Digitization: a changing world
The digital world. Watch a movie on Netflix, order a book on bol.com, fill out your tax form online. Digitization is everywhere. And its impact is enormous.
Digitization has significantly changed customer expectations. Customers expect online services to be available 24/7 and that products ordered today are preferably delivered the next day. If you cannot simply order a product, or if the after service is insufficient, the customer will choose another provider in a heartbeat. Because an alternative is available to everyone at any time. Products and services are increasingly easy to compare. If the same product is offered by two different providers, you will pick the cheapest one, or the one that offers the best service. This is true not only for B2C but also for B2B. The seller needs to provide products or services that are both correctly priced and where the customer service/satisfaction is high.
Companies achieving this are the ones that will prevail in a digital economy.
Throughout our journeys at many companies, we still notice that most of them are struggling with this. They see the customer expectations changing quickly. The range of products and services must be able to be adapted quickly. Their company is not organised to cope with agility.
Knowing what the customer wants, is more important than ever. Companies continuously ask for customer feedback and convert it into an adapted offer as quickly as possible, to respond to the changing needs of the customer.
And finally, scalability. During the first wave of the Corona crisis, the online learning platform Smartschool had to meet an enormous increase in the number of students in a very short time.
All above factors ensure that organizations have one major challenge in common: how can I get organized for a digital world? How can I work cost-efficiently and offer high customer satisfaction to my customers?
Rapidly emerging technologies such as Cloud computing, Artificial Intelligence (AI), big data and the Internet of Things offer solutions. Technology alone is only one piece of the puzzle. Digitization enables that customers look straight into the “kitchen” of a company, as in a star restaurant. If something goes wrong, the customer has seen it. An adapted organization on top of the appropriate technology is therefore key.
The framework for Service Management ITIL 4 published in 2019 provides an answer to this.