Putting the customer in the center is the motto of the hunt selling by pieces without being fully absorbed. Phrases like “Our job is to sell, not buy” follow one another along with terms like omnichannel And the touch points. Today we can say that we are in confrontation, as the customer is the one who takes center stage, whether he wants retail or not.
Knotomnichannel must be resolved andE-Commerce Disengaged from habits and freed from his role as a permanent subordinate, “this kind of approach needs a deep modernization, based on the commitment to become indispensable to the client through a deeper level of involvement, both online and offline.” Explain Multinational Strategy Consulting Mackenzie To achieve this vision, companies must place digital commerce at the heart of their organizations so they can curate experiences that meet ever-growing customer expectations. McKinsey calls this the next value horizon “next trade”. Six global forces, from rapidly changing customer behaviors to the proliferation of new technologies, are putting enormous pressure on legacy business models. Many companies avoid the difficult choices they face, often due to internal politics and fear of channel conflicts and large gaps in capabilities and technology, thus losing all potential value available to them. Let’s look at the six directions he identified Mackenzie Through interviews with managers and business leaders obtained through an analysis of more than 1,000 digital commerce programs implemented by clients in the past three years.
Accelerate e-commerce
Whether it is B2C or B2B, e-commerce is expected to grow at more than 12% annually through 2026. Interviewed managers forecast total digital revenue growth from 20% to 31% of total sales from 2022 to 24 In addition, there are At least 25 million “high potential” digital customers in the US and Europe who first experienced e-commerce during Covid but have not yet fully adopted it.
Rapid evolution in customer behavior
Worldwide digital adoption rates have doubled during Covid and this trend is expected to continue. For social trading, it is expected to double from 2021 to 25.
Very high customer expectations
And digital innovations, wherever they come from, elevate retail, McKinsey reminds us of the Tik Tok explosion of videos, the convenience promoted by Amazon and the importance assumed by Alibaba; It goes without saying that if companies can’t keep up, customers will turn away. A few data to back it up: About 74% of B2B customers want to view product availability online, while 72% want to be able to buy wherever they want.
The capital market is not what it used to be
Will we see fewer and fewer “unicorns”? Meanwhile, the fact that the current approach to e-commerce may be unsustainable for many businesses, especially for consumer activities. According to McKinsey, “About three-quarters of retailers reported negative EBIT margin growth, even as e-commerce shifted to a larger share of revenue. The market is now penalizing this strategy.” A sample of North American e-commerce firms, for example, saw , an average decline of more than 10% in Ev/Ebitda from 2018 to 2022, compared to a 2% decline for companies overall.
Major advances in technology and data
New technologies have evolved: from the fifth generation making all digital content more usable to the new achievements of artificial intelligence, process automation is becoming increasingly prevalent.
outflank the competition
There is no peace for B2B and B2C companies if, on the one hand, digital companies enter new markets (for them) but on others they enter unified markets; On the other hand, startups proliferate with their innovative solutions; Not to mention, funding for e-commerce startups reached a record $54 billion in 2021, up from $19 billion in 2020.
Given these are not all pleasant but certainly urgent “triggers”: what do you do? McKinsey offers some suggestions that arise from the following retail.
Democracy Channel
Forget the tactics and focus on the strategy: every time you generate a new channel, duplicating it at any cost is never smart, especially if “at any cost” means using the same technologies and the same resources already in house, this impoverishes the whole system It does not bring customers. I prefer a “headless” channel strategy, where one channel is not favored over another, in order to serve customers wherever they are, online and offline. “NeXt customers have built fully integrated customer, inventory and order management systems that manage data and experience flows across channels and inventory locations based on customer preferences,” McKenzie explained.
Rather than just products, we also sell experiences and services
“We’re starting to see changes in this direction, such as car manufacturers becoming ‘commuting’ companies – says McKenzie -. This shift requires a complete rethinking of the customer experience to summarize the full range of customer interests and concerns related to the company’s core product. To understand which direction to go To take it, not just use focus groups, the possibility of conducting ethnographic research to understand clients’ needs and wants is a tool that allows for more extensive investigations.
New markets and confidence
Going beyond neighboring markets means, also with reference to the previous point, looking at opportunities for us to move into other sectors from retail to banking, from technology to payment systems. In short, the net from which to fish could be wider but there are ifs: customer confidence; “Turning this kind of ecosystem in motion requires a critical mass of customers, insight into their broader needs, and perhaps most importantly, a sufficient foundation of customer trust. Flipkart, an India-based e-commerce company, has invested heavily in building customer trust by making the process Digital sales as accessible as possible.It pioneered, for example, cash-on-delivery services, where 60 to 70 percent of its target customers did not feel comfortable paying digitally.This foundation of trust enabled the company to rapidly expand into new industries such as Travel and healthcare.”
reflection next one She concludes with some questions all companies should ask themselves: Do you know where the blind spots to your profitability are? Are HR changes for the benefit of the client? Do you give your technology organization credit for delivering better customer outcomes? Are all core functions focused on providing the best customer experience?
Reflecting on these points will give the company an image that will allow it, when an imbalance appears, to do so Return the customer to the center Thus begins her journey towards the future in the right track.
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