“81% of US consumers turn to search engines to find information on products, services, and businesses before making a purchase,” according to GE Capital Retail Bank’s second annual Major Purchase Shopper Study. The digital transformation imperative study performed by Veravizion indicates that this observation is not much different in other parts of the world.
Less than 20 years back, Google (or an online search engine in its current form) did not exist. Most commercial transactions took place at a brick-and-mortar store. People booked long distance train tickets standing in a long queue at the ticket counter, bought airline tickets from travel agents, rented DVDs in video stores, read about new fashion in a print magazine, and purchased music CDs in record stores.
Today, 70% of all the travel bookings and hotel reservations take place online.
Music CD shops selling LPs, Vinyl records, and CDs have ceased to exist.
DVD stores have virtually disappeared from the streets.
Paper magazines and print advertisements have given way to their online cousins.
‘In the present day, if your customer cannot find your business on Google, you probably don’t exist for them.’ In a relatively short span of time, this has come to be one of glaring truths that business leaders must accept. Today’s consumer seems to have too many things to do, and appears to have become impatient because of limited time at hand. She wants to get everything done at the snap of a finger.
The digital world allows them this convenience of having (almost) everything in just one-click or touch. In fact, customers are adapting to this technology-driven shopping so well that they are touching every screen – even ‘dumb terminals’ – looking for an interactive touch-screen experience. Recent research on e-commerce points to a growing trend of digitalization of businesses and even non-profit social organizations.
Many industries like flowers and footwear, where customers’ need to touch and feel the product was considered important, now have above average online penetration. The grocery and general merchandise retailer Tesco is a case in point. It was one of the chains that saw an increasing role of technology in day-to-day household shopping and launched their online operations; it is now world’s second-largest retailer by revenues. A few industries like online grocery and pet foods (remember Webvan.com and Pets.com?) had a false start because of issues with their online business models, but are now being resurrected by the likes of Amazon and FreshDirect. Slowly but surely, every industry is joining the digital bandwagon.
Consumers on their part are enjoying the omni-channel shopping experience. Omni-channel purchase means a customer buying across multiple channels – online through mobile or desktop, call centre, catalogue, direct mail, kiosks, physical stores, and social media – and having a seamless shopping experience. So a customer may discover a great product offer while browsing Facebook during breakfast, search more information about it online via desktop after reaching office, ring a few call-centres to compare prices during lunch, check the product out at a nearby physical shop on the way back home, and finally purchase it online from their home using a smartphone. Once the product arrives, they may update their friends on social media posting pictures of their new purchase. The entire shopping experience becomes conveniently embedded in their routine and is fun.
Thus, internet is playing a key role in how businesses are run today. Nevertheless, it still has some way to go. An e-commerce foundation report shows that a disproportionately high percentage of businesses, even in developed countries with high internet penetration, are yet to go digital. For example, almost one in four businesses in UK has none to low digital maturity, while the ratio is reversed in some of the developing countries in Asia-Pacific, where the rate of digital transformation is much higher.
The attached infographic presents a quick glimpse of how business landscape is rapidly changing. It implores, with substantial evidence, why business (and social) organizations must have an online presence to survive and thrive in this third millennium.
What has been your experience of going digital? We would love to hear.
The Digital Transformation Imperative
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References:
- http://www.retailingtoday.com/article/study-81-research-online-making-big-purchases
- HBR, hbr.org, #The Future of Shopping
- https://en.wikipedia.org
- Featured image credit: http://unsplash.com
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