Earlier, big thinking was happening at the strategy level and technology was the enabler. Now the reverse is happening, DONALD CHESTNUTtells Sangeeta Tanwar

Global chief experience officer, SapientRazorfish How do you see technology disrupting the consumer experience? We have been talking about technology changing businesses worldwide over the last 20 years. However, what has changed in the recent past is that there has been acceleration in the adoption of technology. As the brands are racing to close the gap between their businesses and where the consumers are, we are moving from a point where technology was just a way to deliver a new experience to customers to technology becoming the core of the business to stay competitive. For example, technology in mobile devices in the hands of people like ourselves has disrupted the world. It is those two trends, technology itself and the ability to deeply understand people as to how we think about vacation planning or retirement, that is powering businesses today. With technology taking the centre stage, how do you approach the creative and strategy part of businesses? Even if I rewound five years back, I think technology was the enabler. And you had bigger thinking happening at the strategy and creative level. We had media and advertising companies coming up with bigger ideas as to how to engage and transform a business and using technology to help empower that. Now the reverse is happening. Technology is disrupting the world at an everincreasing pace providing the means for disruption and transformation. And how you do that is a creative exercise surely, but it is almost secondary. Earlier, technology was the back office and now the technology is the conversation itself.

There is a comment from the Starbucks CEO that describes the firm as a technology company that sells coffee. I often use it in my presentations to illustrate how technology is proving to be a big disruptor. Of course, Starbucks is a coffee and a retail company, but it is using technology big time to run loyalty programmes and to support mobile payment. Leveraging technology, Starbucks is way ahead in the game in the world of beverages and fast food.