Humanizing Business with Digital Transformation

How We're Building Peer-to-peer Trust at Scale

Think about the last time you bought something that a close friend recommended. How easy was it to trust their endorsement? What made their word so much stronger than the dozens of other brands trying to sell you the same item?

For most people, it comes down to one key factor, empathy. Your friend understands your perspective, your situation, your background and your needs. Therefore, you trust their judgement, because they truly have your best interest in mind. 

What if your business could replicate that empathy with your hundreds of thousands of customers? How would having this level of trust impact your business? Can we start creating human-level intimacy between us and our customers at every stage and touchpoint of their journey? The truth is, many companies have already done it, and customers are beginning to expect it. 

Scaling Empathy Through Data

Understanding individual customers is becoming less of a differentiation and more of a requirement. Simply categorizing by personas and demographics is no longer enough. Businesses must now create individualized experiences for tens of thousands of customers at a time. In fact, 84% of customers say being treated like a person, not a number, is a key factor to winning their business. This level of understanding can only be done by collecting the right data, at the right time, in the right context, then, deriving insights and acting upon them in nearly real-time.

That’s a lot of data — and a lot of processing that has to be done fast!

Here’s where your digital transformation strategy is critical. Creating more human-like customer interactions will require a solid backbone of modernized IT infrastructure. This will be a massive undertaking for the organization, but the payoff will be well worth it. Imagine being able to predict the mood and sentiment of thousands of people at a time and offer unique ideas and experiences specific to their needs at that moment. As a consumer, imagine your phone pre-ordering coffee for you on your way to work because it learned your routine. There is a world of potential ahead for brands to start acting more like peers, and consumers getting what they want before they even think about it. 

It’s Not Too Late to Start your Digital Transformation

There’s an exciting future ahead, but for many, a long way to go. As of now, only 7% of businesses have fully implemented their digital transformation. For those still in the process, many fear they don’t have the right technology or the right people. And those that haven’t started, may be feeling overwhelmed. The reality is, every company can make transformation possible. Every company has a chance to become a trusted peer to their customers rather than a vendor. It’s not a simple process, but every journey has to begin somewhere. 

What digital transformation ultimately comes down to is humans creating more connection to humans with the help of technology. We are both the implementers and the beneficiaries in this new ecosystem of information. So, what better place to start than your internal people? Start creating a steadfast partnership between your IT teams and business leaders. Begin seeding a culture of customer centricity and layer this business context on top of your technology roadmap. Open the doors for IT technicians to become business-drivers. Break down the silos and create cross-compatibility within your entire organization. It’s easier said than done, I know. But, digital transformation is only made possible when you create the right connectivity within your organization.

A New Era of Computing Enables Infinite Connectivity

Your customers, today, live in an endless ecosystem of information. Anything they need can be accessed at any time — directions, food, weather forecasts, household goods, and entertainment — all available instantaneously at their fingertips. They also generate an endless flow of information that portrays their individual needs. The question you’ll need to ask of your business is, how well can we fit in their world? 

The good news is, we have powerful computing resources available today that can help us create that connectivity. Instead of the rigid, complex, and finite resources of traditional IT, we have the chance to build a more flexible and resilient technological backbone in the cloud that provides the resources and computational power to enable infinite connectivity.

And, with the right combination of people, process, and technology, that connection between you and your customers becomes deeper, more trusted, and more...human.

Check out this paper below to see how infinite computing can enable infinite connectivity with your customers.

[Analyst Paper: Infinite Platforms Power Enterprise Acceleration]