- 19/03/2016
- Category: Commentaries
As the part of the connected world, business in Indonesia can not avoid the phenomeneon of digital globalization. McKinsey’s report titled “Digial Globalization: The new era of Global Flow, mentions that the current emerging global era does not only open new economic potentials for multinational corporations in the emerging market, bur also level-up millions of small and medium enterprises to be major international exporters, with the likes of eBay, Alibaba, amazon, and others. About 86% of tech-companies in the world has transformed into global companies since the beginning of this digitally connected era.
The transformation of the world has provided many opportunities for everyone that has the capability to take benefits out of it. however, the question is, is everyone (every company) ready? What should be prepared by business players to garner significant benefits from the so called digital world?
In the digital era, basic and foundational transformation embraced by business players is the conversion to SOCIAL BUSINESS. Whether or not business can take full advantage in the digital era is going to be determined by how much business understands and commits to transform themselves into SOCIAL BUSINESS.
In doing so, first of all, there must be a SOCIAL VALUE PROPOSITION transformation. Value prOposition is the benefit that can be gained by consumers, so that consumers can have reason to buy the products produces by certain companies. In the so called analog era, the focus of value proposition is on the quality of the content (for example, good food). However, in this digital era, there has been much variations on value proposition. As widely covered by researches and studies on experience economy, the reason people by products is no longer only predetermined by the taste, but widens to other factors; for example for the user experience, for the coziness of the place, for the selfies and Instagram photos uploaded, for the feel of belonging to certain community, and so on.
In the digital society, the need to always be connected, the need to feel ‘exist’ by putting reviews and comments. the need to understand certain information the realm of information, as well as the other need is the kinds (and potentials) of value preposition that were not there in the analog era. Being put that way, potential and opportunity to widen and develop business in the digital era is limitless, when we understand the characters of the needs of digital society.
The second is SOIAL BUSINESS MODEL tranformation. The question addressed, for example, is the route to markets. Is the transformation to e-commerce a new necessity? Data shows that countries in emerging market are the new key players in e-commerce sector in the world. China places second behind the United States, while Hong Kong places twelfth, and Singapore stands at the fourteenth.
Route transformation to this market is highly related to the change in digital consumer’s characteristics. The question of the number of people shifting to be digital consumers is undeniably there to be addressed at the very first place. How many consumers are using internet? How do they react to internet applications? Do they buy goods through internet? Do they only need internet to compare price? Do they only use internet to look for the location of the nearest stores? How many uses internet, mobile applications, and social media?
Third, the tranformation of the way business conduct SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT with consumers. This address the question of whether business utilizes touch points effectively to engage with consumers; be it through conventional media (printed ads, TV ads, radio ads), digital media (website, news letter, social media channels managed by companies), or earned digital media (consumers’ review, comments, word of mouth, and the likes that are beyond the control of companies).
Within those digitla touch points, which one is the most effective? How is the perfect combination created? E-mail based marketing, for example, is only suitable to build relations and loyalty with contacts (consumers). Therefore, business this days should understand the perception of people to e-mail based marketing. On the other hand, company’s website is usually used to provide contents that are relevant with consumers. The role of social media, in one side, is utilized to build a community in the consumers. While mobile application is important to ensure the connection forged with consumers.
Fourth, ORGANIZATIONAL TRANFORMATION. the questions need to be addressed by organizations embarking digital transformations include: how far the business understanding with the scial dimension that comes from digital transformation is. How the technology literacy of the human capitals in the organization is. Is the ICT infrastructure enough. Such questions are very important to be answered if we want to champion the digital business transformation.
