Digital Business Models: The Future Is Suddenly Here
When companies cannot conduct their business in the usual way, they are forced to rethink their business model. This period of uncertainty can be the perfect time for a company to reinvent itself for the future, and those who fast-track digital transformation look to be the most successful.
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Changes in consumer behaviour
The inability to consume as usual during events such as the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated changes in consumer behaviours. We buy more and more products online, pay without using tangible money at the local supermarket and (video) call our doctor to get a prescription. Companies that were in the process of digitizing are now in overdrive, and those that were resisting the trend will miss out if they do not use this opportunity to improve productivity and provide greater value to customers, whether direct to consumers or business to business.
How to adapt your business to digital transformation
- Sharpen your value proposition: Rethinking the real value your company provides is the first step. One of our clients in the medical device industry has just polished their value proposition for clinical and non-clinical stakeholders and is currently training sales reps to convey the refined message when engaging with customers virtually.
- Maximize customer experience: In a digital world, what customers experience (not just what they buy) matters. Think about Tesla. Beyond the technological innovation, the digital experience of buying a Tesla is innovative and sets it apart.
- Reimagine your operations: Disruption to your business is a pressure test for the robustness and efficiency of your operations. For example, life insurance companies traditionally require blood and urine samples as part of the application process for policies. This involved either going to a physician or their sending a paramedic to your house to collect the samples. The process has always been a hurdle customers had to jump over. Following COVID-19, the company now sends an easy-to-use digital device to the customers' home. Results are securely and quickly transmitted to the company or mailed back if customers prefer.
- Boost process automation: When a workforce is faced by capacity constraints, the implementation of technologies can help augment them. A telecom client created a digital service for customers to make their own appointments with technicians when it suited them. The customers no longer had to waste time waiting for a technician to come between 8:00 and 12:00 or 1:00 and 5:00. For the technicians, the percentage of successfully completed service calls (when someone was actually there to permit access to the home) went up dramatically resulting in a saving of nearly €1 million a year. A digital win/win!
- Innovative partnerships: Digitalization opens up possibilities for combining services for customers in innovative ways. What if your physician, clinic, pharmacy were automatically linked to your insurance company so payments were automated; plus, you paid less for insurance the better your health encouraged through wellness programs offered by the same company? The future is already here: www.pingan.com
In the digital age that is suddenly here, the companies who can leverage the technical possibilities to deliver more value to customers in innovative ways will separate themselves from their competitors.
This article was produced as a collaboration between Bird & Bird and OXYGY.