Reimagining business in the context of customers and a digital world

Today’s competitive marketplace requires a deep level of change – a reimagining of every part of the business. The need to create transformative experiences and business models that improve customers' lives, drive growth and boost profitability and efficiency is a priority and preoccupation for business leaders around the world.

I recently sat down with Ray Wang, principal analyst, founder and chairman of Constellation Research, and Salesforce chief digital evangelist Vala Afshar, to discuss how businesses are thinking about digital transformation as the primary driver of value creation. You can watch the DisrupTV video interview here.

Doing the right things

The idea of reimagining how a business generates value for its customers is fundamental to the transformation discussion. I think of this as the difference between ‘doing things right’ and ‘doing the right things’.

‘Doing things right’ in this context is, more often than not, an incremental approach to upgrading technology and operational processes; it the digitization of business through short-term point solutions that are valuable to a business but do not in themselves generate real, sustainable value.

‘Doing the right things’ is an imperative of an entirely different order; it is organisations recognising, prioritising and adopting new ways of doing business based on the forces of change coming from new technologies, consumer behaviour and the market inefficiencies that are being seized upon by new types of competitors.

In the age of the customer, a successful organisation needs to embody a clear reason to exist, in line with customer needs. The ability to adapt and transform to the rapid change brought about by digital, in order to remain relevant and protected from competitive risk, is crucial. Lego defines its purpose as ‘Inventing the future of play’, with the stated intent to “pioneer new ways of playing, play materials and the business models of play …...it is not just about products, it is about realising the human possibility”. 

This shows us that the shift is not the sole preserve of digital businesses; traditional businesses can and should leverage the trust, relationships and assets they have built up – often over decades or centuries – and evolve to meet the new consumer. For a bank, this means defining a purpose centred on how you help customers with their finances throughout their lives, and moving away from the legacy notion of a bank acting as a safety deposit box.

With renewed purpose, a business can then understand where in their customers’ journey they can create value, and adopt the mindset of a changing customer dynamic and how customers expect to be engaged, seamlessly.

I use the example of our client, a high street bank that did away with the need for customers to visit a physical branch in order to open an account by enabling the required identity documentation to be submiited online. Similarly, it enabled its customers to withdraw cash from ATMs using their mobile phone rather than having to have a plastic card to do so. Conventional business practice can be overruled and improved upon simply by observing behaviours and understanding the full customer journey – through the instrumenting of physical environments, geofencing devices and by acting on real-time data and analytics.

Technology as a differentiator

One of the fundamental success factors of transformation is understanding that technology has moved from being a cost centre, focused on operations and the running of a business (in the way IT has been talked about for the last couple of decades) to being a differentiator, revenue generator and helping the business to innovate.

If we think about the automotive industry, the traditional role of technology was to drive operational efficiencies. For a new-generation manufacturer such as Tesla, however, the information technology becomes a critical part of the product and the experience – bringing about an era of the over-the-air upgradeable car and differentiating Tesla from a disrupted sector.

In this digital world, it’s not about the technology itself but what the technology can do for customers. And success lies with not thinking solely about the implementation of technology, but about what part of the business it is that you’re trying to reimagine.

How should a traditional business adapt to this new way of thinking and behaving? In this new era, both technology and marketing take on new roles in generating value. Forward thinking companies regard technology as a strategic weapon and differentiator, and think of marketing not as a broadcast centre that simply tells customers about products, but also as the voice of the customer to generate insights and evolve the product and the experience. In these terms, transformation or reimagining the business is owned by the CEO and is a whole company issue, rather than being the preserve of a single function within the business.

Organisations around the world may not agree on much, but they can agree on this: reimagining businesses to succeed in the age of the customer and a digital world is the single most important priority on every business agenda.

Nigel Vaz is SapientNitro’s Global Chief Strategy Officer and Senior Vice President and Managing Director EMEA at Sapient