New technologies are transforming every industry, enabling businesses to keep up with changing customer expectations and market competition. Technologies like artificial Intelligence (AI), big data, machine learning (ML), and open APIs are also creating new areas of innovation – as well as requiring ever-greater budget spends – so CMOs are increasingly highlighting the benefits of technology investments to the board. With better customer insights, CMOs also advise on the importance of ensuring that customers’ needs are central to shaping the transformation roadmap.
In my opinion, four major interlinked technology trends that should be on any fast-growing tech company CMO’s radar when formulating long-term strategy are:
1. Focus on the customer lifecycle
With so many businesses competing for similar customer segments, customer experience and customer convenience are key differentiators. Generating business from existing clients is more cost-effective than acquiring new ones. Retaining them and creating a consistently positive experience takes system-wide thinking and an integrated service-delivery approach. Excellent customer journeys improve customer satisfaction and has a direct correlation to increased revenue, according to McKinsey.
2. Using AI and predictive analytics for increased personalisation
Applying AI and ML for data analytics and in customer services creates exponentially faster and more personalized customer experiences through significantly better insights – plus more automated back-end workflows. AI tools are expected to generate up to $4.4 billion a year in corporate profits.
For example, banks are now using an AI- and Natural Language Processing (NLP)-enabled applications to help consumers manage transactions, answer FAQs and apply for loans or other products. Chatbots are increasingly deployed in retail banking and robo advisors in investment advisory; speech and voice recognition and humanoids such as Hanson Robotics’ Sophia could replace ATMs in future.
At Smita Gupta Advisory, we support clients as they navigate new AI technologies. We ensure new tools fit with existing stacks and will streamline the workflow without siloing systems.
3. Digital transformation and continuous innovation
Digital innovation and transformation continues to be a priority for businesses, with 94% of executives stating they are planning to increase investment in emerging technologies in the next year. New digital technologies are being adopted across the entire customer journey, with continuous innovation and investment in the ways these technologies are implemented and consumed internally to respond to insights from big data analytics.
It is crucial that businesses use the latest technologies to innovate services rather than just placing existing services on digital platforms. As we have seen with banking and the rise of neobanks, customers are increasingly favouring a truly digital, seamless experience.
4. Sustainable Technology
Having touchpoints with customers enables CMOs to spot the market sentiment. This year is the time for companies to shift from sustainability promises to meaningful action. Almost every industry can incorporate green technology, across green cloud computing, the circular economy and carbon capture and storage. Not only are these technologies promising for a business’ impact on the environment, but studies have shown there are customer acquisition and revenue opportunities from ‘going green’.
Organisations evolve in response to changing environments – and within them, the roles of their leaders must evolve too. As digital technologies enable new insights and innovative services to address customers’ increasingly-sophisticated desires and needs, the person with the skills to marry technical know-how with customer intelligence – and direct the organisation’s response – is increasingly the CMO: the new superhero of the boardroom.
