Welcome to the accelerated economy. What took months in previous years, can now easily be done in days. Current technology has the ability to increase the speed at which business functions are done when used right. To be successful a business once had to measure their Speed to Market in months for new products & services and now it must be measured in minutes.
It’s not about surviving today, it’s about adopting the right technology for your business and integrating it into each functional pillar of responsibility, this will align your business functions with the technological age.
The five major functional pillars of business are Commerce, Supply Chain, Customer Engagement, Service Delivery & Marketing, and Branding. When a business is able to leverage the right technology, integrate it within one or more of these pillars they are able to achieve greatness.
The Amazon Breakthrough
Amazon has fundamentally changed retailing in the last 25 years. With a market valuation of about $1 trillion, it is one of the top three most valuable firms in the world, outstripping the GDP of roughly 200 countries. Amazon practically revolutionized the commerce industry.
(The problem they solved?)
When Amazon launched the shoppers had to go to stores to explore and buy products. Shopping used to be a chore: scouring many aisles for the desired item, dealing with crying and demanding children and standing in long checkout lines.
Amazon used technology to understand the needs of its customers. The first pillar is commerce and Amazon used big data to resolve the problem. When people buy products, their behavior is stored, and Amazon makes related recommendations to the customers. This solved the problem of customers who wasted their time browsing items in the aisles.
(How did they integrate and use technology to solve their commerce pillar problem & what exactly did they do to do so?)
Online shopping offers a convenient, cost-effective, and time-saving alternative to traditional brick-and-mortar stores. Using an eCommerce site, a customer can order an item and expect it to arrive in a couple of days, if not hours. Amazon’s eCommerce website was the first website with smart algorithms that understood the behavior of customers.
One-click ordering, tailored suggestions, package collection at Amazon hubs and lockers, ordering products with a single push of a button, and in-home delivery with Amazon Key are all features that have made shopping easier.
Amazon is already looking into the future of Artificial Intelligence (AI), with it becoming perceptive. With just a few data points, AI can predict human behavior. In fact, Amazon is working on a technology that will order and deliver products in your home on your behalf. The technology will browse through whatever is necessary and make decisions for you. That future is coming and will soon be the new normal.
The Supply Chain Revolution By Tesla
Introduce the company, State the Problem in the Pillar, then how they solved it.
As of January 2022, the market cap of Tesla is $1.035 Trillion. The automotive giant had its supply chain problems early in its business. It was challenging to mass-produce parts and move them. So, Elon decided to solve the problem with vertical integration. This means instead of producing parts in China and Mexico, Elon developed Gigafactories in California and Nevada, reducing the transportation and labor costs.
Tesla sparked an electric revolution. Tesla is not just an automobile company, it’s an energy innovation company. The amazing fusion of Tesla with SolarCity proves that the company is all set to change the world we live in today.
Tesla’s revolution was incredibly breathtaking and timely. Even the manufacturing process of Tesla is more volatile than others. They disrupted the supply chain process by eliminating a few steps. Instead of customers buying from a dealership, customers can order customized cars online. The innovative and bold approach Tesla took to conventional manufacturing sets them apart from its competitors.
Immersive Customer Engagement
Goldsmiths – a famous jewelry store in the UK started giving its premium customers immersive video/audio chat options to replicate the physical shop experience for a better customer experience.
Mastercard orchestrated next-level customer engagement. They’ve put money into services like Masterpass, a digital wallet, to give their consumers the ease and security of using a single payment system. Mastercard’s customer interaction strategy has positioned the brand not simply as a vendor, but as a business partner.
The idea was to develop deep relationships with customers by satisfying their individual needs. Mastercard used predictive analytics to track the ROI and provide genuine help instead of relying on the old-school back-and-forth, annoying questions, and answers.
Memorable Service Delivery
Companies cannot solely rely on customer experience. The after-sales service should add value to the customer too.
As a leading credit card brand, American Express provides its users with a wide range of additional perks, including complimentary travel trip credit and access to airline lounges. Because of American Express’s 24/7 customer service and global network of partners, you have a firm that is always there for you.
Benefits that can be accessed from anywhere, at any time, in any language should be provided. Customers are on the move and expect to be able to access their services from any location.
When Amazon Web Services experienced a problem, Adobe tweeted about it before they had any complaints from customers. To cheer things up, the tweet included a video of a puppy stampede. While some people wanted to know when the program will be back online, the majority of the comments were about how lovely the puppies were.
It’s best to address a problem before it emerges and let your customers know that you’re working to resolve it. Customers appreciate your sincere apologies when you make an error since they know that technology doesn’t perform perfectly all the time. In this instance, it helped to keep things humorous.
The future of marketing is about creating experiences
In our previous blog, we talked about the future of marketing where we discussed how the fusion of technology and marketing is taking over the internet.
The future belongs to those who are able to successfully integrate the 5 pillars in their business. Beginning with commerce – a platform to showcase products to the delivery of products with an efficient supply chain, followed by customer engagement and service delivery.
It’s not a matter of choice anymore. To succeed you must work on all the pillars. We will be discussing more regarding pillars in our coming blog posts.
Cooperative Computing is always learning from others while pushing our own solutions forward. We want to hear about your successes within the 5 pillars. Contact us and tell us what you’ve done & you could be the focus of future articles as we continue to dive into the Accelerated Economy.
