Digital Transformation, The Great Lockdown & The New Normal
December 2020, few weeks away from a memorable Digital New Year’s Eve; pandemic and digital transformation have pushed humankind in a totally different and somehow unknown “place” from where it was only nine months ago!
During the past 9 months smart business leaders, from all around the world, have totally shifted the way they were addressing employers/employees relationships and supplier/clients research and catch. And you know what? The majority has found that this new way is definitely sexier compared to the previous one!
During the past 9 months smart business leaders, from all around the world, have totally shifted the way they were addressing employers/employees relationships and supplier/clients research and catch. And you know what? The majority has found that this new way is definitely sexier compared to the previous one!
The change has already happened and there is no way, at least to me and the ones I’ve been talking to, to go back to the old “normal”. Property Digital Transformation process, as far as many other industries, cannot be reversed!
Digital transformation has taken the lead and is either about being able to adapt business models and way of leading enterprises or being left behind in a world that is now moving fast towards a digital transformation future.
Earlier this year, entrepreneurs have been caught unprepared, somehow, by the “mutated” digital adoption mode and speed enforced by the consumers/clients.
The magic password to the winning side of this digital transformation is “mirroring”. It’s all about shifting mindset from what you want, search, track as a “provider” to understand what consumers want! In other words, let’s stop thinking too much and start listening more accurately.
The Unique Opportunity Within Digital Transformation
“Instead of being afraid of changes let’s embrace the change and leverage on its unique characteristic, which is, engage proactively with your customers being them businesses or consumers”
For years we have seen businesses, more their marketers, creating stereotypes or avatar of “heroes”, get the consumers to adopt them and finally give the consumers what the businesses wanted them to ask. The journey was: “Brand to Awareness to Emulation-Desire to Want to Purchase”
In this new normal, leveraging on the digital transformation wave, we have a chance to listen to our customers, both B (Business) and C (Consumer) type, and understand what exactly they want and give it to them.
I’ve been advising property developers and conducting property market studies and researches for many years. Till 2019, most of the times, I’ve seen developers designing, selling and building what they had in mind instead of what the purchasers were actually looking for.
This year, 2020 or the year of The Great Lockdown/The New Normal, I’ve seen plenty of property developers start listening more to the public in terms of locations, sizes, prices, features and fittings and much more!
Digital transformation has helped both sides of the equation by allowing the purchasers to spell out clearly, through a wide range of digital tools, what they want and the sellers by giving them plenty of digital listening tools, you can see here a good example out of plenty available, to get them to understand what precisely buyers are looking for!
Hopefully this trend will keep on moving forward. In a great article the World Economic Forum has explained how the pandemic and digital transformation will re-shape our cities in the forthcoming future. Here you can read their full article.
Businesses that are able to leverage on the current digital shift to create real values for their customers, will, at the end, be the winners in building their own value. I’ve found an extremely interesting article on this topic in INSEAD website, click here to read it. The authors, in a very appropriate manner, have identified three main technological shifts which assisted businesses to “leverage on technologies, build competitive advantage and achieve profitable growth”
Engagement: Everything Starts With The Art of Listening
In the past, while “Marketing” drove market’s attention towards “The Product” providing content, messaging and all the “shouting”, “Sales” owned the customers and the dialog/relationship with them. Once the customer was caught in the net, Sales had to cook it till ready to buy The Product.
Pulling Marketing and Sales outside their respective boxes, we shall now see the latter listening to the customers first, passing over the message to the business owner and, from there, down to Marketing which shall become an integral part of Sales through a full automation of the initial communication stages.
Where in the past sales personnel were investing huge amount of time in looking for customers and nurturing and finally convincing them, the new “Digital Automated Normal” sees Sales moving on a 80% already convinced prospect. Read here a full article about this new Digital Normal which has and is reshaping the way we live-work-learn -play!
I’ve been public speaker for many years and one habit I’ve always had, has been and is to understand where the pain points are for my audience and doing my best to address them, or at least offer different views which might be helping to open their eyes.
Listening, understanding and offering solutions is how this new function of “Sales/Marketing/Sales or SMS” shall be addressing the market in the future, doesn’t matter which service or product are you dealing with.
Creating Positive and Unique Customer Experiences
“Give them what they want” should be the inspiring principle behind future success stories. Think about how painful is, nowadays, the following process: “research – find – evaluate – decide to buy – receive – find out the unexpected – complain – resolve the issue, eventually”.
Imagine, believe me it is possible, to give to our digital shoppers a digital dashboard where to find all the possible, or at least most of, replies and solutions; the customer “experience” will be there, and it will transform a “painful journey” into a pleasant and, above all, solution finding “experience”!
The following it’s a case study from a “bad personal experience”.
One year ago I decided to purchase a small “branded” drone, roughly USD500 of value, through an online famous e-commerce shop. Order and payment are done online I start waiting for the parcel to arrive. The portal confirmed I’d receive it within three weeks!
It arrived one week before expected! Excited and thankful because the supplier has exceeded my expectations (very good experience)!
Unfortunately, the drone had some technical issues. I immediately contacted the e-shop and have been re-directed to the producer as the e-shop told me, we are only in charge of e-sales and do not have technical assistance, feeling not happy and disappointed (bad experience)!
After that, I’ve been dealing with the manufacturer and its technical assistance department, for almost 6 months and my issue has yet to be resolved (extremely bad experience)!
The moral is, do not treat your customer as a rubber ball as it might be getting out of your control and generating unexpected outcomes which will damage your brand or reputation. I will never recommend to anyone to purchase a drone from this brand!
Communicate a truthful message, maintain what you promise and give your customers a positive experience, they will follow you forever! I’ve recently published an article on the 5Ts to be adopted if you want to adapt your business to the new digital transformation normal, read here the full article.
The Digital Transformation Pivot
I’ve been studying and analysing numbers and data all my life and I know how important they are towards the “hunt for solutions”. Data-powered or based solutions will always generate positive outcomes. The issue here is that the private sectors, all around the world, keep on doing their best to track and obtain raw data which, unfortunately, most of the time are not available.
Big-data, their collection and consequent dissemination are the strategic and critical factor to a better future. The New Normal “Sales-Marketing-Sales” tripod stands and lives on data collection and their analysis. Listen to the market and understand what your customers are actually looking for!
The article originating this further analysis of mine, go here for the full content, highlight four basic steps to be walked through in each of the three digital transformation shifts above.
#1 The Where To Play: mapping the B2B procurement and supply-chain interactions and solutions adoption process. Digitalize the mapping and the direction is the correct one!
#2 The How To Win: Innovation and Customer Experiences addressing the needs with an “omni-customer” digitalised mindset.
#3 The What To Do: fast problem-solving solutions are a must! With nowadays innovation and digital transformation speed there is not past or present but only future.
The window of an opportunity becomes narrower every hour.#4 The Who To Win With: The Game’s Name has changed, no more R&D (which is still needed but not anymore in a strategic and lone way as before) but EDT & DTM or Experience Development Team managed by Digital Transformation Experts.
Understanding The Most Valuable Yet Widely Available Asset, Focus On It: People
Technology and the digital transformation, without a dedicated support by any organisation’s people, are totally useless.
People are the one generating the pain, finding a solution and buying it. The actual process is a journey that goes back and forth in this way “user-provider-user”. If the marketing/sales and, somehow, business model can be adapted to this new reality then, all the chances of being successful are there.
People are the one generating the pain, finding a solution and buying it. The actual process is a journey that goes back and forth in this way “user-provider-user”. If the marketing/sales and, somehow, business model can be adapted to this new reality then, all the chances of being successful are there.
Are businesses all around the world having alternative options to digital transformation?
The reply is, digital transformation, and its full adoption, are no more an option but a must if a business wants to remain successful and thrive in the years to come.
Welcome to The New Normal!