Can Digital Transformation be the answer?
Here’s what we know, reverting to pre-COVID models won’t be enough to survive in a post-COVID-era. There is a greater imperative to transform and now front-office transformation is an even higher priority than your back-office transformation. Digital products and services are table-stakes, customers will begin to demand personalized experience from healthcare to retail and everything in between (i.e. product recommendations and communications) – personalization is the key to redefining relationships with customers. This will require business leaders to rethink value propositions – customer first propositions. Many new market leaders will be defined by the superior experience produced during COVID, the ability to adapt, and capture new markets and customers.
Large scale acceleration of digital transformation across industries will happen simultaneously.
Our new digital and mobile-first behaviour is going to shift dramatically. There are a few tactical things that every organization can do to accelerate the transformation journey.
Create a digital thread right at the start of the innovation process and maintain it to the end of the product life
Find manufacturing partners that are digitally native and will enable the choice, agility, and resilience you need
Ensure you have the right digital tools to manage your supply chain, it’s time to throw away those spreadsheets
Insist that your manufacturing ecosystem or that of any supplier has implemented a digital transformation strategy
Embrace the digital twin, automation, robotics, additive manufacturing, and artificial intelligence as technology building blocks
Digital-first trends and shifts in behaviours
Home delivery demand will drive significant infrastructure investments. Sustained demand for delivery will continue as consumers embrace the convenience of on-demand services. This means significant investment in logistics and delivery infrastructure to meet the narrow windows of delivery times to stay competitive and mirror a “Prime Now” type of experience. Many companies already struggle with optimizing growing delivery costs which will be further impacted by the logistics and delivery infrastructure therefore, insisting that your supply chain is digital-first can lead to operational effectiveness and create opportunities for strategic investment in infrastructure.
Contactless payments in a cashless society.
The shift to contactless payments isn’t new but the adoption rate has been slower in Canada. The pandemic prompted some stores to adopt tap technology and even more aggressive “contactless” options such as mobile payment services like PayPal and Venmo. Fully automated stores, such as Amazon Go, might have seemed like a technological curiosity a few months ago but the concept will likely become a more viable option for retailers. Organizations need to think about contactless payment options to add to the customer experience. Consumer confidence as it relates to health and safety is still low and giving consumers a choice to pay via a QR code for example will help to increase confidence levels and ease of a transaction.
How will physical spaces change to be relevant and in a digital world?
There will always be a need for physical interactions even in an increasingly digital world. The experience in a physical space will need to be different and compliment digital products and services, incentivizing consumers to interact with you in the physical world in a new and fresh way. In the past, companies have offered exclusive online deals, however in a digital-first era, there will be a shift to offer exclusive in-store experiences to attract consumers to interact with you in the physical world.
In conclusion, gone are the days of hoping that we will return to “business as usual”. Customer-first value propositions should drive investment decisions. The shift in consumer behaviours and rapid acceleration of digital transformation will require all of us to push boundaries, embrace technology, and create a superior experience.