Patty Gaumond is one of our featured keynote speakers at Forrester's Consumer Forum next week in Chicago. As Vice President of Enterprise Internet Solutions at State Farm Insurance, Patty is responsible for creating the digital experience for consumers, including online, social, and mobile capabilities, and the associate-facing intranet. This includes the launch of the firm's cutting edge Pocket Agent iPhone application back in 2009.  

At our forum, Patty will elaborate on how the firm, in a traditionally non-digital product category, is creating new digital product experiences to engage their customers beyond just the claims experience. I'm very eager to hear her presentation, and to understand more about State Farm's overall efforts to create an ongoing, interactive, and digital relationship with their customers.

In the meantime, I do want to share with you some of Patty's thoughts in response to some questions we asked her about the firm's digital transformation, their use of emerging touchpoints such as mobile and tablets, the services they are offering, and how they are managing this change. I hope to see you in Chicago next week. Patty is on the main stage at 10:25 a.m. on Oct. 28th!

How would you describe State Farms’ digital transformation?

I'm thrilled that Sona Chawla will be a keynote speaker at Forrester's Consumer Forum in just over three weeks! As the President of e-Commerce, Sona oversees operations and leads the team responsible for building the sales, service and customer experience of Walgreens.com and drugstore.com (acquired in June 2011). This includes driving store traffic through the Web, growing online profitability, and the development of new product and service offerings via emerging digital touchpoints such as mobile.

Earlier today, Sona provided me with a sneak peek of her upcoming presentation for our forum "110 Years Of Agility: Continuing Our Evolution To Meet Customer Demands" and all I can say is that it's not to be missed! I don't want to reveal too much and spoil it, but Sona will touch on the dynamic forces at play within healthcare and retail that are driving Walgreens' digital transformation, the framework they are utilizing to enable that transformation, and finally what Walgreens sees for the future. And of course throughout the discussion Sona will have key lessons learned and advice for firms across industries going through similar transformations.

I do however want to share with you Sona's responses to some questions we asked her in advance of the event. Her thoughts demonstrate the growing importance (and let's not forget the financial benefits) of serving customers across touchpoints with innovative, digital products and services.

With a big splash, we recently launched a significant idea and theme for eBusiness & Channel Strategy professionals for 2011 and beyond called agile commerce. In the report "Welcome To The Era Of Agile Commerce," we highlight how customers no longer interact with companies from a "channel" perspective; instead, they interact through touchpoints. As a result, eBusiness & Channel Strategy professionals have to leave their channel-oriented ways behind them and enter the era of agile commerce -- optimizing their people, processes, and technology to serve today's empowered, ever-connected customers across touchpoints.

Since its launch, we've received some excellent feedback from clients and thought-leaders, validating agile commerce. We've also interviewed three executives in our ongoing series about how agile commerce is affecting their clients and how they are positioning themselves to support the transition to agile commerce. Please continue to visit our community and our blog to share with us your perspective on how agile commerce is affecting your business. Do you see the signs of this disruption in your business? Is your organization evolving to sell and service customers seamlessly across touchpoints? What organizational models and technology decisions are you making to optimize your commerce efforts across touchpoints?

I'm wildly excited for Forrester's upcoming Consumer Forum entitled "Unleash Your Organization To Serve Empowered Customers," and I hope you are as well. Carrie Johnson, who leads our research team focused on helping you, the eBusiness & Channel Strategy professional, is the research champion for the event. And I have to say, she's done a wonderful job putting together an A+ event that I know will be incredibly relevant to the challenges you face in your role every day.

Aside from the opportunity to attend track sessions, and network and learn from peers, I'm most looking forward to the internal and external speaker presentations. This year, Forrester's Charles Golvin and Josh Bernoff will kick off back-to-back presentations. Charles will talk about ubiquitous customer connectivity, what it means, and how you should work to ensure you effectively serve your customers anytime and via any channel. Josh will then introduce concepts from his new book, Empowered, focusing his comments on how to empower your teams to use social, mobile, cloud, and video technologies to create innovative new customer connections thereby driving effective customer experiences and revenue. As executive champion for the Forum, I've received a sneak peak of both presentations, and they are not to be missed.