The Two Trends Companies Mustn't Ignore
It’s definitely heartening to observe that the understanding of ‘going online’ has gone deeper than just the creation of websites or delivering services over communication apps such as whatsapp and skype.
However, not many business owners actually understand what’s coming up or rather, what’s up with this whole ‘digitising business world’ stuff. And more important that just knowing, companies need to also know the pitfalls of digitising the wrong aspects of their businesses which will cause little or even negative ROI.
For the latter, we will organise a FREE Chat-Based Sharing (see the details at the end of this article). For now, we shall elaborate more on what’s coming up and its implications to companies - The Two Trends which Companies Mustn’t Ignore.
1) A Boundaryless Digital Ecosystem - Either you spearhead it, in it, or.. Lose the game.
Today, companies are using technology to not only improve their internal processes, but to also drive growth. Growth comes with the need to increase supplies to meet demands, amongst other things necessary for growth. Companies which are able to cleverly expand their supplies and remove growth inhibiting factors such as being heavily constrained to a physical place/location, will have higher chances of winning the game.
There are countless examples on this, like Airbnb, Uber or those closer to home like Gojek. Similarly, we see this in the professional service industries as well.
For instance, Tueetor - an online platform which matches learners and trainers across a range of subjects - aims to provide a faster and cheaper alternative to tuition centres. Since its launch, it now has a digital community of over 1,500 trainers teaching close to 300 subjects ranging from mathematics, yoga to cooking. Tueetor is not the only one revolutionising the education industry.
In the healthcare industry, we have HaloDoc, the online platform with similar concept of providing a healthcare ecosystem comprising a mix of respectable doctors and healthcare professionals to cater to the wide audience of patients of various needs across the huge Indonesia.
Note that these companies, interestingly do not own the ‘supplies’. They simply own the platform. And this is sufficient to displace those ‘traditional’ companies out there who are still isolating themselves in their own locality.
So what does it mean for companies?
Knowing this inevitable trend, IT and business executives have started to do things differently.
A recent Accenture global survey of more than 2,000 IT and business executives found that 4 out of 5 respondents believe that the future will see industry boundaries dramatically blur as platforms reshape industries into connected ecosystems. 60% of respondents said they plan to engage new partners within their respective industries and 40 percent plan to leverage digital partners outside their industry.
Whether you are providing products or services of certain expertise, it’s time to look beyond your own locality and be part of, if not create, a boundaryless digital ecosystem. Allow customers/clients to access your businesses from wherever they are. And if more supplies are needed, nothing is stopping you from inviting other professionals to come onboard or form new win-win partnerships.
2) The Post-App Era : AI-Powered Chats will be the new business channel.
In what some analysts called as the start of a Post-Apps era, there is a significant change in customer interactions particularly in the rise of dominant messaging platforms over other social apps. In fact, it is predicted that in the course of 2 years, messaging apps will surpass social media apps in popularity.
Not only that, consumers are showing strong preferences for businesses with available mobile access over businesses having just a physical office/location - even in industries which everyone would generally think that meeting physically is a necessity, such as the healthcare industry.
A study by business and technology consulting firm West Monroe Partners shows 80 % of patients prefer mobile to a traditional visit and a record of 31% have used a mobile app to communicate with their healthcare provider about a specific condition.
When customers/clients start using messaging to interact with a business, each query or conversation that happen via the app because a powerful source of data - which, if tracked over time, will reveal some highly useful insights which will not just enable the provision of a more personalised help to customers/clients, but also help the business automate the help given to other clients as well - with the help of Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI will enable an app to learn from the generated insights and service the next client that comes in a personalised way, without needing an actual human being to be in the conversation.
So what does it mean for companies?
Bot-powered messaging apps can be used to automate certain business processes or services to clients. For example, when a client needs a legal advice or even a customised training program, bots can be used to carry out preliminary assessments and information gathering from the client - as if a human being is doing so.
This enables companies to scale their services to beyond any physical boundaries but at the same time, reduce the worry of insufficient ‘supplies’ to meet the increasing demand.
Giants like WEChat and Facebook have seen this coming and are investing aggressively in this direction. Therefore, this is something businesses mustn’t ignore.
Keen to Start Investing? Here’s A Word Of Caution.
These two trends are coming and will come fast and furious. Companies which are slow to adapt and change will find it a struggle to remain competitive. On the other hand, those who are investing heavily in digitising their businesses may not generate the ROI that they had hoped for. In fact, a study done by McKinsey have shown that there are pitfalls which have caused some companies to bleed.
So while we urge companies to come onboard the two trends above, there are two things which will be important to take note of :
- Pitfalls companies should avoid when investing in a digital strategy
- Practical tips on how companies can start riding on the above trends, with ZERO monetary investment. And it works
This sharing will be conducted over a text-based sharing - where the information/data will be shared via a messaging platform AND you can follow our sharing at YOUR OWN TIME.
NO payment needed, NO specific time for you to attend the session and for sure, NO sales talk but purely something really useful for businesses to note and use practically.
All you have to do is to state your interest here: http://bit.ly/qiscustechchat (All we need is your company website. No contact details needed).
If instead you need a sounding board on some thoughts you have in mind, feel free to drop us a note at contact.us@qiscus.com.