If anything history has taught us, it is the brave, innovative, believers, and risk-takers who emerge the strongest after a catastrophe. The pandemic brought such an unprecedented event to people, businesses, and industries in general.
The COVID-19 pandemic brought additional challenges to the automotive industry which deeply impacted manufacturing quantity and quality, supply chains, chip shortages, and already shrinking global demand for vehicles. The pandemic, economic downturn due to the Russia-Ukraine war, etc. has leveled the playing field for auto manufacturers and original equipment manufacturers or OEMs globally. The field is set for proactive players to leverage this opportunity to the fullest.
We are already witnessing an increase in M&A and disposal activities as companies are focusing on rapid strategy execution. Using M&A, companies are now capturing and accelerating new capabilities, improving delivery time, and even improving their position in the market.
Auto manufacturers and OEMs are now finding that sweet spot of incorporating technology not only into their production but in mergers and acquisitions as well.
Disruptions due to digital transformation in the automotive industry
There was a time when legacy organizations held steadfast to their age-old beliefs and showed great aversion to any kind of change including technology.
But as we witness day after day, digital transformation is simplifying the lives of millions worldwide, and legacy organizations have started taking note. They are now becoming the beacons of change and leading the digital transformation revolution across industries.
The automotive industry is a highly competitive industry that is now continuously evolving by rapidly digitizing its operations. Digital transformation positively influences the entire value chain and impacts all stakeholders alike – consumers, suppliers, dealerships, manufacturers, and financial institutions.
Automotive majors took this opportunity to become more technology-centric organizations by adopting various tools such as big data analytics, cloud computing, and body/road sensors. The influence of technology could also be seen in establishing an efficient supply chain management system and enhancing vehicle performance through remote diagnostics.
Current Trends and Key Challenges for OEMs facing an Uncertain Future due to Changes in the Industry
Original equipment manufacturers face several challenges in today’s automotive industry from supply chain disruptions to shortage of semiconductor chips and skilled labor. This is why we will see companies increasing M&A activities in near future to acquire the capabilities they need to produce existing products as well as develop future ones.
#1 Surge in demand for Electric Vehicles or EVs
Since the introduction and favorable government norms, there has been an exponential increase in demand for EVs.
We are now witnessing various M&A related to EVs and autonomous vehicles (AV) between auto manufacturers, OEMs, and technology companies. It could well be a continuation of the trend from 2021 of SPAC mergers with early-stage automotive companies in the EV and AV space.
The increased demands for EVs mean key players will shift their R&D and production capacities to electrification, digital transformation deals (software, connectivity, customized chips), EV battery and fuel cell technologies, and charging infrastructure.
#2 Major disruptions from changed market behavior and expectations
The demand for new and costly features by customers with higher-tech means more pressure on OEMs to deliver quality in a shorter time frame. Adding to this, there are challenges with regulators rightfully demanding the strictest adherence to environmental and safety standards.
The impact of CASE (Connected, Autonomous, Shared, and Electric) megatrends also could be denied by OEMs to further increase the pressure on them. The disruption caused by these trends is restructuring the market with the future automotive industry likely to look substantially different from that of today.
Thus, OEMs are likely to enter into joint ventures sharing their R&D expenses and gaining access to scarce components such as semiconductors. Further, there will be alignment challenges with the governments to create the necessary charging infrastructure for EVs.
#3 Minimal differentiating factors
Earlier, manufacturers differentiated themselves on economies of scale, standardization, and product differentiation. Now with a seismic shift in the auto industry with advanced digital technologies, the differentiation factors have also changed.
Incorporating analytics, automation, and AI to improve efficiency across supply chain management to product development and customer relationship management is a must for almost any organization now. If businesses can’t keep up with the digital transformation, their businesses start bearing negative results.
In extreme cases, some traditional automotive suppliers must build exit strategies amid technological disruption across the sector. The financially and technologically weakest companies could be easy identifiers for turnarounds or restructuring by larger and technologically adept players.
#4 Change in organizational goals
The time is ripe for up-and-coming players in the auto industry to reconsider their vision for the future. They must now identify likely changing areas of profitability using scenario planning over the course of the next 10-15 years. Aligning your goals with changing times could prove to be vital as coming years declare a stark warning to those OEMs who are standing still.
Opportunities in Strategic M&A of Auto Manufacturers and OEMs
#1 New product line and business models
The first movers among the OEM and auto manufacturers are investing heavily in digital transformation to gain a competitive advantage. They are also competing with tech companies to enter into new businesses such as autonomous driving, connected services, etc. The strategic M&A with digital companies is also opening up new avenues for OEMs to establish communication channels with customers for selling vehicles, accessories, and services directly.
#2 Flexibility in choosing available strategic options
OEMs and their partners currently have three options to tackle the change and disruption in the industry – build, buy, or partner.
Buy
Small to mid-size automotive companies continuing their own production are bearing double expenses. There are two primary reasons for this –
(i) Continue manufacturing their existing products with upgraded features
and (ii) Developing hybrid and electric vehicles autonomously
Despite the heavy cost, the main advantage of adopting a build strategy by OEMs is preserving the rights to the intellectual property associated with the capability or technology they have built.
Build
Companies can supplement in-house development with strategic M&A that helps fill the gaps and get instant access to required technologies. However, the increased costs of these assets act as a barrier to this method for most.
Moreover, the pandemic and lack of resources have made sought-after assets such as electric powertrain or connected car assets highly desirable and relatively rare. Also, there is a scarcity of assets associated with future technologies with appropriate scale.
However, there is an influx of capital toward tech-enabled companies that use intangible assets to serve customers. These companies are using newer business models with revised goals and letting technology play a far greater role than ever. Investors are betting big on these tech-enabled companies to provide important CASE capabilities to incumbent players in the auto industry.
Partner
Various analysis of the auto industry indicates a continuity in partnerships between automotive businesses as joint ventures or strategic partnerships. The main objective behind these partnerships is to share the burden of product and capability development.
Recent years have shown various automakers and OEMs to get involved in next-generation technology-related partnerships. We can expect full mergers between an auto manufacturer and a technology partner to create larger companies with larger balance sheets and larger capital spending capabilities.
Whichever strategic direction a business may choose to go, they must regroup first and ask important questions to themselves about their long-term and short-term plans. They must be open and honest to themselves about what new capabilities they need to bring into their organization, what are the gaps, and which strategy among build/buy/partner will be beneficial for them to fulfill those gaps.
Impact of Digitization on M&A of Automotive Manufacturers and OEMs
Improved efficiency: As automotive manufacturers and OEMs are gearing up toward the next generation of mobility, they are increasingly leveraging digital transformation to improve development time to market, reduce costs and improve efficiency.
Value addition for customers: While buying a company with an established working model, having a strong clientele base, talented workforce and technical know-how give automotive companies a head-start in achieving their business goals – acquiring digital assets enables them to not just accelerate but also add value to their existing operations which in return adds value to the customers.
New innovation and development: Automotive companies have also been looking at mergers and acquisitions as a way to innovate and develop new technologies for emerging mobility products such as e-vehicles, autonomous vehicles, connected vehicles, etc., which needs quick access to a talent pool with new capabilities.
Harmonious integrations: Digital transformation has opened up opportunities for automotive firms to integrate platforms from different industries that weren’t even previously considered part of vehicular services. For example – A car rental app can be integrated into an autonomous vehicle so that users can call upon them through voice commands on demand.
Digitization enables a quick M&A in the automotive industry
Some of the factors that play a role in the industry-wide changes could be found among the following:
Governments impose stringent emission norms for passenger cars due to environmental regulations. These strict norms reduce profitability for OEMs who relied on cheaper but environmentally harmful emission parts for vehicles. Now every manufacturer has to consider environmental friendliness while manufacturing parts
The economic downturn and the pandemic along with digital transformation have acted in conjunction to let smaller car manufacturers enter the market rather easily. The bigger players now not only have to reduce cost, increase profitability, and introduce digital, but also take care of competition from small players
The lack of resources and skilled labor has significantly increased product development costs. Companies are now in a conundrum to carve out non-profit making bodies and sell for capital while making sure they don’t look desperate to maintain their stock price
With all these factors pressing down on them, many auto manufacturers and OEMs are left wondering how they can survive the digital transformation in this sector.
Introducing digitization in any M&A significantly speeds up the process which proves to be beneficial for both parties involved.
A swift merger & acquisition between two parties can be done with the help of the right technology partner.
What is the importance of choosing the right digital partner?
Digital transformation brings a fundamental change to the companies by helping them embed required technologies across functions.
When done properly, digital transformation increases efficiency, develops greater business agility, and ultimately unlocks new values for employees, customers, and shareholders.
This is why it becomes critical for companies to seek help only from experts and specialists with a proven track record. The right technology partner can keep your company on track and guide you throughout the process of M&A.
Conclusion
Customer experience is becoming an important factor in driving digital transformation across the automotive industry. OEMs and dealers too must be in tune with the changing behavior of consumers or they risk falling behind.
Since it is not entirely a new thing, changing trends will call for more quick mergers between auto manufacturers and OEMs. Both parties should look for a quicker turnaround time for the merger. A swift action ensures profitability and scalability measures are taken as quickly as possible post-merger.
This trend will only gain more momentum as the introduction of electric vehicles is now bringing a whole new shift in the dynamics of the automotive industry. The future looks equally scary and exciting for auto manufacturers and OEMs depending on how brave and innovative they are and fast they can act and adapt.
The automotive industry is one of the major industries that has witnessed a massive digital transformation in recent years. Digital is revolutionizing the automotive experience for consumers. The recent innovations in automobiles are designed to complement the overall driving experience of a consumer. One could even go on and say there is a clear shift from RPM (Revolutions Per Minute) to EPM (Experiences Per Mile) when it comes to customer needs from their automobile. The industry must quickly find new ways to adapt to this growing customer need or risk being left behind. One major factor of digital transformation is mobility where customers want to get everything done from their always evolving smartphones. But the future of mobility in the automotive industry doesn’t lie in the features offered for the vehicle but lies in redefining what “moves consumers” emotionally when they purchase an automobile.
Here are 5 trends on how the automobile industry is evolving to meet changing consumer behavior and expectations.
Customer experience and behavior trends in automotive industry triggered by digital transformation
1. Automobile buying experience shifting from physical to digital
The traditional model of car buying experience involved physical visits to the car dealerships to know about the cars and their features before deciding to purchase one. However, two disruptions in recent years have somewhat changed the entire complexion of this car buying experience.
The first major disruption was the emergence of the mobile-first generation with the purchasing power who value experience over possessions. And the second disruption was caused by the pandemic which forever changed the way a few industries and their customers operate and behave. The pandemic prevented customers from visiting the commercial premises and the dealerships too started closing to prevent the virus from spreading. These two disruptions, on top of the arrival of technologies such as AR/VR, 360-degree views, and standardizations in other areas, have made Digital possible in the car buying space and accelerated the digital transformation.
In one of their insights, McKinsey validates the importance of car dealers having a digital presence for their customers. The report suggests the purchase intent of customers mainly using digital channels dropped by only 2 percent while for offline buying journeys the purchase intent dropped by 8 percent post-pandemic. As digital is becoming increasingly important in the automotive buying experience, those brands that dive in and create brand affinity through experience on the digital channel are reaping the benefits.
2. Auto manufacturers and OEMs must adopt a retail approach for digital-savvy customers
Leading e-commerce brands not only changed the retail industry forever, but they also trained consumer minds to expect a retail service in every other industry, the automotive industry included. The abundance of information and availability of data along with the latest technology made it possible for modern consumers to do thorough research and compare the products themselves, replacing the need for in-person discussions.
The post-pandemic era saw more and more consumers choosing a digital-first approach for many touchpoints of their buying journey. In this approach, the customers are demanding online platforms that enable accurate product searches and comparisons which in turn enables them to finalize buying decisions online.
It may be noted that so far very few auto manufacturers like Tesla and Mercedes Benz have adopted a direct-to-consumer e-commerce approach. This is a unique opportunity for auto manufacturers to create a competitive advantage by positioning themselves as digital innovators.
3. Seamless customer experience journey management with digital adoption
Customers now have the privilege to enjoy the benefits of a connected vehicle making it safer to drive and less stressful. This increased connectivity not only improves the overall driving experience, but also enables the vehicle to generate and process a large amount of customer data for a more seamless experience.
However, there are still some areas of improvement in handling such a large amount of customer data by the dealerships and OEMs. Since most of the dealers still rely on physical processes in the customer journey, it invites greater chances of human error in data handling. With proper digital systems in place, making the jump from physical to digital will eradicate such minor issues leading to better management of customer journeys. Once you assess the viability of digital transformation in your organization and adopt the way, it opens up a world of opportunities for you. Adopting a digital approach minimizes errors, makes your team more agile and responds better and faster to clients’ requirements. As a result, it improves customer experience operationally as well.
Mercedes-Benz was looking for a solution to better serve its customers in Brazil, which has the second-largest plant followed by Germany. They invested in a Microsoft Azure cloud solution coupled with Power BI and Cortana Intelligence to map their sales processes, and analyze decades worth of data like license plate records, macroeconomic indicators, regulations, sales information, and statistics by each region of the country. Through this change in data analysis and interpretation model, Mercedes-Benz was able to:
Provide 180 service locations around Brazil with consistent, actionable information to ensure each location could provide accurate proposals to their clients.
Assist sales reps to engage with consumers proactively before a need is even expressed with the help of predictive analysis.
Support employees in engaging and serving customers better, and in improving overall customer experience and satisfaction.
Digitization enables manufacturers to identify additional customer touchpoints to make them understand the customer better. They can now better understand what motivates customers to defect to other brands before it happens and find resolutions for these issues.
4. Possession or ride experience – changing preferences
According to a survey of 7000 people by Accenture, 48% of respondents said they would consider giving up car ownership in favor of using autonomous mobility solutions. Another research by PwC suggests that by 2030, more than 1 in 3 kilometers driven would involve sharing concepts. These researches point to a shift in the attitude of car owners from possession to ride experience. Personal mode of transportation is being avoided by the younger generation in favor of mobility solutions like ride-sharing, subscription models, or even rental services.
This changing scenario is forcing manufacturers and dealerships to find new ways to keep their customers satisfied and loyal to them. One such example would be Porsche launching its ‘Porsche Passport’ service back in late 2017. According to this service, Porsche customers could pay a fixed fee per month in return to use up to 22 different cars based on their needs or desires. The idea was to offer greater flexibility to customers in terms of options to switch along with insurance, maintenance, and roadside assistance. The whole idea underscored the need to cater to consumer experience rather than ownership.
5. Increased focus on both purchase and service experience
As mentioned previously, digitization offers auto manufacturers and OEMs a larger pool of actionable customer data. Companies can collect and connect millions of such touchpoints from call centers, surveys, dealer management systems, and communications to visualize each customer journey. The companies can now use this visual map to better monitor and action planning of each customer’s journey experience by appointing “journey owners”. Thanks to technology, dealerships can offer IoT based servicing and car care to their customers.
A survey by McKinsey & Company shows almost 50 percent of customers believe a better service experience is more influential than the actual purchase experience in the customer journey.
As millennials are increasingly becoming the foremost segment in car ownership, it is becoming more difficult for dealerships to attract them with the traditional approach. This customer segment is accustomed to instant gratification in the digital space and hence very time-intensive. Dealerships who cater to these specific requirements from the millennials along with their other services will increase conversions and thereby increase revenues.
Digital Transformation is building a case for CASE to improve CX in the automotive industry
The automotive industry is in a state of continuous disruptive transition. Newer technologies like AI, ML, AR, Big Data are influencing the customer experiences more and more with each passing day. Dealerships are using eCommerce as an option to improve customer experiences or sell their products be it vehicles, automobile parts, or even accessories. For example, we can see how Tesla has included artificial intelligence, solar panels & electric vehicles in its portfolio.
Customers are now experiencing newer vehicle capabilities and changing behavior according to newer realities and increased convenience. This led to the industry aggressively shifting gears and setting forward on an ambitious new course: “CASE”— the push for more Connected, Autonomous, Shared, Electric vehicles, and mobility solutions.
Connected
A fully connected car relies on three pillars of connectivity – infotainment, infrastructure, and telematics.
In today’s digital age and mobile-first generation, customers are expecting similar seamless experiences everywhere. The same expectations are there from newer vehicles in the market. These expectations include everything from high-quality infotainment systems for passengers to assisted driving and parking with payment from the dashboard.
People can now watch movies, use Google Maps, listen to music with Bluetooth connectivity, and more thanks to connectivity capabilities like Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Smart vehicles detect drivers’ sleepiness, and the galvanic skin-response sensors can give a metric for stress to warn the driver and avoid any harmful accidents. On the outside of the car, radar, cameras, and laser scanners can “read” the road and then respond. All the above features and more come preloaded or customized based on the demands of the consumer.
Automotive telematics assesses the driver’s behaviors from timely insurance payments to driving routes. It also can be used to optimize the fleets in a car-sharing model. Automobile manufacturers have released their own telematics apps that connect with their selected cars. Honda Connect lets your car get connected with Amazon’s Alexa provides over 32 ingenious features for the safety and convenience of the riders. Similarly, Suzuki Connect lets you connect with the car and offers dynamic attributes such as 24X7 roadside assistance, driving analytics reports, functional alerts, live vehicle tracking, and many more.
Autonomous
The vehicles are being manufactured with the increased ability to safely operate with less and eventually no input from the driver. With no driver, the autonomous vehicle experience is all about making an impactful product design. The driving pattern of automated cars can be algorithmically optimized, increasing the capacity on any highway.
Although with autonomy comes the fear of the unknown and being out of control. It is our innate human nature to be in control of things to feel calm. So here is an opportunity for automakers to make it a much more fulfilling experience for customers via the following:
1. The rider of an autonomous vehicle is quite likely to experience anxieties arising from loss of control. It presents a huge opportunity for CX to help calm the rider by providing several inputs and communications.
2. From a servicing perspective, the car can book a servicing appointment and drive itself to the service station at the scheduled time and return after servicing.
3. The rider can use their mobile to summon the vehicle when required.
All autonomous vehicles in near future will require a human-machine interface (HMI) to communicate with the driver as well as the pedestrians. The features of this HMI interface include – Haptic controls with embedded touch controls, a touch screen with possible haptic feedback, gesture control with visual feedback, and voice control and feedback. These cars could not only understand, inform, and ensure passenger safety but also entertain passengers.
4. Speech recognition (Voice to Text) to tell the car your destination, temperature control, music choice, etc. The autonomous vehicle would store these preferences and recreate via voice detection/face detection of the customer.
Increased acceptance of autonomous vehicles presents a unique opportunity for ambitious automotive companies to break away from the clutter with an increased focus on optimal customer service as a point of differentiation. They need to develop new business models that cater to field services of these autonomous vehicles by offering after-sales customer support and maintenance “in the field”.
Autonomous vehicles however present a big dilemma in front of the insurance industry and could prove to be a big disruptor in the future. If the driver is taken out of the question, who does the risk shift to in case of an accident? Who will be liable for the payment of the insurance? As of now the OEMs and manufacturers are taking the heat as we see Tesla being charged with many lawsuits for its driverless vehicle accidents. But with time, the vehicles will be safer which in turn brings down the risk and then will bring down the insurance amount – making a huge dent in the insurance industry. There is also the case of reimagining traffic management by regulating autonomous and self-driven vehicles.
Shared
In major markets like the US, the ownership of vehicles per household is almost double the number of households which leads to vehicles sitting idly for a large portion of each day. To lessen this implication, the mobility industry is rapidly deploying new forms of car ownership models – carsharing, ridesharing, and ride-hailing services, to the customers. Combining ride sharing and car sharing could take every passenger to a destination with nearly 80% fewer cars in metro cities.
The negative implications of newer forms of car ownership models are seen in declining sales figures for automotive companies. The automotive companies now not only have to battle against each other for market share but well-funded car-sharing technology companies as well. To tackle this situation the automotive companies are now starting their ride-sharing or shared leasing systems with the help of capable technology partners.
The benefits of these new car ownership models are seen around us. Fewer cars mean a lower cost of building and maintaining the roads. Also less noise pollution, less environmental damage. This is one of the main reasons most Governments are pushing for completely having electric vehicles on the road.
Electrification
Disruptive OEMs and startups are expanding the capabilities of a vehicle and demonstrating compelling options for the end consumer. Add this to the rising global energy costs, resource scarcity, global climate change, and increased government incentives/regulations leading to the invention of green energy and environment-friendly vehicles.
Electric vehicles are perfect examples of sustainable mobility solutions that will revolutionize the automotive industry soon. The need of the hour for existing manufacturers is to support new software-based architectures capable of driving needed chemistry efficiencies.
Initially, the adoption of EVs was slow among customers. But with each iteration, electric vehicles are becoming more and more cost-efficient with increased access to charging stations everywhere.
However, all is not well for the future of Electric Vehicles or EVs if proper measures aren’t taken now. One such would be making a proper scrappage policy. The rise of EVs on the road would lead to scrapping a lot of polluting vehicles. Also, the batteries of the EVs need to be scrapped properly. A standard battery has a life of 4 years. We can expect massive battery junk to pile up if a disposal strategy isn’t in place.
Hitachi’s new compact, lightweight direct-drive system combines the motor, inverter, and brake into a single unit and installs the entire system into the wheel. This EV claims to reduce the energy loss by 30% and increase the single charge range of the vehicle.
Key stakeholders of digital transformation in the automobile industry
Customer
Sam Walton, Founder of Walmart, once famously said, ”There is only one boss. The customer.”
The center of any digital transformation for any industry is the customer. Everything done by the automaker is intended to provide a seamless, delightful customer experience. Online car purchases without a single visit to dealerships, safer cars with driverless assistants, sensors, radars, and cameras are some positives for customers. HMI is being used more and more to operate vehicles. Smart virtual assistants take care of activities such as taking a call, sending a message, playing a track, and rerouting while the driver can focus on driving down the road.
Auto manufacturers and Distributors
Auto manufacturers now are looking towards technologies and software capabilities like IoT, connectivity, autonomous, 3D printing while designing a car. Software competencies are increasingly becoming a key differentiating factor for providing ADAS – Advanced Driver Assistance System.
Huge car manufacturers are partnering with Google, Tesla, or Apple for in-car infotainment systems and car connectivity with customers’ smartphones. Manufacturers are using data collection methods and analytics to make various decisions during the lifecycle of the vehicle. They can also predict the car inventory replacement cycles and new sales thanks to digital transformation.
What are the key takeaways from the trends discussed?
The sales of automobiles were at an all-time low in recent years due to many reasons – the pandemic and chip shortages among major reasons. This led to manufacturers finding new ways to connect and retain their customers. Manufacturers are now exploring going direct in addition to going via dealers to establish a connection with their customers.
The pandemic was a boon in disguise for the physical to the digital movement of products and services. The increased acceptance and affinity towards contactless services opened the doors to a complete digital customer journey in the automotive industry. The dealerships are moving on from pull marketing strategies to push marketing strategies. The focus is not much on bringing customers to the dealership and building relations but to showcase the product and stand out among the competing products.
Autonomous cars have become a reality and it created a few more avenues for automakers to provide a seamless customer experience. Electric Vehicles are becoming the new normal in the automotive industry and we can now see many manufacturers and even governments promoting the usage of EVs.
There is a clear indication of buyers, especially millennial buyers, inclining more towards vehicle riding experience rather than possession. They are ready to give up their car ownership in favor of convenient mobility solutions that fulfill their needs of transporting from one location to another.
These new trends and other disruptions mean automakers and dealerships are now focusing more than ever on delivering the perfect customer experience.
How automakers are delivering perfect customer experience
Customer experience is primarily about establishing an emotional connection with the client. We can dissect customer experience at the brand level and product level. Automotive manufacturers and OEMs can establish an emotional connection with their customers at both brand and product levels. Let’s discuss these two in detail.
Brand level connection
The human brain is divided into two halves, one part is emotional while the other part is rational. A brand-level connection with the customer would require engaging with both these parts and evoking a response. All the branding and marketing efforts from the automakers and dealerships focus on either of these two halves to position themselves in the minds of their consumers.
Typically the brand connection can further be subcategorized into – Sentimental connection and Rational connection.
i) Sentimental connection
A strong emotional connection gives an extra advantage over your competition. More often than not customers are swayed by their emotions when making a purchase. Automakers run campaigns that try to evoke a response from the consumer.
In the middle of 2021, Lamborghini ran a campaign with the tagline “It takes time to become timeless.” Here the intention of the automaker was to position themselves as someone who had been there forever for the consumers irrespective of time, and situation. The goal is to free Lamborghini designs to any new automobile design trends and separate itself from the competition as one of its kind.
Not everyone likes a drastic change to an old hit – be it music, a motorcycle, or a car. Lamborghini banked on that human emotion towards finding similarities to drive their campaign.
Similarly, there are other examples of automakers targeting particular sentiments of consumers to run their campaigns.
Ferrari never talks about luxury or driving as its customer segment only cares about sports cars. Hence, Ferrari takes extra care in hugely popular F1 grand prix and other such racing tournaments to promote its brand.
BMW collects goodwill by taking calculated measures to become a fully sustainable company in the future. It has firmly embedded ecological and social sustainability along with the entire value chain into its strategies. Environment-friendly and sustainable approaches are what drive the corporate strategies of BMW – be it cutting CO2 emissions and recycling to expanding hydrogen technologies.
People like to associate themselves with something good. And when you drive a BMW, you are bound to feel better knowing you are contributing something good for the environment.
ii) Rational connection
Unlike purchasing groceries, buying a car isn’t a decision made in a matter of seconds. It may come down to a final standoff between two or three options and the consumer may make the decision based on emotional parameters. But the period between recognition of the need to buy a car and the actual purchase may run into many weeks or even months. During the whole period, consumers will assign certain values to different parameters involved in purchasing the car. It is up to the automakers to keep persuading their consumers with the right message at each decision-making journey so that the consumer continues to keep them in consideration.
“What I try to impress on people is that the rational brain is not good at being rational, but instead is good at simply rationalizing what the emotional brain has already decided to do, and this happens non-consciously. You need to know how to structure decisions so that, when the context demands it, you can minimize the role of emotion. The easiest way to do this is distill whatever variables you can to numbers.”
~ Baba Shiv, Professor of Marketing at Stanford GSB
Along with the features of the vehicle, several rational parameters come into play when forming a buying decision. Some of these are value for money, a better resale value, access to service centers in proximity, higher quality, and reliability of the material and engines, low cost of spares, and a lower total cost of ownership. These parameters may not affect the buying decision much when it comes to luxury cars. But the luxury car segment only covers about 20% of all vehicle sales in the US. The remaining 80% is still going to consider the above factors.
In price-sensitive markets like India, where consumers seek great value and prioritize rational parameters, brands such as Maruti and Hero do well. This is the reason Maruti and Hero MotoCorp are market leaders with a market share of 48% and 37% respectively. Both these vehicles have lower costs of ownership, better sale value, lower costs of spares, and easily available service centers.
Product level connection
The brand-level connection ensures the consumer has your attention, but you still have to deliver a perfect vehicle of their choice to them. The automakers and OEMs need to create a fascination with the product in the minds of the consumer.
In the earlier days, buyers would look for design, mileage, material, and comfort in their vehicle. But thanks to continuous innovations and changing customer expectations, vehicles are now equipped with much more hi-tech features which make a difference.
Features such as infotainment, voice-activated facilities, autonomous parking assistant, wireless charging, proactive servicing, and parts replacement, roadside assistance, looks, mileage, comfort and convenience, cockpit, charging stations play a major role in helping customers choose their ideal vehicle.
Delivering a superior overall purchase experience has become first and foremost priority for automakers.
Consumers constantly search for review videos on YouTube and get a 360-degree view of the vehicles they desire to own. This process goes on for weeks to months, collecting all possible information from the automaker website to third-party websites. If a consumer has his priorities set and is well researched, it is more likely he will purchase the vehicle after just one test ride. So it becomes imperative for the dealerships to present all required information easily to their consumers through various sources and assist them well in their purchase journey.
Establishing a product-level connection also includes delivering a superior service experience.
Some of the ways automakers and OEMs can ensure superior service are mentioned below:
(i) Proactive reminders to the customer for servicing and parts replacement.
(ii) Digital appointment setting with the service centers and dealers.
(iii) Automated fault detection in the car.
(iv) Auto estimate preparation for the service entailed.
(v) Auto payments for the services to the dealerships and service centers.
(vi) Autonomous cars driving to service stations and back without interference from the customer.
Key benefits of digital transformation for manufacturers and OEMs
1. Improved campaign effectiveness
“The secret to developing personalized campaigns that will reach the right customers in the right moments is data. In the digital age in which we live, we must live and breathe data.”
~ Shashi Seth, Sr. Vice President of Oracle Marketing Cloud
The biggest advantage of increased customer touchpoints and a multitude of data is the number of accurate information companies could get about the customer. They can now leverage the power of technology and advanced software tools to run personalized and targeted advertisements. It gives the capability to adjust the messaging to individual customers for increased engagements during a campaign.
2. Build customer satisfaction
Manufacturers and OEMs can reduce the overall transaction time using customer insights to connect and extend key business processes. Digital transformation gives an opportunity to provide an enterprise-class, comprehensive, cross-channel solution for managing the complete loyalty life cycle of the customers. Dealerships can now track, reward, and recognize customer behavior in every aspect. This includes tracking and analyzing repeat purchases of products, referrals, social activities, and business with loyalty partners.
3. Increase prospect generation
Running personalized targeted campaigns ensures proper incentives are offered to customers who demonstrate a higher willingness to purchase specific products. It also helps in delivering adaptive, intelligent recommendations through optimized analytics and algorithms.
4. Achieve the coveted 360-degree view of the customer
Digital transformation with proper partners ensures you have single cloud analytics and data platform. It helps you visualize a single, consolidated view of the customer through their entire lifecycle journey. You can now reap maximum benefits after providing the best experiences to your customers.
Look beyond the horizon
The digital transformation in the automotive industry is bringing some big changes for automakers worldwide. It opens up a vast level playing field for all the automotive players. The industry incumbents need to come out of their comfort zones and match stride for stride with technology to succeed. The automakers need to better understand the customer experience demands of their new-gen mobility customers so that they can be provided with new value opportunities.
Digital has played a role in the real estate business for several years now – but largely in the area of selling properties. Digital marketing as an outreach to find prospects, use of technology in creating 3D-walkthroughs were among the common use cases. Later the sector started leveraging technology to enhance customer experience – the role of technology could be seen in home automation, ‘e-homes’ and shared economy as seen in the rise of Airbnb, WeWork among others.
Over the last few years, the umbrella term PropTech has come to cover the use of digital technology in construction technology, property management, interior design and sales & marketing of properties. CXOs also see digital transformation as an imperative in the property market. As with many other sectors, COVID-19 pandemic has forced all the stakeholders of the real estate market to seek digital solutions.
PropTech – Emergence & Evolution
Short for ‘technology in the property domain’, PropTech is expected to meet the changing needs of the real estate ecosystem in the digital world. Today’s PropTech goes beyond online search and leverages virtual reality, augmented reality, drones, and Internet of Things (IoT), seamlessly integrating with the realty sector, optimizing the way people purchase, sell and use a property.
The amalgamation of the tech industry with real estate helps all parties involved – investors, developers, real estate agents, and property management companies. PropTech attempts to make the realty industry easier, efficient, and easier to navigate.
According to research firm CREtech, global investment in real estate technology start-ups and more established players reached $14 billion by the middle of 2019, rising from $12.7 billion in 2017.
As with many other domains COVID-19 pandemic had an impact on the PropTech too with increased interest and investments across sales and marketing, shared economy, interior design services, furniture rentals, and construction technology. According to a Housing.com survey, in India, 37 percent of the potential homebuyers are confident to buy a home completely online with a single on-ground site visit.
PropTech: Making an impact around the world
In the US, technology has traditionally played a role in home buying primarily through online search and connecting potential buyers with brokers. Of late technology has increased the dependence on sophisticated data to drive decisions, assess home value, and find ideal buyers. Adding to this are the emerging concepts of co-working and co-living that represent the largest group of today’s home buyers, which are driving real estate enterprises towards technology adoptions changing the landscape of digitized realty.
The next generation of real estate enterprises is already disrupting existing systems and creating new ones that address the customers’ growing demand for affordability, community, and flexibility. Companies like Better promise to ‘fix a broken business model’ by promising lower commission and fees.
Even in the commercial realty space, we see realtors focusing on providing digital experience to the customers. Recently, SL Green Corp Manhattan’s largest office landlord announced the launch of Summit One Vanderbilt, a new, innovative destination that combines unparalleled vistas, curated multi-sensory experiences and cutting-edge technology to offer an unprecedented guest experience spanning art, nature, and design. Offering an interactive experience, this new destination intends to redefine the way people experience the intersection between nature and the built environment.
The real estate & property tech industry has attracted investor interest too and the offerings are diverse:
Flyhomes, an end-to-end home buying start-up, raised $150mn in Series C funding in June 2021. It is a real estate brokerage platform and aims to help clients through the entire homebuying process.
Guest House stages shoppable homes, offering the furniture and décor used to stage the home for sale.
A startup, Cortex is helping commercial buildings to de-carbonize. It’s machine learning capabilities work with human interventions in optimizing energy utilizations of a building. It claims to have helped Empire State Building save $800K per year in energy costs
Compass is among the biggest in this category. It went public recently and provides an online platform for buying, renting, and selling real estate assets. They claim to provide simplicity and transparency for agents, sellers and buyers. In 2019, they enhanced their digital experience adding AI-powered recommendations, ‘a visual workspace that allows agents and clients to collaborate, discuss, and monitor the market in real-time’, search facilities across local and multiple geographies, dynamic map search and more. Such seamless digital experiences simplify the lives of all the stakeholders in the prop tech industry.
In Asia, as recently as 2019, KPMG concluded that property organizations may still be behind the curve in developing an enterprise-wide digital and innovation strategy. However, industry professionals were confident that use of technology could produce efficiency gains across their common pain points.
Big data analytics, artificial intelligence, business process automation and the Internet of Things are likely to be the top technologies for Asia’s property industry over the next five years. According to PropTech CBRE, around 151 of China’s top 200 real estate companies have already digitized their processes. South East Asia is also home to serious players across services in the property segment – Capitaland, PropertyGuru and iProperty to name a few.
India is another market where PropTech is gaining traction. In 2020, the domain received nearly $551mn in investments. The players in the domain offer diverse services including selling & buying of property, peer-to-peer property listing platforms, a marketplace for the construction materials industry and more. Recently, India’s first PropTech syndicate fund was announced by Brigade REAP, a real-estate accelerator program which aims to invest in start-ups looking to raise up to $500K in early-stage funding.
Europe too has seen massive investment in the PropTech sector. According to a March 2020 report, sector funding grew 550% in five years to €550mn with the UK claiming the biggest share. Here too, modular construction, student living, co-living and software for construction project management attracted investments.
Technology in the property ecosystem
With changing dynamics and customer demands, there are several areas where aspects of PropTech can play a role:
Home Automation: thanks to efforts from brands like Apple & Google, home automation has acquired a cool quotient. The smart phone can be used to control lighting to heating, ventilation, and air conditioning. Home & office security, multimedia integration and personalized spaces are other use cases of automation.
Construction: constructing a property requires a lot of planning, risk analysis, forecasting, and cost estimation. This entire exercise could be optimized with the help of PropTech. This increases accuracy and efficiency, enabling faster project completion.
Purchase & rental: the traditional house hunting exercise can be arduous and time taking, and the results are often dissatisfactory. PropTech apps and online portals enable agents and investors to choose their property as per their custom requirements.
Co-working: such workspaces benefit owners as well as agents owing to cost-efficiency. PropTech helps the administration keep a track of its members and their payments along with other integrated services.
Workflow optimization: planning, building, operation and maintenance of construction projects involves collecting data, tracking tasks, documentation and reports. The entire process can be streamlined and managed digitally. PlanRadar is one such offering available across platforms and devices.
Emerging trends in PropTech
As with other industries where there are diverse players in the ecosystem, technology can add value to all in PropTech – sellers, agents, investors, owners, and tenants. Let’s look at some of the technologies and their role:
Big Data
Real estate enterprises are flooded with customer data which when analyzed properly can provide insights to create customized solutions and improve customer service. By analyzing patterns and probabilities, Big Data can play a role in mitigating risks. Property owners can plan activities by analyzing weather, traffic and environment data. Brand owners can derive insights to run media campaigns and advertise the property to the right target audience at the right time. It can also help customize the ads and its placement as per the customer needs which can help create brand affinity.
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
Automating rule-based repetitive processes has simplified various tasks across operations. Leveraging AI and Machine Learning in reality have shown various benefits such as simplifying repetitive tasks and streamlining data management, identifying customer preferences & creating suggestions, deriving insights & using them for advertising campaigns. Lastly, using chatbots to provide 24/7 customer services and support.
Virtual Reality
Virtual Reality (VR) is software through which prospective buyers, renters, and investors are provided a virtual property tour alleviating the need to visit the actual property. It provides a 360-degree view of the property and opens the market to more buyers and is also a cost-efficient method to check and select properties.
Drones
Drones help view and record external features of the property, providing an outlook to interested clients saving them time and money. Unlike images and brochures, drones provide high-resolution aerial images, providing the actual view of the property. It can help present the entire location and surrounding areas. Drones are also used to deliver materials and even in bricklaying.
Sustainable Technology
As per the United Nations, real estate accounts for about 40 percent of the world’s energy consumption and a third of all carbon emissions. As the need for green business models increases, real estate enterprises support and advocate the construction and purchase of greener properties and systems to manage them. Sustainable technologies help realtors provide their customers with the best of properties without exhausting natural resources.
Software as a Service (SaaS)
Several industries have been disrupted by SaaS products – which are cloud based solutions allowing users to access relevant data through browsers or apps. In PropTech too, SaaS can play a role in project management, sales and marketing, customer relationship management (CRM), financial transactions and property management.
Blockchain
Blockchain technology is used to store data and acts as a repository of deals and contracts for future reference. It reduces the use of paper and improves transparency, which is one of the main causes of disputes in the real estate industry.
3D Printing
Although in a nascent stage, 3D printing holds promise as it offers speed as a key benefit. Dubai aims to make real estate development more efficient by making every new building 25% 3D-printed by 2030. In India, a start-up built a 3D-printed house recently.
Future of PropTech
Although the pandemic has had a huge impact on the real estate business, it has also accelerated technology adoption amongst real estate industry leaders and start-ups alike. The emergence and evolution of PropTech are considered a boon at such unprecedented times, as they have helped real estate enterprises thrive during, and post the COVID-19 era. There are various opportunities in reality where technology could be leveraged to provide a better service to the customers and simplify business processes leading to greater impact for all – the enterprises, agents, investors and end consumers.
New emerging technologies such as AI, Machine Learning, Cloud Computing and Blockchain are redefining the way real estate enterprises are functioning today. However, what determines the future of PropTech is in its ability to simplify user experiences while ensuring safety. If PropTech enterprises can deliver this, the marriage between real estate and technology will be a lasting one and continue to shape the future of real estate in years to come.
Towards the end of last year, no one would have been able to predict how 2020 would fundamentally alter our lives. In the first quarter of this year itself change was forced upon us in the form of widespread lockdowns. This triggered a host of behavioral changes across the world, on a never-before scale. People became more conscious of health, learnt to adapt to new ways of living and working from home. Digital experiences played a crucial role in enabling such a lifestyle and behavioural changes. At Robosoft, we partnered with several enterprises in crafting products that made the everyday life of millions of consumers just a little bit easier – streaming services that brought entertainment, sports, and infotainment to mobile devices or utilities which made us more productive and enriched our lives. We have attempted to share our views on broad trends shaping these changes in digital experiences. Here are five of our top blog posts from 2020:
Apps that can help consumers accomplish a multitude of tasks – also known as Super Apps, were popular even prior to the COVID-19 outbreak especially in South and Southeast Asia. Such apps saw a widespread uptake in 2020 as they help consumers in many ways: providing convenience and simplicity, a unified and personalised user experience and more. In this article, our CEO, Ravi Teja Bommireddipalli outlines why Super Apps can help enterprises and shares key points to consider while building such experiences.
The world is increasingly dependent on digital products and platforms to accomplish many of their daily chores and needs. Hailing a cab, transferring funds to someone, consulting a doctor or shopping often involves a digital experience. In this context, the relevance and value of great product managers is critical. A product manager dons several hats: that of a CEO, fire-fighter or orchestra conductor depending on the product lifecycle and project needs. In this article, Syed Abbas our Principal Digital Consultant shares perspectives on what it takes to create products consumers love. In this article, he writes about the key attributes of a product manager and the steps involved in creating a product road map.
The world has seen the agrarian, industrial, and services economies. We are currently in the experience economy, a term first coined in 1998. In the experience economy, customers are expected to have two types of experiences: customer participation and connection. Microservices – an approach to developing a single application as a collection of small services is critical in the experience economy. In this article, our Rajeev Rajagopal outlines the differences between traditional software products and modern application. He also writes about the key components & benefits of the microservices architecture.
The rise of audio and video streaming services during the lockdown period was natural and has been well documented. But beyond media & entertainment, there is tremendous scope for OTT services to be adopted by other industries such as retail, among others argues our Jay Shah, in this article. It is a new format of the familiar home shopping networks on TV and offers the best of both worlds in terms of showcasing the product and in-store experience.
While we may switch back to older ways of worry-free travel and in-store shopping sometime in the future, some of our behaviors have been fundamentally altered in 2020. Our preference for contactless delivery has been a key development that may change the business proposition of many an industry beyond just food delivery. The value proposition of brands may be similar in many cases and hence great user experience will be a competitive edge opines our Srinidhi Rao, in this article. Now more than ever, customers would appreciate any simplified process. So any experience which goes a long way in reducing friction or making life easy – ordering through voice-enabled speakers, messenger platforms, or a smartwatch, enabling a virtual trial of a dress re-order previously ordered medicines, or renewing a subscription service would be welcome he opines.
We hope you enjoyed our collection of top reads from 2020. As we step into the new year, we look forward to even more exciting opportunities to simplify lives of consumers.
‘People buy from those who they trust’ is an adage that is timeless both in the offline and online world. Whether it is the familiar neighborhood store or an enterprise in the online world, earning consumer trust has always provided an edge – helping in customer retention and loyalty.
The trust factor came into play even more so in 2020 which has been tumultuous, to say the least. The global COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the lives of people and enterprises alike in a manner we never imagined or prepared for. While several industries have been adversely affected (e.g. restaurants, amusement parks, cinema halls) many others have benefited. Digital banking, fintech services, streaming video services, EdTech, online delivery are some of the categories which have seen usage surge in 2020. The one factor which binds all the brands we turned to during this time has been the trust and familiarity factor.
As mentioned by McKinsey, particularly in times of crisis, a customer’s interaction with a company can trigger an immediate and lingering effect on his or her sense of trust and loyalty. They go on to say:
‘Now is also the time for customer experience (CX) leaders to position themselves at the forefront of the longer-term shifts in consumer behavior that result from this crisis. Keeping a real-time pulse on changing customer preferences and rapidly innovating to redesign journeys that matter to a very different context will be key.’
Years ago, the proliferation of digital platforms, channels, and devices led to the concept of multi-channel experience – which essentially meant presence across multiple channels. It was essentially a checklist approach of presence across digital platforms.
It later progressed to omnichannel – when such brand experiences were ‘connected’ across channels. Banks and retail enterprises were among those leading the call for such omnichannel experiences as can be seen by their efforts to have a presence through a physical store or branch, a website, and a mobile app. Starbucks and Disney are among the many brands which aced the omnichannel strategy.
Beyond omnichannel – the multiexperience advantage
As devices, platforms, and technologies proliferated over the years, consumer habits, dependencies, and expectations changed too. In order to address these changes effectively, Gartner proposed a change in mindset, espousing multiexperience as a new approach.
It calls for a customer journey-centric approach providing multisensory, multimodal, and seamless experiences. It calls for crafting seamless and native experiences across an increasing number of touchpoints – whichever mode the customer is comfortable with. It could be voice, chatbots, personal assistants, wearables, and augmented or virtual reality. In simple terms, multiexperience is taking the brands or products where the customers are and allowing them to engage as part of their user journeys.
The key is to get all this done without friction and using that platform, touchpoint, or interactions feature to the maximum benefit. At a glance, the difference between multichannel, omnichannel, and multiexperience would look like this:
The critical difference is the consistency of the digital experience and the seamless handover from one device to another mode, without the hassle of starting off all over again. Dennis Maloney, Chief Digital Officer at Domino’s Pizza said:
“What’s the easiest way to order? When you don’t have to do anything.”.
Domino’s Pizza’s ‘Anyware’ platform allows users to order in 11 different ways – from voice assistants to smart TV. The focus is on letting the consumer do less to place an order and from as many devices and modes as possible.
Another example of such a seamless experience is being planned on Google Maps which was hitherto only seen as a navigation aid. Today, it is being re-imagined as a means to gather information such as cab fares, show real-time ‘crowdedness’ information, and live food delivery status.
Multiexperience also requires backend applications to be micro-services enabled so that re-usable components are created to make them digital-ready. The microservices architecture is based on a collection of interconnected services. They are easier to build and maintain, and focus on business capabilities while enhancing productivity, speed, and scalability.
Why multiexperience? Winning the two big wars.
‘Change is the only constant’ maybe a cliche but never has the pace of change been so accelerated as in the digital age. Who would have thought that several industries would be upended when technology and great customer experience come together? Fintech, utility services, food delivery, aggregators across taxi services, and more have benefitted from fulfilling customer needs through great digital experiences.
These developments have forced legacy brands across segments to re-look at their business model and customer experience. Product or service parity is common across categories leaving little or no room for real, meaningful product differences. The only edge very often is customer experience. And as we live in an experience economy, this becomes core to a business strategy and not just limited to optimizing technologies or user experience.
At Robosoft, we recently crafted a multiexperience OTT platform for Discovery+. Viewers are evolving and methods of consuming content are fast changing. Brands today are constantly battling for user attention and time. This combined shift in the OTT space led us to the creation of a unified and effortless experience for Discovery Plus. With users owning more than one device, the goal was to design and deliver a consistent experience across devices, regardless of where the user starts, continues, and ends the journey.
The other big war afoot is the one to win consumer’s trust. In the digital world, it is said that winning consumer’s attention is important. But I would argue that beyond mere attention, enterprises should strive to win consumer trust – as that is what leads to retention and consumer loyalty. Design can play a role in retaining customers, especially in businesses where subscription and repeat purchases are critical.
In the post COVID world, it is imperative that CXOs embrace the multiexperience mindset and craft effortless and seamless experiences that enable customer delight and win their trust.
The script of the media and entertainment sector is getting re-written, as the content consumption patterns of consumers see a tectonic shift in a post COVID world. While the gradual move of consumers towards OTT mediums was already underway, the lockdowns, need for social distancing, dearth of other entertainment avenues accelerated this momentum.
The average time spent on subscription OTT and Video-on-Demand content in the US alone has risen by 23% from last year.
As viewership skews towards OTT, more and more media and entertainment players are launching their OTT platforms. According to a recent Research Dive report, many digital media and broadcast providers have stepped up their efforts to build new channels for consumers to access different types of content. We recently partnered with the leading infotainment brand Discovery, to launch their OTT platform Discovery+ for the Indian market. The app received close to 3 million downloads within just 4 months of its launch.
With existing OTT players stepping-up their game with richer content, personalized experience, and more, the new entrants have stiff competition ahead. In this article, we will outline the factors that will help enterprises build a successful OTT platform.
Key factors to consider while creating a successful OTT platform
The journey of any digital product development starts from understanding the users’ needs and pain points, ideating on a solution that will address these needs, and finally developing a user and business-centric product.
In this article, we will outline the journey of creating an OTT platform in two phases: (a) Research & prototyping and (b) Execution & implementation.
Getting started – Competitor Research, User Research & Prototyping
At Robosoft, we use the principles of Design Thinking to create user-centric experiences – which start from empathizing with and understanding the users. In that context, user research and competition research become critical aspects to understand the business and customer requirements.
1. Competitor research
With the deluge of OTT platforms, it becomes important to understand the competitive landscape. This will not only help in outlining features that already exist and work but will also help in avoiding the shortfalls of other platforms. Knowing the competition is also critical to offer something better and unique and gain a competitive advantage.
For instance: in OTT platforms – ‘Add to Watchlist’ or ‘Like’ is a common feature. However, just trying to replicate the same model is insufficient. In order to create the differentiator, we need to delve deeper into the world of ‘favoriting’ and what makes the user want to add a particular content to a list
In this instance, some of the key aspects we need to understand about what is already being offered can be:
The value of a watchlist and how it works
UX flows – how to keep the viewer moving forward while making it quick and easy
How to help viewers feel smart and put their mind at ease
How to improve the disadvantages & limitations.
An understanding of such factors will help in creating a differentiation in UX, even while offering the same features.
We kept such in mind when we built the Discovery+ app, ‘Continue Watching, Favorites & Watch Later’ features were added. Once the user likes or favorites something, they get a notification for similar content or new episodes and populates the home screen basis the user’s likes/favorites.
2. User research & prototyping
To design user-centric experiences, understanding users is critical. One of the most important stages of user research is creating Empathy Maps that enables design and development teams to chart out users’ motivation and pain points. In the context of OTT platforms, user research can help to derive the below expectations of users:
Expectations from an OTT platform: as a user
see value in what is offered before making a decision.
keep moving forward while watching content; it can be shifting from one episode to another or an alternate movie or series after a season.
seamlessly navigate through the platform or complete their journeys (e.g. from logging in to paying).
feel self-reliant or empowered and have their minds at ease while using the platform.
Prototyping
Once both competitive and user research is done, the findings can help in creating a high, medium, or low fidelity prototype of the proposed solution. Prototyping is the stage where a representative model is built to validate its viability and experience. It can help in testing various features and get quick feedback from users and iterating the solution accordingly. Keeping the final outcome in mind is the most important aspect of this stage.
For example: while testing a new live racing experience for GCN’s (Global Cycling Network) VoD app, our team had the below goals in mind and created flows to evaluate them accordingly:
Goals for user research
Identify any aspects that might cause the user to abandon the viewing experience.
Understand which aspects provide value and which do not.
Gauge how the sports enthusiasts feel about such a feature.
Explore how easy it is to navigate across the journey.
Understand the sports enthusiasts mindset and expectations to subscribe for such a feature.
The feedback ranged from excitement for the feature to quick suggestions on how we can improve the prototype. This helped us to build faster and build something that the cyclists and cycling enthusiasts will expect from the platform.
Execution and implementation
1. UX of content
With the proliferation of content on the OTT platforms, the challenge for OTT players is to ensure an easy experience. The faster and easily users can get to the content they like, the more likely they are to stay on. Some of the factors that help in this are:
A clear segregation of the content types: since content is key on OTT platforms, the experience to discover and view the content has to be delightful and seamless. Clear segregation of content types helps in this aspect.
Different treatment of content categories: live content and VoD content (VOD – Shows, Movies, or clips).
Easing the content discovery journey by defining clear navigation to browse content and finding what to watch and creating clear sections for premium, short-form content.
Clear categorization by language, type of content (Movies, TV Shows, genres, audience segments).
2. Design System
As designs evolve, OTT players will need to think about building thoughtful design systems. A well-defined design system can help create well-designed user-centric digital products. While colors and typography play an important role, how the interfaces are built help to tell the whole story. This is where the Atomic Design system comes into play.
In an Atomic Design, interfaces are made up of smaller components. This means the entire interface can be broken down into fundamental building blocks and built up from there.
For example: for Discovery+, we created the design from scratch using the Atomic Design system to build a unified and consistent design that is scalable.
3. Personalized User Experience
In the digital era, users expect a personalized experience from all their digital interactions. Here are a few ways in which OTT players get their personalization game right:
AI-powered recommendation engine
Building a robust recommendation engine is the key aspect of creating a personalized user experience. More than 80 percent of the TV shows people watch on Netflix are discovered through the platform’s recommendation system. Netflix uses machine learning and algorithms to help go beyond viewers’ preconceived notions and find shows that might not have been their first choice, but they will like. The data that Netflix feeds into its algorithms can be broken down into two types – implicit and explicit.
Examples of ‘explicit data’ will be giving a thumbs up for a show. ‘Implicit data’ is behavioral data; for instance, if a viewer binged on a show and completed watching it in two nights, the engine understands that behaviourally. The majority of useful data is implicit.
Today’s subscribers want services that are personalized at every stage of the experience from sign-up to discovery, viewing, and renewals. Thus, personalization should permeate beyond content and include the entire user journey on the app. Today a user is constantly toggling between multiple devices while accessing the platform. Developers will need to take into account data from these sources to notify the user about the upsell and the renewal offers. That also includes giving the user the power to make choices.
Device management is another aspect of creating a personalized experience. Allowing users to choose multiple devices, streaming quality options, renewal options tailored to their choices, etc. can help in elevating user experience and ensure retention.
4. Elevating user experience through easy navigation
Even if an OTT platform has an awesome content library, if users find it difficult to navigate through it they will abandon the app. According to a research, 80% percent of users uninstall an app due to a bad user experience. Here are a few factors that lead to a great user experience:
Easy onboarding and simplifying the journey
It is critical to make the onboarding process quick and easy. In that context, app owners should only ask for essential personal details and permissions and stick to the key features and UI elements that are absolutely necessary.
Another way to speed up the process and make the onboarding process quick and interesting is to allow users to experience the app before asking them to sign up or taking them on a product tour. Hotstar previews popular content and lists membership benefits on the very first screen — and they feature a prominent free trial button. Going one step ahead – Netflix now lets users turn off autoplay previews. That means videos and movies won’t begin to play trailers or video clips as they are looking for something to watch. Users can turn it off on every device at once.
Intuitive UI simplifies every aspect of the process. In the case of OTT platforms, it is important to not just simplify the process of discovering content but also watching. Some key features to get that right are:
Giving the flexibility to switch on-and-off the subtitles option.
Information about the quality of video and data consumption.
Option to resume from where the user left off.
Quick and easy buttons for start, stop, rewind, fast forward.
Today viewers are consuming content on multiple devices. Seamless delivery of content on multiple devices is no longer an option for OTT players, it is mandatory.
While building the Discovery+ platform, the goal was to design and deliver a consistent experience across devices, regardless of where the user starts, continues, and ends the journey.
Casting to a larger screen is another opportunity that can enhance user experience and help in driving the value for viewers. The Discovery+ app has the casting feature which is an easy way of connecting web, tablet, and mobile to a TV. The feature allows users to enjoy a big-screen experience with family and friends.
Another important aspect of adding value to users’ on-the-go viewing experience is by giving control of watching content at their convenience without the limitation of internet speed. In that case, the option for downloading the video for watching later enables the user to engage with the app and the content they like whenever they want.
A subscription model provides predictable and recurring revenue for a long-term engaged user base. Subscription strategies allow OTT platforms for price diversification, accommodating a broader, diversified income group of users over a fixed ‘one-price-for-all’ model. However, it is critical to choose a subscription model that fits the requirements of the viewers. For instance, most broadcast players getting into OTT have a yearly and monthly plan with free trials or free access to regular content. On the other hand, established players like Netflix will have subscription models that are only yearly or monthly.
On Discovery+ the subscription model that was built-in was ‘free unlimited access to regular content’. However, to view premium content, an additional fee is charged. On Global Cycling Network, users can buy a monthly or yearly race pass to get unlimited access to the best cycling content.
8. Easy Payment gateway integration
With a plethora of payment options available, making this step easy is important. Major OTT apps accept payments through credit or debit cards, digital wallets, and real-time payment systems where available. Further, these platforms bill users every month on the same day making the payment cycle easy.
9. Push notifications
Push notifications are an essential part of the user experience and can ensure continuous engagement with viewers. However, badly done push notifications can also lead to users abandoning the app. According to a survey, 71% of all app uninstalls are triggered by a push notification. Here are a few factors to get push notifications right:
Make personalized and relevant to the user.
Sending notifications in the engagement windows and at the local time zone of the user.
Send actionable notifications to drive engagement.
Don’t send too many notifications in a short duration.
As OTT becomes increasingly popular, more and more entertainment and media firms will develop their own OTT platforms to engage with the viewers. While the variety and quality of the content will be important to acquire new viewers, UI/UX will play a decisive role in retaining them. In the future with newer technologies, we will see interesting innovations in the OTT sector, but a simple and delightful user experience will remain the most important factor that will define the success of any OTT platform.
Creating a product vision is not just the first step towards embarking on the journey of successful product development, it is the most critical one.
“Be stubborn on vision, but flexible on details” – Jeff Bezos
Enterprises across the globe have various tools and methodologies for arriving at the product vision. PR FAQs (Press Release FAQs) is one such tool. A PR FAQs document is a press release including critical FAQs, that is written for a product that will be released in the future. It is usually written by the product teams for a hypothetical launch of a product, considering that it is already released.
The concept of PR FAQs first introduced by Amazon is now used by product teams across organizations.
What is a PR FAQs and how it helps in creating customer-centric products
At Robosoft, we use Design Thinking principles to understand users’ pain points and needs and then create a product vision that not just solves the real challenges of customers but is in line with our clients’ business goals as well. PR FAQs is a tool that can help product teams present these learnings in a simple format for all the stakeholders across the organization.
Creating PR FAQs is an approach where the product teams work backwards – i.e. they visualize how their end product will look, what consumer challenges it will solve, and how it will solve it? All these are then addressed in the PR FAQs document while keeping customer needs at the center.
The concept of Amazon Go, the chain of automated convenience stores, was a direct result of the “working backwards” approach, which begins with the creation of a PR FAQs document (a press release, frequently-asked questions document, and visual mock-ups). In this case, it all began with identifying the problem: customers hate standing in lines, using the PR FAQs tool.
Typically, product managers use a product brief to describe their product. This serves as a starting point for the company’s product development and a brief introduction. A PR FAQs document serves as a more futuristic and customer-oriented product brief.
Product teams create a PR FAQs document imagining that the product is already developed and released. They have already envisioned the final product in their minds while writing a PR FAQs document.
Usually, a PR FAQs document will answer the following questions for all stakeholders – design, development, sales & marketing teams, etc.
What does the product do?
What are the most exciting features?
What customer problems are you solving?
What benefits will the users get?
The format for a typical product brief is as follows:
A press release: Written from the point of when the product will be released and how it would be introduced to the public.
FAQ: Potential questions that a given customer would likely ask in order to gain knowledge of the product. The questions are usually framed to seem open-ended.
Internal questions: Questions that are asked by the stakeholders during the product development phase.
Now let us take a look at a PR FAQs template:
Heading: Short, catchy name for the product that a given target audience can relate to.
Subheading: One-liner explaining who the target market is, what the product does, and what it hopes to achieve.
Summary: A brief paragraph, explaining what the product is and its benefits.
Problem Statement: A brief paragraph explaining what precise problem the company is trying to solve with this product and why they are trying to solve this problem. This paragraph may also include pain points on existing products or processes that can be alleviated using the product.
Solution: A brief explanation of how the company hopes to resolve the problem mentioned in the prior paragraph. Usually, it would be helpful to provide research or numbers to back the assumptions made for the resolution.
User Experience: A paragraph explaining how a user would interact with the product itself. In this section one could add an internal quote; something regarding the product for example, why the company feels it’s essential for the given customer base to purchase this product. One could also add hypothetical customer quotes. This kind of information gives more insight into the product or the features.
FAQs: This section would include all plausible questions target customers may want to ask. This includes the typical what, why, when, how, and who questions from the customer’s perspective. This could also serve as a justification for the company to launch the given product.
Internal Section: This part of the document involves questions that the internal teams would ask. These questions could be regarding technical, sales, marketing, or design inquiries. The section would also delve into the solutions for any said questions and would make it transparent for teams to see where this product/feature is heading and what the ask is especially from the stakeholders. It could act as an aid to stakeholders for decision-making purposes. Typically, visuals could be added to avoid having to write out large chunks of words and would help keep it brief.
Some samples of how a hypothetical press release looks like can be found here and here.
Why it is important for product teams to create a PR FAQs document before starting the product design and development journey
A PR FAQs is a commitment to deliver
The PR FAQs is much more than a product brief tool. The press release opens with a location and date of publication; this helps the product team to focus on an idea and commit to meeting their tentative delivery date. Along the way, details and dates might change, but it keeps teams accountable to ultimately deliver on their vision. A PR FAQs is more than a document – it’s a commitment to deliver
Gives perspective to all the product stakeholders
A PR FAQs is written keeping customers at the center and is aimed to give all the stakeholders a brief about the product idea. But, if the PR FAQs document is not clear or exciting enough, the product idea might need to be refined further. A PR FAQs document can help identify shortfalls in the product idea at a very initial stage and can help identify issues like – cramming too many features, or not being able to address the real user pain-points and more. If stakeholders are asking questions that can’t be answered in the FAQs, then the product idea needs to be refined further before starting to build it.
As McAllister, former General Manager at Amazon explains, “Iterating on a press release is a lot less expensive than iterating on the product itself (and quicker!).”
Furthermore, the FAQ component of the document can be extremely effective in capturing the assumptions and perspectives of different stakeholders in a consistent format that everyone involved can understand.
Helps in defining product vision and roadmap
A PR FAQs document can give focus and clarity on the challenges the product will solve for customers. It helps articulate what the client experience needs to be, defines specific requirements that are needed for the final product, highlights the most important features, and hence helps create a product vision and a roadmap.
Motivates the design and development teams to create an exciting product
A PR FAQs document can help product teams test their product idea and gain buy-ins from clients and internal teams on particular features or the product overall. A press release should be engaging and exciting and explaining what your product does. If the press release is not exciting, chances are the product isn’t going to be engaging either.
Getting the stakeholders excited about a “press release” sets the stage for motivated teams when the actual product is built.
How a PR FAQs document can help various stakeholders in the product development journey
A PR FAQ document is useful not just for the product teams but multiple stakeholders in the product design and development journey. Here’s how:
Engineering teams: PR FAQs document can be used to start scoping out the technical aspects of the product. The development team can start by looking at what the product is, how it will help solve any issues, and how much time it will take.
While a product document might be independent of the technical solution, it can help to include some details that will give reviewers an idea of the scale of potential solutions.
The PR FAQs document can be beneficial for the engineering team to immediately start thinking about solutions to the product: what are the code libraries, databases, caching solutions, etc.?
Design teams: the PR FAQs document can help design teams to start thinking about design concepts. It is not necessary to create a text-focused PR FAQs document. Adding a basic wireframe or an MVP concept can help the design teams to further visualize the design elements.
Sales teams: the PR FAQs document can help sales teams to start looking into the marketing of the product, what the market would be, who would buy it, and how profitable it would be for the company.
Marketing teams: the PR FAQs document can help marketing teams craft a key message or benefit that would be attractive to the end customer.
Other Stakeholders: the PR FAQs document can be used to see what resources need to be assigned to this product and how much time it would take to accomplish its implementation.
In Conclusion:
In situations where the product brief or PR FAQs document is cumbersome and difficult, it can be an indication that the product itself might not be worth the effort for implementation. Although, this might not hold true for all products and vary according to the product idea. Each company must find its own way of approaching the implementation of the product and see what works for them.
The most appropriate way to approach the process would be to begin with the basic given format described above and customize the product along the way. This allows for flexibility in the flow of the writing as well as allows room for things such as visuals and graphs that can be beneficial to decision-makers and stakeholders.
Download the above template for creating a PR FAQs document for the next product idea of your enterprise.
Like many other industries COVID-19 significantly impacted the Banking & Financial Services Industry too. Though the lockdown norms are being relaxed slowly, customer behavior has changed drastically. Customers no longer visit offline branches to conduct their financial transactions. They are wary of venturing outside their homes and for them to regain confidence in the in-person branch visits will not happen soon. As a result, financial institutions are forced to focus their customer targeting efforts on channels that are readily available via digital mediums.
The fact of the matter is for banks, financial institutions, and insurance companies, the face to face interaction that worked well in offline branches has to be maintained online. This is seen as a huge challenge for them. Hence, there needs to be a total shift in company tactics that can somehow retain that human connection with customers. The financial sector is poised to undergo a drastic change in the near future and customers should be ready for that change.
Let us take a look back in the pre-COVID19 period as a tipping point between the new normal and the post-COVID era. In a recent research conducted by the Digital Banking Report around digital transformation, customer experience, use of data and advanced analytics, innovation, and technology, it was clear that the financial industry leaders already knew what needed to be done, and in many cases, how to proceed. With COVID19 the pace of adapting and digitally evolving has accelerated, bringing a new opportunity as well to build loyalty among consumers.
In the new normal, financial institutions witnessed an environment where the way work, how consumers bank, how employees learn new skills and how brands are perceived are all different. The degree to which these changes take root is driven by both business and societal dynamics as well as how long it takes to move to a new equilibrium.
In a special report, After the Virus, Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work examines the implications of COVID-19 five years from now as it relates to work, education, entertainment, e-commerce, human engagement, and the environmental agenda. The report presents some interesting insights to lay a foundation of what the banking industry must do to fast forward their business strategy and keep abreast with the changing consumer behavior and better position themselves as future-ready.
In this article, we will take a look at some critical factors that financial institutions and banks need to take on an immediate basis to adapt to the new normal and remain competitive.
Critical factors for financial institutions and banks to adapt to the new normal and remain competitive
Multi-experience for financial services will remain to be top technology trends in 2020
As per Gartner reports, Multiexperience remains to be amongst the top technology trends of 2020 and is poised to replace technology-literate people with people-literate technology. Instead of people getting accustomed to the evolving technologies, it will so happen that the technology will evolve to understand the people better.
Multi-experience is all about leveraging various modalities, digital touchpoints, apps, and devices to design and develop a seamless experience for the customers. The idea is to interact with the customers at as many touchpoints as possible to offer a consistent customer experience across the web, mobile, app, and other modalities.
We need to take note that multi-experience is not omnichannel. While omnichannel involves tapping the user touchpoints across all the channels, multi-experience is about developing effortless customer experiences across apps, websites, and modalities of voice, touch, and text, irrespective of the channel.
The key difference between omnichannel and multi-experience is the core. Omnichannel is all about technology, whereas, multi-experience is all about people. This difference marks the shift from technology-literate people to people-literate technology.
Here’s a four-step multi-experience model proposed by Jason Wong, Research Vice President to apply multi-experience to a digital user journey:
Sync me: Storing a user’s information, which the user can find and access anytime.
See me: Understanding a user’s context, location, situation, historical preferences, and then offering better information and interaction to the user.
Know me: Using predictive analytics to make suggestions to the user
Be me: Acting on the user’s behalf, when given permission, and making the best decision for the user.
If we talk about financial services, Fintech is promoting a vision of a world without banks. Blockchains and cryptocurrencies are funding transactions without paper money or credit cards. Robo-advisers are providing portfolio management without managers. Mobile payments are turning phones into credit cards. The ability of upstart companies to provide high-performing web experiences is not hindered by legacy infrastructure — or legacy business models.
Customers want a fast, seamless, immersive, cross-channel digital experience that satisfies, and even anticipates, their needs. This is especially true of millennials, a generation quickly becoming the dominant demographic. Combine millennials’ expectations of brands in general with their fundamentally different banking and investing habits, and it’s clear that FSIs must adapt to those needs and requirements.
It’s not enough to provide exceptional experiences just for basic online activities. FSIs must prove themselves by offering complex activities, such as applying for a loan or configuring products. As institutions offer ever-more complex digital transactions, the focus on performance only increases. The reality is that today’s engaged consumers — influenced by their daily interactions on social media and other platforms — expect all sites and apps to be high performing and lightning-fast.
Not only digital but embedded banking services is the need of an hour
While not every consumer will want to do all of their banking digitally, most will expect that option in the future. Some of the banking services will include opening a new account, changing the terms of a loan, reaching a bank representative, etc. The experience must go beyond ‘just digital’ to become both seamless, simple, and user-friendly. With this, the core business of banks and financial institutions will encounter the next level of challenge. There is a question if banking will be controlled only by banks? As the challenge remains to be that customers will demand banking services to be available and integrated with different points of sale, devices, service providers etc. In short, banking services are expected to be embedded into virtually anything and everything.
Additionally, it leads to the discussion on banking service being offered in SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) model, pay-per-usage, subscriptions, renewals, etc. However, these terms were never traditionally associated with banking services, gradually there is growing customer demand for such a flexible approach to payments, investments, loans and other such banking services.
Contextual engagement and personalization of Banking & Financial Services
The expectation of real-time personalized offers and messages has increased dramatically. This requires a 360-degree view of the customer journey and advanced analytics to deliver solutions across channels. Personalization is currently the number #1 banking marketing trend. While the financial sector lags in adoption of personalized customer experiences techniques, consumer loyalty is at stake if more financial institutions don’t reimagine their efforts. To note, choose financial institutions based on how well they incorporate personalized experiences.
Certain banks are taking tips from retailers on personalized customer experiences by using data analytics, coupled with artificial intelligence (AI), to offer customers personalized experiences. As per Everfi’s banking trends for 2020, international banks like the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and the Royal Bank of Scotland use a model of “next best action” to follow consumers’ financial journeys, predict the future financial products or services they might need, and personalize product offerings and advice to each consumers’ unique situation or life stage.
Banking trends emphasize personalized experiences through Chatbots, and Mobile Apps
S. banks are using fintech in creative ways to appeal to a generation raised by technology. A mobile app packed with features is top on their list. Nearly 80 percent of consumers prefer using a single app to manage their finances.
More than a million Bank of America customers use an AI bot named Erica that is available through their app. Erica helps customers pay bills, shop, and more.
Citibank recently released a mobile app, 360º Financial View, that aggregates online financial tools and investments, even those outside Citibank. Citibank provides the all-in-one app to both current and potential customers. This allows Citibank to expand their market reach by advertising their products and services. It also gives users the option to open a new Citibank account.
It’s no surprise that personalized customer experiences dramatically improve the bottom line. Financial institutions that implemented the next best action model saw a 30 to 40% increase in sales. By anticipating customer needs and catering to them with personalized offerings, financial institutions are able to generate increased revenue, all the while meeting customer expectations around personalized experiences with their trusted banking institutions.
Digitally infused branches and platformification approach
As already adopted in other industries, financial institutions especially banks need to look beyond the standard set of services and consider platform solutions to assist consumers during select customer journeys for example; car buying, investing, loans, home purchase, etc.) They can consider their bank website to be the ‘main branch’ and all offline branches will act as secondary branches for the time being.
A financial institution’s website will be the primary go-to branch for customers where they can seek all kinds of information. The website will address all their needs and concerns just like any offline branch. If person-to-person interaction is needed, virtual consultation with the branch staff needs to be arranged. With this eventually, financial institutions can expect the number of offline branches to be reduced considerably.
But even with a few offline branches, a few leading organizations try to bring back the heyday for branches by making them engaging hangouts with increased digital services — from interactive kiosks to digital financial education modules and more.
Branches will provide great opportunities to engage customers and provide highly personalized financial education. We can also expect further investment in employee training and branch redesigns as they will continue to deploy digital financial tools.
Financial institutes prefer a new channel mix to enhance customer experience
With the potential for many consumers to work remotely indefinitely, financial institutions and banks opt for a new set of delivery channels which may include voice devices, video conferencing options, IoT devices, gamification methods, etc. The proliferation of mobile devices and shifting preferences among demographic groups mean that customers expect more real-time, cross-channel capabilities (such as status inquiries and problem resolution) than ever before. Physical distribution will still be relevant but far less important, and banks must learn to deliver services with a compelling design and a seamless unconventional customer experience.
As per a McKinsey report, banks have recognized that customer expectations are increasingly being set by nonbanks. There are questions to be answered like why does a mortgage application take weeks to process? Why does it take an extra week (or two) to get a debit card online versus in a branch? Why can’t a customer make a real-time payment from his or her phone to split a dinner check? There is an urgent need for banks to respond to these questions by improving their customer experience and meeting their customers’ changing expectations. Financial services is the only business where you can be rejected as a customer. In an age where mobile devices provide real-time transparency on just about everything, it is critical to provide customers with information about the status of an application or what other documents are required. Account balances must be consistent across channels, and banks should consider the real time updating that an on-demand e-commerce application like Amazon provides and aim to deliver that level of transparency when it matters. Working on such innovation provides opportunities for banks to improve and differentiate their customers’ cross-channel and cross-product experiences.
Contactless technology will ignite a cashless payment surge
In a recent Capgemini Consumer Behavior Survey conducted in April 2020 done for COVID-19 and the financial services consumer, states that in the post Covid19 era digital channels and contactless technology is preferred by consumers which will ignite a cashless payment surge. More than 52% said they prefer self-service bank mobile apps during the Covid-19 outbreak as compared to 47% before the virus pandemic. Similarly, 54% say they are conducting bank transactions over the internet during the pandemic. For the insurance sector, channels such as the firm’s website (27%) and social media (26%) remained the top interaction choices for policyholders, a noticeable jump in numbers in comparison to before the Covid-19 scenario.
Additionally the report mentions that banks, governments, regulators and banking associates minimize one-on-one contact and encourage customers to use contact-free digital services. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommended contactless payments versus cash, if possible, as a way to limit the spread of the virus that may linger on paper currency. In countries like China, banks are using ultraviolet light or high temperatures to disinfect Yuan bills, then sealing and storing the cash for one to two weeks before recirculation – depending on the severity of the outbreak in a particular region.
Financial firms offer waivers, donate services and business continuity support
Banks and insurers, FinTechs, InsurTechs, and BigTechs are stepping up – worldwide to waive off charges on digital transactions, or offer a moratorium on loan or insurance coverage payments.
ICICI bank in India, launched ICICI Stack, a digital platform that offers nearly 500 services from retailers, FinTechs, and e-commerce merchants. China’s Ant Financial plans to open its payments platform Alipay to third parties, to provide business continuity during emergencies, and to become a part of customers’ digital lifestyle.
Citigroup (USA) is pushing proactive reminders and helpful instructions to customers about mobile and digital banking services. Other banks are taking steps such as fee waivers, payment deferrals, and loan modifications in response to customers’ changing circumstances. Insurers are also waiving out-of-pocket costs for treatment related to coronavirus. Many financial institutions offer community aid, donations and healthcare support to help overcome pandemic crises.
In Conclusion
Widespread adoption of new-age digital channels such as chatbots, automated voice assistants, and social media tools appears to be an inevitable truth for banks and financial institutes.
Throughout the unpredictable weeks and months ahead, the crisis-sparked surge in digital activity is bound to generate new customer habits that require banks and financial institutions to function online. Ultimately, the question is will full digital rein as the exclusive customer engagement channel? Not too likely, but it may become the primary channel that customers use to engage with banks and financial service providers. Each day of confinement promotes digital use, that begs another important question – Are Financial services incumbents ready to prioritize digital capabilities and offerings for success in a virtual world? The answer lies in the truth that the global pandemic has forced them to this reality and eventually shaped an enhanced customer experience.
The EdTech industry was a darling of the investment community even before the break of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to EdSurge, investment in US EdTech companies reached $1.66 billion across 105 deals in 2019, a five-year high in value. Interestingly, eight of the top deals went to companies that offer educational services to employers and employees, typically focused on training.
Developing nations such as India too saw a surge in adoption of EdTech and are home to unicorns such as BYJU’S and several other big players such as Vedantu and Toppr, among others. A few years ago, we at Robosoft had developed the Meritnation app – through which study material for classes 6th to 12th for various school boards could be accessed. We also partnered with Room to Read, a leading non-profit organization based in California, to create an interactive & feature-rich digital platform to foster a reading habit among children.
Over the past few years, consumer-focused online education platforms such as Coursera, Unacademy, Simplilearn and Udemy have seen a surge in adoption, primarily for vocational learning. Educational institutions had also invested in their own virtual learning platforms in the recent past. SP Jain School of Global Management’s Engaged Learning Online (ELO), launched in 2018 aimed to offer classroom-like interactive learning to MBA students across the globe. Harvard and Oxford have their own platforms in HBX and Hive respectively. NYU uses a multitude of interactive video and audio tools like NYU stream which is a media sharing platform for the NYU Community that allows NYU instructors to upload and share videos with students.
2020: when EdTech was disrupted
The COVID-19 pandemic upended the entire industry in ways they could not have imagined. Traditional product roadmaps were rendered defunct as the industry had to deal with an unprecedented demand, unique consumer requirements thus forcing them to adapt or implement changes quickly. Canvas, a learning management system prioritized backend engineering efforts so that the site stayed up amid a huge spike in traffic. They also strengthened video conferencing integrations as consumers turned to such features during periods of remote learning and working. Changes such as optimizing the user experience on mobile devices (the primary access device for many) and adapting to different paces of learning – asynchronous or live lessons, were also implemented.
Consumer-facing video conferencing solutions such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet (among others) have gained in popularity for such needs beyond just communications. Schools and colleges are also investing in bespoke interfaces and video communication solutions.
The digital experience – be it on the browser, native mobile app on a phone or tablet has become crucial in such a scenario. As with all customer experiences in digital, it all starts with following the basic tenets of Design Thinking – empathy for user’s needs. The user in this case can be digital natives such as students or ‘digital migrants’ such as teachers or parents.
Aside from educational institutions, enterprises too had to resort to remote ways of working. According to a recent McKinsey report, organizations are using digital learning to increase collaboration among teams that are working either remotely or across different time zones.
While video conferences became the norm, they had to find new ways to continue the process of onboarding and training without face-to-face meetings. Video streaming in real-time or access through a catalog has become the go-to mode to meet such objectives. This in turn is likely to have a huge impact on Learning Management Solutions (LMS) in the months to come.
Video content management & experience: the key to LMS across domains
The mobile phone, specifically video calling, was not just a device to connect people but solve business problems – way before the era of remote everything. We created a video chat based claim survey for a leading insurance provider in India, making it possible for them to assess claims in real-time and thus reduce turnaround times. Consumers are also attuned to video consumption over OTT services during the extended lockdown periods.
As enterprises continue to adopt technologies for remote learning and collaboration for employees, technology companies are amending their features and support. In the years to come, effective use of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, VR, adaptive learning approaches, gamification will increase in LMS.
However, video is set to play a critical role in Learning Management Solutions across industries in the months & years to come. Here are a few use cases:
Employee onboarding: many companies have declared that they will offer remote-working as an option forever – not just limited to the uncertainty during the current year. So what was a face-to-face opportunity for bonding & learning will now have to be managed remotely. According to a report from Kaltura – 90% of respondents reported having used video to learn new information at their current workplace, and close to 70% said they preferred this medium over written documents. The onus is on enterprises to then provide a digital experience that not only informs but brings alive the business culture, values and processes.
On-going training & learning: a well-crafted LMS can ensure continuous learning & skill development of employees. It can improve employee engagement through effective use of interactive elements such as quizzes, rewards and more.
Compliance training: compliance training is a mandatory, yet most dreaded of learning programs for employees. A video-enabled compliance training can help enterprises launch a learner-centered strategy for their remote workforce.
Sales enablement: front line business development executives can be educated about products & services, latest market trends through impactful video content
Customer education: aside from employees, a video-driven LMS can also help educate customers – especially if it is a complex software or a product that needs walk-throughs.
Partner training: interactive videos in an LMS can be an effective tool for partner training programs, and help business’ partners understand the features, branding, and selling techniques for products and service offerings of an enterprise.
Some of the common features that a Learning Management System should enable include:
Asynchronous learning: giving the option for users to learn at their own pace
Cross-device and platform compatibility: providing a seamless experience across web, mobile and tablet irrespective of the operating system
Ability to aid testing and assessment: in order to measure the effectiveness of the training modules and the employee’s progress the LMS should aid testing and assessment based on metrics agreed upon
Catalog of content: as course material and video content increase, the LMS should allow for easy search through an easy to use catalog feature
Microlearning videos: these are short videos that focus on one issue or learning point at a time, making it easy for employees to pick up the knowledge and go back to their office work.
So what are the critical factors to consider when choosing a partner to create a video-driven Learning Management Solution that best suits your needs? Expertise in the technology domain, experience in crafting diverse digital experiences, hands-on leadership are some of the desired qualities to look for. Working with offshore teams is also a great option as what were once considered to be obstacles are long gone.
A convergence of empathetic digital experience, video technologies, content management systems are in the offing for Learning Management Solutions beyond EdTech in the years to come.
The approximate cost of drug discovery has reached $2.6 billion, which is a tenfolds increase in the last decade. Clinical trials are an important aspect of the drug discovery process and also adds to this cost. It has become extremely critical for the pharma companies and the CROs (Clinical Research Organizations) to adopt technologies that can optimize these costs and enable a faster and secure critical trial process.
The data generated in Clinical Trials is crucial in the preparation of peer-reviewed journal papers and approval applications for regulatory bodies. Therefore, data validation, data management, and data integrity play the most important role in Clinical Trials.
There are several impediments to the validity of Clinical Trials data. For instance, loss or alteration of data, redundant and non-transparent database management systems, data duplication and manipulation, etc.
There is a need for the industry to adopt technologies that can accelerate the pace of data validation, help in managing higher standards of data transparency, and maintain stricter fraud prevention practices. Blockchain and its Hyperledger Fabric framework, are now emerging as a technology that the industry has started to explore to solve for these issues.
In this article, we will outline how the open-source blockchain framework, Hyperledger Fabric can help in creating a more efficient, secure, and faster Clinical Trial process.
The Challenges of data management during the Clinical Trial process
The end-to-end Clinical trial process, including the preclinical phase, often can be lengthy and expensive taking 10-15 years to complete, with the median cost reaching approximately $19 million. Further, it requires communication between multiple stakeholders including academic researchers, journal editors and publishers, drug and device companies, government regulators, patients, etc. This increases the complexity of the clinical trial process, in terms of data collection, data management, data integrity, etc.
In this kind of Clinical Trials process, the different stages of Clinical Trials are conducted independently of each other. This is often due to the legacy technology and legacy approach to conducting Clinical Trials.
In this system:
Data is created at multiple channels – hospitals, Clinical Trials, smart devices, etc.
Data is then collected and stored in an organization-specific Centralized Database Management System (DBMS).
Different stakeholders like pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, CROs, Biotech, laboratories have their own decentralized databases.
Different organizations then collate and store data in their own preferred way and own preferred format in their own IT environments.
Data is then analyzed separately within each organization and results are presented to regulatory authorities.
In this model, collaboration is not only difficult between multiple parties involved in the process, but collaboration is also difficult within organizations.
Given the complexity of the ecosystem, the Clinical Trial process is faced by many challenges from data management to scalability. Some of these are:
Data validation and cleaning – Clinical trial professionals spend a huge amount of time in cleaning and preparing data to meet the demands of the evolving pharma and the life sciences industry. According to a study by Oracle, data completeness, data quality and data cleaning remain the topmost operational challenges for Clinical Trial professionals.
The quality of the trial data can be affected by a number of factors like missing data, endpoint switching, data dredging, selective publication, etc.
Inconsistent data – During Clinical Trials multiple versions of data are created from sources like external labs, CROs, other vendors. This system gets increasingly complex with the globalization of Clinical Trials. The storage of data in siloed systems which leads to duplication and creates difficulties in accessing the required data.
No single platform of data aggregation – Clinical data is not easy to access, due to multiple sources of data collection. This leads to a huge amount of time spent by researchers in finding answers to research queries, which needs pulling data from a variety of sources and reports.
Manual Data Entry – The systems which have manual data entry do not allow for automatic integration with a broader record and thus investigators are not able to analyze data in real-time.
Adherence to regulatory norms: Clinical trial processes need to adhere to regulatory authority compliant system such as 21 CFR Part 11. Often necessary regulatory processes slowing research because timely approval is not given for data use.
Another issue faced by the US Food and Drug Administration is updating of data by the publicly-funded Clinical Trial labs. According to the FDA, all the publicly-funded Clinical Trial labs should submit the data done on human subjects to the designated public repositories. While portals like clinicaltrials.gov allow the depositing of research data with the help of services like Fighare, only a few research groups follow this. And even if they do follow they seldom to it consistently over a long-term, leading to missing information.
According to a report on Forbes, it is estimated that 50% of Clinical Trials go unreported, and investigators often fail to share their study results (e.g. nearly 90% of trials on ClinicalTrials.gov lack results). This may result in crucial safety issues for patients and create an information gap for healthcare stakeholders and health policymakers.
Data security: The Clinical Trial data is sensitive and preventing data leakage, fraud and misuse of confidential data are of prime importance. Hence, data verification through multi-party channels is required. Further, ensuring that data sharing is consistent with federal and local regulations is also one of the challenges that the industry faces.
Cost implications: Due to the complexity of the Clinical Trials process and the above issues, the cost of conducting Clinical Trials is high. Further, the tight delivery timelines put additional pressure on the Clinical research professionals and CROs
How Blockchain Technology can help to solve these issues
The BFSI sector has been long facing the issue of data attrition and data fraud, and Blockchain Technology has been one of the solutions that the sector has been looking forward to. In a digital era, technologies are no longer limited to one industry and the healthcare sector too is starting to explore the benefits of blockchain in various areas and Clinical Trials are one of them.
Blockchain technology is a peer-to-peer distributed ledger-based system where the information is stored in a distributed shared ledger, which can only be manipulated by something called transactions. Transactions are digitally signed and encrypted form of communication between the client and the blockchain app.
There are various Blockchain frameworks available like Entehreum, Hyperledger Fabric, R3 Corda, Ripple, Quorum, Multichain, BigChainDB, and Chain. Ethereum and Hyperledger Fabric are the two most popular frameworks.
Ethereum vs Hyperledger Fabric and why Hyperledger Fabric is better suited for Clinical Trials
What is Ethereum?
Ethereum is an open-source blockchain platform where decentralized applications can be built using Smart Contracts. As the Smart Contracts on which Ethereum runs are decentralized, they are open to everyone in the network. This aspect is not favorable for privacy-conscious data that the Clinical trial ecosystem deals with.
The Clinical Trial ecosystem is complex with multiple stakeholders requiring time-sensitive inputs. And, a secured framework consisting of multiple private blockchains with different properties and shared data accessed by various stakeholders, can help streamline the Clinical Trial process.
This is where a Hyperledger framework comes into the picture.
What is Hyperledger Fabric?
Hyperledger is a collaborative project supported by the Linux foundation. It is modular and pluggable and consists of open-source blockchain and related tools with a number of frameworks and distributed ledgers.
Hyperledger Fabric is a permissioned blockchain framework. A permissioned blockchain (also called a consortium or federated blockchain) is a hybrid of public and private blockchain frameworks. On a permissioned blockchain, transactions or data is visible only to the parties with permission to view them — not the whole network.
Why Hyperledger Fabric is better than Ethereum
The key difference between Ethereum and Hyperledger Fabric is that the former is a public or permissionless blockchain where anyone with an open source software can be a participant. While advantages are anonymity and transparency, but the tradeoff is privacy and scalability. This is why Ethereum is more suited for B2C environments.
Hyperledger Fabric’s private or permissioned blockchain protocol allows for authentication, authorization, and permission of actions. That makes Hyperledger Fabric more suitable for businesses in industries like healthcare, which demands collaboration with multiple stakeholders in a secure ecosystem. Further, the modular architecture allows Hyperledger to be more flexible and enables customization.
Blockchain taking a leap in digital health with Hyperledger Fabric
Hyperledger Fabric, released in 2017, is the first publicly available version of the Hyperledger consortium’s open-source blockchain framework. It is a framework based on a plug-and-play environment for building blockchain applications. Some of its features are modularity, container technology to host smart contracts called chain code, which comprises the application logic of the framework.
Last year, Change Healthcare launched Change Healthcare Intelligent Healthcare Network using Hyperledger Fabric 1.0. It is the first blockchain solution for enterprise-scale use in healthcare, enabling payers and providers to boost revenue cycle efficiency, improve real-time analytics, cut costs, and create innovative new services.
Medicalchain a decentralized platform aims to create a platform for different healthcare agents to request permission to access and interact with medical records. Each interaction on the platform is auditable, transparent, and secure, and will be recorded as a transaction on a distributed ledger. The project will guarantee privacy since it will be built on the permission-based Hyperledger Fabric architecture providing for varying access levels
It has some key properties that make it an ideal distributed ledger which makes it easier for the CRO’s and pharma companies to adopt blockchain.
The key features of the Hyperledger fabric are
Assets: Asset definitions enable the exchange of data.
Chaincode: It is a ‘smart contract’ which allows users to create transactions in the shared ledger network of Hyperledger Fabric.
The immutable shared ledger: this can encode the data history of each channel, a include a SQL-like query capability for efficient auditing and dispute resolution.
High level of privacy through Channels: Channels allows multilateral transactions with high levels of privacy and confidentiality required to maintain the strict standards of regulations for the pharma and life sciences industries when assets are exchanged on a common network.
Security & Membership Services: The Fabric platform allows for a permissioned membership provides a trusted blockchain network.
Consensus: A flexible and scalable approach to consensus.
Advantages of using Hyperledger Fabric for Clinical Trials
Data security and privacy
Using permissioned blockchains like Hyperledger Fabric ensures that only authorized organizations/entities with designated permissions as defined by a set protocol can join the network(s) and perform only certain activities on the network. In Hyperledger Fabric HSM (Hardware Security Module) provides a way to keep private keys secured. These private keys are not outside of the HSM thus ensuring greater security. This approach can provide sources guaranteed anonymity required for PHI (Protected Health Information) and a fully audited verification of the data.
Regulatory compliance
Permissioned blockchains can achieve data privacy and security compliance such as HIPAA or PIPEDA as data is stored only on authorized “nodes”. Hyperledger Fabric is a framework where all participants have known identities. The healthcare, pharmaceuticals, and life sciences industry, is subject to data protection laws that require knowing the identity of the members of the network and who is accessing specific data. Creates a Private Permission structure for the patients, allowing them to use SSO (Single sign-on) to hide and maintain their anonymous status in all data exchanges.
Optimized costs and faster process
With a private and permissioned blockchain framework like Hyperledger Fabric, computationally inexpensive protocols can be used for verifying transactions. Leading to faster and significantly cheaper processes. It enables the analysis of data from multiple trials, as well as leveraging data stored by different sources, in different locations. Creating a cost-effective virtual data universe (Data Lake).
Increased performance, scalability, and levels of trust
Due to the modular architecture of Hyperledger Fabric data processing is distributed into three phases: distributed logic processing and agreement (“chaincode”), transaction ordering, and transaction validation and commitment. This distribution needs fewer levels of trust and verification across node types, and thus network scalability and performance are optimized.
As IBM describes it, Fabric “is designed to provide a framework for building enterprise-grade blockchain networks that can quickly scale as new network members join and transact at rates of more than 1,000 transactions per second among large ecosystems of users.”
In conclusion:
Clinical trials are one of the most crucial parts of the drug discovery process. As the time and the cost of the clinical trials rise, it hinders the drug discovery process.
The distributed ledger and permissioned framework of the Hyperledger Fabric based blockchain app can help in creating a more efficient Clinical Trial process by maintaining Clinical Trial integrity, manage data efficiently, manage data transparency and security, and achieve data compliance. It can lead to the structuration of community-driven health data, decentralization of the process, and manage higher security and with transparent interactions to ensure an easier and more transparent process.
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