Are you digitally blind?...an inside story

It still amazes me here in 2017 we still have businesses that are quite oblivious about the effect of digital, in fact some are currently experiencing digital fatigue (ask the CIO’s in Australia thanks to Gartner) with the perception that digital transformation is a smokescreen, something that will weather out with all its foray of intentions, now I call this a total misconception.

Digital is a journey not a destination.

I’m sitting and looking hence engulfed in my own thoughts why this is happening, as I could possibly be joining the party of people who are digitally blind, why do I say this? well, I haven’t written a blog since my last in 2015 meaning am either still sleeping or time is passing by me that I forget to inform my dearest community on specific tech evolution which brings me to note that we need to imbibe consistent digital adoption into our individual brands.

A perfect scenario looms in, am away on vacation in 35'degrees heat somewhere south coast having a wonderful time out this past Xmas, then decided to check my mail just for a sec which was totally not welcome however the subject line and sender being my bank grabbed my attention that it was really urgent. Now driving for five hours in a lofty town looking for a fax machine because I was told by my bank to send over some key documents that can’t be received via email or scanned or else my transaction in process will be denied before I return (don’t ask which bank in the UK, as am equally shocked myself). Did I say five hours? Yes, looking around for a rather off-trend and maybe obsolete communication medium, what businesses don’t preserve anymore (fax machines), all I needed to do was check into the apple store and ‘wow’ an eFax app to get it done in approximately 3 mins, please do the math…yet organisations are fending off the fuss of going digital.

It’s quite hard to keep up with tech trends or what’s actually right ahead of us and this is why I have highlighted three major disruptions we all need be totally aware of, so you’re not considered digitally vision-less while your entrants gain the best of your market share.

MARKETING AUTOMATION

Organisations have to understand that purchasing a CRM platform needs the other fix, it’s all about 1-2-1 marketing which does not in any way carry the price tag of multi-blaster approach, whatever that means in your approach. Buyers or consumers are getting smarter by the day researching and bypassing Sales teams to get what they need. But not without leaving traces of data behind which should get you as a marketer or business to analyse and send recommendations based on intent.

According to Adweek 81% of consumer's will run this quick self-satisfying search process but not without leaving traces of data behind which should get us as marketeers or businesses to analyse and design engagement recommendations based on user intent

A digital sales ready approach can suffice here with contextual marketing in play. The buy-cycle is not entirely linear so businesses need to avoid the queue heading the direction of a digitally blinded community rather start embracing scalable new technologies with the culture of intuitive automation. This ensures more personalisation, contextual marketing and improved correlated analytics that also drives better-informed decisions.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Have you heard of artificial intelligence?, that’s a silly joke actually but if not I’ll be totally surprised because even your Facebook browsing activity is completely driven by deep learning AI which associates all your engagement activity in packets and provision intuitive content recommendations. What about Chatbots? in this regard which lives right on the same street, did you know facebook alone records about 33,000 chatbots on messenger, controlling it’s over 1bn active users, this should already send you some quivers down your social strategy spine.

A research carried out by Ogilvy actually states that about 80% of marketers globally are already planning on AI/Chatbots cum the next three years (2020).

Most Problems will now be solved by this form of aggregated data or what IBM calls Cognitive Intelligence, even Google determines where the next person is likely to catch a cold with its platform flu trends although now revamped for better data provisioning globally. Where is this leading to? Big data- if you are not testing & analysing, then you are likely most definitely driving with your eyes closed and am sure you know where that eventually leads. We also need to shift a little away from complete focus on the Millennial noise (Gen Z or Millennials’) rather build a proper data engine to help story-tell traces of data.

Machine learning comes with natural language to help guide the internet of things. Google search is now totally reliant on this with its constant new features such as escape hatch and the likes. The year 2017 is aiming to promote and improve AI developments with organisations now considering staff positions such as CAIO (Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer) to oversee this projects and help drive true business transformation. Need to hire a CAIO here’s why?

AUGMENTED REALITY & VIRTUAL REALITY

This is where we all start feeling a little left behind, because your next cab service or amazon delivery could look like it lives right in your living space or conference room, or just imagine sitting in a nice Italian restaurant and immediately immersed in a virtual reality dining world where as you read the menu you are immersed in a virtual experience of how the meal was prepared with the head chef narrating the historical masterpiece of your meal selections, now that is awesome. :)

This is set to garner over $162bn in by the year 2020. IDC calls this solving business challenges on the third platform. The world of Augmented reality and Virtual reality has been moaning about over the past two years bringing brands much closer to their customers with secret start-ups like Magic leap reinventing the will, transforming virtual reality experiences into mediated or mixed reality or Microsoft announcing its new development plans to release Hololens V2 sidesteps. It’s all reshaping the digitally blinded with mixed reality, in this case our world comes into a fusion of AR & VR.

To understand in detail our guys at Societypages have done very well with a guided write-up explanation of both terminologies. The effect of this will bring brands that essential much-desired revenue streams and customer experiences that live in the heart of the prosumers.

The benefits of digital are enormous and only the brave who are quick and responsive are able to reap the first fruits in the long run. Digital is not social media or mobile, it is the overall strategy that your business requires to remain effective and competitive in this fast changing world. We need to assess where we are and shape our journey to where we would like to be by gauging the right platforms and people that will enable the defined business transformation.

We understand certain organisations find it risky taking on new platforms or technologies with the legacy idea that it will involve more additional headcounts or operational costs to manage the inadvertent cost to the company, but lets view in this regard why get on the train if you don’t want to journey? Or why share the champagne of digital transformation when you actually don’t partake of it. We have to continue to be agile, scalable and measure to optimise, not trying to be repetitive but organisations need not be complacent or be caught behind searching for revenue crumbs while the competition is miles ahead with great innovation, fascinating customer experiences and brand loyalty.

Lastly, digital is 10% tech and 90% human. Organisations talk about digital as if it is 90% tech and 10% human. Feed your business in 2017 with the right technology and strategy to advance a true delightful digital experience or take a look at this digital stats to make you aware where you are likely to begin.

*Remember, this are totally my views as a digital consultant