In Opportunity is coming in Consumer Products, are you ready? Part One, we talked about the new data-driven environment that consumer products companies live in today and the five technology trends that will open up a new world of opportunity.
One of the most compelling of these trends is hyper-connectivity. Consider the following: In 1995 less that 1% of the world’s population was connected to the Internet and only 80 million people owned a mobile phone. Fast forward to 2020 when it’s estimated that every single person on earth will have Internet access, 6.1 billion people will own a smartphone and as many as 200 billion smart “devices” will be connected to the Internet.
How do we embrace and leverage this hyper-connectivity to build a stronger business model while keeping pace with the speed of innovation?
Opportunity
Hyper-connectivity is about more than consumers connected to each other, businesses and things. It’s also about consumer products companies being connected in real-time to your own business, your suppliers, business partners and customers.
This unprecedented connectivity opens up an opportunity to glean real-time insights on consumer behavior, customer need and market opportunity, leading to new opportunities for driving efficiencies enterprise-wide for product development, logistics, sales, marketing and more.
The advent of hyper-connectivity means that consumers have the power to get what they want, when and how they want. In this environment satisfaction relies on consumer products companies’ ability to meet consumers directly at the point of need with the right combination of cost, convenience, availability, quality and more. And, if even one of these aspects of the experience isn’t met to the consumer’s satisfaction, they’ll have no problem sharing their experiences with the world via social media.
That means you’ll not only have to have the ability to deliver a great consumer experience every time, it also means you’ll need to be connected internally and externally with partners and suppliers to orchestrate the value network that will have to come together in real time to enable the experience.
Innovation leaders in action
For one company that’s doing it right, just check out Under Armour; a brand that is leveraging hyper-connectivity to reimagine its business model and fundamentally transform consumer perception of the Under Armour value proposition.
Under Armour is beginning to embed sensors in footwear and apparel to track metrics such as physical activity, heart rate, calorie consumption, and sleep patterns. By connecting to the internet and automatically sharing information via a fitness app (such as My Fitness Pal, which Under Armour recently acquired), Under Armour can align metrics measured by sensors with consumer inputs such as foods and calories consumed to assess overall fitness, exercise results versus goals, weight loss and more.
No longer considered just a fashion brand, Under Armour is connecting 38 million people on a digital health platform that leverages the power of connectivity. With this platform, the world’s first social network for athletes and fitness enthusiasts, Under Armour has embraced hyper-connectivity and used it to extend its brand value to helping consumers live longer, healthier and more productive lives.
Amazing story, right? In our next two blogs we’ll look at examples of innovative companies capitalizing on other trends including supercomputing and a smarter world to drive differentiating competitive advantage.
Stay tuned; you won’t want miss out on these opportunities. Learn more about Digital Transformation for Consumer Products at Consumer Products. Reimagined for the new economy.
