News
Concep, the global provider of digital marketing technology, today released findings from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) Digital Company 2013 study, a report it sponsored alongside AT&T, Nokia, PricewaterhouseCoopers, SAP, WebEx and Habeas. The survey results strongly indicate that by 2013 customers will be the most important source of innovation within organisations; this predicted trend has been labelled “prosuming” whereby the line between consumer and producer becomes blurred and the customer contributes freely to the research and development process.
The EIU study shows that the main driving force for “prosuming” will be the technology enhanced interaction between employees, suppliers, partners and, of course, customers. According to the report, when executives were asked what developments will have the greatest impact on their business between now and 2013, technology innovation rated highest at 31% followed by political and macroeconomic uncertainty at 29%, rising security threats trailed in at 5%. In essence, the study highlights technology as being the main enabler in the future for more open and collaborative working procedures.
The study predicts that the road to innovation will dramatically change; historically customer participation takes place towards the end of the product development process. Within five years, results from the Digital Company 2013 study indicate that key stakeholders will be heavily involved in the development process due to the increasing ease of interaction. When asked where the most innovative ideas will come from in 2013, 31% cited customers while only 19% thought ideas would originate from internal research and development. In fact, by 2013 well over 50% of those surveyed believed customers would in some way be directly linked into the product design process, compared to less than one third who believed this was the case already.
According to respondents, email (87 per cent) and corporate websites (81 per cent) will remain the two primary channels for communicating with customers in 2013.
Mark Power, Chief Executive of Concep, said: “Over the last few years we have seen more of our clients using our technology to engage with their customers; information is extracted digitally and recycled back into the organisation to improve the relevancy of the service offering. Therefore, the findings of this study are not exactly a surprise to us, but it does reiterate that by 2013 customer empowerment will be the norm rather then the exception.”
The Digital Company 2013 is an EIU research programme that explores the impact technology advances will have on how companies do business over the next five years. A total of 661 executives from around the world participated in the survey. 53% of all respondents held C-suite titles, with CEOs and board members alone representing 35% of the group. 31% of respondents were based in Europe, 30% in Asia-Pacific and 30% in North America, with the remainder coming from the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. Respondents hailed from across 20 industries, and represented a range of company sizes, with 50% deriving from firms that have annual revenues of US$500m or more.
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About Concep – www.concepglobal.com
Concep is a marketing technology and services company that delivers value to professional, financial and property services firms and associations that have important high-value relationships to nurture over the long-term. With offices in London, New York, and Sydney, Concep helps clients build better relationships by harnessing the power of one-to-one digital marketing communications. Concep’s solutions help to increase profits, improve client loyalty and achieve a strategic advantage over competitors. As a deeply entrenched communications partner, Concep enables clients to deliver highly relevant, targeted and personalized communications in a business to business environment. For more information please visit www.concepglobal.com.