By Henry Uche
With the dynamic nature of customers’ expectations and consumer behavior, the need for marketing practitioners to be proactive and meticulous in relation to their customers becomes imperative as technology and digital disruptions are reshaping the entire business world.
This was the position of marketing experts at the 2022 Annual Marketing Conference of National Institute of Marketing Of Nigeria (NIMN) which saw the induction of its 17 members as fellows, in Lagos recently.
With the theme: “Driving Business Sustainability In The Age of Data & Technology”, they alerted marketing personnel not to take data and digital disruptions for granted and should incorporate the customers expectations in its planning and decision making as the central point of being in business.
Speaking at the event, the keynote speaker, Kolawole Oyeyemi -Chief Executive Officer of Axiom Intel Limited, (A technology-led Commercial Strategy and Solutions company) charged the marketing fellows to disrupt themselves else they would be disrupted. “Disruption is a necessity, if you don’t disrupt yourself, you would be disrupted by some others. Gone are days when competitors from same Industry put you off balance, now someone from a different industry comes in with a different technology and knock you out, so we need to be thinking of how we can disrupt ourselves to be able to stand the taste of time,”
Oyeyemi maintained that one powerful strategy that gives businesses a chance at sustainability and access to global resources and leading thoughts in arenas or industries was the Mobility of Business functions.
According to him, businesses no longer need to warehouse all functions within a geography with the attendant costs, noting that operations could be located in areas where cost advantages are possible and still be remotely monitored and controlled centrally.
“Apart from the cost benefit, this also gives access to remote markets faster. Internet Of Things (IOT) makes this a present reality organizations that desire to pursue sustainability in the age of data and technology cannot afford to pay lip service to digitization.
“Mere leverage of technologies to digitize operations, assets and upscaling the workforce cannot be enough in the digital economy. If you truly want to capitalize on emerging opportunities in the digital economy, there is a necessity for a total rethink and overhaul of structures, culture, business models and revenue models, route to market models etc,”
The marketing strategist stressed that organizations must radically transform from the inside out. He decried over how many companies have been approaching digitization furtively. “It’s almost as if it’s a fad that will blow away like others before it. This is a grave error and can be very costly in the immediate future.
“A powerful strategy that is practically difficult to replicate is an excellent customer experience strategy. In the digital economy, this is most critical. Many folks are still locked in the old customer service or customer relations model that is more reactive than proactive; more accidental than intentional.
“This is bigger than managing touch points. It is a deliberate strategy that focuses on customer journey design before product, service or solution design. Loyalty and churn reduction are by-products of a comprehensive, well thought-through customer experience strategy.
“The digital customer has high expectations and will not hesitate to punish you if you fail to deliver on his experience expectations. However, if you deliver on his experience expectations consistently, you can reduce your marketing cost and Cost of Sales as the customers become your advocates,”
He also emphasised on “Customer Ownership Concept” and the need to build sustainable strategy to own the customer to gain guaranteed sustainability. “If you manage to deliver excellent experiences, you can leverage this across verticals.
“A lot of data mining and analytics are needed to get insights on the customers to design the right customer journeys, define performance metrics and organize the entire organization to deliver on same from the CEO to the doorman.
“We must hire skills that can travel across categories and arenas. This way, as you migrate to other verticals or even totally different businesses, you are not coupling and decoupling skills.
“Business sustainability in a volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA) world of data and technology disruptions is an ongoing discourse. However, If you would approach sustainability from business purpose, model, structure, intentional digitalization and a robust customer experience platform, you do stand a very good chance to succeed,” he affirmed.