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Education

• The days of simply selling credit • Real-time, card-linked promotions at the POS have the potential to unseat
card processing or selling on price today's deals and discounts and loyalty card reward programs.
are long gone. ISOs and merchant
level salespeople (MLSs) must offer Money2020 provided a glimpse of the future with many players and technologies
solutions that encompass payments posturing to dominate marketplace acceptance. Those who embrace change
and help merchants acquire and and innovation will position themselves well, and those who don't may face
retain customers. extinction.

Peggy Bekavac Olson is founder and principal of Strategic Marketing, a full-service
• Channels are being disintermediated
by new players selling directly to marketing and communications firm specializing in financial services and electronic pay-
merchants, making ISOs and MLSs ments. She serves on the Board of the Women's Network in Electronic Payments and on
obsolete unless they bundle real the Program Planning and Communications Committees for the Electronic Transactions
business solutions with payment Association. She can be reached at 480-706-0816 or peggyolson@smktg.com.
processing. Disruptors including Information about Strategic Marketing can be found at www.smktg.com.
Silicon Valley tech companies and
retailers themselves.

• Complexity in new solutions
prevents adoption, while
complexity in old solutions presents
opportunity.

• Simplicity, convenience,
addressability, security, privacy
and compliance are key to adoption
of significant change.
• Innovation is not about a series
of incremental advances to make
things marginally better. It requires
a different mindset to create
something truly superior. Taking
friction out of the payment process
is the focal point for much of today's
innovation.

• "Coopetition," which involves
competitors collaborating on a
common goal, will enable rapid
development and rollout of
innov ation.

• Demand is growing for
omnichannel retailing capabilities
that combine traditional countertop
and mobile POS functions, plus
e-commerce and m-commerce.

• Access to big data and analytics
tools are becoming essential for
retailers to interpret trends and
make strategic business decisions.
Opportunity abounds in providing,
analyzing and delivering data to
retailers to improve the shopping
experience and drive revenue.

• Payment providers must expand
beyond traditional open-loop
models to play in the new
order where transaction data is
paramount.
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