According to Forrester, we’re entering an era that will define the next 20 years of business: the age of the customer. The key to success in this age is customer obsession, and only those organizations that focus first and foremost on winning, serving, and retaining customers will survive.
We can already see the drive towards customer obsession all around us. In an attempt to win, serve and retain customers in China, a booming but fiercely competitive market, Apple teamed up with China Mobile offering two-year package plans on smartphones that include significant amounts of data with their 4G network. For customers, this is not just about the device and the price, it's about network speed and the total cost of the data they're going to use. Will customers be getting the best deal with Apple & China Mobile or will they opt for competitors? Time will tell.
Or think about Google’s acquisition of Nest, a company that manufactures internet-enabled thermostats and cloud-connected smoke detectors. Some say this acquisition is not about these useful devices. It’s about the platform they were built on and the server technology that connects them. Google knows that winning, serving and retaining customers in the connected world of the future will require smart technology that can communicate changes and make decisions without human intervention. In the age of the customer, when it comes to connected household devices and the internet of things, it probably makes sense to acquire the platform in order to win, serve and retain customers for the long term.
All customers are mobile customers!
For me, these examples just prove that this new age is really all about the mobile customer.
Statistics about the mobile market are quite overwhelming. By 2020, there will be more mobile devices then planets in the galaxy: over 50 billion. In 2013 alone, over 8 trillion text messages were sent and SAP 365 alone facilitates more than 2 billion SMS messages daily! Today 29% of the work force is mobile-enabled, and that number will go up to 40% by 2016, representing 1.3 billion workers worldwide.
Because of these vast volumes, security and business policy management are significant concerns for mobile. For example, about 50,000 devices are lost or stolen in the London metropolitan area every two weeks and those devices hold 160TB of data. Significantly, 95% of the people who find devices will try to access sensitive information such as online banking, corporate email, social media apps, or other files stored on the device. And last but not least, by 2020, there will be 50 billion connected devices creating a Big Data problem for enterprises in terms of managing, storing and most importantly, deriving business value from the vast volume of data they will generate.
Clearly, in such a complex data and device landscape, only those enterprises that are truly obsessed with their mobile customers will survive. Mobile remains one of the key disruptive forces in the world today, and it’s the ubiquitous technology that will define the user experience and simplify enterprise operations. So those enterprises that are looking to succeed in the next 20 years of business must have a solid strategy for addressing the needs of their key mobile stakeholders including consumers, users and IT workers, because all of them will either be engaging primarily on mobile devices or tasked with securing devices and data.
SAP Mobile for Customer Obsessed Companies
Some very successful companies like Verizon, Standard Bank, Vodafone and Tommy Hilfiger, to name just a few, have chosen SAP Mobile as the driving force behind their obsession with mobile customers. Apart from the platform that enables them to build, run and secure their own apps, what customers like about SAP is the breadth of the solution set, in-depth expertise in 25 industries and 11 LOBs on a global scale, the fact that SAP Mobile is cloud enabled and powered by SAP HANA, and last but not least, the vibrant ecosystem.
So if you are as keen about winning, serving and retaining mobile customers as I am, make sure you have an action plan in place to guarantee your success:
- Establish ownership for your mobile strategy and vision
- Create a Mobile Center of Excellence for structured approach
- Standardize on the SAP Mobile Platform
- Build and run Mobile apps for all your stakeholders including users, consumers and IT workers
I guarantee you’ll be around twenty years from now!
Follow me on Twitter: @AReynolds5796.
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