Three ways to disrupt your own industry

Massive disruption is coming to every industry, and the only question is whether your firm is going to cause it or fall victim to it. Smart wireless technologies are already changing dramatically the expectations, habits, and needs of your customers.

Here are three ways to get ahead of the disruption:

1.) Build wireless sensors into your products and services

Sensors gather information from the environment, and your business can use these insights to gain competitive advantage and to better serve your customers. Through sensors, you can learn how customers actually use your products, and guide them in gaining greater benefits from them.

Sensors can detect minor problems in your products before they become major, and allow you to fix a problem before your customer is even aware of it. This could reduce your average response time from, say, 24 hours down to effectively zero.

Yes, sensors have been around for many years, but only recently have they shrunk in size and become wireless and relatively inexpensive. Your smartphone is jammed with sensors, and they are what make it so useful and versatile.

2.) Make stupid objects smart

The race is on to make everything smart, and the dumber your products were to begin with, the greater the opportunity to make them smart.

Think of a garbage dumpster that calls central dispatch when it is full, eliminating the need for the customer to do so. That same dumpster could warn the customer when it is overweight, and point out that it would be cheaper to empty it now than to overfill it.

Light bulbs could flash before they burn out. Your car already tells you when it needs service; every product a customer owns should be able to do the same.

Take every product your company sells, and make it smart... or accept the fact that you must forever compete on price and accept low margins.

3.) Totally eliminate your industry's persistent pain points for customers

Each industry has practices that drive customers crazy.

Technology providers drive customers crazy with technical support that requires long waits on hold and hopelessly complex interactions ("Find the serial number on the back of your device and send it to us, along with the error code you encountered").

Countless firms require callers to provide their accounts numbers multiple times in different ways, then to answer a series of questions to positively identify themselves.

Unsurprisingly, these are the exact types of practices that cause customers to believe a company is acting stupidly.

Turn your perspective around, and look through your customer's eyes.

In your industry, what practices exist that drive customers crazy? How do most companies in your industry behave stupidly? Identify these types of practices, and wipe them out at your firm.

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