Emerging digital disruption – How prepared are Nigerian businesses?

Those old enough would remember the days of correspondence courses, where textbooks and other materials were couriered to students who studied in the evenings and worked during the day. Advances in technologies soon led to distance learning via Radio and TV; and now we have National Open University that uses a mix of channels to deliver education including internet, web, satellite TV, instructor led, and classroom based.

In more developed economies, social media is now a veritable channel of instructional delivery. Khan Academy is a non-profit educational organization created in 2006 by educator Salman Khan to provide “a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere”. Khan Academy produces micro lectures for over 15 courses and practice exercises in the form of YouTube videos now translated into 65 languages. Coursera is a for-profit educational technology company that offers massive open online courses (MOOCs). Established in 2012, and now with less than 200 employees, Coursera works with universities to make some of their courses available online, and currently offers over 12 courses in 12 languages and to over 12,000,000 users. This education example, shows how technology can transform the way we live, work and interact; and has significant implications for discerning minds.
Recently Accenture, a global consulting and technology solutions firm, held a breakfast meeting in Lagos with Chief Information Officers (CIOs) of leading Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) companies in Nigeria with a thought provoking theme: Leveraging Emerging Technologies…Are you winning? It was an avenue for IT leaders to brainstorm with peers in an environment facilitated by a trusted IT solutions partner.

For nearly 15 years, Accenture has taken a systematic look across the enterprise landscape to identify emerging IT trends that hold the greatest potential to disrupt businesses and industries. In 2015, a global survey of 2,000 C-suite business and IT executives across several countries and industries to capture insights into the adoption of emerging technologies indicate an emergence of Digital Ecosystems that are re-shaping Markets and creating the “We Economy”.
The We Economy focuses on how businesses are creating a hyper-connected world where companies, consumers and even everyday objects have instant capabilities to act and interact with each other digitally across the globe. Imagine a retail shop with a refrigerator embedded with sensors that do many things including tracking purchases of drinks stored in the refrigerator, sending alerts to the shop-keeper on SKUs that are trending/heavily purchased, alerting the accredited supplier to deliver new stock once the reorder level has been reached, alerting the maintenance man if certain components of the fridge are malfunctioning and automatically turning off power at non-peak period to improve energy efficiency.

Huge efficiencies can and will be gained as businesses continue to master digital technologies internally. Visionary companies, however, are recognizing that as every business becomes a digital business, together they can effect change on a much bigger stage. Working together, they can shape experiences—and outcomes—in ways never before possible.
These pioneering businesses see great potential to make a difference—and to make a profit— by operating as ecosystems, not just as individual corporate entities. By mastering the shift from “me” to “we,” these leading enterprises are shaping a new economy—the “we economy.” Leading companies are stretching their boundaries by tapping into a broad array of other digital businesses, digital customers, and even digital devices to improve their offerings to the consumer.
Accenture’s research shows that the We Economy is underpinned by 5 very keys trends:

The Internet of Me
The Internet of Me emphasizes the fact that the “customer is still King”. Much of the internet’s appeal has been in the way it enables each of us to personalize our lives: My newsfeed; My playlist. My book recommendations; My new car, customized online by me, etc.
As everyday objects are going online, so too are experiences, creating an abundance of digital channels that reach deep into every aspect of individuals’ lives.

Forward thinking businesses are changing the ways they build new applications, products, and services. To gain control over these points of access, they are creating highly personalized experiences that engage and exhilarate consumers without breaching the customer’s trust. The companies that succeed in this new “Internet of Me” will become the next generation of household names. Gartner research shows that 89% of companies believe that customer experience will be their primary basis for competition by 2016, versus 36% four years ago.

For instance, the new connected car from Mercedes- Benz has over 100 embedded sensors and includes application programming interface (API) connections to Nest thermostats at the driver’s home. The car can notify the thermostat when the driver will arrive, and the thermostat in turn adjusts the in-home temperature to the driver’s desired settings. Appliance-maker Whirlpool is making similar Internet of Me moves: its smart dryers include a function that allows environmentally conscious consumers to schedule energy-intensive tasks for off-peak periods when electricity is more abundant and rates are lower.
To truly become a leader in the Internet of Me space, businesses will have to figure out how the customer experience they “own” relates to other experiences in the customer’s life or how they can help to deliver the outcomes that a customer is trying to achieve.
TO BE CONTINUED