for the Information Society (IS) on the way towards the Knowledge Based Society (KBS) [11][13][16][17][18][20][21].

Just because this way is more and more complicate and also difficult to maintain the exponential pace and the progressive increase of performances, the actual ICT research struggles reflect the necessity of innovative approaches, sometimes beyond the usual technological paths and resources, keeping alive the necessity to refine knowledge – as we presented in [12], in order to achieve a sustainable progress not only for ICT but also for the whole World they are aiming and influencing, by all kinds of consequences.

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We think that it is crucial, from the actual stage of ICT progress, to consider that beyond the usual approaches could mean unlimited innovations, sometimes changing paradigm and generally using data/information/knowledge even from unexpected areas, i.e., using outmost results of the human or … artificial intelligence.

Such large and unusual approach of the research is, by our opinion, the logical option for keeping the ICT pace and extend performances and features from the actual high levels and facing also unprecedented and complex challenges at Earth scale, like climate changes, Earth resources fading or … Covid 19 pandemic. Here it is worth to mention “the iceberg” we can actually see as the so called “semiconductor crisis” or just imagine scenarios that could fallow other potential crises, like geopolitical ones (Ukraine/Russia, China etc).

If someone would say that linking the ICT development context with the above premises or incidents is too much, well one of the paper points is to reveal, by relevant examples, how the mentioned logical option is reasonable and why the human imagination is the main resource for extending the actual ICT limits.

In fact, the natural aim of optimizing ICT for achieve a sustainable progress at Earth scale for IS/KBS, considering all complex challenges and consequences, leads to the logical approach of using human imagination and all resources, this way innovating and refining knowledge all the time, i.e., just what we could witness today and tomorrow.

Considering the unlimited areas or issues which could be part of the innovative solutions for ICT advances, in this paper we just want to point, by some examples, the tip of this iceberg, meaning at least the perception of this larger picture, from both ICT designer and user perspective, but clearly encouraging the perseverance in optimization, recognizing the crucial importance to this goal for Earth ecosystem and humankind evolution.

In the same time, this global and holistic approach is inherently a very difficult and complex chain of processes, supposing a relative level of the multi-criteria optimization, as many of the performance parameters and features have no-metric and consequently are not measurable, while the whole picture is fast changing, just because of the ICT exponential development which induce its pace all over the Earth. Here, for example, beyond technical and economical parameters, we might think at informational, environmental, ethical or social criteria (to include just few) to comply.

That is way, going to the roots of knowledge, i.e., from experience and education, the above inspiration is deeper and larger explained in [2]: <<The scope of electrical engineering has been growing continuously through the years, but so too has the depth of complexity and required knowledge across this ever-larger landscape. There are many more highly trained engineers worldwide now than there were a few decades ago, so new applicable knowledge accumulates at a faster pace, while it seems that older, irrelevant knowledge leaves the field more slowly. There is more to know, and it is more demanding and complex.

I took a cursory look, for example, at the mathematics in information theory or the physics in quantum computing or in electronic and optical devices, and I said to myself, “I could do this if I wanted, but I choose not to.”>> This way, a prominent observation is that the information/knowledge is faster generated and it contain new challenges, including the increasing complexity of knowing.

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Here we can also see a face of the above-mentioned approach for both the designer and the user experience perspective, as ICT increasing complexity and on the other hand the perception of the simple human user: “I remember when engineering seemed much simpler. As I write this, I’m noticing across the room the little blinking node on my Wi-Fi mesh network. Not so long ago AM/FM radios and TVs were the ubiquitous home electronics exploiting the electromagnetic spectrum.

Those were the days when radios were just simple devices whose only standardization was the frequency band and a fairly simple modulation scheme. Take a look, though, at the specification for the IEEE 802.11ac family of Wi-Fi transceivers.”

This perspective is useful first for the ICT research (designing) engineer, when studying in the university (depth of complexity and required knowledge across this ever-larger landscape) and then when detailing the design and the specifications, at the actual complexity stage of ICT: “There are many, many pages of complicated minutiae needed to describe the protocols, controls, signal formats, and so forth. Then, if we dig down deeper, the math for multiuser MIMO (multiple-input, multiple-output) needs to be understood. The encryption is based on elliptic curve cryptography—try checking that out. Everywhere we look at increasing depth, the complication turns to turgid complexity. That is the world we live in now.”

Sometimes I also tell to my students to be aware about the difficulty of ICT profession and especially about the ICT standards and protocols deep and complex content (I proposed a special course of communications networks and protocols, in 1996).

The cruel fact is that anything we could do now, soon in the future it will be too little (That is the world we live in now), so we have to further continue to refine knowledge: “How is it that we can survive and indeed thrive in such a world? The obvious answers are specialization to narrow the field, and the layering of knowledge to reduce complexity to only that needed for a given purpose. In this latter pursuit we are aided by software that empowers the user while hiding the underlying complexity. I think that most engineers seldom will have the need, or the privilege, to examine the complex math and physics beneath so much of what we do.”

This way we have just seen a relevant confirmation of the above larger and logical approach of using human imagination and all resources., i.e., “the need, or the privilege, to examine the complex math and physics” that could support knowledge refining for all our innovation processes for a sustainable progress of ICT/IS/KBS. Starting from such general approach, some relevant examples could give concrete trends of the actual state and vision of ICT development, as premises and context.

Although, for most of people, Internet became a utility like water or electric power, its continue improvement is one of the prominent challenges of ICT, in spite of the impressing performances achieved, as speed, which support amazing applications like videoconferencing or home working.

As a coincidence, COVID-19 pandemic has generated, among other disturbances of life on Earth, changes which amplify some of the Internet existing challenges.

First, we have to observe that this pandemic influence is a prove of the above mentioned global/holistic approach we have proposed for ICT progress and more than this, it lays in a zone where only an excessive imagination could forecast the evolution.

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As a matter of fact, with or without pandemic, Internet became a strategic asset for ITC/IS/KBS and generally for life on Earth, as it is the support for most of ICT advances, including Internet of Things (IoT), AI or Cloud services, but this side is worth to be responsibly and eventually analysed.

It is important to see how the Internet actual challenges could be addressed, at least concerning the most important applications fields, as it is detailed by [1]: “The internet was designed to move data worldwide, and to do so in spite of disruptions from natural disasters, nuclear attacks, or other catastrophes. At first the goal was just to increase the volume of data moving over networks. But with the rising importance of real-time applications like videoconferencing and online gaming, what now matters most is reducing latency—the time it takes to move data across the network.

By forcing vast numbers of people to work and socialize remotely, the ongoing COVID19 pandemic has greatly increased the demand for time-sensitive applications. The challenges begin at one end of the network, where the data's sender is located, and continue along the route all the way to the user waiting to receive the data at the other end. When you pass data in real time along multiple routes among a number of separate points, delays and disruptions often ensue. This explains the dropped calls and interruptions in conference calls.”

We have to notice here another example of how far the actual challenges could appear versus the past ones (well, now the above imagination does not seem to be “too much”!), i.e., the initial major criteria, ”disruptions from natural disasters, nuclear attacks, or other catastrophes”, became surpassed by just the consequences of our “progress” in more complex applications (videoconferencing and online gaming), incidentally affected now by pandemic.

Before going further, we believe it is worth to observe that it is a logical option to use our imagination beyond any actual apparent limits and especially simply reconsider (refine) knowledge and ask one more time if are they all (the above complex applications, like online gaming) very necessary, as it is sure they rise the costs of ICT development (and beyond!) by many different ways and consequences.

With simpler words, understanding the deepness of these examples, we could wonder if other applications fields, like human and Earth health or people education, should be a priority versus gaming on line (for example), considering the Earth resources fading and the other mentioned challenges?

Of course, such optimization criteria do not mean to stop improving ITC performances or entertainment applications, but it is sure it will be useful to better manage Earth resources and even Internet improvement options, for example as it is further presented: “One way to minimize such delays is by cutting a path through the Internet, one that takes into account the traffic conditions up ahead. My company, Subspace, has built such a network using custom hardware and a proprietary fiber-optic backbone. And we've shown it doesn't have to be complicated—users don't have to do anything more complicated than logging onto a Web portal. Put together, Subspace has created a "weather map" for the Internet that can spot choppy or stormy parts of the network and work around them for better, faster real-time data movement.”

By coincidence, here we further could observe a two-message issue, one as technical innovation ("weather map") and the other, very well fitted and logically confirming our holistic optimization model proposal, is about priority and eventually democratizing the Internet:

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“In the 1990s, Internet access was expanded from the world of the military and certain educational organizations to a truly universal system. Then, content delivery networks (CDNs) like Akamai and Cloudflare democratized data caching by putting commonly requested data, such as images and videos, into data centers and servers closer to the "last mile" to the ultimate users. Finally, Amazon, Microsoft, and others built cloud-computing data centers that put artificial intelligence, video editing, and other computationally intensive projects closer to lastmile users. Connections between nodes are designed around delivering as much data as possible, rather than delivering data consistently or with minimal delay.

But there's still one final stage of democratization that hasn't happened—the democratization of the paths through which data is routed. The Internet connects hundreds of millions of nodes, but the actual performance of the paths connecting these nodes varies wildly, even in major cities. Connections between nodes are designed around delivering as much data as possible, rather than delivering data consistently or with minimal delay.”

As a prove of the complexity and inherent relativity of optimization criteria, in this case the priority is expressed, even the balance between applications remains a higher-level decision/criterion: “For one, the emergence of Netflix and other video-streaming platforms over the past 20 years has tended to impede real-time applications. Because such platforms prioritize putting often-requested data closer to network edges, these networks have become less conducive to latency-sensitive video calls and online games. At the same time, while ISPs have advertised— and provided—faster upload and download speeds over time, established network infrastructures have only become more entrenched.”

Instead, the technical premises for innovation are important and clearly revealed, as the bottle necks are pointed (network edges) and with further analyses the solutions are closer to be found, eventually including the proposed approach as: “Subspace uses custom software to direct the traffic around any roadblocks that may lie between it and its target destination. In real time, the software takes network measurements of latency (in milliseconds), jitter (in latency variation), and packet loss (in the number of successfully delivered data packets within a time interval) on all possible paths. Whenever there is an unusual or unexpected latency spike—what we like to call "Internet weather"—the software automatically reroutes traffic across the entire network as needed.

Enterprises have tried to avoid bad Internet weather by building private networks using technologies such as SD-WAN (software-defined wide area networking) and MPLS (multiprotocol label switching). However, these methods work only when an entire workforce is reporting to a handful of centralized offices. If large numbers of employees are working from home, each home has to be treated as a branch office, making the logistics too complex and costly. Besides random bad weather, there are some traffic problems on the public Internet that arise as side effects of certain security measures.”.

As a final result, we could notice that, under deep analyses and complex context and criteria, innovations are enabled, even in the most difficult areas, like Internet actual performance improvement, using the power of other ICT advances, like AI (In real time, the software takes network measurements of latency … on all possible paths) in order to globally optimize the network use (Whenever there is an unusual or unexpected latency spike).

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In addition, the struggle for adapting Internet to the actual and future challenges is a clear link between AI/ICT innovations and refining knowledge for the core of knowledge based society, as it is difficult to imagine the optimization of the huge network of networks at Earth scale, on all possible paths, without the expected progress of AI and other ICT advances like Big Data, using the leveraging support of DS [20][19].

Perhaps, even a short review of the most complex and difficult challenges of ICT actual advances will not be enough, still considering the Internet above seen, without some words about Quantum Computing future.

As about complexity and the long way to “quantum practicality” we have already spoken [14][12] and recently this is also confirmed by [5] when is specially referring to the main stream of superconducting qubit, the silicon-based approach could be the long expected faster solution to progress [4]: <<Quantum computing may have shown its “supremacy” over classical computing a little over a year ago, but it still has a long way to go. Intel’s director of quantum hardware, Jim Clarke, says that quantum computing will really have arrived when it can do something unique that can change our lives, calling that point “quantum practicality.” Clarke talked to IEEE Spectrum about how he intends to get silicon-based quantum computers …>> This solution could be further shortly simplified for understanding (not forgetting the general complexity that lays behind), as from the dialog of “Spectrum” with “Intel”: <<“IEEE Spectrum: Intel seems to have shifted focus from quantum computers that rely on superconducting qubits to ones with silicon spin qubits. Why do you think silicon has the best chance of leading to a useful quantum computer?

Jim Clarke: It’s simple for us…. Silicon spin qubits look exactly like a transistor.... The infrastructure is there from a tool-fabrication perspective. We know how to make these transistors. So if you can take a technology like quantum computing and map it to such a ubiquitous technology, then the prospect for developing a quantum computer is much clearer.

I would concede that today silicon spin qubits are not the most advanced quantum computing technology out there. There has been a lot of progress in the last year with superconducting and ion trap qubits. But there are a few more things: A silicon spin qubit is the size of a transistor—which is to say it is roughly 1 million times smaller than a superconducting qubit. So if you take a relatively large superconducting chip, and you say “how do I get to a useful number of qubits, say 1,000 or a million qubits?” all of a sudden you’re dealing with a form factor that is…intimidating. We’re currently making server chips with billions and billions of transistors on them. So if our spin qubit is about the size of a transistor, from a form-factor and energy perspective, we would expect it to scale much better.”>> Here we can observe the often-used ICT way of compensating complexity by exploiting some of the already achieved technological advances, even when, this way, a compromise must be supposed, but a step ahead is provided: << Spectrum: What are silicon spin qubits and how do they differ from competing technology, such as superconducting qubits and ion trap systems?

Clarke: In an ion trap you are basically using a laser to manipulate a metal ion through its excited states where the population density of two excited states represents the zero and one of the qubit. In a superconducting circuit, you are creating the electrical version of a nonlinear

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LC (inductor-capacitor) oscillator circuit, and you’re using the two lowest energy levels of that oscillator circuit as the zero and one of your qubit. You use a microwave pulse to manipulate between the zero and one state.

We do something similar with the spin qubit, but it’s a little different. You turn on a transistor, and you have a flow of electrons from one side to another. In a silicon spin qubit, you essentially trap a single electron in your transistor, and then you put the whole thing in a magnetic field [using a superconducting electromagnet in a refrigerator]. This orients the electron to either spin up or spin down. We are essentially using its spin state as the zero and one of the qubit. That would be an individual qubit. Then with very good control, we can get two separated electrons in close proximity and control the amount of interaction between them.

And that serves as our two-qubit interaction. So we’re basically taking a transistor, operating at the single electron level, getting it in very close proximity to what would amount to another transistor, and then we’re controlling the electrons.>> Of course this detailed analysis could be long continued, as every mentioned operation is a complicate set of critical technological processes, by the essential of this example is the iceberg tip image we can observe about this revolution, called Quantum Computing, that is coming, step by step, along with other emergent AI/ICT advances, which will leverage progress and the refined knowledge for the core of IS/KBS. 2. The hard ways towards the core of knowledge for sustainable progress The sadness of Isaac Asimov could be a start for a deeper analysis of the global consequences of progress, mainly influenced by ICT, either directly by its products, services or applications, but also by the information/knowledge globally generated or enabled. Considering the huge amount of generated data/information/knowledge, it is crucial to analyse and optimize the ways these could become part of (or support) the core of refined knowledge needed by the IS/KBS. In fact, we have presented examples [3][12] of how important is to timely watch the exponential evolutions of ICT, as their speed could generate or influence, along with wellknown benefic consequences, other challenges for the Earth ecosystem and even for the ways the evolution of humankind is potentially affected, including climate changes, Earth resources fading, social unbalances, human health/education/behaviour, geopolitical security and so on.

Some of these challenges are referring first to the human nature/behaviour, which we also consider crucial for the future of Earth ecosystem, as it is the main factor of innovation and … decision [7]: “Today we have mobiles and video calling, but hardly any time to talk with our near and dear ones. We have luxurious houses and bedrooms but we lack peaceful sleep. We stay in wonderful beautiful neighborhoods but we do not know the names of our neighbors. We feel sad that our children are drifting away, yet we never had any time for our parents. We order expensive foods from fine restaurants which are unable to eat and a few blocks away some homeless destitute may be sleeping on an empty stomach.

The irony of our time is that science has made the world shrink to a global village, but the distance between human beings is increasing at a faster rate. Even members of a family

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are now becoming strangers. Only true wisdom can liberate humanity from such selfdestructive end.”

It is easy to observe, even from these simple frustrating examples, that the fundamental role of the human nature and evolution is influencing all other challenges, starting from the pression of time/speed (which determines the opportunity of reactions to changes) and ending with social unbalances.

On the other side, the role of science and technology for the World progress is by far essential and constructive, but, in the complexity and dynamic of processes of development at Earth scale, all implied factors and consequences must be timely analysed, as it is further pointed: “Progress of science has always been looked upon with skepticism by many, giving rise to such debates as, whether science is a boon or bane. It is not science and technology that need to be blamed but the vices in human nature, of greed and of the urge to dominate over others.

With the deterioration in human values the world over, while the world becoming a global village, a serious introspection is the need of the hour. Without true wisdom, in our quest for reaching for the planets we shall be losing our souls…

There is a Greek mythological story about Icarus who devised a means to fly by making artificial wings made out of bird feathers and wax. When he flew over the oceans, he was so overtaken by the joy and sense of power of flying that he flew higher and closer to the Sun. The wings stuck together by was melted due to the heat and he fell on the ocean to his death.

This story shows the ambitious and self-centered nature of human beings and their inability to put self-gratification under check.”

This way we have just arrived to the most complex and difficult processes of decisions, where the refined knowledge, for the core of KBS, could be generated, but this does not happen always, mainly because of … human nature.

Here are in fact the most critical processes, because defining the appropriate “refined knowledge”, in such multi-dimensional cases on Earth, meaning a generic model 3D+time+restrictions, is almost impossibly to manage, but this does not mean we have to ignore these challenges.

Perhaps it could shock, that for these dilemmas, the starting point remains the human value (With the deterioration in human values the world over…) and the timely analysis we proposed is also confirmed (a serious introspection is the need of the hour).

The necessity of wisdom, versus simply having intelligence (expressed in only applying science and technology to the real problems), as we also expressed many times [9][12], is again confirmed (Without true wisdom… we shall be losing …).

Although almost everybody could agree with the necessity of wisdom, as refined knowledge, in the World development decisions, including AI/ICT/IS/KBS, sometimes the real problem is left at the old/last stage, mainly because it is too difficult to define and solve, which is mostly true.

What we could not accept is to ignore the new potential consequences/problems, as we have to timely analyse the context of AI/ICT/IS/KBS and refine knowledge, even when the dynamic, the speed/time or the incumbents represent obstacles for achieving this goal.

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One more confirmation for the mentioned role of human values in these processes is revealed, as a part of the problem difficult premises generated by the above-mentioned human health/education/behaviour, in another approach of Isaac Asimov quote roots [8]: “The sad truth to this quote, along with all of the quotes from the quote garden website, is that technology is beating us. It is beating us in knowledge, wisdom, tactics, and any kind of information in general. Whenever we seek a question, instead of referring to a book like most people did in the old days, we open up our phones and go to safari and ask google, the almighty know-it-all. Not too long ago students in school had to read books to find out information and go through archive newspapers to find out events that happened in the past. This was a way that not only took longer but also benefitted the students more than we are benefitted today. By reading the books and other materials, the students were able to actually learn and retain the knowledge. In the present day, we look something up on Google, write it down in the space allotted for our homework so that we will get a good grade on it, and we will most likely never think of it again.”

Our opinion is to take from such observations only the useful part, i.e., to recognize the fundamental role of Internet, we just pointed in the first section of this paper, but to identify here just one of the challenges we have mentioned referring to the potential non benefic influence of technology on human behaviour, caused mainly by the mentioned speed and superficiality involved.

We also would add an observation that could be further useful in the emergent trends of home working or online classes, as we have to introduce in these processes (like our university courses on line) elements to compensate the pointed superficiality/easiness induced by the advanced technology, i.e., to keep or improve the attention, the imagination, the thinking and generally the intellectual/creation potential of humankind.

One way toward this goal of keeping our intellect alive and creative (although it is worth to notice that also our physical condition could suffer when too much using TV or computer) is to further ask questions about: “Science is the study of many things. The study of how the body works, how we are made, how we function, how we learn. It’s the study of how things around us work, how the plants are alive, how they produce energy, why things are the colors that they are, what things are made of. It’s also one of the creators of technology. Without science, we would not have technology today. However, without technology, would we be better off? We so deeply rely on technology for so many things in our lives that some people have the vital question of can we live without it? We rely on it to wake us up in the morning, to make our coffee, to communicate with our friends and coworkers, to get to our jobs and in most cases, technology is our job.”

It is obvious that for such radical question the answer will not be yes/no, as it is clear that the actual humankind life on Earth is highly depending on science and technology and this dependence will naturally increase in the future, as it is further suggested: “Most people in today’s society go to science in search of wisdom or knowledge. They google symptoms of their illness and suddenly think that they have stage 4 cancer; they google quotes to put on the backgrounds of their high-tech phones to make their day more positive; they text their parents about their day just to feel like they’re doing something good. It’s too rare today that people go to their family members or elderly people that they know in person to communicate. Real wisdom is taught through experience, but science and technology restrict

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our experiences because we’re too caught up in showing the world how much fun we are having or taking pictures to remember it later; too busy to remember it in the moment. But the real question is, we could not live without it. It may be computers and cell phones, but it is also our emergency programs, medical machines keeping many people alive, and experiments looking to find cures for diseases trying to kill us off.”

By our opinion, the actual realistic question is which are the level of dependence, in every case, where we have to worry and ask: what if this support of technology fails one moment?

As we already pointed [9], there are more and more fields and cases where we are depending too much on technology and this relative assertion is relevant for critical infrastructures, as power grid or even communications/Internet.

In fact, the answer is aiming to prevent such events and provide the compensation solutions, i.e., just to refine the core knowledge for such context and contribute this way to the sustainable progress of AI/ICT/IS/KBS. More than these, many of the emergent projects, as autonomous cars and generally smart city/home, rely on complex systems and these premises determine high difficulties and challenges to design and optimize them.

This way, a special branch, the complexity science (Engineering Resilient Complex Systems), is increasing in the actual context and is expected to improve the solutions for future complex systems, as it presented by [10]: “Engineering systems are designed to specifications. In addition to functional requirements, a system’s reliability, failure tolerance, or resilience form an integral part of the design parameters. In principle, a system’s resilience should provide it with a capability to preserve its functionality over varying conditions of stress or for uncertainties arising from natural or human interventions [1]. For modern day engineering systems, designing for resilience or testing resilience at the design phase, poses a significant challenge. Due to the interconnectedness and embeddedness of these systems in a nested system of systems [2]–[4], it gets increasingly difficult to adopt the traditional approach of testing a system in isolation for resilience. Here, isolation refers to engaging with stress testing using a restrictive set of predetermined input parameters and system specific conditions [5].”

Here we have to notice the main roots of actual systems complexity, we also mentioned as a difficulty factor to analyse them [9][12], given by their structures of systems of systems and the inherent interconnections (interconnectedness and embeddedness), which rise major problems for finding the mathematical models and algorithms useful in the design approach.

Consequently, for the ICT/IS/KBS sustainable development it is necessary to combine the power of technology advances (first including AI) with new complexity science achievements, under the innovative approaches provided by human intelligence and imagination, in order to obtain the appropriate refined knowledge which should leverage solutions to the actual challenges of Earth ecosystem.

3. Conclusions As today it is more and more complicate and also difficult to maintain the exponential pace and the progressive increase of performances, the ICT actual research struggles reflect the

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necessity of innovative approaches, sometimes beyond the usual technological paths and resources, keeping alive the necessity to refine knowledge – as we presented in [12], in order to achieve a sustainable progress not only for ICT but also for the whole World they are aiming and influencing, by all kinds of consequences.

Considering these premises, we think that it is crucial, from the actual stage of ICT progress, to agree that beyond the usual approaches could mean unlimited innovations, sometimes changing paradigm and generally using data/information/knowledge even from unexpected areas, i.e., using outmost results of the human or … artificial intelligence. Such large and unusual approach of the research is, by our opinion, the logical option for keeping the ICT pace and extend performances and features from the actual high levels and facing also unprecedented and complex challenges at Earth scale, like climate changes, Earth resources fading or … Covid 19 pandemic. In fact, the natural aim of optimizing ICT for achieving a sustainable progress at Earth scale for IS/KBS, considering all complex challenges and consequences, leads to the logical approach of using human imagination and all resources, this way innovating and refining knowledge all the time, i.e., just what we could witness today and tomorrow.

Considering the unlimited areas or issues which could be part of the innovative solutions for ICT advances, in this paper we point, by some examples, just the tip of this iceberg, meaning at least the perception of this larger picture, from both ICT designer and user perspective, but clearly encouraging the perseverance in optimization, recognizing the crucial importance to this goal for Earth ecosystem and humankind evolution.

In the same time, this global and holistic approach is inherently a very difficult and complex chain of processes, supposing a relative level of the multi-criteria optimization, as many of the performance parameters and features have no-metric and consequently are not measurable, while the whole picture is fast changing, just because of the ICT exponential development which induce its pace all over the Earth. Here, for example, beyond technical and economical parameters, we might think at informational, environmental, ethical or social criteria (to include just few) to comply.

Going to the roots of knowledge, i.e., from experience and education, the above general approach is detailed by some relevant examples, showing concrete trends of the actual state and vision of ICT development, as premises and context.

This way, considering the evolution of ICT engineering, a prominent conclusion is that the information/knowledge is now faster generated and it contain new challenges, including the increasing complexity of knowing.

As for most of people Internet became a utility like water or electric power, its continue improvement is one of the prominent challenges of ICT, in spite of the impressing performances achieved, as speed, which support amazing applications like videoconferencing or home working. COVID-19 pandemic has generated, among other disturbances of life on Earth, changes which amplify some of the Internet existing challenges (the need for lower latency). This pandemic influence is a prove of the above mentioned global/holistic approach we have proposed for ICT progress and more than this, it lays in a zone where only an excessive imagination could forecast the evolution.

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Anyway, the Internet became a strategic asset for ITC/IS/KBS and generally for life on Earth, as it is the support for most of ICT advances, including Internet of Things (IoT), AI or Cloud services.

The Internet example (beyond a weather map for the Internet) is revealing how far the actual challenges (low latency expectations) could appear versus the past ones (disruptions from natural disasters), i.e., the last became surpassed by just the consequences of our “progress” in more complex applications (videoconferencing and online gaming), incidentally affected now by pandemic.

Here the conclusion is that it is a logical option to use our imagination beyond any actual apparent limits and especially simply reconsider (refine) knowledge and ask one more time if are they all (i.e., some complex applications, like online gaming) very necessary, as it is sure they rise the costs of ICT development (and beyond!) by many different ways and consequences.

Understanding the deepness of these examples, we could wonder if other applications fields, like human and Earth health or people education, should be a priority versus gaming on line (for example), considering the Earth resources fading and the other mentioned challenges?

Such optimization criteria do not mean to stop improving ITC performances or entertainment applications, but it is sure they will be useful to better manage Earth resources and even Internet improvement options.

As an important result, we could notice that, under deep analyses and complex context and criteria, innovations are enabled, even in the most difficult areas, like Internet actual performance improvement, using the power of other ICT advances, like AI in order to globally optimize the network use.

In addition, the struggle for adapting Internet to the actual and future challenges is a clear link between AI/ICT innovations and refining knowledge for the core of knowledge based society, as it is difficult to imagine the optimization of the huge network of networks at Earth scale, on all possible paths, without the expected progress of AI and other ICT advances like Big Data, using the leveraging support of DS. From the Quantum Computing example, presenting the advantage of Intel silicon spin qubits, we can notice the often-used ICT way of compensating complexity by exploiting some of the already achieved technological advances, even when, this way, a compromise must be supposed, but a step ahead is provided.

Also, the essential of this example is the iceberg tip image we can observe about this revolution, called Quantum Computing, that is coming, step by step, along with other emergent AI/ICT advances, which will leverage progress and the refined knowledge for the core of IS/KBS. Such examples confirmed how important it is to timely watch the exponential evolutions of ICT, as their speed could generate or influence, along with well-known benefic consequences, other challenges for the Earth ecosystem and even for the ways the evolution of humankind is potentially affected, including climate changes, Earth resources fading, social unbalances, human health/education/behaviour, geopolitical security and so on.

Some of these challenges, reflected above from relevant examples (promoting wisdom when approaching science and technology versus human values, like empathy or solidarity ), are referring first to the human nature/behaviour, which we also consider crucial for the future

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of Earth ecosystem, as human is the main factor of innovation and decision and this way the fundamental role of the human nature and evolution is influencing all other challenges, starting from the ICT pression of time/speed (which determines the opportunity of reactions to changes) and ending with social unbalances. On the other side, the role of science and technology for the World progress is by far essential and constructive, but, in the complexity and dynamic of processes of development at Earth scale, all implied factors and consequences must be timely analysed.

This way we have just arrived to the most complex and difficult processes of decisions, where the refined knowledge, for the core of KBS, could be generated, but this does not happen always, mainly because of … human nature. These processes are critical because defining the appropriate “refined knowledge”, in such multi-dimensional cases on Earth, meaning a generic model 3D+time+restrictions, is almost impossibly to manage, but this does not mean we have to ignore these challenges.

The necessity of wisdom (realistically including human values), versus simply having intelligence (expressed in only applying science and technology to the real problems), as we also expressed many times [9][12], is also confirmed (Without true wisdom… we shall be losing …).

Although almost everybody could agree with the necessity of wisdom, as refined knowledge, in the World development decisions, including AI/ICT/IS/KBS, sometimes the real problem is left at the old/last stage, mainly because it is too difficult to define and solve, which is mostly true. What we could not accept is to ignore the new potential consequences/problems, as we have to timely analyse the context of AI/ICT/IS/KBS and refine knowledge, even when the dynamic, the speed/time or the incumbents represent obstacles for achieving this goal.

As the humankind life on Earth is highly depending on science and technology and this dependence will naturally increase in the future, by our opinion, the actual realistic question is which are the level of dependence, in every case, where we have to worry and ask: what if this support of technology fails one moment?

As we already pointed [9], there are more and more fields and cases where we are depending too much on technology and this relative assertion is relevant for critical infrastructures, as power grid or even communications/Internet. In fact, the answer is aiming to prevent such events and provide the compensation solutions, i.e., just to refine the core knowledge for such context and contribute this way to the sustainable progress of AI/ICT/IS/KBS. More than these, many of the emergent projects, as autonomous cars and generally smart city/home, rely on complex systems and these premises determine high difficulties and challenges to design and optimize them. This way, a special branch, the complexity science (Engineering Resilient Complex Systems), is increasing in the actual context and is expected to improve the solutions for future complex systems as it presented by [10].

Here we have to notice the main roots of actual systems complexity, we also mentioned as a difficulty factor to analyse them [9][12], given by their structures of systems of systems and the inherent interconnections (interconnectedness and embeddedness), which rise major problems for finding the mathematical models and algorithms useful in the design approach.

As a final conclusion, for the ICT/IS/KBS sustainable development it is necessary to combine the power of technology advances (first including AI) with new complexity

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science achievements, under the innovative approaches provided by human intelligence and imagination, in order to obtain the appropriate refined knowledge which should leverage solutions to the actual challenges of Earth ecosystem.

REFERENCES [1]Bayan Towfiq, The Internet's Coming Sunny Days, IEEE Spectrum, Volume 58, Issue 11, November 2021 [2]Robert W. Lucky, Deep Complexities in EE, IEEE Spectrum, May 2018 [3]Victor Greu, Information and communications technology is merging data science and advanced artificial intelligence towards the core of knowledge based society -(Part 3), Romanian Distribution Committee (affiliated to the “International Association of the Distributive Trade”-scientific association – A.I.D.A. Brussels) Magazine(international; electronic; covered in RePEc International Data Base), Volume 12, Issue 3, Year 2021.

[4]Samuel K. Moore, What Intel Is Planning for The Future of Quantum Computing: Hot Qubits, Cold Control Chips, and Rapid Testing, IEEE Spectrum, Volume: 57, Issue: 8, Aug 2020 [5]Richard Versluis, Chad Hagen, Quantum computers scale up: Constructing a universal quantum computer with a large number of qubits will be hard but not impossible, IEEE Spectrum Volume: 57, Issue: 4, April 2020) [6]Florin Enache, Victor Greu, Petrică Ciotîrnae, Florin Popescu, Model and Algorithms for Optimizing a Human Computing System Oriented to Knowledge Extraction by Use of Crowdsourcing, 2020, 13th International Conference on Communications (COMM), (Politehnica University of Bucharest, Military Technical Academy, IEEE Romania), (COMM 2020 is covered in IEEE Explore Database and ISI Web of Science in the Conference Proceedings Citation Index) [7]Raj Kumar Hansdah, Scientific Progress Without True Wisdom Will Cause More Harm Than Good, https://www.beaninspirer.com/scientific-progress-without-true-wisdom-willcause-more-harm-than-good, Updated: October 21, 2021 [8]Kaylie-Anna Vallee, Is science beginning to define us, and is it possible to live without it? , https://web.colby.edu/st112wa2018/2018/02/10/response-to-sts-quote, FEBRUARY 10, 2018 [9]Victor Greu, Searching the right tracks of new technologies in the Earth race for a balance between progress and survival, Romanian Distribution Committee (affiliated to the “International Association of the Distributive Trade”-scientific association – A.I.D.A. Brussels) Magazine (international; electronic; covered in RePEc International Data Base), Volume 3, Issue1, Year 2012.

[10]Giuliano Punzo et al, Engineering Resilient Complex Systems: The Necessary Shift Toward Complexity Science, IEEE SYSTEMS JOURNAL, VOL. 14, NO. 3, SEPTEMBER 2020 [11]Ernesto Villalba, The Concept of Knowledge for a Knowledge-based Society From knowledge to learning, European Commission Joint Research Centre © European Communities, 2007 [12]Victor Greu, The information and communications technology is driving artificial intelligence to leverage refined knowledge for the World sustainable development – (Part 2), Romanian Distribution Committee (affiliated to the “International Association of the Distributive Trade”-scientific association – A.I.D.A. Brussels) Magazine(international; electronic; covered in RePEc International Data Base), Volume 10, Issue 1, Year 2019.

[13]Andreas Poltermann, Education for a Knowledge-Based Society? A Concept Must be Rethought, 17 April 2014, https://rs.boell.org/en/2014/04/17/education-knowledge-basedsociety-concept-must-be-rethought

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[14]Victor Greu, Using the information and communications technology data deluge from a semantic perspective of a dynamic challenge: What to learn and what to ignore?

– (Part 2), Romanian Distribution Committee (affiliated to the “International Association of the Distributive Trade”-scientific association – A.I.D.A. Brussels) Magazine(international; electronic; covered in RePEc International Data Base), Volume 10, Issue 4, Year 2019.

[15]Victor Greu et all, Human and artificial intelligence driven incentive-operation model and algorithms for a multi-purpose integrated crowdsensing-crowdsourcing scalable system, Proceedings of International Conference Communications 2018, (Politehnica University of Bucharest, Military Technical Academy, IEEE Romania), June 2018(COMM 2018 is covered in IEEE Explore Database and ISI Web of Science in the Conference Proceedings Citation Index).

[16]Fran Berman, Current Working Definitions Of Cyberinfrastructure, 2005, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/49471518_What_is_Cyberinfrastructure/link/0912f 51085bdceaf0a000000/download [17]Gordon Bell, Tony Hey, Alex Szalay, Beyond the Data Deluge, Science, Vol 323, 6 March 2009.

[18] Victor Greu, Context-aware communications and IT – a new paradigm for the optimization of the information society towards the knowledge based society (Part 2), Romanian Distribution Committee (affiliated to the “International Association of the Distributive Trade”-scientific association – A.I.D.A. Brussels) Magazine (international; electronic; covered in RePEc International Data Base), Volume 5, Issue4, Year 2014.

[19]Samuel K. Moore, Supersize AI Cerebras’s silicon-wafer-size chip boasts 2.6 trillion transistors, IEEE Spectrum, Volume 58, Issue 7, July 2021 [20]Hemant Sharma, What Is Data Science? A Beginner’s Guide To Data Science, https://www.edureka.co/blog/what-is-data-science/ [21] Victor Greu, Communicate on … Communications - From a Conference every 2 years to the need to communicate everyday and everywhere, Romanian Distribution Committee (affiliated to the “International Association of the Distributive Trade”-scientific association – A.I.D.A. Brussels) Magazine (international; electronic; covered in RePEc International Data Base), Volume 5, Issue 2, Year 2014

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Global Supply Crisis: Challenges & Ways to Uovercome

Cosmin TĂNASE Abstract With globalised supply chains in turmoil, combined with consumer demand for locally sourced, carbon neutral supply chains, the current crisis in logistics could spark the beginning of a larger reorganisation of global commerce. Recent news that global food prices have reached their highest point since the 1970s (in real terms) has given cause for concern for governments and corporations alike. However, the adjacent supply chain crisis, which is being touted as a reason for these price increases, is not so much a supply crisis as a logistics crisis. The current high demand for goods is being met in terms of production but cannot be accommodated with existing logistics infrastructure.

Keywords: Logistics, Supply Management, Forecasting, Customer Demand, Holistic Perspective JEL Classification: L81, L86, M31, Q55

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While governments are attempting to alleviate inflation where they can, until the logistics crisis is solved, prices will be difficult to keep down as demand outstrips supply, company profits fall, and the market becomes less competitive. There are fears that an increased supply in containers will not be enough. The backlog is already so vast, and there are shipping bottlenecks forming reminiscent of the infamous Suez Canal blockage back in March this year. Indeed, one of the world’s largest port operators, Maersk, warned in early September 2021 that the only way to ease the supply-chain crisis was for consumer demand to fall, for people to buy less. These are not the words goods manufacturers want to hear as many companies struggle to recoup Covid-19-related losses. While there’s no denying supply chain logistics are always evolving, it’s safe to say 2020 caused disruptions that most consumer goods brands aren’t accustomed to seeing.

Now, in 2021, there are new challenges companies must tackle to remain successful within the competitive eCommerce space. With that said, a shift to online retail, increase in consumer confidence, pent-up demand, and amassed savings all add up to a tremendous opportunity for digitally native brands.

Supply Chains in 2021 Companies who survived the volatility of 2020 likely did so by way of getting lean, selling through inventory, and focusing on working capital. At times, the last year’s challenges have no doubt felt unwieldy. Suppliers and manufacturers from all over the world have largely been put to the test, encountering massive stock shortages, fulfillment delays, and lengthy backorders on common inventory items. Supply chain challenges are expected to persist, to some degree, for the remainder of 2021 — driven by increased consumer spend on products, sustained appetite for the convenience of buying online, and catch up required from last year’s bottlenecks. And yet, in spite of 2021’s fragile supply chain network, companies are acclimating to these changes by addressing inefficiencies head on and seeking to work smarter, not harder. The Covid-19 pandemic continued to disrupt the supply chain ecosystem with new and unforeseen barriers to both productivity and profitability. The following are 2021’s biggest supply chain challenges faced by product-based businesses from all over the globe: 1. Material scarcity. Insufficient inputs have been a concern since the pandemic began, due to an abrupt rise in consumer demand like never before. Even now, companies and suppliers alike are struggling to meet this demand in the midst of limited availability for many parts and materials. In speaking to growth stage brands in our network, we’ve encountered everything from furniture manufacturers facing foam shortages to bike manufacturers losing payment terms due to maxed out component suppliers. In fact, a recent survey conducted by the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) revealed ‘record-long lead times, wide-scale shortages of critical basic materials, rising commodities prices, and difficulties in transporting products across industries.’ In light of these scarce inputs, a brand’s ability to sustain its growth is highly dependent on working capital to weather downtime and ramp up for peak seasons.

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2. Increasing freight prices. Contrary to initial expectations, the need for container shipping has increased considerably throughout the pandemic. With worldwide lockdown measures inciting a surge in eCommerce sales, the response has been a greater import demand for raw materials and manufactured consumer goods (a large percentage of which are moved in shipping containers).

And since this demand was much more substantial than anticipated, it was met with insufficient shipping capacity and an unprecedented shortage of empty or available containers.

3. Difficult demand forecasting. Demand forecasting in the middle of a global pandemic has added a new layer of complexity to many companies’ supply chain management. The onset of Covid-19 essentially shattered the forecasts for countless retailers and suppliers of consumer goods/services, leaving them without a guide as to how much inventory to stock or manufacture at any given time. The challenge, then, has come from trying to improve predictions for customer demand, while in many ways having to rely on gut instinct rather than data-driven research. In this situation, supply chain managers are encouraged to abandon their bias, pursue new data sets for forecast models, and continually refine their results for the greatest accuracy.

4. Port congestion. Port congestion caused by the pandemic remains one of the top challenges for the world’s supply chains, seeing as port owners, carriers, and shippers are collectively still scrambling for a viable solution to this problem. Congestion occurs whenever a ship arrives at a port but cannot load (or unload) because that station is already at capacity.

Although the loading/unloading process typically goes according to plan, labor shortages and social distancing associated with the pandemic has notably steered things off course, creating major bottlenecks at a number of busy global docks. Due to this congestion and the backlog it has created, a myriad of companies are unable to get their goods out the door on time — which means carriers are also unable to adhere to their specified delivery commitments.

5. Changing consumer attitudes. Consumer attitudes and behaviors have changed in some big ways during the pandemic, as well, like lowering the threshold for delivery times and raising the requirements for a positive customer experience. The challenge comes in having an agile supply chain that can harness the power of automations to optimize fulfillment and handle accelerated demand with ease. An excellent example of this supply chain flexibility comes from a multichannel order fulfillment services and inventory management software.

6. Digital transformation. When it comes to supply chain operations, digital transformation and IoT can be a mixed blessing. Still, there are several technologies with potential to enhance the way we approach the traditional supply chain, including: artificial intelligence, drones and robots, electric vehicles, and on-demand delivery. But even though these systems/services are intended to make ecommerce processes more efficient and cost-effective in the long run, the challenge lies in implementing them across a company’s existing supply chain.

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It takes time and organizational realignment to put these technologies into action, particularly when working with multiple warehouses or omnichannel selling — and yet, supply chains must continuously evolve if they wish to stay ahead of the competition.

Potential ways to overcome supply chain issues The pandemic has presented some unique supply chain challenges that eCommerce retailers continue to tackle on a daily basis. The good news is, there are a multitude of ways to mitigate major issues and avoid running out of inventory ever again. And though there’s not a one-sizefits-all approach to supply chain planning, it’s possible a combination of a few techniques will provide the most complete and comprehensive outcomes: 1. Keep liquidity in the business. Protecting the business with flexible access to capital. After all, having cash on hand is often the difference between meeting demand and going out of stock. With sharp ebbs and flows of inventory expected in the coming months, it’s wise to consider a flexible line of credit that can be used to stock up on evergreen or perennial items in high demand and pay for priority manufacturing/shipping, or even air freighting.

2. Diversify sourcing in supply chain strategy. Broaden the range of sourcing, perhaps geographically, to increase choice and abundance within the supply chain. By developing a number of supplier relationships, it’s easier to become more flexible and adjust to a constantly changing market (i.e. during a prolonged pandemic that alters the entire global economy). Many times, diverse sourcing is the key to a brand’s success, as it readily locates goods and materials while maintaining profits, growing customers, and boosting innovation.

3. Work with a freight forwarder. Partnering with a freight forwarder — or multiple — to manage and track the shipment of the goods. While freight forwarding companies are accountable for the transportation of products from one destination to the next, they can also arrange the entire process for shippers and negotiate the best price and/or fastest route. Retailers who work with a freight forwarder benefit from their vast knowledge of the supply chain, in addition to their ability to handle unforeseen obstacles in real-time (such as delayed goods or rerouted services). What’s more, freight forwarders are able to negotiate at scale by aggregating shipments of smaller retailers.

4. Identify alternative shipping ports. Retailers should seek out alternative ports to meet fulfillment needs and stay on schedule, regardless of unforeseen events or a sudden spike in customer orders.

For example, in the US with DTC brands increasingly dependent on Asian imports, the sister ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have become the bedrock of Transpacific trade. Given that these ports account for over 25% of North America’s ocean freight, it would be wise to identify a fail safe in case of congestion or other inefficiencies.

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5. Improve demand forecasting. Without fail, the best way to improve forecasting is by using automations to calculate these metrics on the retailer’s behalf. eCommerce sellers are always looking for a balance between their inventory levels, warehousing costs, and the demand from their customers to prevent stockouts or inventory shortages. With automated inventory alerts, forecasting tools, and cash on hand, merchants can stock up with confidence based on predicted product demand and/or sales. What’s more, making forecasting a priority can streamline inventory counts and reduce excess overhead fees.

Conclusions There appears to be a growing understanding that having a supply chain that stretches the globe can leave companies open to undue risk, a risk that could be avoided by sourcing locally.

Ultimately, if this current crisis continues, then a more thorough reorganising of global trade could be on the horizon; a reorganisation that sees multinationals embedded more at a local level, relying less on globalised logistics.

Another mega-trend that intersects with these issues is environmentalism. Companies are increasingly marketing their goods based on their carbon footprint and wider environmental impact. Localised supply chains will help companies to meet these targets while stepping out of the problems that currently plague global commerce.

Throughout the last year, companies of all sizes have had to reimagine their operational strategies, in hopes of revitalizing their bottom line and retaining their customer base as much as possible.

But amid global crisis and supply/demand difficulties, brands are somehow building resilience against future shocks and repairing their fault lines.

The pandemic has not only amplified the need for greater supply chain optimization, but the need for faster decision-making, too. What this means is, it will be increasingly important for supply chain leaders to adopt a holistic perspective with AI and analytics in the years to come. A business can and should leverage technology to get a good pulse on everything from customer relationship management to bringing more visibility to its supply chain.

References [1] Brown, A. (2021): “Supply Chain Challenges & Supply Chain Issues” / skubana.com/blog [2] Fernie, J. (2004). Relationships in the Supply Chain. In J. Fernie & L. Sparks (Eds.), Logistics and Retail Management: Insights Into Current Practice and Trends From Leading Experts (pp. 26-47). London Sterling.

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[3] Gronroos, C. (2010). Service Management and Marketing (Third Edition ed.).

Chichester: John Wiley&Sons, Ltd. [4] Heller, A. (2006). Consumer-Centric Category Management-How to increase profits by managing categories based on consumer needs. Hoboken: Wiley & Sons.

[5] Kaplan, A. M., & Haenlein, M. (2010). Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media. Business Horizons (53) [6] Paige, J. (2021) “Global supply crisis: what is it, and what could be the long-term effects?” retail-insight-network.com [7] Ranchhod, A. (2007) ‘Developing mobile marketing strategies’, International Journal of Mobile Marketing, 2(1).

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E-commerce, Q-commerce, New Technologies and Omnichannel Consumers’ Personalized Experience

Drd. Ioan Matei PURCĂREA Abstract Anticipated marked change in e-commerce and the need to reach the best return on experience, building the data organization, are all current preoccupations. Research findings revealed the in full expansion quick-commerce retail space and the increased competition among vertically integrated instant-needs companies and third-party delivery platforms, particular focus being put on the economics of quick commerce and the impact of delivery times within this framework. The future of customer engagement and the focus of retailers’ e-commerce strategies on the omnichannel customer journey are also other current preoccupations, consumers’ expectations regarding the online shopping experience of the future being also an issue of a real interest, as well as data intelligence, omnichannel consumers, personalized experience, search, voice search, and e-commerce as a whole.

Keywords: E-commerce; Q-commerce; Vertically integrated instant-needs companies; Third-party delivery platforms; Customer engagement; Mobile apps; Omnichannel consumers; Personalized experience JEL Classification: D83; L21; M21; M31; M37; O31; O33

Anticipated marked change in e-commerce and the need to reach the best return on experience, building the data organization Pacvue (known by the audience as the enterprise platform for eCommerce advertising, sales, and intelligence, helping brands grow on Amazon, Walmart, Instacart, eBay, and other marketplaces), brought to our attention in November 2021 that brands must look carefully at shopping behaviors’ evolution of changes in next year, 2022 (seen as another year causing a marked change in eCommerce), within the context of dealing with intensifying situations regarding supply chains and commodity prices giving rise, for instance, to both out-of-stock issues, and decreased profit margins, and not only (Pacvue, 2021). They identified six key strategic areas for brands (having granted access by retailers to customer insights so as to make

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smarter marketing decisions) to concentrate attention on: growth opportunities to plan for in 2022 (see figure below); adjust the key performance indicators (KPIs) and reporting (report on share of voice, getting granular, finding gaps in strategy ); work towards achieving budget fluidity (getting leadership buy-in, avoiding monthly budget lock-in, flexibility being key); learnings from 2021 to take into the New Year (take volume upfront, pivot and learn quickly, adjust your team structure); practical planning tips (don’t forget about January, dealing with inventory issues); leverage new features (Amazon attribution,; twitch audiences, bid optimizations and custom creatives; Walmart Search Brand Amplifier; Instacart Daily Budget Feature; Criteo Placement Bid Modifiers; Target “More to Consider” Ad Placement).

Figure no. 1: #1 Growth Opportunities to Plan for in 2022 Source: Pacvue, 2021. 2022 Planning Guide. November 2021, p. 3 (work cited)

Of course, as shown by the Pointillist Customer Journey Analytics and Orchestration platform (which enables CX, analytics and marketing teams not only to manage customer journey data and measure journey performance, but also to orchestrate personalized omnichannel experiences), customers are not concerned with companies’ KPIs, they take journeys with companies to satisfy their needs (Pointillist, 2021). Consequently, companies’ journey management approach is used to reduce costs and improve CX by both analyzing the journeys involved, and measuring the impact of any changes on their KPIs.

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With regard to providing customers with the best possible user experience (UX, that leads to better customer engagement), those companies which prioritize mobile have an advantage, as underlined by AppsFlyer (presented as an enterprise CRM-like SaaS platform allowing app developers to store, own, manage, analyze and control their customers’ data), whose deeplinking product OneLink is increasing both mobile app conversions, and revenues from owned media to drive Return On Experience – ROX, as shown in the below figure (AppsFlyer, 2021).

Figure no. 2: OneLink Customers Show Higher ROX Source: AppsFlyer, 2021. The age of return on experience, p. 4 (work cited)

AppsFlyer is highlighting the role of mobile apps in fueling customer engagement, and made reference to the top priority for brands that is this customer engagement (seen as encompassing the full set of activities through which companies build direct relationships with their customers), as revealed by Braze’s 2021 Global Customer Engagement Review (Magnuson, 2021). Braze’s Customer Engagement Index is measuring the maturity of brands’ engagement efforts (by coordinating messages across channels, devices, and touch points), indicating also where they can improve, the success of the customer engagement relying to a great extent on the creation of improved experiences (which are personalized and studied in context) across the entire user journey.

Within this framework it is also important to note that top 10 mobile apps worldwide (Lebow, 2021) is dominated by Meta (Facebook), whose top four mobile apps worldwide (WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Facebook, Instagram) recorded the most cumulative downloads between Q1 2014 and Q3 2021, being followed by TikTok, Snapchat, Subway Surfers, Youtube, UC Browser, and Shareit, as shown in figure below.

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Figure no. 3: Top 10 Mobile Apps Worldwide, Ranked by Cumulative Downloads, Q1 2014-Q3 2021 Source: AppsFlyer, 2021. The age of return on experience, p. 4 (work cited)

Known for its high-performance email, website personalization, mobile marketing automation, and unique integrations, Sailthru (2021) presented a very interesting success story with the mobile payments platform Raise (2.5 million members), whose customers using Raise’s digital mobile wallet derive significant benefits (they make purchases in-store or online, and earn discounts and cash back, buy or sell gift cards at discounts of up to 30%). Raise’s customers download its mobile app (in order to buy discounted gift cards, make payments, and earn Raise Cash), Raise (which is leveraging Sailthru technology) meeting them on their mobile devices, and encouraging their brand-specific behaviors, general gift card replenishment, or a purchase (at least 30% of Raise’s successful conversions come from its mobile email and push notifications).

As shown recently by Statt (2021), according to a report from Bloomberg, the CEO of Epic Games (known for its PC game store and other software distribution efforts) advanced the idea of a potential solution toward breaking the tech titans’ dominance (such as Apple and Google) over software distribution (fragmented now as ownership), this idea consisting in a single universal app store. This opinion expressed in mid-November by Epic Games CEO became globally known on the occasion of the Global Conference for Mobile Application Ecosystem Fairness in South Korea (country where in August 2021 it was passed a landmark app store bill requiring software marketplaces to allow for alternative in-app payment options).

It is worth mentioning that as argued recently by one of the fastest growing online publishers globally, Visual Capitalist, nobody can ignore the considerable influence of the socalled Big Tech companies, and Domo’s annual infographic is reflecting what is going on in an internet minute (taking into account today’s around five billion internet users across the globe), and the huge amount of data generated by users (Ali, 2021), as shown in figure below.

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Figure no. 4: DOMO, Data Never Sleeps 9.0 How much data is generated every minute?

Source: Ali, A., 2021. From Amazon to Zoom: What Happens in an Internet Minute In 2021? Visual Capitalist, November 10 (work cited)

And as in the digital universe it was an impressive increase of the amount of data and information, Visual Capitalist invited us to look also at services’ evolution over the years (20122021), as shown in the below figure. Here we can see a link between these data generated every

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minute and what we showed in August issue of RDC Magazine (Purcarea, 2021) with regard to the imperative efforts to build the organization of the future as a data organization, considering the impact of the implicit capabilities behind e-commerce on change.

Figure no. 5: Services that have appear in the Data Never Sleeps Wheel Source: Ali, A., 2021. From Amazon to Zoom: What Happens in an Internet Minute In 2021? Visual Capitalist, November 10 (work cited)

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The in full expansion quick-commerce retail space and the increased competition among vertically integrated instant-needs companies and third-party delivery platforms.

The economics of quick commerce and the impact of delivery times The changing consumer behavior since COVID-19 pandemic and consumers’ rising expectations have fuelled the rise of companies fast delivering goods (in under an hour or as quickly as in 10 minutes, commonly groceries), in other words of the so-called ‘quick commerce’ (Q-commerce, on-demand or rapid delivery) facilitated by ‘dark stores’ (fulfilment centers supporting e-commerce distribution strategy) which have improved fulfilment prior to 2020, like in the case of US Walmart and Whole Foods or online food delivery platform Deliveroo in UK (Gilliland, 2021). Analyzing this ultra-fast business model with big potential (especially in the case of companies managing both picking and delivery themselves), Gilliland made reference also to the opinion expressed by JP Morgan analysts that the online models of major supermarkets could even be disrupted by the rise of the quick-commerce market, as well as competing with supermarkets’ convenience formats.

A recent Coresight Research report (2021), which analyzed (both exploring the differences between the vertically integrated instant-needs companies and third-party delivery platforms, and talking also about this market key players) the Q-commerce retail space in full expansion (estimated to generate $20–25 billion in US retail sales in 2021, which is equating to a 10%–13% share of the estimate for US online CPG sales expected to a total around $191 billion), revealed significant aspects, such as: - being now more of a retail concept (than a retail channel) convenience is a true battle field, in addition to longstanding same-day delivery platforms like DoorDash, Instacart and Uber Eats (delivering orders from local third-party retailers, or picking the orders, or only fulfilling delivery; - current options ranging now from 30 minutes to several hours, shorter than traditional sameday), there is a largest and most established player, Gopuff, in the vertically integrated instantneeds segment (vertical integration being key to rapid delivery), one hand, and new entrants like Fridge No More, Gorillas, JOKR and 1520 (picking essential items in their own dark stores and couriering them to shoppers within 10–30 minutes in general, directing a great deal of their efforts towards these shorter delivery times), other hand; - the grocery baskets and other shopping trips could be partial disaggregated by the widespread consumer use of Q-commerce; - an overview of online fulfillment in the US Q-Commerce in Retail can be seen in table below; asked (Coresight Research’s US consumer survey on October 18, 2021) about which factors influence them most in choosing a rapid delivery service online grocery shoppers responded as shown in the below figure;

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- the different economics of the vertically integrated instant-needs model and delivery model discussed by Coresight Research were summarized in the second table below.

Table no. 1: Overview of Online Fulfillment in the US Quick Commerce in Retail

Source: Coresight Research, 2021. From Quick Commerce to Instant Needs: Exploring Business Models in Rapid Delivery, Coresight, November 5, 2021 (work cited)

Figure no. 6: Online Grocery Shoppers: Factors That Are, or Would Be, Most Important to Them When Choosing a Rapid Delivery Service (% of Respondents) Source: Coresight Research, 2021. From Quick Commerce to Instant Needs: Exploring Business Models in Rapid Delivery, Coresight, November 5, 2021 (work cited)

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Table no. 2: Overview of Online Fulfillment in the US Quick Commerce in Retail

Source: Coresight Research, 2021. From Quick Commerce to Instant Needs: Exploring Business Models in Rapid Delivery, Coresight, November 5, 2021 (work cited)

Expanded details provided in this Coresight Research report gave also an overview of the operations and offerings of significant players in US Q-commerce retail, reflecting the battle between the new entrants and the longer-standing players expanding aggressively. Coresight survey data suggest the willingness of US consumers “to trade off some delivery speed for low or no fees and competitive product prices”. On the other hand, this valuable Coresight Research

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report concluded as follows: “Given their different business models, delivery platforms and instant-needs players will have different impacts—the former relies on partnering with legacy retailers while the latter competes with those retailers for share. The competitive pressures are already prompting major chains to embark on ventures into immediate fulfillment”.

The future of customer engagement and the focus of retailers’ e-commerce strategies on the omnichannel customer journey. Consumers’ expectations regarding the online shopping experience of the future Twilio’s annual customer and developer conference, SIGNAL, October 20-21, 2021 focused on the future of customer engagement, and revealed from the very beginning important aspects, such as: a vision for all businesses concerning how to deliver on the promise of digitalfirst customer engagement was presented by Twilio CEO; the right data foundation necessary to build deeper customer relationships, a Data Scientist at e-commerce fashion retailer Stylepit, Denmark, revealing how in order to more effectively manage customer relationships it was evaluated the decision of buying a CRM or CDP, personalizing (with Segment CDP, respecting privacy) customer interactions at scale; an Outschool Engineering Manager revealed how in order to move faster and increase customer engagement during Outschool’s high-growth period it was used Twilio Segment CDP (Young, 2021). What consumers in today’s digital era want is authentic connection, companies being challenged to respect customers’ time, attention, and interest, building trust with their customers (Leight, 2021). This year’s SIGNAL conference also revealed, for instance, how DoorDash both handled during COVID-19 pandemic a tripling of SMS volume for multiple use cases (being included marketing, alerts, verifications, and conversations), and used data to improve experiences (each day, DoorDash has scaled to handle millions of mission-critical delivery notices).

As shown by a leader in the market research industry, Luth Research (2021), as we move forward in the new normal enhanced interactions with customers are key, and retailers should focus their e-commerce strategies on the omnichannel customer journey, tracking customers’ behaviors across all touchpoints, including micro-moments, the more so because before making their purchasing decisions most shoppers interact with an e-commerce website multiple times over an extremely long period of time, one hand, and it is expected an increasing use of retailers’ websites and mobile apps to augment consumers’ in-store shopping experience, on other hand.

According to Luth Research it is essential to develop better growth and sales strategies by better understanding e-commerce data and trends, taking into account that online purchasing (which showed both consistent conversion rates, and reduced cart abandonment rates, confirming the adoption of e-commerce as a way of life, see the figure below) has remained sure in movement and uniform this year marked by the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Figure no. 7: The rise in conversion rates and drop in cart abandonment rates in mass retail and grocery shows that consumers have adopted eCommerce as a way of life Source: Luth Research, 2021. How COVID is shifting ecommerce landscape. [pdf] LUTH research, A focus on Amazon, Walmart, Target, Kroger and Instacart, November 2021, p. 6 (work cited)

Asked about what they want to see in their online shopping experience of the future, respondents of a study commissioned by Loqate (and conducted in May/June 2021 by Perspectus Global from over 4,500 global consumers and 150 eCommerce decision makers), and focused on the checkout, revealed an interesting situation, as shown in figure below (Loqate, 2021). Loqate report underlined that as consumers demand and expect an improved CX one of the ultimate challenges to e-commerce retailers will continue to be to optimize the checkout process, shopping cart abandonment remaining a worrying problem (because of a poor checkout a

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shopping cart being abandoned by average consumer at least six times a week), and the top reasons for cart abandonment being as follows: Extra costs from shipping (59%), Required to open an account (37%), Being asked to save my card (31%), Takes too long to input all my details (29%), Problems with global shipping (19%), Couldn’t work out how to fill in the form properly (18%), Website gets my location wrong (11%). Research findings also revealed the biggest e-commerce barriers to success: Delivery errors (28%), Not generating initial visitors (28%), Poor data quality (26%), Slow checkout procedures (25%), Not driving enough return visitors to your website (23%), Cart abandonment (23%), Address input issues (22%), Retaining customers on the website (21%), Trust issues with the website (21%). One of the foremost checkout experiences (according to 45% of all respondents) was confirmed in the case of supermarkets, followed by clothing stores (42%), and utilities (24%). Another interesting aspect is that in contrast to the US respondents who prefer a fast purchase journey (54%), UK and EU respondents like the idea of the so-called appropriate friction (rather than skipping to the purchase, 56% of all UK and EU respondents prefer a slower online purchasing time) on the whole. With regard to the top five features of future checkouts, situation looks like this: Smart home ordering, On demand delivery, One button ordering, Virtual reality, and Drone deliveries.

Figure no. 8: What do you want to see in the online shopping experience of the future?

Source: Loqate, 2021. Future of the digital checkout: Today’s trends shaping tomorrow’s Tech. [pdf] Loqate GBG, November 2021, p. 13 (work cited)

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Conclusions: Data intelligence, omnichannel consumers, personalized experience, search, voice search, and e-commerce As technology and data are converging, there are new opportunities today for market engagement by identifying and targeting more-personalized segments thanks to data intelligence about consumers and their behavior, a consumer identifier being established, for instance, by identity graphing of online digital activity with offline locations, transactions, and consumer and customer demographics (Ventana Research, 2021). Today we are witnessing the expansion of the so-called frictionless commerce (contextual commerce, considering consumers’ willingness to make a purchase while using an e-commerce website, mobile apps, Amazon’s Alexa, Pinterest and Instagram click-to-buy buttons etc.) made possible by both various technological advances (in location-based, social and smartphone technologies, mobile payment systems), and a decrease in additional technology costs (TechTarget, 2021). As underlined by TechTarget, developers are trying to improve CX (making it more frictionless) with the help of new technologies (voicerecognition technologies, immersive technologies etc.). Forrester Research brought earlier to our attention that the frictionless commerce is eager to be experience it only a well-oiled frictionless commerce machine (based including on internal data management processes) being able to give birth to an exceptional CX, and in companies’ data maturity journey the role of Machine Learning in jumpstarting being essential, not only by eliminating friction points and adding capabilities, but also by gaining insights at any point in companies’ data journey (Corrick, 2020), as highlighted by the General Manager of Master Data Management (MDM), Pivotree (which is a leader in frictionless commerce, with expertise in eCommerce, MDM, Cloud, Cybersecurity, and Supply Chain solutions).

On the other hand, as McKinsey’s representatives demonstrated (Barbee et al., 2021), removing friction from the parts of the fulfillment process mattering most to customers (who are expecting faster delivery, and feel a powerful desire for assortment, availability, and convenience) represents the so-called North Star of a great omnichannel strategy. And that within the context in which the speed and quality of final-mile delivery is impacting the fastest fulfillment operation, while research findings revealed that nearly half of omnichannel consumers will shop elsewhere when facing too long delivery times (being also limited willingness to pay for faster delivery), and there is a considerable influence of the race to shorten click-to-customer cycle time on the shape of future omnichannel supply chains.

And coming back to: - Personalized experience wanted by modern consumers and shoppers, let us made reference to the CEO of Searchspring (presented as the #1 Ecommerce Search and Merchandising Platform Built Exclusively for Retailers) who introduced recently four pillars of modern consumption: easy to find (easy-to-use search), organized better (what is displayed throughout customer’s journey during online shopping must be under full control), personalized experiences (ensuring customers to see featuring sale items, best sellers, trending items, and something new), and

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fueled by insights (by considering search, product and Google Analytics). He insisted on seeing the importance of putting the shoppers’ experience first (the explanation for the most successful e-commerce brands), avoiding their frustration (Messana, 2021).

- Voice search and… e-commerce, allow us to end by remembering the beginning of an article written recently by Nick Shaw (2021): “Voice search is the phrase on everyone’s lips. More searches are conducted by spoken word than ever before, and a successful ecommerce trader will need to take this on board. The really successful ecommerce trader probably already has”.

References Ali, A., 2021. From Amazon to Zoom: What Happens in an Internet Minute In 2021? Visual Capitalist, November 10, 2021. Available at: <https://www.visualcapitalist.com/from-amazonto-zoom-what-happens-in-an-internet-minute-in-2021/> [Accessed 28 November 2021].

AppsFlyer, 2021. The age of return on experience. [pdf] pp. 1-7. Available at: <ROX-GuidePDF> [Accessed 22 November 2021].

Coresight Research, 2021. From Quick Commerce to Instant Needs: Exploring Business Models in Rapid Delivery, Coresight, November 5, 2021. Available at: <https://coresight.com/research/from-quick-commerce-to-instant-needs-exploring-businessmodels-in-rapid-delivery/> [Accessed 28 November 2021].

Gilliland, N., 2021. What is q-commerce? Econsultancy, September 30th 2021. [online] Available at: <https://econsultancy.com/what-is-q-commerce/> [Accessed 28 November 2021].

Lebow, S., 2021. Meta dominates the top 10 mobile apps worldwide, eMarketer, Nov 15, 2021. [online] Available at: <https://www.emarketer.com/content/meta-dominates-top-10-mobile-appsworldwide?> [Accessed 22 November 2021].

Magnuson, B., 2021. 2021 Global Customer Engagement Review, First Annual Report, February 18, 2021. [online] Available at: ccessed <https://www.braze.com/resources/reports-andguides/2021-global-customer-engagement-review?> [Accessed 22 November 2021].

Pacvue, 2021. 2022 Planning Guide. [pdf] November 2021, pp. 1-15. Available at: <Pacvue 2022 Planning Guide.pdf> [Accessed 17 November 2021].

Pointillist, 2021. Essential Customer Journey Roadmap to CX Success. 5 Ways to Significantly Improve CX Using Customer Journey Management. [eBook] pp., 3, 6. Available at: <PointillistCustomer-Journey-Roadmap-CX-Success-eBook> [Accessed 22 November 2021].

Purcarea, I. M., 2021. The Growth of E-Commerce, Disruptive Technologies and Marketers’ Conversational Strategy, Romanian Distribution Committee Magazine, vol. 12(2), pp. 33-43, August.

Sailthru, 2021.Acquiring and Growing Customers into Long-Term VIPs. [pdf] Sailthru Success Story, pp. 1-2, 8-10. Available at <Sailthru_Raise_case_study.pdf> [Accessed 23 November 2021].

Statt, N., 2021. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney calls for a universal app store to combat tech monopolies, Protocol, November 16, 2021. [online] Available at: <https://www.protocol.com/bulletins/epic-tim-sweeney-apple-google> [Accessed 19 November 2021].

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Circle Conference Malta, ERA-Webinars, City Planning Russia, 1951 – 2021

Prof. Dr. Bernd HALLIER

Prof. Dr. Bernd Hallier, President of the European Retail Academy (ERA: http://www.european-retail-academy.org/), an Honorary Member of the Romanian Distribution Committee, and distinguished Member of both the Editorial Board of “Romanian Distribution Committee Magazine”, and the Editorial Board of RAU “Holistic Marketing Management” brought to our attention other great events happening in the last time, and allowed us to present them. It is also worth remembering that: immediately after visiting Romania for the first time on the occasion of the 24th International Congress of the International Association for the Distributive Trade (AIDA Brussels), Prof.

Dr. Bernd Hallier sent us, in May 1998, a memorable letter we have referred initially in the Journal of the Romanian Marketing Association (AROMAR), no. 5/1998, and also later, in 2010, in the first issue of the Romanian Distribution Committee Magazine; the Romanian-American University (RAU) has awarded Prof. Dr. Bernd Hallier a “Diploma of Special Academic Merit”; the “Carol Davila” University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Bucharest, has awarded Prof. Dr. Bernd Hallier a “Diploma of Excellence”.

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Circle Conference Malta The 18th Annual Circle Conference will be jointly organized by the University of Gloucestershire/UK and the Institute of Tourism Studies Malta at April 20 - 22nd 2022: taking place hybrid in Malta. More details: lreid1@glo.ac.uk / claire.malia@its.edu.mt

“The Circle Conferences are established to provide the opportunity for young scholars, practitioners and PhD-students to have their own work validated and benchmarked within the benevolent academic and professional community of colleagues from different countries - and they give the chance by the rotation between different nations from Conference to Conference to get to know diverse cultures while attending which is important for cosmopolitan leaders” Prof.

Dr. Bernd Hallier stated. _______________________________________ ERA-Webinars “The Covid pandemic impact has speeded up digital/long-distance teaching in the University Sector” Prof. Dr. Bernd Hallier summarized the experience from 2021. “Also thinking in terms of cross-border cooperation costs for teaching might be reduced by joint Webinars while even be optimized by using expertise of specialists jointly by groups of universities”.

Dr. Violena Nencheva from Sofia supported the network of the European Retail Academy from May 2020 digitally from Bulgaria; additionally, she gave far-distance lessons in Mexico. Based on this expertise Prof. Dr. Bernd Hallier decided to start in 2022 ERA-Webinars and to make Dr. Violena Nencheva the ERA-Webinar-Coordinator (CV Dr.V.N.) . The first ERA-Webinar is planned to take place in March, dealing with the UN Sustainability Goals, the second one will focus on Innovations in Economies.

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________________________________________

City Planning Russia Ten years after the German reunification and due to the expansion of retailers like METRO, Saturn, Globus, IKEA to Moscow, Prof. Dr. Bernd Hallier started to teach “International Trade Marketing” in Russia. In 2003 he became Professor honoris causa at the Moscow State University for Management - helping also to promote the exhibition Shop Design Russia.

In 2010 B. Hallier together with N. Vlasova and O. Voytsekhovsky edited the English/Russian reader “City and Regional Marketing: Concepts, Trends, Case Studies” in which 25 international experts contributed in this great work. Now in December 2021 HSE Moscow and the State University of Management organized both together a hybrid Conference to discuss the latest state of art of City- and Regional Planning/Marketing. Prof. Dr. Bernd Hallier was asked to give a lecture based on his experience and innovation forecasts (see: link). ________________________________________

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________________________________________ 1951 – 2021 The Team of the German EHI Retail Institute decided to connect its annual X-mas party 2021 with a review of its 70 years history. It was also planned as a good-bye for the editor of the EHI magazine stores & shops, W. Lambertz, who started in 1984 and retires at the end of the year 2021.

The roots of EHI had been in 1951 the reconstruction of German retail/wholesale after World War II, RGH Rationalization Institute, and in 1957 to establish modern supermarkets: ISB Institute for Self-Service. Both had been merged by Prof. Dr. Hallier becoming CEO of DHI (German Trade Institute) and then newly positioned with the European scope as EHI, also to fit better to the name and format of the EuroShop exhibition. “Topics and HR have changed over the decades”, Prof. Dr. Bernd Hallier stated, “but the methods of applied sciences remained the basis of success and have been continuously adjusted and improved. Innovation + Experience is still the Spirit of the present EHI-Team”. ________________________________________

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