Executive Voices 4 mins read

It’s a kind of (holiday?) magic…

From connected customers to smart products and hyperautomation, technology is the future. Learn how to do it all by becoming a truly connected enterprise.

Bart Schouw Bart Schouw

You know how everything seems so magical at this time of year, with holiday lights and festive songs?

Well, every time I make a payment with my phone, I think of how magical that is too… hearing the ping of the transaction going through instantly and feeling the little vibration as the bank informs you that the transaction has been processed.

Magic! But is it really? No, it is the power of data and digital transformation.  According to McKinsey, organizations have digitalized 40% of their businesses to date. What does that mean? It means that the best is still to come!

Hyper automation trend

Some businesses are further in this journey than others, like the banks in my example. Banks have invested heavily in automation over the last decade, breaking down silos and implementing advanced application integration technology with the goal of what was called “straight through processing.” This went even beyond the boundaries of their own organizations.

Banks may be spearheading the hyperautomation trend, but it is inevitable that every company in every industry will have to follow. Why? Ever-rising customer expectations. And if you don’t follow the trend, you can be sure tech giants will smell the opportunity to disrupt and step in first.

In the last decade it was all about improving the customer experience – especially through the new digital channel called mobile. There were 100 million mobile phones in 2007 to 1.5 billion in 2020. The created a tectonic shift in buyer behavior.

Smart product revolution

Going forward, the role of the smart phone will be taken over by smart connected products. Smart speakers, smart ovens, smart doorbells … you name it. You will already own on average four smart products by 2023. This will result in billions of connected devices by the end of this decade. And those smart products will drive the demand to make the customer experience a CONNECTED customer experience.

The catch? A connected customer experience will require on-demand responses from organizations because customers will demand a direct and immediate response 24/7, 365 days a year. You need to provide an always on, on-demand service, like the banks gave us the ability to pay whenever and wherever we want. Think about it. Now you are used to this instant notification by your bank, could you go back to the way it was? The answer is “No.”

There are some challenges

The main challenge is, of course, that most companies can’t do such massive transformation alone. To succeed in this new connected world, you need to rely heavily on your partner ecosystem. Partner ecosystems have been there for a long time; they are historically B2B strategies based on enterprise data integration.

And your competition is becoming real-time platform based fast. To accelerate your business, you must adopt a balanced strategy for B2B integrations by embracing real-time transactions via APIs.

Connected customer experience and the API-driven partner ecosystem both require that you tear down silos of data. Being able to automate processes from beginning to end transforms your business radically. But that doesn’t mean it is easy. Reducing complexity in your organization and preventing the rise of further tech debt is the true challenge.

That is why we call the ability to do this in a fast, agile way “digital business excellence.” And that is why we call companies that succeed in the above “truly connected enterprises.”

If these are the changes that matter in your organization, and if you want to know more about how to become truly connected, then talk to us at Software AG. We have the portfolio to connect and integrate your customers, partners, and business. Truly.