People want to avoid lying, even to themselves. Therefore, some business leaders think it is wise to shield themselves from reality with a moral reservation, such as when the doorbell rings, move outside the house, and pretend not to be home.

When you know little about reality, wishful thinking gets more space. Some time ago, Bain & Company conducted a survey which showed that 80% of all CEOs believe that their company delivers great customer experiences while only 8% of their customers agree.

What do customers think about a supplier who does not meet their needs and therefore insists on using paper, fax, and email? Why is the need for mobility and simplicity ignored? Why would customers not translate bad service into poor product quality?

When reactive managers face questions like above, they often seek protection by claiming that product quality and customer service are different. They do not see the big picture and therefore regard service as less valuable than products. They have not recognized that the world's most successful companies are more dependent on software than hardware and that its significance is growing for everybody. Here are two reasons why you need to change from being reactive to become proactive:

• If it was possible to run paper-based processes last year, it will go another year. And maybe it will. But relative performance is getting worse and worse at a higher and higher cost.
• If it ain't broken, don’t fix it is a reactive approach. Shortcomings in a company's e-commerce offering must be addressed simply to maintain customer loyalty. If you want to sharpen your competitive edge, more drastic software changes and additions are required.

Thinking For a Change

The application of new technology drives progress. Leaders must use their smartness to acquire apps promoting digitization, efficiency, and better customer experiences towards creating business value. This movement is encouraged by suppliers where the apps needed never cost a cent before realizing the business impact they enable.

• Digitization is the transition from IT as business support to a new reality where it is no longer possible to separate the business processes from their enabling technology – as a result, turbocharging everything while also giving you the potential to refine the business mode.
• The customer experience is critical. Every digital touchpoint is a moment of truth that can be won or lost. And remember, companies are not only measured against competitors but also opposed to experiences customers have gained elsewhere.

Change always begins with new awareness. And that involves realizing that so far, well-functioning apps can get out of date. Nextgen apps are simpler, faster, elegant, and profitable. Seeing is believing. Why not stand up and move forward? No one knows what you are capable of if you do not show it. Looking away and keeping your head down only serves your competition.

Automation, Self-service, and Visualization

The benefits of digitization are clear, but to go further takes a lot more of the following 3 abilities:

• Automation. The importance of understanding the benefits of the cloud cannot be overstated. It is the path to infinite capacity, lower costs, higher security, simply flexible and worry-free IT. Achieving this in MS Azure Cloud requires that the apps are compliant with their public cloud. Everything else is old-style computing (which is also supported).
• Self-service. Although parts of the customer experience are analog, it is declining. It is indeed difficult to improve customer service, reduce costs and increase profitability without switching to mobile self-service apps and, as a result, achieve the following benefits:
  • Faster and more reliable information flow
  • Reduced costs
  • Increased sales
• Visualization allows your customers to see and interact with your products in 3D like never before. Tivitysoft's product configurator exemplifies the new capacity in an excellent way. By using SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) to illustrate your spare parts, they are much easier to identify and buy, which in turn increases sales.

A future-proof e-commerce solution

According to the B2B Commerce 2021 report, few companies do not believe digital sales will increase, of which 27% believe that the increase will exceed 25% over the next three years. There are several driving factors, including that younger "digital natives" require shopping online. Manufacturers that wants to be prepared should buy a future-proof e-commerce solution.

If you want to know more about how you can secure the future, I suggest you read a blog I wrote two years ago: Future-proof Your Next Enterprise Software Decision. Also, recommend that you discover the blog Industry-specific Cloud Apps is the New Competitive Frontier which explains why you should complement your ERP-system with industry-specific apps towards increasing process performance and satisfying customers’ and employees’ needs for much better user experiences.

I have more than 40 years of experience in ERP and industry-specific applications, but I have never been more excited than today. The lever for lifting customers' digital business capabilities is longer than ever before. I'm financially free, I have hobbies, but nothing engages me more than developing software and running change projects based on Tivitysoft's apps for the aftermarket and product configuration.

You and your company are welcome to join us. Let us drastically improve the business reality for your customers and employees. Let's start getting better today!

08. aug. 2021
Peter Björkman