In fact, professionals are more likely to engage in a quick game of Snake than manage a full productivity suite via their AI-enabled smartphones. Conference calls involve groups huddled around a speaker in a boardroom, instead of teams having discussions in full high-definition via their company-issued laptops.

Sound far-fetched? This was the office of the early 2000s, a mere twenty years ago, when the world of work looked vastly different to the high-tech one we enjoy today.

Radical changes at work

According to Shiraz Khota, Sales Director at 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors, the past twenty years of work hold valuable lessons for what we can expect from our future work lives.

“The proliferation of technologies and innovation, combined with the rise of the Experience Economy continue to radically change modern workplaces, with far-reaching consequences for organisations, their HR teams, and the talented employees they hope to attract and retain. While it is true that we live in a time of ongoing uncertainty, there are important insights we can gain from the past twenty years that could help organisations and professionals alike better plan for the immediate future.”

Many of the technologies we take for granted in our day-to-day work lives were developed over the past 10 to 20 years, including Skype in 2003, Gmail and Facebook in 2004, Twitter in 2006 and the iPhone, the world’s first true mainstream smartphone, in 2007.

“The pace of technological change is accelerating to the extent that, in a few years’ time, we may look back at today in much the same way as we now look back at the early 2000s,” says Khota. “As the pandemic continues to disrupt normal notions of work and team management, organisations are increasingly looking to technology to help them adapt to near-constant change in how they manage, support and motivate their most important asset: their employees.”

Predictions for the (near) future of work

So what can organisations – and their employees – expect from the near-future of work? According to Khota, the following four trends may be commonplace before the end of this decade:

1. Offices without borders

Perhaps an obvious one considering the pandemic-forced switch to remote and hybrid work models, but all indications are that the borders between work and life will continue to disappear.

“The digitisation of work processes is continuing at a rapid pace , with a key focus of enabling their workforce to operate remotely. The mass adoption of online collaboration and productivity tools means more people than ever are able to perform their work duties outside the confines of the office.”

According to the WEF, . “Managing a hybrid workforce effectively will require new processes and technologies to support those processes,” explains Khota.

“As the lines between personal and professional lives continue to be blurred, and increasing numbers of highly skilled workers operate from remote locations, organisations will be challenged to implement appropriate tools and technologies to support their workers while ensuring alignment with corporate culture.”

2. Greater diversity

With the rise of borderless offices also comes the concept of borderless talent pools. “Despite the halt on global business travel due to the pandemic, we continue to work and live in a global village, with organisations able to tap into a global talent pool of skills to fill key positions. High-performance teams are increasingly diverse – in fact, studies have shown that .”

Enabling greater diversity within organisational teams is also key to driving productivity and performance within the organisation. “Belonging – a key component of inclusion – and engagement at work are highly correlated,” says Khota. “Studies have found that , compared to only 20% of those that don’t feel they belong.”

In addition to implementing appropriate policies and processes to encourage greater diversity and inclusion at the workplace, organisations will need to invest in appropriate technologies to ensure they stay abreast of the multitude of expectations and needs of their diverse workforce.

3. Focus on experience

The concept of employee experience came to the fore in recent years, as the Experience Economy truly took hold of personal and professional lives around the world.

“Experience management is arguably one of the most powerful tools for building relationships with customers and employees of the past decade. As the digitisation of every aspect of our personal and professional lives continues unabated, being able to track, measure and make adjustments to that experience will be invaluable to businesses’ success.”

Modern employee experience management tools will become standard in our future workplaces – and for good reason, according to Khota. “Studies have shown that organisations that invest most heavily in employee experience are more than twice as likely to be on the Forbes list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies, and appear more than eleven times for often in Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work. In fact, companies that invest in employee experience are four times more profitable than those that don’t.”

As organisations become intelligent enterprises – defined as organisations that use intelligent technologies and a connected network to their advantage – their ability to combine operational and experience data increases. “The most successful and innovative companies of the future will blend operational and experience data to gain a comprehensive real-time view over the total performance of their business, and make the employee experience a key consideration in broader decision-making processes.”

4. In-house academies

According to a WEF report, there has been a four-fold increase in the numbers of individuals seeking opportunities for online learning, accompanied by a five-fold increase in employers providing online learning opportunities to their workers.

“As technology advances make increasing numbers of job roles obsolete, workers will need to be upskilled or reskilled and then deployed to new roles,” explains Khota. “Estimates are that even among job roles that won’t become obsolete in the near future, the skills needed to perform such roles will. In fact, 40% of core skills in such roles are likely to change in the next five years, and .”

To ensure they have access to the skills they need, organisations will increasingly need to invest in in-house skills development. “It is highly likely that we will see a rise in-house academies, where workers can develop skills needed within their organisations and gain valuable experience that can immediately be applied to the benefit of their employers.”

For employees, this will have the dual benefit of helping them grow within their current roles while also making them more employable to the broader industry in the longer term.

“In its recent Future of Jobs 2020 report, the World Economic Forum found that 94% of business leaders expect employees to pick up new skills on the job, a major increase from 65% in 2018,” says Khota. “To win in the new world of work, employers and employees will need to engage in continuous skills development to ensure a steady supply of work-ready skills.”

The post Five Things the Past 20 Years can Teach us About our Future Work Lives appeared first on 麻豆原创 Africa News Center.

For one of South Africa鈥檚 most beloved motoring brands, a divestment by a global parent company sparked a digital transformation process that has helped it break down internal silos and gain a real-time view over each customer to help it deliver a consistently superior customer experience.

鈥淲e had been reliant on the systems and processes of our US-based parent company until they divested in 2017,鈥� says Loren Meyer, Department Executive for Information Technology at Isuzu Motors South Africa. 鈥淲e had to build local capabilities, and since it鈥檚 our aspiration to be a leader in the manufacture and supply of vehicles, and to exceed customer expectations, we needed a technology solution that would support our growth plans. We chose 麻豆原创 technology and Dimension Data as our implementation partner, and have achieved outstanding results to date.”

Divestment sparks innovation drive

Isuzu develops, produces and sells commercial vehicles, light commercial vehicles and diesel engines, of which it is the world鈥檚 largest producer, having sold more than 85 million diesel engines in the year to date. Isuzu sells vehicles in more than 120 markets and has manufacturing facilities in 30 countries.

Following General Motors鈥� (GM) divestment from South Africa in 2017, Isuzu was restructured, with Isuzu Japan buying out GM鈥檚 production facilities. A new company, Isuzu Motors South Africa (IMSAf) was formed, which today employs 1000 people locally and boasts a network of more than 115 dealers across Africa.

鈥淒uring the GM divestment in 2017, an agreement was signed to allow Isuzu Motors South Africa to utilize certain GM systems for a period of time,鈥� says Meyer. 鈥淗owever, as part of our localisation we had to develop our own local systems and in-source our resources. We had been working on a locally hosted Isuzu enterprise 麻豆原创 system that incorporates both the commercial vehicle and light commercial vehicle business processes, and wanted to complement this with an extended landscape that includes a unified 麻豆原创 Service and Sales cloud solution.”

From spreadsheets to Sevice Cloud

Previously, Isuzu鈥檚 sales team were relying on Excel spreadsheets, CRM tools, emails and portals to log, track and manage customer enquiries. This left them without a complete view over each customer and unable to accurately track the progress of the sales pipeline.

鈥淲e wanted an integrated service solution with a single point of reference to create, update and track a customer enquiry,鈥� says Meyer. 鈥淲e chose to implement 麻豆原创 Service Cloud, which helped us reduce the number of systems an agent has to use to resolve a call, and enables our teams to resolve customer enquiries more quickly. The built-in analytics tool has empowered our managers to get a real-time view of each call to allow for personalization according to each user鈥檚 preferences or role.鈥�

The project was not without its challenges. The previous system that GM used was isolated outside of South Africa, and the local teams had little control over the data. 鈥淲e consolidated all our data in an 麻豆原创 master database that is applied through to the call center,鈥� says Meyer. 鈥淲orking off our own data set that we control and can access in real time has been one of the great outcomes of this project.鈥�

Isuzu chose the cloud solution as it forms part of the business鈥� longer-term hybrid cloud journey. This provides the benefit of automated upgrades and patching provided by 麻豆原创. The full integration into the existing 麻豆原创 system also gives call center agents real-time access to accurate customer data.

“From a sales point-of-view, 麻豆原创 Sales Cloud has given us up-to-the-minute information about each customer as well as insights into their preferences,鈥� explains Meyer. 鈥淲e now have full visibility over private buyers as well as our direct customers, and can take a closer look at precisely who is in our system and who is interacting with the business.”

Partner support 鈥榠nvaluable鈥�

The Isuzu team were supported throughout by implementation partner Dimension Data. Natasha Govender, 麻豆原创 CX Manager at Dimension Data, says the implementation has enabled Isuzu to reduce the number of legacy systems and improve the overall customer experience. 鈥淏y empowering users with a 360-degree view of each customer across both the sales and service teams, Isuzu is now better placed to deliver a seamless and consistent customer experience.”

Meyer says the support from Dimension Data has been invaluable. 鈥淗aving partners that understand our landscape, business challenges and pain points has been hugely beneficial, as we can collectively discuss, analyse and take action on any changes, allowing us to make more efficient decisions while minimizing risk to the business.鈥�

Enabling business continuity in 鈥榥ew normal鈥�

While there are still further developments and innovations planned, the implementation has already produced outstanding business results.

鈥淥ur implementation coincided with the global COVID-19 outbreak and South Africa鈥檚 first lock-down, which meant our user community were required to work remotely,鈥� says Meyer. 鈥淐all center agents could access the 麻豆原创 Cloud Service solution from their offsite working locations and seamlessly continue to provide the high levels of service and support to our valued customers.鈥�

Other benefits provided by the 麻豆原创 Service Cloud module included:

• The ability to effectively manage increased activity and numbers of customers showing online interest in Isuzu products and after-sales services;
• The ability to offer financial relief options as well as introduce several service support campaigns relating to vehicle warranties, roadside assistance and other technical services;
• The ability to route all enquiries and requests directly from the website into the Service module where each lead and service request could be recorded, qualified by a customer care agent, and sent through to the nearest or most convenient dealer.

鈥淭his proved invaluable to our national dealer network, who were able to contact and continue to service our customers during a challenging time when normal business was regulated by the national lock-down protocols,鈥� says Meyer. 鈥淭he solution also afforded our fleet sales department the ability to continue engaging and building key relationships with. Our direct customers remotely during what is now a completely different 鈥� and very challenging 鈥� business environment.鈥�

Meyer adds that flexible accessibility and the ability to work off a centralized customer and product platform has greatly benefited the operational teams. 鈥淎s a company we are pleased that our business operations have been able to continue uninterrupted during these extraordinary times, resulting in a strong finish to the year.鈥�

Cameron Beveridge, Regional Director for Southern Africa at 麻豆原创, points to Isuzu鈥檚 ability to understand each customer at an individual level and in real time as a true differentiator. 鈥淚n today鈥檚 Experience Economy, companies that can consistently meet and exceed individual customer expectations will outperform their less agile peers. The outstanding implementation achieved by Isuzu and their implementation partners Dimension Data will serve the business well as it looks to build on its proud legacy in South Africa and beyond.鈥�

The post Isuzu Motors South Africa Extends 麻豆原创 Landscape to Drive Improved Sales, Customer Experience appeared first on 麻豆原创 Africa News Center.

Physical distancing has been mandated by governments across the globe, consumers are hunkering down in the safety of their homes, rarely venturing out and digital engagement, along with touchless technologies, have exponentially increased. However, it can be argued that in fact, quite the opposite is true; that the Experience Economy, now, is more important than ever before.

And here鈥檚 why. As companies try to connect with their consumers, employees and partners; as they try and meet the unmet and unarticulated needs of their stakeholders, the experiences they deliver, at this critical inflection point of our history, will be more important than ever to their long term success.

As a concept, the Experience Economy is not new. A 1998 article in Harvard Business Review titled 鈥榃elcome to the Experience Economy鈥� highlighted how leading companies understood that 鈥渢he next competitive battleground lies in staging experiences.鈥� Products and services were no longer seen as differentiators.

By 2017, McKinsey had declared 鈥楨xperiences are king鈥� as their research confirmed how consumers had gradually shifted their expenditure from products to experiences. In their report, McKinsey found that personal consumption expenditure on experience-related services had grown 1.5 times faster than total personal consumption spending and nearly four times faster than expenditure on products.

Gartner even declared that 2019 would be the year that experience overtake product and price as the main competitive differentiators for brands and businesses. Positive, hyper-personalised experiences were now required to sweeten the deal for consumers.

Rise of Intelligent Experiences

In line with the rise of exponential technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Big Data and the Internet of Thing, the concept of the Experience Economy has also evolved over the past few years. Today, successful businesses manage their experiences as a core strategic business capability. They have seen how customers are willing to pay more for experiences. They understand that the value needle has shifted.

This new approach is powered by Intelligence. Intelligent Experience Management leverages the power of exponential technologies 鈥� AI, IoT, advanced analytics 鈥� to drive a more optimal customer, employee, product and brand experiences. This relentless focus on value delivery through enhanced experiences, is what will allow enterprises to win in today鈥檚 market.

And these exponential technologies powering differentiated business capabilities, are vital to the long term success of enterprises, because of the volume and nature of data that informs modern Experience Economy strategies. Traditionally, organisations relied heavily on operational data 鈥� revenue, inventory, suppliers, workforce 鈥� to make decisions, but today they need insights from a different type of data to augment the value their provide to their customers; they need experience data.

Experience data provides insights into the sentiment and emotional aspects that influence a customer, employee, partner or supplier decisions towards a brand. In short, operational data reveals what is happening in an organisation, and experience data reveals why and how it is happening.

An Intelligent Experience Management strategy would measure and track operational data and experience data and use AI in combination with other exponential technologies to construct and augment individualised profiles of customers, employees, brands or products. Predicitve or Prescriptive actions can then be taken in order to optimally drive outcomes that matter.

Put another way, instead of reacting to problems when they occur, increasing the 鈥榚xperience gap鈥�, companies can now get ahead of the curve and address challenges before they have a lasting negative impact on the organisation.

The impact and advantage of this type of capability will be indispensable to organisations as they adapt to changing customer behaviour in the wake of the pandemic. While adoption of digital services has exponentially increased across the globe, the events of 2020 and the resulting shift in consumer behaviour, will put additional pressure on organisations to transform how they engage with customer and employees.

And nowhere is this shift as apparent as in the financial services sector.

Experience Economy transforming banks, insurers

Banks鈥� relationships with their customers have largely been built on the basis of compliance: often a box-ticking exercise that ensures the bank鈥檚 conduct is in line with a robust set of rules and standards and that the consumer adheres to a strict set of principles.

This dynamic prevailed until the emergence of the internet and other digital technologies that created new channels for customer engagement. According to a recent Qualtrics study, of all the time customers spent interacting with their bank, 47% of that time was via online channels, and less than a third of that time in person. The same study found that 鈥楶oor Service鈥� was the second-most important factor in consumers considering leaving their bank for a competitor.

The banking industry is extremely competitive. Most banks generally offer the same types of products and services. The real differentiation lies in the experience that customers have when interacting with the bank. And the cost of a poor experience I this industry has become increasingly significant: a 2018 survey by Forrester Research found that, for every one-point decline in its customer experience score, a multi-channel bank loses $124-million in potential revenue.

Banks, competing with more agile fin-techs and a growing ecosystem of non-traditional financial services providers 鈥� including the powerful telco industry 鈥� have taken note of this and have been making significant investment into their Experience Economy strategies. By 2018, McKinsey found that three out of four of the world鈥檚 50 largest banks were committed to some form of customer experience transformation.

Insurers are also taking note.

Insurance provider Allianz recently leveraged Qualtrics, the experience management platform, to collect experience data from customers in 22 countries. Using the platform to filter and priorities insights by location, and function, Allianz could empower their customer-facing teams with the certainty to know what action to take to deliver a seamless and positive experience at every step of each customers鈥� engagement with the company.

Allianz has also used the experience data to develop entirely new products to help protect businesses from emerging risks, improve its reputation for quality consultations and become integral business partners to its customers, building lasting loyalty.

Financial services companies that have not invested in transforming their customer and employee experiences will be left far behind their competitors in a post-2020 world. Leaving experience management to chance is a recipe for failure.

Instead, organisations should seek ways to improve their collection and processing of experience data and combine that with operational data to make informed decisions over the future of their companies.

The post Manage Experiences Intelligently in a Socially Distant World appeared first on 麻豆原创 Africa News Center.

The so-called 鈥楢mazon Effect鈥� on B2C sales has also hastened the demand for faster, easier purchases, with sellers required to offer quick and simple-to-use options for procuring products and services.

Economic pressures and a radically changed operating environment are pushing B2B companies to innovate in how they promote, sell and support products and solutions. found that B2B buyers are motivated by many of the same factors as B2C buyers: speed, convenience, a frictionless buying experience, and transparency in pricing and product features.

Learning from B2C

Thanks to advances in e-commerce, B2C customers today enjoy a seamless buying journey with quick fulfilment and consistently excellent customer experiences.

In contrast, B2B procurement can be a slow and laborious process. Gartner estimates that as many as six to ten people form part of a B2B buying process. Each person typically operates independently, with joint decisions over the procurement only occurring toward the end of the buying journey.

This can result in slow and resource-intensive buying cycles that leave organisations without the agility to quickly respond to opportunities or challenges in their operating environment.

For sellers, the process can undermine efforts at winning and retaining customers. A 2019 report into digital buying found that nearly听.

Instead, decision-makers purchase solutions whenever one is needed to keep the business moving, or when there are great potential returns on the investment due to low-lying sales opportunities.

The focus is on achieving business outcomes, not simply deploying new solutions or purchasing the latest tech. Sellers should provide a smooth and frictionless buying process while ensuring on-going support that helps customers derive maximum value from their investments.

How? Here are three measures businesses can use to improve the B2B sales process and delivering business outcomes:

Capturing and retaining customer affinity

The Experience Economy has raised customer expectations over the type of experience they enjoy when interacting with a business or brand. Investment into enhancing customer experiences are at an all-time high: one study found that

These investments are bottom-line driven: McKinsey estimates that 听while lowering costs by 50%.

Organisations need to deploy experience management solutions that gather and process data to deliver insights into customer expectations and shortcomings in the existing customer experience. Using a data-driven approach, organisations can then implement appropriate measures to meet customer expectations and needs at every step of the customer journey.

Removing friction in the customer journey

The consumer-friendly convenience of a service such as Amazon has raised expectations of what people want from their interactions with a business or brand. Removing friction from the customer journey is one of the most effective ways of improving the overall customer experience.

To achieve a frictionless experience, organisations need to integrate physical and digital channels to gain contextual insights into customer behaviour and preferences. Investment into a powerful CRM platform enables sales teams, customers and partners to improve how they nurture leads. Critically, organisations need to invest in an omnichannel experience that connects sales, service and support to ensure customers are supported at every turn.

Lifetime value engineering

The focus has shifted away from 鈥檚ell-and-forget鈥� to 鈥榓dopt-and-use鈥�, with demands from buyers for long-term support and ongoing value engineering. It鈥檚 not enough to make a great first impression and converting that to a sale.

The most successful organisations become trusted partners to their customers across the entire customer journey. Organisations can achieve this by integrating customer-facing, front-office operations with back-office applications. The objective is to integrate everything from the shop floor to the top floor.

In addition, organisations should build toward a perfectly orchestrated order management and fulfilment experience for customers to ensure every sale is seamlessly deployed and integrated. Finally, by encouraging internal departments to collaborate, organisations can break down internal silos hampering the customer journey to deliver a seamless, memorable and valued experience to customers.

The post Focus on Business Outcomes to Improve B2B Sales Efforts appeared first on 麻豆原创 Africa News Center.

As a concept, the Experience Economy is not new. A 1998 article in Harvard Business Review titled 鈥樷�� highlighted how leading companies understood that 鈥渢he next competitive battleground lies in staging experiences.鈥澨齈roducts and services were no longer seen as differentiators.

By 2017, McKinsey had declared 鈥樷�� as their research confirmed how consumers had gradually shifted their expenditure from products to experiences. In their report, McKinsey found that personal consumption expenditure on experience-related services had grown 1.5 times faster than total personal consumption spending and nearly four times faster than expenditure on products.

Gartner even declared that 2019 would be the year that as the main competitive differentiators for brands and businesses. Positive, hyper-personalised experiences were now required to sweeten the deal for consumers.

Rise of Intelligent Experiences

In line with the rise of exponential technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Big Data and the Internet of Thing, the concept of the Experience Economy has also evolved over the past few years. Today, successful businesses manage their experiences as a core strategic business capability. They have seen how customers are willing to pay more for experencies. They understand that the value needle has shifted.

This new approach is powered by Intelligence. Intelligent Experience Management leverages the power of exponential technologies – AI, IoT, advanced analytics – to drive a more optimal customer, employee, product and brand experiences. This relentless focus on value delivery through enhanced experiences, is what will allow enterprises to win in today鈥檚 market.

And these exponential technologies powering differentiated business capabilities, are vital to the long term success of enterprises, because of the volume and nature of data that informs modern Experience Economy strategies. Traditionally, organisations relied heavily on operational data – revenue, inventory, suppliers, workforce – to make decisions, but today they need insights from a different type of data to augment the value their provide to their customers; they need experience data.

Experience data provides insights into the sentiment and emotional aspects that influence a customer, employee, partner or supplier decisions听towards a brand. In short, operational data reveals what is happening in an organisation, and experience data reveals why and how it is happening.

An Intelligent Experience Management strategy would measure and track operational data and experience data and use AI in combination with other exponential technologies to construct and augment individualised profiles of customers, employees, brands or products. Predicitve or Prescriptive actions can then be taken in order to optimally drive outcomes that matter.

Put another way, instead of reacting to problems when they occur, increasing the 鈥榚xperience gap鈥�, companies can now get ahead of the curve and address challenges before they have a lasting negative impact on the organisation.

The impact and advantage of this type of capability will be indispensable to organisations as they adapt to changing customer behaviour in the wake of the pandemic. While adoption of digital services has exponentially increased across the globe, the events of 2020 and the resulting shift in consumer behaviour, will put additional pressure on organisations to transform how they engage with customer and employees.

And nowhere is this shift as apparent as in the financial services sector.

听Experience Economy transforming banks, insurers

Banks鈥� relationships with their customers have largely been built on the basis of compliance: often a box-ticking exercise that ensures the bank鈥檚 conduct is in line with a robust set of rules and standards and that the consumer adheres to a strict set of principles.

This dynamic prevailed until the emergence of the internet and other digital technologies that created new channels for customer engagement. According to a recent Qualtrics study, of all the time customers spent interacting with their bank, . The same study found that 鈥楶oor Service鈥� was the second-most important factor in consumers considering leaving their bank for a competitor.

The banking industry is extremely competitive. Most banks generally offer the same types of products and services. The real differentiation lies in the experience that customers have when interacting with the bank. And the cost of a poor experience I this industry has become increasingly significant: 听a 2018 survey by Forrester Research found that, for every one-point decline in its customer experience score,.

Banks, competing with more agile fin-techs and a growing ecosystem of non-traditional financial services providers – including the powerful telco industry – have taken note of this and have been making significant investment into their Experience Economy strategies. By 2018, McKinsey found that were committed to some form of customer experience transformation.

Insurers are also taking note.

Insurance provider Allianz recently leveraged Qualtrics, the experience management platform, to collect experience data from customers in 22 countries. Using the platform to filter and priorities insights by location, and function, Allianz could empower their customer-facing teams with the certainty to know what action to take to deliver a seamless and positive experience at every step of each customers鈥� engagement with the company.

Allianz has also used the experience data to develop entirely new products to help protect businesses from emerging risks, improve its reputation for quality consultations and become integral business partners to its customers, building lasting loyalty.

Financial services companies that have not invested in transforming their customer and employee experiences will be left far behind their competitors in a post-2020 world. Leaving experience management to chance is a recipe for failure.

Instead, organisations should seek ways to improve their collection and processing of experience data and combine that with operational data to make informed decisions over the future of their companies.

The post Experiences are Even More Important in a Socially Distant World. Manage them Intelligently appeared first on 麻豆原创 Africa News Center.

This is following the 麻豆原创PHIRE Now global event, where 麻豆原创 leaders, customers and partners shared progress on how they are helping the world run better.

Until recently, investment into experience economy technologies, products and services was at an all-time high. While 2020’s events have certainly put a hold on some of that investment, they’ve also highlighted the importance of building great experiences not only for customers but for employees and partners too.

One study predicts that听听as the key brand differentiator by the end of this year. Gartner believes we’re already there;听 according to the firm, more than two-thirds of all companies now compete听.

However, too often companies leave gaps in their experience economy strategies that undermine their success. Getting it wrong can be costly; nearly a third of customers in one study said听听after a single bad experience.

According to Beveridge, organisations typically have experience gaps in three key areas. These are the digital gap, the employee gap and the perception gap.

The digital gap

Sudden lockdown measures implemented in countries around the world have emphasised the importance of e-commerce; this was seen as bricks-and-mortar retailers scrambled to get essential protective equipment in place and implement policies to enforce necessary social distancing protocols.

Even before the pandemic, nearly two-thirds of customers in one study said their experience on a website or app is an important factor in how willing they’d be to recommend a brand.

And yet, so many still get it wrong: web research indicates that 94% of mobile web visitors that add to the cart do not complete a purchase.

Companies can address this by collecting data from digital channels and mining that data for insights that can be applied to improve the response to customer demands.

The employee gap

One outcome of this year’s disruptive events is that the world of work has changed irrevocably. With many office workers finding they are just as 鈥� or even more 鈥� effective working from home than commuting to the office, employers are having to rethink their employee engagement and workforce strategies.

Building a great employee experience is critical in light of our current situation. According to one study, only听听in their work.

However, at companies where an employee feedback programme is in place, the average engagement is 59% against 42% at companies with no feedback programme.

The emergence of powerful human capital management tools can help organisations stay on the pulse of their workforce even when that workforce is not physically at the office.

By using data sourced directly from employees, the organisation is far better able to turn feedback into action, driving engagement and retention.

The perception gap

Too many organisations believe the experience they offer is better than customers think it is. One study found 80% of CEOs believed they were delivering a superior experience, but only 8% of customers agreed.

This experience gap gives decision-makers incorrect assumptions over their products and services that undermine efforts to improve.

Traditionally, companies would rely mostly on operational data, such as financials, profitability and inventory to make decisions over the performance of the company.

Newly created tools now enable business leaders to measure the experience data, which provides essential insights into customer satisfaction, social media sentiment, net promotor score and purchase intent.

Integrating the two sets of data through a business technology platform that also supports new tools such as AI and machine learning can transform how companies respond to customer needs in real-time.

It’s also a major step toward building an intelligent enterprise 鈥� one that can seamlessly connect business operations with customer experiences. And it will ensure you don’t get blindsided by gaps in your experience economy strategy again.

For more information, visit听. You can also follow 麻豆原创 on听听or on听.

The post Long Live the Experience Economy appeared first on 麻豆原创 Africa News Center.

The COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed how we view customer experience, teaching lessons that businesses can take into the post-lockdown world.

Each time we as consumers interact with a brand, it leaves an impression. The sum of all these impressions is what we today call customer experience or CX. The rise of technology has led to a听new-age consumer 鈥� one who is informed, picky and imbued with the power of social media at their fingertips. As a result of this pandemic, there has been an explosion in the number of consumers that are interacting with businesses online and many businesses are having to think really hard about how they now shape these consumers鈥� CX, considering the harsh reality of the present day.

鈥淥ne of the biggest CX challenges posed by the lockdowns across the globe, is how brands now need to reinvent their customer engagement models, in the age of Covid-19,鈥� explains Rudeon Snell, the Senior Director of Customer Advisory and Industries for 麻豆原创. 鈥淎 key aspect of this 鈥榬edefinition鈥� is the rapid acceleration towards digital experiences. Essentially, businesses are having to reimagine CX, to serve customers while they shelter.鈥�

Snell has real insight on the importance of CX in a post-COVID world. His company, 麻豆原创, is known as a global leader in enterprise software, as well as a market leader in digital technologies. As the world鈥檚 largest enterprise cloud company, 麻豆原创 has over 200 million cloud users, with over 437,000 customers in more than 180 countries ranging from small companies to global organizations. 78% of the world鈥檚 food and 82% of the world鈥檚 medical devices are distributed through 麻豆原创 customers, while over 78% of all business transactions around the globe come into contact with 麻豆原创 software. It鈥檚 impossible to manage that level of transactional volume, without a real appreciation for the importance of the customer experience, as a strategic enabler to business success.

Customer service has always been a vital cog in the Experience Management wheel. Now more than ever, the importance of customer service has been highlighted. As Snell points out, the听COVID-19 pandemic has thrust customer service directly into the spotlight. The lockdown has created a situation where the most important business stakeholders are human beings, who are now craving comfort, security and a sense of connection, on top of suddenly needing an entirely new customer experience. Industries such as airlines, hospitality, sports, entertainment and events are dealing with waves of cancellations, refunds and credit requests, in addition to a lack of physical customer presence. At the same time, delivery services are dealing with a surge in demand, as people adapt to a new normal. Call centres around the world are flooded with an overflow of customer service requests. Agents are working overtime, often in new remote environments, leading to immense challenges for customer service teams, arguably, at a time when it has never mattered more.

Interpersonal Solutions for a Digital Age

This isn鈥檛 a problem that can be solved, by just introducing a swishy new website design or new call centre scripts. If there鈥檚 one thing the lockdown has taught us, it鈥檚 that CX, like so much else, is ultimately about human connections, even in the digital world.

鈥淲hen we take a step back, we have to first acknowledge that all relationships have an emotional component to them 鈥� that holds true for the relationship between people and brands,鈥� Snell says. 鈥淎 brand鈥檚 relationship with its customers is built over time, nourished by experiences along many touchpoints, both digital and physical. As听麻豆原创, the burning questions we are asking during this time are not grounded in 鈥楬ow can we expand market share?鈥� or even, 鈥楬ow do we boost top-line revenue to counteract the economic devastation?鈥� We are laser-focused on answering the most pressing question, which is 鈥楬ow do we support our customers right now in a meaningful, empathetic, human-centric and relevant manner?鈥欌��

It is not only customers that require support from businesses, but also their employees. Theodore Roosevelt once remarked that听鈥淣obody cares how much you know until they know how much you care.鈥澨鼴y the same token, Snell argues that it鈥檚 only after you鈥檝e shown your employees how much you care that you earn the right to ask them what they need in order to be as productive as possible.

鈥淐onsistently checking on the well-being of your employees during this time, is simply the right thing to do. With Qualtrics鈥檚 Remote Pulse, any business is able to keep daily tabs on how their employees are doing. And during these unprecedented times, we have made it free to use for a period of time, so that all organizations can leverage this benefit,鈥� Snell says. 鈥淚n addition to this, supply chains across the globe are being disrupted at scale. As 麻豆原创, we have also taken the decision to open access to Ariba Discovery for a certain time. By connecting buyers and suppliers amidst global supply chain disruption, any buyer will be able to post immediate sourcing needs and any of the four million suppliers on Ariba Network will be able to respond.鈥�

A Roadmap to CX

In times as uncertain as the ones we are currently living through, what customers crave more than anything else is clarity, authenticity and informed advice. 麻豆原创 Customer Experience offers a comprehensive selection of solutions, that can provide customers with just that.

This includes a suite of industry-leading cloud solutions under the 麻豆原创 Intelligent Enterprise umbrella to help businesses innovate, integrate silos and attain the agility they need to respond to rapidly changing times. As Snell points out, the global economy is becoming much more of an 鈥淓xperience Economy鈥� and as a result of this shift, it is more important now than ever, that customers receive the experience they expect.

鈥淓xperience gaps鈥�听occur when a brand fails to meet customer expectations at any point along the customer journey. It鈥檚 where relationships between a provider and a customer so frequently break down. Companies believe they are delivering what is promised, but if you ask the customer, they will tell a different story altogether. Failure to close experience gaps have a direct effect on a company鈥檚 stock performance, with market leaders nearly tripling the market performance of those who fall behind in this arena.

Of course, one essential differentiator in the Experience Economy is time to market. Personalised experiences need to be delivered consistently, yet innovatively, to ever tighter deadlines. Enter 麻豆原创 Customer Experience solutions. Their CX solution portfolio allows users to implement solutions quickly and conveniently, bringing together customer data, experiential data and operational data. This data convolution is then augmented by the power of intelligent technologies such as artificial intelligence, advanced analytics and machine learning, all with the express purpose of delivering engaging and trusted experiences in, the moments that matter most to customers.

Today, customer expectations are higher than ever and even during the global lockdowns, businesses that can offer continuous, real-time, engagement across multiple digital channels, are the ones able to best weather the storm. The scale and magnitude of the challenge are enormous, but with the capabilities offered by 麻豆原创 Customer Experience solutions, businesses are well-positioned to overcome the challenges posed. As Snell points out, 鈥淚t鈥檚 not just about selling a single product or service, it鈥檚 about instigating the rapid pace of innovation needed to differentiate your brand and drive value in the Experience Economy, in a holistic manner.鈥�

That鈥檚 the ambition behind 麻豆原创鈥檚 Customer Experience solution portfolio. It blends market-leading, cloud-native solutions for sentiment, sales, service, marketing, e-commerce, and customer data management to empower businesses to take their customers on unique, personalised journeys that build trust and brand loyalty long term. It amounts to a more loyal and engaged customer base enjoying increased efficiencies, lower costs and less risk.

Empathy, Built-in

By analysing the behaviour of customers and their transactions 麻豆原创 can draw insight about what, where, or when a customer does or is likely to do something, but 麻豆原创 readily acknowledges this is not the whole picture. Data alone cannot answer the 鈥榃hy?鈥� questions.

Understanding the Experience Economy is something that can feel counter-intuitive to a lot of businesses. If you run a business, you are likely the sort of person who naturally thinks in terms of the economic value of a product, the quality of the product, what distinguishes your product from its competitors.

But the conversation about the Experience Economy was naturally tailored to meet the demand of the digitally native millennial generation, who have become the largest purchasing group. A far smaller proportion of this generation own homes than previous generations, and while older generations might have poured their disposable income into building up a large record collection, millennials are more likely to simply subscribe to an on-demand service like Spotify. They are more likely to interact with, and express themselves, online, and have birthed phenomena like 鈥淔OMO鈥� (fear of missing out) as the status symbol becomes not what you have, but what you鈥檝e been up to. In short, what they value and pay for most, is experiences.

The reality is that over the last three months, this description has grown to include customers even outside the millennial demographic. Under lockdown conditions, most people are interacting with brands digitally. No matter how much you own, the things you are probably missing the most are experiences, sitting in a restaurant, ordering a drink at a bar, seeing a film in the cinema, taking a flight or a cruise overseas.

And embedded in all of those experiences, is the feeling of wanting to be around people who can share in those experiences with you or sharing those experiences with your family and friends in a digital world. This means businesses that can recognise and interact with customers on a personal experiential level, have a much stronger value proposition, than those who do not.

麻豆原创鈥檚 recent acquisition of Qualtrics, which we have written about before, now allows for businesses to embed the opinion and voice of the customer throughout their business processes, infusing the customer鈥檚 journey with empathy and engaging with them on a much deeper level. With Qualtrics, businesses are able to tap into the experience ocean of their consumers and shape individually crafted, sentiment infused journeys, for those consumers.

听Learning the Lessons of Lockdown

The lockdown will not last forever, but Snell emphasises that the lessons businesses have learned from the lockdown must be taken to heart, long after this pandemic has ended.

鈥淭he criticality of Experience Management (EX) cannot be emphasised more. Experience Management is the only sustainable competitive advantage,鈥� he insists.听鈥淚f you look at the experience portion of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) over the long term, you can see how experience offerings break away from the pack, with consumers paying more for experiences and experience spending making up a bigger portion of spending, now than before. It is clear that if you aren鈥檛 competing on experience, you are missing boat!鈥�

Snell highlights a recent study by Bain that showed how most companies are disconnected from the experiences they provide, with 80% of CEOs believing they are providing a great customer experience, but only 8% of their customers agreeing with that assessment. Snell believes the Covid-19 pandemic has only amplified this experience gap exponentially.

鈥淎s听麻豆原创, one of our core beliefs is that we owe it to our customers to help them serve their customers in unique and differentiated ways. Ensuring that we empower our customers to cohesively optimize their听customer, employee, product and brand experiences, helps them drive sustainable competitive advantage,鈥� he tells us. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 how听麻豆原创听helps its customers compete and win in the Experience Economy!鈥�

When businesses finally start to rebuild once the pandemic is over, CX will still be an essential competitive capability. Companies will need to relearn the shifting needs of their customers as they emerge from their shelters and tentatively engage in the economy.

鈥淭he COVID-19 pandemic has caused virtually everyone to reconsider their needs and wants, in addition to how they interact with brands. Companies will need to respond by focusing on listening to their consumers from a place of empathy and with a bias toward how they can be most helpful to their customers during this time,鈥� Snell says. 鈥淟istening and building with empathy, will let organizations provide products, services and most importantly, experiences, that genuinely serve customers’ needs and generate goodwill, without coming across as tone-deaf or uncaring. Tying their efforts to relevance is also a crucial element when wanting to drive successful CX programs.鈥�

In a crisis like this, companies are faced with shifting priorities and evolving needs, both from customers and employees. Timing is a crucial element to success under these circumstances. Digitally savvy consumers will not take kindly to outdated, tone-deaf and irrelevant CX efforts and employees who feel their employers don鈥檛 care about their well-being, will simply not be as productive as they can be.

鈥淎 focus on getting your timing right in landing your experience management programs shows customers you respect their reality, which is more relevant than ever during this emotionally charged time,鈥� Snell points out. 鈥淐ompanies can’t begin to build CX programs, without understanding that their consumers are all riding out the same storm in different boats. That shows a level of empathy that consumers gravitate towards. Finding ways to cope during this crisis is a task that looks different for everyone, so connecting on a hyper-personal level is more important than ever.鈥�

The COVID-19 pandemic has shattered many of the long-held assumptions about what customers need and how they need it, but Snell reminds us that this is a time when CX can thrive because, at the core, it’s about connecting with individuals.

The post How CX Can Help You Win in a Post-COVID-19 World appeared first on 麻豆原创 Africa News Center.

Under strain from a near-stagnant economy, South African businesses are under pressure to maintain high levels of business productivity while optimising spend across all areas of the business. Due to the increasingly global manner in which most businesses operate, business travel is a growing cost item, putting strain on internal resources who often have to apply time-consuming manual processes to managing travel and expense claims.

Angelique Montalto, regional sales director at 麻豆原创 Concur, says the horror of finance teams wading through mountains of paper receipts to update unwieldly spreadsheets is no longer a reality for many businesses. “The cloud-based platform automates much of the previously laborious reporting requirements incumbent on finance departments. With greater visibility over spending than ever before, after and during a trip, and an extensive ecosystem of global partners introducing a constant stream of innovations to the platform, 麻豆原创 Concur unlocks greater productivity and cost savings over manual processes.”

Growing cost, complexity of business travel

According to Statista, global business travel spend reached $1.33 trillion in 2017, a figure that鈥檚 expected to grow to $1.7 trillion by 2022 (although this projection was made prior to the Covid-19 pandemic).

鈥淲ith the growing complexity of doing business and the increase in business travel, companies are seeking solutions that can ease and automate paper-based processes to free up valuable internal resources for more high-value work while gaining full visibility over all expenses,鈥� explains Angelique. 鈥淭his has made tools such as 麻豆原创 Concur invaluable to businesses wishing to unlock greater productivity and optimize their spend management.鈥�

麻豆原创 Concur is a cloud-based travel and expense management platform for global businesses that eases and automates many of the travel and expense management activities that put strain on companies鈥� internal resources. The platform was developed to ease the process of compliance and optimise spend management for businesses around the world.

麻豆原创 Concur enjoys the support of a healthy ecosystem of implementation partners that drive interest and adoption of the platform among local and global businesses. Montalto points to Supply Chain Partner, an experienced 麻豆原创 Intelligent Spend Management partner that recently started implementing 麻豆原创 Concur to its local and global customer base.

鈥淧artners are critical within the 麻豆原创 Concur ecosystem. Aside from driving interest in the market leading solution and managing the implementation process, they provide an invaluable perspective into the reality of spend management optimisation for local, pan-African and global businesses.”

Tools needed to automate, simplify spend management

Schalk Burger, director at听Supply Chain Partner, says managing travel processes within large organisations is difficult, increasing the need for tools that ease and simplify overall spend management.

鈥淲e found that 麻豆原创 Concur fills a clear gap within the market for managing expense claims in a simple and seamless way. While many spend management solutions are costly and have a lengthy implementation period, 麻豆原创 Concur is different in that it offers quick time-to-value and a constant stream of benefits as the solution is implemented.”

Supply Chain Partner is a specialist implementer of supply chain solutions for global companies and was founded in South Africa in 2013. The company is one of the most experienced implementation partners for the 麻豆原创 Intelligent Spend Group, with a client list that includes several blue-chip companies in the mining, energy, automotive and financial services industries. The company partnered with 麻豆原创 Concur in 2019 and already has a track record of successful projects.

Schalk points to the rise of the Experience Economy as one factor driving uptake in solutions such as 麻豆原创 Concur. 鈥淚t鈥檚 no longer just about the customer experience: companies also need to take care of the employee experience to ensure they can continue to attract and retain top talent. This means empowering employees with easy and intuitive self-service solutions that are accessible wherever they go and cut down on manual processes. Travel and expense claim management is an obvious target, as it鈥檚 traditionally a very time-consuming and hands-on function within the business. In fact, one survey found that 57 percent of work travelers prefer to book through a single app or tool.鈥�

Building company policy into solution

Angelique adds that managing expense claims is one part of the challenge, but that enforcing company policy is equally important and often very difficult to do in a way that meets the expectations of both the company and the employee. In one survey, more than half of travellers admitted to not always following company policy when traveling.

鈥淥ne of 麻豆原创 Concur鈥檚 most powerful features is that companies can build their travel and expense claim policies directly into the solution,鈥� says Angelique. 鈥淐orporate and regulatory compliance is managed at the point of impact as opposed to retrospectively. This streamlines the claim process and frees up internal audit resources to focus on more high-value work instead of manually approving or rejecting each claim.”

Schalk agrees:

鈥淥ne of our recent customers had relied entirely on manual processes. When an employee needed to travel for business, they would search online for a suitable flight, share that with the person responsible for making the booking, and they would then have to manually book the flight or incur the cost of working through a travel management company to make the booking. It was an exhaustive back-and-forth that has been completely eliminated since they implemented 麻豆原创 Concur, with the employee able to search for and book the necessary travel arrangements, all aligned with company policy.”

Great partners unlock benefits, reduce complexity

Despite the ease of implementing 麻豆原创 Concur and its quick time-to-value, Schalk points out that change management plays an important role in ensuring successful implementations. 鈥淔or many customers, 麻豆原创 Concur may be one of the first cloud-based solutions they implement. In business environments where on-premise solutions are the norm, we find strong change management capabilities invaluable in laying the foundation for moving to a more cloud-based environment.鈥�

One of Supply Chain Partner鈥檚 clients, global automotive manufacturer听Scania, attests to this. 鈥淭he thought process behind Scania South Africa鈥檚 decision to transition to 麻豆原创 Concur, was to improve process productivity, ensure governance and compliance and to further gain control over all expenses incurred by the business,鈥� says听Angus Kotze, CFO at Scania. 鈥淭he seamless flow of data received introduces improved levels of transparency into business expenses. The 麻豆原创 Concur way of working accelerates this flow of data 听and advances the expense management process holistically.鈥�

He adds that it has been a pleasure working with the team from Supply Chain Partner, as their accessibility and knowledge of the 麻豆原创 Concur product has allowed for higher levels of engagement and efficiency during the project implementation phase. 听鈥淭hey have made each stage of the data gathering, analysis and testing of the project easy to digest and their consistent support has allowed for quick problem solving and turnaround times. The team from Supply Chain Partner have been fantastic to work with and we highly recommend their approach.鈥�

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