Why are some digital transformations not effective?
Data is the new oil/soil - it has been the narrative across all industries for a few years. However, if data isn’t understood and used properly, it’s just wasted numbers.
From supply chain to integrated mega distribution to touchless mobile checkout, the processes have already started getting progressively digitized. All this digitization brings with it immense amounts of data that need to utilized optimally.
“The reason why some digital transformation journeys are not effective is because they haven’t nurtured customer data”, said Piyush Kumar Chowhan, Group CIO of Lulu International Group.
According to Chowhan, currently, retailers and store managers are blind towards the personalities of their customers. “There are customers walking into a store and retailers and store managers have no idea about them. Now people do everything post facto. You throw in options to the customers and then tweak the suggestions according to their feedback”, he said.
This is where customer engagement platforms will play an important role. “If you know what the customer needs before-hand, that’s when the magic will happen. That’s how data becomes the new soil”, he added.
According to him, if you have quality customer data then the need to analyse lost sales would never arise. The key will be nurturing all the processes and monitoring the customer experience journey in order to improve services.
Ryan den Rooijen, Group Head of Data and Analytics of Chalhoub Group, thinks it is important to be data-driven for the prime purpose of accountability. “How else are you going to hold yourself accountable, making sure you’re not just launching initiatives to show off but you are really driving a positive impact on the customer experience?”, he asks.
Through digital transformation, according to Rooijen, retailers and businesses are trying to address two questions. “The first is around customer engagement. How do you meet the customer where he/she wants to be met? It could be online, or through an app, or on whatsapp etc.
The second set of capabiltities is about how we keep that promise”, he explains.
This is where the core capabilities around supply-chain, distribution and Order Management Systems (OMS) comes into play in order to understand what the customer wants as well as deliver on the promises. “We invested heavily in the new digital capabilities of Level Shoes. Just as important are the OMS capabilities that allow people to do things like click and collect. Sometimes people get so carried away by a beautiful website, or beautiful social media offerings that they completely forget that’s not what it’s about. It is about delighting your customer and keeping your promises to them”, he said.
Ashish Panjabi, COO of Jacky’s Business Solutions and Jacky’s Retail LLC, was never a fan of the term digital transformation.
“I never liked the word ‘digital transformation’. I prefer business evolution and that has to happen. The advantage we’ve got at the moment is the courage to make a lot of changes because you can get the feedback a lot quicker. Trying to get feedback from the customer was very difficult. Today they are willing to give feedback a lot quicker”, he said.
Although the availability and access to information has improved and the feedback loop has gotten progressively better, retailers still have a long way to go to reach their customers with specialised, customised, and personalised offerings. “I was going through the newspaper this morning and I saw a pamphlet from one of the hypermarkets in it with an ad for pampers and I think ‘my kids are too old for diapers’. That personalized marketing with the data is about getting out there with more personal, relevant marketing”, he explained.
“We are now at a stage where we are getting a lot more data and we should be looking at that data. For 2021, if we have to succeed, we need to get into relevant marketing. The mass blast of ‘this is the message and we need to send it out to you’ is something we need to get over”, he added