Last week we covered the first 5 trends. This week, we take the final 5.
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McKinsey recently published an article entitled Clouds, big data, and smart assets: Ten tech-enabled business trends to watch on the ten "tech-enabled" business trends that senior executives need to pay special attention to. This got us thinking about how these apply to marketers and what we should be doing to specifically address these as a Marcomm profession and what you can do with them. We’ve outlined the WIIFM "what’s in it for marketers" under each of the points below. What’s your take on these? Drop us a line with your feedback or comment on the blog post.
Trend 6: Wiring for a sustainable world
WIIFM: The sustainability of data centers and IT infrastructure is increasingly called into question as they require more and more energy to support. This has opened up an opportunity for marketers to leverage their IT infrastructure improvements as part of their overall Green and Sustainable message. In the race for competitive and comparative advantages, marketers whose companies can credibly tout their Sustainability efforts can gain an advantage over less sustainable competitors. (Recommended reading: Green your marketing the right way)
Trend 7: Imagining anything as a service
WIIFM: Software as a Service (SaaS) is not a new concept, but for many businesses who work in the day-to-day of capital goods and hard products, considering something sold as a ‘service’ as opposed to a ‘unit’ requires a paradigm shift in how the organization goes to market. The opportunity for marketers here is significant. Consider taking one area of your business and one of your ‘Product Managers’ and transforming their role into one of ‘Platform Manager’ to transform an area of the business into marketers services vs. products. Think that this won’t work for your business? Keep in mind that for years jet engine manufacturers have been selling "power by the hour" by selling their product in terms of "units of thrust."
Trend 8: The age of the multisided business model
WIIFM: If you’ve ever seen an ad you placed in a newspaper in your town, you’ve participated in a multisided business. These businesses create value through multiple interactions, not just a one-way sales channel. Marketers who work in businesses at the center of any form of network (thought leadership industry portals, large stores of customer data and even Wal-Mart with their retail transaction database) can take part in multisided networked business models. In fact, this is perhaps the most exciting trend highlighted here. With the rise of the "Freemium" model of going to market, marketers can deliver value to multiple stakeholders groups while profiting from the myriad of transactions across the network. (Recommended reading: Strategies for Two-Sided Markets)
Trend 9: Innovating from the bottom of the pyramid
WIIFM: This means more than just moving down-market and moving into emerging markets. Innovation at the bottom of the pyramid presents marketers with a unique opportunity to do what SAP and Philips are doing by locating their research teams in the emerging cauldrons of creativity to learn how to serve the needs of customers in a world that is completely different from theirs. Marketers can find opportunity closer to home by working in creative or emerging communities nearby by becoming ‘embedded’ in the community to learn how to better serve them.
Trend 10: Producing public good on the grid
WIIFM: Crowdsourcing and putting things out to your ‘customer grid’ for improvement and real-time feedback and engagement could open up a completely new world for any organization that is used to the traditional flow of information in and out of their company. For marketers, tapping into the ‘grid’ of customers and stakeholders can yield improvements, innovations, ideas and a level of stakeholder engagement and satisfaction never before seen.
Q&A | QUESTIONS & ACTIONS
The bottom line across these and the first five trends that we covered is this series is this: Marketers and the organizations they support should incorporate at least an understanding of these trends over the coming year. It’s OK to dismiss some of them after consideration. However, by integrating these into your strategic planning across the enterprise and seeing things through a new lens, the possibilities for what you can develop and take to market are extraordinary.