Payless, another big box retailer, filed for bankruptcy for the second time on February 15. However, this time the brand made its intentions quite clear. It was closing down all of its 2,100 stores in the USA and Puerto Rico. But that’s not all. They also shut down their e-commerce website.
Retail industry has witnessed profound changes over the last 5 years. The focus of the industry is shifting from products to service and customer experience. Traditional business models have been disrupted by the new league of digital savvy brands that have emerged
Every time people talk about digital transformation, they refer to brands like Uber or Netflix. In fact, the term uberization is often used as a synonym for digital transformation. Both these brands have redefined their respective markets and made the traditional business models irrelevant.
Gamification solutions have been around for quite some time. Various industry verticals have tried to use them to boost productivity and efficiency. However, they seem to have found their true calling with the retail industry. In fact, convenience store brands have embraced them as a natural extension!
To Measure the Success of Digital Transformation Efforts? By now we know that digital transformation (DX) is not only challenging but also changing many of our conventional views. In one of our earlier articles on DX investments, we saw how traditional ROI calculations do not apply to DX investments.
Why Are Companies Hitting Roadblocks in Their Transformation Efforts? No leader today needs convincing when it comes to digital transformation (DX). In fact, it’s all that we hear about at leadership conferences and symposiums. The rules of digital transformation do not change with the change in business scale or size.
When we work with CEOs on creating a business case to seek funding, we always tell them that there are two sides to digital transformation. One is the side that helps them save money by addressing operational inefficiencies, changing the way ideas are taken to marketplace, accelerating innovation, etc. It helps you understand your customers better which in turn impacts your product design and service delivery cycles.
Look at banking for example. Banking by its very nature represents a close relationship between the enterprise and its customers. This relationship is built on faith and trust – something that is very integral to human beings. However, these days digital channels have become the pulse of the banking industry. Chatbots are taking over interactions and IVRs are offering pre-defined assistance to customers. Websites and online forums are helping customers make buying decisions like never before.
We have always propagated that digital transformation is not a functional approach but an enterprise level strategy. Unless and until it starts dominating the boardroom discussion, we believe the enterprise is still not invested in the initiative completely.
The world is changing at an increasing rate – so much so that it has become quite frustrating to understand what is a temporary fad and what is redefinition of the future for an enterprise. This makes investment decisions quite tricky for leaders. And when you add the concept of digital transformation to this, it sets all the bets off the table!
