Is digital or will it be essential for your business to be competitive in the medium term?
Project your business 3 or 5 years into oman telemarketing the future. Will your business model be different in that time frame due to new technologies and the development of digital? If your answer is yes, in the medium term your company will need to develop marketing agency digital capabilities internally and today may be a good time to start doing so.
Let’s dig a little deeper into this aspect. Think about your customer’s lifecycle, from the moment they know your business exists to the moment they become a repeat and loyal customer, through the sales process (the sale of the product or service), the provision of the service (delivery) and the after-sales service.
- Will your customer research your product or service online?
- Can your product or service, or any of its components, be distributed digitally?
- Will it be cheaper to provide some component of your service (e.g. after-sales) through digital channels than through traditional channels?
If your answers are affirmative, your current business model will surely evolve digitally and your business will have to adapt to remain competitive.
Do digital competitors threaten my business?
If you’re in a traditional industry, chances are someone is already thinking about how to leverage the Internet, social media, big data, vanity metrics: what It Is and what are the advantages for your business or some other technological trend to transform your business. So it’s only a matter of time before that competitor starts gaining ground on you. Ask yourself these two questions:
- Is there or can there be a strong pure internet player in the medium term?
- Do your competitors (online or brick-and-mortar) use digital extensively?
Let’s look at two examples to illustrate the relevance of these questions: Uber and retail.
Uber is here to transform the individual passenger transportation industry. A few years ago, no one imagined this business model and today it is a global company with a multi-billion dollar valuation. The transportation industry is a profitable, traditional and fragmented industry, ready to be transformed by technological innovation and for new players to capture most of the value. If you happen to be a transportation company, mobile number list what should you do to compete? Find a very specific niche of customers, or develop digital capabilities internally to evolve your business model (e.g. develop an app, acquire customers via digital advertising, etc.)
The case of chain stores is very similar. In Colombia, the main players in retail are traditional chains (Exito, Falabella, Alkosto, etc.). In this hyper-competitive environment, if your competitors begin to invest seriously in digital, you must do so as well in order not to be left behind and consequently you must generate digital capabilities internally with speed.
Do I have internal resources to establish and train a team?
This question is critical. Building internal capabilities requires time, money, and access to external specialists who bring knowledge and experience. Does your organization have the resources and programs to invest in developing internal capabilities? This means training professionals, bringing in high-level professionals from other organizations with the required capabilities, access to trainers, etc. If digital is going to be relevant to your business in the medium term and there are significant competitive pressures to leverage digital, then it is time to put your HR department to work on filling the digital capabilities gap in your organization.