Amazon was once a small business selling books on the internet. Now it’s at the top of its game, with its hands in a multitude of baskets. Surely there’s a wide variety of lessons we can learn from their dynamic strategies. Below, Karen Wheeler, Vice President and Country Manager UK at Affinion, presents Finance Monthly with a guide to Amazon’s operations through the eyes of financial organizations.

It’s rare to meet someone who has never used the world’s largest internet retailer, Amazon. Whether it’s conquering Christmas lists, watching boxsets through Prime or managing life admin through the intelligent personal assistant Alexa, its offerings are endless.

This extensive list of services and benefits that are all designed around user convenience, simplicity and enhanced customer experience is one of the biggest contributing factors to its success.

Financial organisations, however niche or specialist, can take a leaf out of Amazon’s book when it comes to engaging with customers and harnessing innovative solutions to continuously improve their offering.

Here are five lessons financial firms such as banks and insurance companies can learn from Amazon.

1. Put the customer at the forefront of any business model

Listening to what the customer wants has been the driving force behind many of Amazon’s products and developments. McKinsey’s CEO guide to customer experience advises that the strategy “begins with considering the customer – not the organisation – at the centre of the exercise”.

This can often be quite a challenging ethos for the financial services sector to buy into, particularly for the more traditional bricks-and-mortar companies where the focus is often on the results of a new initiative, rather than the journey the company must take its customers on to get there.

It’s a case of convincing senior management that the initiative is a risk worth taking and just requires some patience. Amazon originally launched Prime as an experiment to gauge customers’ reactions of ‘Super Saver Shipping’ and it was predicted to flop. Nowadays it’s one of the world’s most popular membership programmes, generating $3.2bn (£2.3bn) in revenue in 2017, up 47 per cent from 2016.

2. Don’t wait to follow a disruptive competitor

To stay ahead of the curve amidst the flurry of fintech start-ups, financial organisations need to come up with their own innovative customer experience solutions, rather than allow newcomers to do so first and then follow suit.

From the customer’s perspective, a proactive approach will always go down better than a reactive one. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has previously spoken about tech companies obsessing over their competitors and waiting for them launch something new so that they can ‘one-up’ it. He once wrote: “Many companies describe themselves as customer-focused, but few walk the walk. Most big technology companies are competitor focused. They see what others are doing, and then work to fast follow.”

What sets Amazon apart is listening to what the customer wants and prioritising them over competitors.

A great example in the insurance sector is US digital insurer Lemonade, who last year set a world record for the speed and ease of paying out on a claim of just three seconds. This was done through its AI virtual assistant ‘Jim’ and has helped to kickstart a new trend of using AI in the industry. Ultimately, Lemonade listened to the masses in that most of us see shopping around for insurance and filing claims as complicated and admin-heavy. A quick, simple, paperless alternative would no doubt result in increased customer loyalty and, in turn, increased profits.

3. Analytics are key for personalisation

It’s no secret that Amazon is one of the leaders that has paved the way for analytics. It’s through the company recognising the need for them which has led to customers becoming accustomed to personalisation and expecting it as soon as they have had their first interaction with a business.

Financial organisations are no exception to this and, while it may seem like a scary commitment to more traditional firms, it doesn’t have to be complicated. A classic, simple example is Amazon storing customers’ shopping habits and sending them prompts for new products similar or related to those they have purchased in the past.

In the financial world, digital bank Monzo is leading the charge by monitoring customers’ spending habits to offer them financial advice to help them save money and budget responsibly. For example, its data once showed that 30,000 of its customers were using their debit cards to pay for transport in London – so Monzo can advise them they could save money if they invested in a year-long travel card, for instance.

There are endless things financial organisations can do using customer data to provide the customer with an experience unique to them, rather than continuing to make them feel like just another cog in the wheel. At Affinion we believe in ‘hyper-personalisation’, in that these days it’s no longer good enough to just know a customer’s history of transactions with a company and when their birthday is.

Customers are getting more tech-savvy by the day and are expecting real-time responses with a deep insight into their interactional behaviour – they won’t remain engaged if follow up contact is irrelevant and untargeted. Customer engagement has moved on from companies communicating to the masses, it’s about creating tailored, intuitive relationships with them on an individual basis.

4. Venture out into new areas

The way we live as a society is forever changing and, as we get busier and busier, any small gesture to make life that little bit easier goes a long way. The consolidation of services such as banking, insurance, mobile phone networks, utilities and shopping is a great way to ensure customers remain loyal to a brand as it will – if done right – add value and reduce hassle to their lives.

As an expert at disrupting industries, Amazon has taken note of this growing need for convenience over the years and has expanded its offering for customers, allowing them to carry out multiple day-to-day tasks with one account. In the last few months alone, Amazon has hinted that it may acquire a bank to break into the financial industry and potentially start its own healthcare company.

Regardless of size, financial organisations should always be looking for new areas they could tap into to broaden their offering and show customers that their needs are at front of mind.

5. Always go above and beyond

A rising factor in the way that customers align themselves to a brand is its stance on ethical issues and its contributions back into society. It’s a shift that seems to be most prominent with Generation Y, as the Chartered Institute of Marketing found that 81 per cent of millennials expect companies to make a public commitment to good corporate citizenship and nine in 10 would switch brands to one associated with a good cause.

Amazon has gone that one step further, with its AmazonSmile initiative that allows the customer to choose a charitable organisation that it will donate 0.5% of eligible purchases to. Not only does this show Amazon’s commitment to charitable causes, it gives the customer control of where their money ends up.

This is an easy win for the financial sector, given that one of its sole purposes is to look after money and move it around. For firms that target younger generations in particular, looking at ways to involve customers in charitable donations in a fun, transparent and seamless way is a no-brainer for increasing loyalty and advocacy.

Always a chore, never a pleasure

For many people, personal finance is perceived as a chore and often quite complicated. Improving the customer experience and building in programmes to engage them can help greatly with this and financial organisations need to adopt the ‘customer first’ ethos that Amazon showcases so effortlessly. With new fintech disruptors creeping into view, keeping customers loyal has never been so important.

As you likely already know, China’s e-commerce sector is the biggest in the world right now. Below Finance Monthly speaks to Ronnie D’Arienzo, Chief Sales Officer, PPRO Group, who lists some ways we can all learn from China’s excellent performance in this sphere.

A few weeks back China’s 1.3 billion population celebrated Chinese New Year and the start of the Year of the Dog. The celebrations lasted for sixteen days, starting on New Year’s Eve (15th Feb) to the Lantern Festival on March 2nd. Preparation for the New Year celebrations is known as a ‘shopping boom time’. Many transactions will be completed this week in preparation for the two weeks of celebrations. Interestingly, the majority of these transactions will be completed using local payment methods, specifically e-wallets such as WeChat Pay and Alipay.

The Chinese e-commerce market is booming; research from PPRO Group found the market is worth a staggering $865 billion with growth rates higher than - the total UK e-commerce market. So how can UK businesses take advantage from China’s healthy ecommerce market? PPRO Group has pulled together seven considerations for UK retailers, when looking to attract the attention of the Chinese consumer.

1. Each year, Chinese e-commerce grows by more than the total amount of the entire UK e-commerce market

In 2018, Chinese e-commerce will grow by $233.5 billion. That’s $30 billion more than the total value of all goods bought online in the UK.

2. Chinese online shoppers spend $208 billion a year using credit cards which UK retailers don’t accept

96% of Chinese credit cards are issued by local schemes and only 4% of all online transactions in China are made using international credit cards, such as Mastercard and Visa. If retailers don’t support local schemes, they’re cut out of a $200 billion market.

3. Don’t miss out on $650 billion of online spend using alternative payment methods

Every year, Chinese consumers buy $650 billion worth of goods using local bank transfer apps, e-wallets, cash-on-delivery services and other locally preferred payment methods.

4. Every year, Chinese online shoppers spend over $100 billion just on clothes

Fashion is the most popular item for Chinese online shoppers. Each year, Chinese online clothing sales are worth more than the entire UK fashion industry.

5. One Chinese e-wallet has more users than there are people in the EU

The Chinese e-wallet WeChat Pay has 980 million users compared to 500 million people in the whole of the EU. In 2017 alone, WeChat Pay was used by Chinese consumers at an average rate of 1 million transactions per minute.

6. M-commerce in China is worth $173 billion

Every year, the Chinese spend almost $200 billion from their mobile phones. And with China spending $400 billion on 5G, the number of mobile users is set to rocket in the coming years.

7. 40% of all global e-commerce sales are made in China

The Chinese share of all global retail sales is around 30%, but for e-commerce sales, it’s 40%. And that number will grow as more people come online.

Want to sell to the world? Start with China.

In this video men's style, grooming, fitness and lifestyle expert, Aaron Marino of http://www.iamalpham.com http://www.aaronmarino.comhttp://www.peteandpedro.com, talks about 10 entrepreneurial lessons he has learned over the years. Being and entrepreneur is an amazing career choice but there are definitely some things you need to be aware of before you get started. These 10 business lessons are ones that I learned and wanted to share with you.

Aaron Marino of alpha m. says that if you told him 10 years ago that he would be successful by talking to a camera about how he shaves his testicles, he would have punched you in the face. Back then, he thought success was owning a chain of fitness centers. Success doesn't always look like you expect. Being an entrepreneur is not easy! But Alpha has learned valuable lessons along the way which he shares here.

Valuable Business Lessons

1. Choose business partners wisely - do background checks. It's like a marriage and legally binding.

2. Control overhead expenses - you pay everyone else before you're paid.

3. Don't be afraid of hard work - the mountain is steep, and you have to climb it.

4. Take your pride and throw it out the window - you will have to do any and everything to be successful. Swallow your pride.

5. Know when it's time to move on - "Shoot the bleeding dog."

6. Look for opportunity everywhere - search out for markets that are unfulfilled

7. Hire smart and surround yourself with good people - not just qualified but people who you want to be associated with; those with good moral character and compasses

8. Be honest and ethical in everything you do

9. Success is not always what you expect it to or want it to

10. Do what you love and then it's not work!