.jpg "Smart factory, Internet of Things (IoT), Lean manufacturing, and Industry 4.0")
Simon Tate, Vice President Asia, Sales force
The rise of mobile and social technologies has made end-users more empowered and knowledgeable than ever before. At the same time, enterprises today can leverage the cloud to make faster, more efficient software changes; use social media to connect with customer sand deploy predictive analytics to determine what their customers will want and connect and control devices via a central point with the Internet of Things (IoT).
Enterprises need to recognize the increasing role technology plays in their business or risk becoming laggards when connecting to today tech-savvy customers. What are the latest trends that businesses need to take note of in the coming year to engage with their customers?
Connecting Internet of Things to Internet of Customers
The combination of mobile, social, sensors, wearables and cloud technologies has triggered a deluge of data. More than 90 percent of the world’s data has been generated over the last 2 years. With IDC predicting that the number of connected things in APEJis set to increase exponentially from 3.1 billion to 8.6 billion by 2020, the volume of data and the opportunities this presents are expected to grow exponentially. This connectivity between all things or IoT is often seen as a buzzword, and will continue to remain so for many unless organizations are able to act on the information collected.
Specific verticals, such as sales and marketing, will definitely stand to benefit from leveraging the data collected from the Internet of Things to make predictions, effectively set targets and tailor their go-to-market messaging to understand their target audience better and Organizations need to embrace technology that helps them connect data from IoT, digital content and customer information, give context to that data and make it actionable – all in real time. By collecting such data, businesses would be better able to connect to their customers in real-time, with a personal and proactive service based on their registered preferences.
Intelligence-Enabled Workflows
While enterprises are provided with even more raw materials to sell smarter, IDC found that companies are still struggling to extract the right data and deliver the data driven insights to help them appeal to today customers. Although there is much discussion on the need for emotional intelligence in the workplace to navigate the corporate jungle, more discussion needs to bedone around relationship intelligence.
Relationship intelligence is a technology solution that automatically captures, analyzes and surfaces information relevant for the customer relationship from email, calendars and more – will grow in importance in 2016 as more enterprises look for a way to mine data. This Jarvis of the workplace will seek out the patterns needed to provide insights into future outcomes, proactively recommending courses of action to build stronger relationships with prospective or current customers.
Increasing Emphasis on the Customer
The digital journey is transforming the way customers get introduced to and engage with brands. Customers now interact with brands through multiple communication channels and devices. Industry disruption from innovative enterprises has become the norm. In this competitive, ever-changing business environment, IDC advises businesses to move out from their comfort zones and leverage technology to address the gaps in customer experience. Organizations of every size and industry are looking for solutions to transform how they work and engage with customers to drive growth. 2015 may have been the year of new terms such as IoT and wearables– but 2016 looks set to be the year when the discussion moves beyond technology to how technology is a means to a customer-centric end. This means that enterprises not just want to talk about IoT or wearables, but rather to show how wearables can contribute to the overall customer experience. The businesses that put the customer at the centre of everything they do in 2016 will be the ones that succeed.
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