Research:

The role of emerging technology in the obsolescence of traditional websites (.com's)

Abstract

Understanding the role of emerging technology in the obsolescence of traditional websites, could well save companies millions of dollars each year, allowing to invest in critical areas of the business instead.

Research shows that in today’s world, the last decade has drastically seen a shift in paradigm for how we consume and use information to manage our lives. This research aims to better understand the types of web experiences consumers use and prefer, in order to inform business decisions around existing and emerging tech choices. Building on some existing internet usage research, it aims to look at a more micro-level of data, specifically around web and mobile build types. Contextually, this refers to web experiences built as Mobile Websites, Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), Progressive Web Apps (PWA), or straight desktop web experiences.

The research methodology progresses from the literature review, to surveys and interviews, seeking to gather both quantitative data (en masse) and qualitative data to understand deeper meaning. The data collected will be analysed and synthesised into themes, and given it’s a practical problem in an emerging field that changes rapidly, it’s intended to provide some concluding recommendations. At the minimum, it will either support the theory to reinvest focus and investment into build types increasing in momentum, or verify the investment in continuing to lead with a mobile-first mindset.

Key words and Phases

Emerging Internet Technology, Digital Banking Consumer Behaviour, Banking Disruption, Smartphone vs Desktop, Smartphone Usage Australia, Mobile Apps, Mobile Web, Traditional Websites

Introduction

In today’s world, the last ten years in particular have drastically seen a shift in paradigm for how we consume and use information to manage our lives (Silver, 2019).

Within this paradigm shift, technology has a huge role. Technology innovation and trends emerge and evolve faster than ever before (Klein, 2020), and with that, our understanding in consumer and technology behaviour also matures. One of the challenges in this is our planning for, intelligence and reaction to the technology post-implementation (in direct response to consumers’ changing behaviour). Some reasons for this include technology debt (Cunningham, 1992), effort to remove legacy systems (Kelker, 2018), and slow decision-making (McKinsey, 2019).

With the implementation of technology stacks (being a set of technologies build a web or mobile application, Suschevich 2020), the competing sub-sets of the stack equally battle for relevance and space. This is impacts how desktop websites are built, as well as mobile web, mobile app, and consideration for those that are built as a cross-platform solution.

How do we make decisions based on what consumers and business want, when the intelligence we gather is often in hindsight, if at all? Null (2017) mentions how we no longer have the luxury of being able to reflect on whether a technology is good for the business. The broader theme discussed is that emerging technology used to come along at a leisurely pace, and now it’s everywhere, hence feeling a pressure to make a decision or not being able to make one due to lack being able to properly consider them.

We know that in Australia, approximately 88% of the population owns a smartphone (Oviedo-Trespalacios et al 2019), but what we’re less clear on, is the type of web experiences they prefer (and are using). It begs the question, if we knew upfront or in hindsight (with data) that one of these web experiences (and consequently, build types) was in sharp decline, should it be supported? For how long? What is the plan for decommissioning and reinvestment? Can businesses internally align and make (timely) decisions that respond to consumer behaviour?

Research questions

The questions have changed somewhat from earlier thinking. This is due to previously being too broad and open-ended, and therefore landing in the “neighbourhood view” (Overton, 2020), rather than the street view being aimed for.

Secondarily, the questions weren’t not specific enough on the topic of mobile websites, mobile apps and desktop web experiences. The terminology is also now less interchangeable (example, web, .com, traditional website, can get confusing), and is more specific to build and experience type (example, mobile app or mobile website).

Background - Literature Review

An evolution and context

Our modern world sees data at our finger tips, through a magnitude of devices like personal computers, smart phone and tablets, wearable technology, and a number of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), Big Data (large volumes of data that business and organisations use to interpret information), Machine Learning (Blockchain technology (considered a time-stamped series of immutable records of data “blocks”, that are secured and bound to each other using cryptographic principles), to name a few.

Breaking the broader period down, there’s a large shift between these sub-sets of technologies influencing how we live and behave today. This can be consumer-driven, or organisation/company-driven, noted by Perski et al (2017) as Digital Behaviour Change Interventions.

Key Trends and Perspectives

A number of industries and services are widely discussed as candidates ripe for disruption. Doctor’s office visits, financial and legal services, healthcare, education, data protection, customer service, insurance, automotive industry, security, paper-based publishing outlets, which is supported by The Forbes Technology Council (2019).

With 18 million banking customers in Australia (Australia Banking Association 2020), the most popular way to interact with banks is still via Automatic Teller Machines (ATMs), accounting for 83.4% of interactions. Internet banking follows with 54.2%, mobile with 46.5%, branch visits 45.1%, phone banking 24.1% and via an adviser/planner sits at 14.5% (Roy Morgan 2018). Australia has four big banks who hold 75% of the home loan market- share, totalling A$2.66 trillion in assets (Australian Financial Review 2019). With such figures, the imposition of 2019’s Royal Commission into banking practices in Australia, the introduction of Open Banking, and the openness for business competition, there’s opportunity for challengers and agitators to enter.

Other trends include the arrival of Neo Banks (a bank with 100% digital-only direct banking service) and Open Banking (where open APIs enable third-party developers to build applications and services for greater transparency options regarding peoples’ data) creating market competition. Regulatory pressure, increasing demand for digital channels, emerging technologies such as Block Chain, AI, Big Data, Machine Learning, technology companies turning to banking offerings (such as Google, Alibaba, Apple), cost and overall margin pressures, development of non-banking actors such as telecommunications into the banking value chain (Shaikh & Karjaluoto 2019), and the overall macro-economic environment. The World Retail Banking report (2018) indicates the biggest factor, at 71%, is customer expectation, followed by proactive personalisation in digital experiences increased customer satisfaction. Research by Jeon & Juong (2016) supports this.

With the increase in access and ownership of mobile devices over the past decade, there’s been a decrease in traditional website usage. Despite this, the demand for traditional websites on desktops is still strong according to Nielsen (2018). This challenges what many predicted would happen by 2020, that the role of the traditional website (or .com) would become obsolete (Alton 2015). Now we’re in 2020, 79% of people access the internet at least as often via smart phone as via their computer (Consumer Barometer with Google 2018). The findings also show that 49% of people use three screens when accessing the internet (smart phone, computer and tablet).

Understanding the micro-level

When trying to better understand whether traditional websites are becoming obsolete, we need to better-understand data, extrapolating to show usage for traditional website for desktop, progressive app, native app, or accelerated web app. Without this, we simply know that people use their smartphone to access the internet, but without understand anything about the micro-level build.

Rationale

The significance of this research involves multi-millions of dollars of potential cost benefit for companies, and therefore significant reinvestment opportunities. It’s more likely to be consumed by those in evidence-based roles with a slant on strategy (such as business, product or innovation strategist), that seek decisions, directions and funding from executives with budgets. Another group this could be very useful for, is designers who thrive on evidence-based trends and recommendations, in order to get buy in from senior management.

With those decision makers, now more than ever, given the rate at which emerging tech surrounds us (as noted by Klein, 2020), do decisions need to slow down to understand the data more so that informed choices are made. There are 155,000 employees at the big four banks alone (NAB, ANZ, Westpac, CBA, 2019) and at least a quarter are working in the digital arms of each bank. Within that, are the sub-sets at the micro level, meaning some are working in the .com website space, others in the app instances, a portion in internet banking and authentication functions, social media, and live chat. If one of these sub-sets is becoming obsolete, this is where the millions of dollars comes into effect, and why this should be investigated.

And if the research questions are disproven, it may affirm the mobile first investment, with some recouped learnings about the sub-sets within mobile. For example, the build types which stems from customer demand for mobile websites, versus progressive web apps, versus accelerated web apps.

The advantage of this research is that while this instance focuses on banking, where digital channels exist, the approach and questions are relevant cross-industry.

Proposed Approach (project phases)

Approach – Project Plan

Contingency

To mitigate when things go differently than planned, there is 1 day built in to allow for flex. Should there be a greater need for flex, there are aspects of the plan that can be re-sequenced, for example, understanding formation and citation can be subbed in to the first stage instead of the final. Another example if there’s an issue with organising surveys and participants, parts of the writing process can be done in earlier to save time downstream.

Approach – Project Timeline

Needs Analysis

Research Needs

With the sourcing of data throughout the research, there’s a combination of qualitative and quantitative research types. This requires:

A digital survey tool (such as Qualtrix, Survey Monkey etc)
Structure of the questions
Method to capture the responses (quantitative via survey tool, qualitative via general

note-taking approach)
The research questions are open in nature, thus room for answers is required
Set number of participants and their contact details (email)
Participation Information Sheet and Consent Form (PISCF) (Waite, 2020)
Structured/semi-structured interviews with industry subject matter experts, for

example Heads of business
Interview room
Photography of people
Recording device for playback of qualitative interviews
Standard note-taking equipment (laptop/tablet, pen, paper, post it notes)

All data collected with be collated (either digitally using a tool such as Trello, or traditional means via paper post it notes). The data will be manually analysed, then synthesised, for grouping into themes. This will form the basis of the position for or against the research questions. The reason for this approach is to closely understand the data first-hand, weave it into the research questions for effective structuring into written format, with straightforward reference points.

Ethics Risk Analysis

This research falls into the ‘negligible risk’ category (Foley, 2020), given there is no foreseeable risk of harm or discomfort to any participants.

It also falls into the ‘blanket’ ethics clearance, as it’s not targeted at those falling in the unsuitable participants, methods or topics categories, but does require collaboration and evidence from participants (in line with the approved methods for data collection).

This requires completion of the PISCF form, for which a sample is noted in the appendices.

References

Blog

Waite, N. (2019). Human Research Ethics. [Blog] METHODS_2020 PACKAGE #06. Available at: https://medium.com/@marius_foley/methods-2020-package-06-c4fcc510ca11 [Accessed 2 Mar. 2020].

Journals / eBooks

Perski, O., Blandford, A., West, R., & Michie, S. (2017). Conceptualising engagement with

digital behaviour change interventions: A systematic review using principles from critical

interpretive synthesis. Translational Behavioral Medicine, 7(2), 254–

267. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13142-016-0453-1

Reports

ANZ Bank (2019). 2019 Annual Review. [online] ANZ Bank, p.25. Available at: https://www.anz.com/content/dam/anzcom/shareholder/ANZ-2019-Annual-Review.pdf [Accessed 1 Mar. 2020].

Commonwealth Bank of Australia (2019). 2019 Annual Report. [online] CBA, p.2. Available at: https://www.commbank.com.au/content/dam/commbank/about- us/shareholders/pdfs/annual-reports/CBA-2019-Annual-Report.pdf [Accessed 1 Mar. 2020].

NAB (2019). Sustainability Report 2019. [online] NAB, p.3. Available at: https://www.nab.com.au/content/dam/nabrwd/documents/reports/corporate/2019- sustainability-report-pdf.pdf [Accessed 1 Mar. 2020].

Westpac Group (2019). 2019 Annual Report. [online] Westpac, p.76. Available at: https://www.westpac.com.au/content/dam/public/wbc/documents/pdf/aw/ic/2019_Westpac_ Group_Annual_Report.pdf [Accessed 1 Mar. 2020].

Video

Cunningham, W. (2009). Debt Metaphor. [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqeJFYwnkjE [Accessed 29 Feb. 2020].

Overton, L. (2020). Research Methods tutorial. [Zoom] Melbourne: RMIT.

Websites

www2.deloitte.com. (2019). Mobile Consumer Survey 2019 | Deloitte Australia | Technology, Media & Telecommunications, Mobile, Trends. [online] Available at: https://www2.deloitte.com/au/mobile-consumer-survey [Accessed 28 Feb. 2020].

Klein, E. (2020). Technology is changing how we live, but it needs to change how we work | The new economy. [online] Vox.com. Available at: https://www.vox.com/a/new-economy- future/technology-productivity [Accessed 2 Mar. 2020].

Kelker, P. (2018). How to deal with legacy systems, the Achilles’ Heel of digital transformation. [online] CIO. Available at: https://www.cio.com/article/3267464/how-to-deal- with-legacy-systems-the-achilles-heel-of-digital-transformation.html [Accessed 3 Mar. 2020].

Silver, L. (2019). Smartphone Ownership Is Growing Rapidly Around the World, but Not

Always Equally. [online] Pew Research Center. Available at:

https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/02/05/smartphone-ownership-is-growing-rapidly-

Table of qualitative and quantitative questions