November 12, 2015 - 1244 views
|Digital technologies, like mobile, cloud, social, and analytics, have become part of an ongoing evolution in how we interact with each other, with vendors, with partners. Overall, it's been an incredibly empowering sea-change, with much of "technology" demystified and made intuitive, freeing information from the confines of clunky interfaces.
Who benefits from digital technologies is a subject of heated debate. Some will say it's the customers -- choice is more abundant then ever before (Uber? Lyft? Taxi? Car service? Getaround? Zipcar?). Other will say it's businesses, and point to the billion-dollar valuations unicorns are sporting.
Digital technologies, like mobile, cloud, social, and analytics, have become part of an ongoing evolution in how we interact with each other, with vendors, with partners. Overall, it's been an incredibly empowering sea-change, with much of "technology" demystified and made intuitive, freeing information from the confines of clunky interfaces.
Once upon a time, a customer "belonged" to a business. They came to you with a need or a desire, and they asked what you had to address it. Did they need new shoes? You had brown and black lace-ups or loafers. Did they need a new computer? They could choose a desktop or a minitower. Did they want specific features in a new customer relationship management application suite? You would see what your engineers could do.
But today, the tables have turned, and the customer is an equal partner in every business relationship – or even a little more powerful. No longer are customers content to be treated like business opportunities or members of a “market”. Today, consumers have an expectation that the businesses they patronize are the guests in their lives rather than the other way around. They are not satisfied merely to be “invited in” to do business with you, because they want to do the inviting.
How did that happen? Digital technologies have fundamentally lowered the barriers to entering new business areas, which means more competition appears. Now customers do the choosing, and you're one of many options. And that means your challenge is to earn the invitation that you once just had to hand out. And your solutions have to be comprehensive and work with the others in your customers' lives. It's your job to fit into their ecosystem of vendors and providers.
But the same digital tools that gave rise to the empowered customer can also help businesses serve them. Just as it has never been easier to start a new business, it has also never been easier to transform existing businesses into digitally-driven, adaptive enterprises focused on customer needs.
This is due to the dramatic increase of computing power, coupled with the steep decline in computing prices, both predicted by Moore's Law. And at the same time, applications and systems moved from proprietary to open, essentially transforming the foundations of digital technologies into abundant, affordable commodities accessible to virtually any business of any size.
All in all, these developments have created a new business environment where meaningful connections with customers are easier to establish, nurture, and sustain. And that's what the excitement surrounding digital technologies is really all about: they create a new distribution of power among customers, established firms, and industry newcomers. No matter which one you are—or whether you're one to your customers and another to your suppliers—your digital technology adoption efforts should focus on ways to take advantage of these benefits rather than the solutions you choose to achieve them. Would love to hear your thoughts.
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