Tag Archive for: communication

[Intern Insights] Digitolution: The impact of digitalization on the future

That the Internet, digitisation and digitalisation have changed the way people live and do business is old news. Those changes won’t stop.

To clarify, the differences between digitalisation and digitisation: digitisation is the process of converting information into a digital format, whilst digitalisation is the way many areas of social life are restructured around digital communication and media.

The big question mark giving business leaders headaches and sleepless nights is how these changes will evolve. As things progress, the impact on businesses and society and the implications for the planet change too.

We know that the future is uncertain. This is why businesses always need to stay on the edge. Walking the path between stasis and forward momentum allows businesses to avoid complacency.

Digitalisation makes sticking to a business strategy much harder. In the blink of an eye, all success can vanish because of a new digital innovation that seems to have miraculously popped up overnight. Digitalisation innovates entire systems, not only a product or service.

In an article for Forbes, Rich Karlgaard compares digital technology to a Death Star. At first, it pulls a company into its orbit and wipes out the old and well-established business model. Its next step is to force the business to adapt to the new digital environment laws of the game. Not just once, but over and over again. These “orbits” are unpredictable and can change societies in ways we can’t even imagine. Digitalisation and technology affect all aspects of our daily lives and are not only related to one area. They range from nanotechnology to 3D printing and all the interplay between. The combination of all these makes digitalisation an unstoppable force.

Most businesses are aware of the constant need to adapt to digitalisation and its changes but few realise how little time they have to do so.

The pace of digitalization is increasing exponentially. However, due to the – mostly useful, but in this case, not so much – inherent survival instinct, people think in linear growth.

To highlight the exponential growth and speed of those changes, just think back 10 years and see how much the world has changed.

10 years ago, I bought my first very low-resolution, colour mobile phone with a side-kick alphabetic keyboard. I was sad that I could no longer play the game Snake, which I had had on my previous phone. The media predicted what the first iPhone would look like. I imagined a kind of an iPod phone with a big round wheel to navigate; it took me a while to understand the concept of an application.

To buy this phone, I had to travel pretty far. I also entered several different stores to get different advice on which phone is the best and where to get it for the best price. Today, comparing and ordering can be done conveniently online – with a phone.

Terms such as Social Media, Facebook, YouTube and so on – the list is endless – were fairly new back then. Nobody could have imagined how those inventions changed the way people today interact, socialise, communicate, and work with another.

Every part of our lives today is digitalised. Business operations, products, and even customers are digital. Nevertheless, business leaders often still don’t think in “digital terms”. They struggle with the loss of customer relationships and the need to engage with their stakeholders on a digital level.

What Charles Darwin said in the 19th Century about evolution is also what businesses need to keep it mind today.

“It’s not the strongest of the species that will survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”

Today, the size of a business doesn’t matter, it’s agility and the capability to re-invent themselves that gives companies a sustainable advantage to compete in a digitalised world.Digitolution: Digital evolution is such a strong force, constantly reshaping the world with an incredible speed – affecting everybody’s daily life – that it deserves to be a word on its own.

This post is brought to you by one of AQ’s Undergraduates, Alexa V. As part of our internship programs, undergraduates and classic interns are encouraged to take part in company culture. Alexa’s primary focus is in digital marketing.

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Company Pillarization & Disconnection: Why Change and Adaptation are Vital to Company Growth

As companies grow, they change. It seems obvious, but it’s impossible for any business to stay in that ‘start up’ phase forever. As a company matures, its very nature changes, and often this can cause company pillarization. Originally a cultural and religious concept – based on the Dutch word ‘verzuiling’ – pillarization talks about systematic segregation and alienation of elements of society.

In history, this is best illustrated by the separation between Catholic and Protestant communities in parts of Western Europe after the reformation. Protestant families would only buy from Protestant grocers, while Catholics would only go to Catholic vendors. Society was split across its religious lines in such a way that that was as little interaction as possible between the two elements even though those elements were part of the same, larger community.

We start to see company pillarization in more mature companies. These businesses have developed strategies and policies in their start-up phase, or they have set down strategies and plans afterward. The result is that many of these businesses rely on strategies designed years earlier, based on scenarios and circumstances of that time. One of the problems that can arise from this is company pillarization.

Company Pillarization: The 3 Big Areas of Concern

Communication

One of the first things to break down in a company pillarization scenario. Pillarization creates a disconnect between departments, allowing them to grow distant and focus only on their own tasks. As a result, inter-company, cross-departmental communication is difficult and occasionally non-existent.

Responsibility

A direct result of the breakdowns in communication, keeping track of responsibilities becomes difficult. When company pillarization occurs, departments – and their individual team members – become entrenched in only their own tasks. Even as disconnection begins to occur in communications, a disconnection happens between the tasks and the bigger picture. That leads to a disinterest in taking responsibility or ownership over cross-departmental projects.

Engagement

When a department is disconnected from the company as a whole, the members of that department suffer from the same disassociation. People get drawn in, choosing ‘sides’ with their own department rather than with the company as a whole. This, combined with the breakdown in communications and growing sense of lack of responsibility leads to a downturn in employee engagement. Employees no longer feel connected with anything but their work, or, at best, their department and this impacts the company as a whole.

Overcoming Company Pillarization

Overcoming divisions in any organization can be difficult. Particularly if these divisions have grown subtly over time. The first step is always to recognize that there is a problem. This is something that companies can find difficult to admit; it may be construed as a failure in the eyes of stakeholders, but without this admission there can be no resolution.

In the end what it all comes down to is the disconnection between people, departments and the company as a whole. This can be the result of a number of things such as the company has outgrown its management, the company’s culture isn’t moving with the direction of its employees (in terms of socialisation opportunities), and possibly just the general style of work – perhaps the products that the company is now creating aren’t as interesting as they were before. The disconnection between the company and its individuals is the end result of all these issues.

In order to overcome company pillarization, then, companies have to reconnect with their employees and vice versa. It’s a two-way street.

One of the factors that can help address the issue of communication, for starters, is to take a look at the physical distances between departments. If they are housed on different floors or even different buildings, then face-to-face communication becomes less likely. While not always possible, bringing departments closer together has the potential to help resolve this issue.

Other tried and true ideas is to sit down and take a serious look at current HR Policies: do they reflect the current needs of employees or have things changed? If the company no longer has the best interests of its employees at heart then this is a good place to start looking. Similarly, it’s a good chance to give employees opportunities the chance to express themselves. This will generate information to help bridge the gaps on an individual level and will hopefully improve on issues of engagement and responsibility.

Onwards and Upwards

Many people compare businesses to sharks: when they’re not moving forward they’re sinking. This may not apply to every business on the face of the planet, but it’s often used as a generalization. It applies here too: if a business isn’t addressing issues that are causing breakdowns in responsibility, engagement and communication then what’s the point? It’s fair to say that while not all companies can be compared with sharks, it’s perfectly reasonable to argue any company not addressing its internal issues is heading for the  bottom of the ocean.

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High Employee Turnover: Impacts, Reasons, and Solutions

Many companies, particularly in the retail industry, face a high turnover of staff. In any industry, high employee turnover is a problem, even more so in industries where the majority of employees are on the frontline and deal with customers directly.

High employee turnover comes with a host of issues, reasons, and several solutions. We’ve boiled it down to the basics:

The 2 Big Issues

1. No Consistency for the Customer

Customer service has many facets. One of the elements that help improve customer satisfaction is consistency: people enjoy familiarity. A customer who walks into his or her favourite shoe shop and is greeted by a familiar face – that of a long-time employee – who remembers their preferences and needs is a loyal customer.

In the retail industry, this is tricky; many employees view retail as an entry job – one that will springboard them through some work experience into a ‘real job’. Gone are the days when walking into a small community fashion shop would earn you a personal greeting and a ‘…how did that dress work for your son’s graduation?’. Customers crave that type of personalised interaction – it makes them feel valued – but it is incredibly difficult to give them when high employee turnover is in play; it’s not exactly possible to train new employees in individual customer profiles.

2. Continuous, Inefficient, and often Expensive Training Requirements

With high employee turnover, companies face the issue of having to train newcomers constantly and consistently. As a result, training models are often designed and used without adapting them to changing situations. Why waste time building new models when this batch of employees is just going to leave anyway? In a sense, many businesses give up because they can’t keep up: it becomes more time-efficient to just let new employees use the current, un-personalised training system.

This is where new employees face ancient PowerPoint presentations with outdated information. They see that the company hasn’t invested any time or energy into these training packets and switch off – why should they engage with this material if the company hasn’t? And so the cycle continues.

The 2 Big Reasons behind High Employee Turnover

1. No Engagement and Motivation

We touched on this a little already: if an employee doesn’t feel engaged with a business for whatever reason, they’re going to get bored. Employee loyalty, like customer loyalty, isn’t something that just happens: it has to be earned over time. This means that businesses have to put in the effort to engage and motivate their staff.

2. No Support or Management

One of the biggest reasons why high employee turnover occurs is due to management issues. Management, as most of us know, is an artform. A good manager is worth their weight in gold; a bad one much less so. Bad management, or no management, will send employees packing without a backwards glance. Employees want – and need! – to feel like they are being supported; they don’t want to feel undervalued or overworked. It is a manager’s job to dispense advice, constructive criticisms, and compliments in such a way that is most helpful to the employee.

The Solution

There are several ways in which a business can tackle high employee turnover. What it really boils down to is communication.

Understanding employee expectations, requirements, and issues before they come into play is vital to taking control of any employee relationship. This line of communication goes both ways, of course, allowing for a company to relay its expectations, rules, and goals to its employees so that no one operates blindly.

Several months ago, we discussed the importance of an evolving HR policy. A good HR policy will accurately reflect the needs of both the business and the employee – allowing for a dialogue between the two. This is the main, vital thing to help kerb high employee turnover.

The Inevitable

Sometimes, however, it isn’t possible to manage high employee turnover; sometimes, it’s just a fact of life. It is impossible to control everything. A company can go out of its way to increase employee engagement and motivation, and this will certainly help with the issue, but it might not be possible to stop high turnover completely. This can be due to the nature of the work – perhaps it is a high-stress job that people simply can’t handle for too long; or maybe it’s an easy entry-level job that young adults use to break into the workforce.

It’s not always possible to fix high employee turnover, but even in those cases where it remains an issue, it is possible to work with it rather than despite it.

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Using Good Conversation to Empower your Business

A good conversation is the best way to create a loyal customer, an engaged employee, and overall, a great company. Having a good conversation leaves people feeling satisfied and confident. It boosts self-esteem and has been likened to the same high experienced when eating a favorite food or even having sex.

What makes a good conversation?

A good conversation isn’t just about the words that are said. It’s about how things are said. It’s about body language and facial expressions. Good conversations communicate so much more than just words. More than that, a good conversation can leave us delighted!

Next time you see two people talking, take a moment to look at them properly. How are they interacting? How does one react to the other? What nuances can you pick up on without even hearing what they’re saying? A good communicator knows that a good conversation is an artful balancing act between active listening and constructive speaking.

Also read this article: Retail Customer Service: Reality of Retail Industry

A good conversation is made up of a few straightforward elements:

  • Empathic and Active listening (constructive responsiveness): don’t just nod your head, but understand and participate in the conversation, this is about making others feel interesting and important.
  • Honesty: being truly invested in a conversation is reflected by whether you are showing genuine interest.

The art of carrying a good conversation is a valuable tool when it comes to a company as well. It isn’t just about creating a strong rapport between a salesperson and a customer in order to close a sale either. It’s also about encouraging communication between team members and the company and their employees.

Good communication, internally and externally, leads to a great experience for everyone.

Having a Good Conversation inside a Company

Customer Engagement starts with a conversationFor an employee, being able to have a good conversation with a manager is vital to their job satisfaction and, as a result, their performance. A good conversation allows an employee to express their concerns, needs/desires and suggestions in such a way that managers can understand them and meet them. Similarly, the manager can give voice to their own requirements and opinions, representing the company in this relationship. This two way street provides both parties with the opportunity to actively listen to each other as well as offering useful solutions for any problems. The aim of any good conversation is to leave all parties feeling validated and satisfied that they’ve both been heard and had their requirements met.

The result is a strong relationship between the employees and the company. The open line of communication lets the company empower their entire staff, turning them into engaged employees. Engaged employees are motivated to drive sales because they believe in the cause, thus increasing the bottom line and customer satisfaction. All because the company knows how to have a good conversation.

Encouraging this ongoing communication has internal effects. Employees who communicate with the company are more likely to connect with coworkers as well. This improves internal efficiency! Being a good communicator allows team members to get ahead of any issues and this strengthens the company as a whole.

Building Customer Loyalty through Good Conversation

As human beings, we like to know our needs are heard and met. As customers, this is amplified through expectation. When we got to business, we expect to receive the quality and service that was promised. We want our choices to be validated.Good conversations on the stairs

Customers are companies’ most valuable assets. We all accept that without customers, companies can’t do business and cease to exist. That’s just a simple fact, and until someone discovers how to create a business completely non-reliant on customers and breaks economics as we know it, that’s the way it’s going to be.

As a result, learning how to have a good conversation with a prospective customer is a solid way of creating a lasting relationship with that customer. Even if a sale isn’t made in the first meeting, the foundation for an ongoing relationship has been made upon which to generate future sales.

“Make a customer, not a sale,” Katherine Barchetti said. And she was right. A loyal customer is a returning customer. They’ll advocate your brand and will keep buying your product, simply because they trust you.

So, good conversations…what do we think?

Great customer service experience comes from the ability to connect through good conversation. If we need to improve the way our companies
communicate with our employees and our customers, then it’s time to put some effort into mastering the art of having a great conversation.

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Bridging the Generational Gap with PokémonGo

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Different generations do things differently and bridging the generational gap can be a trick in itself. 2016 has experienced some major changes in how the different generations view each other. The year’s only half done.

We’ve witnessed a massive conflict generations in the United Kingdom with Brexit, in which the divide is pretty clearly split across the generational divide. The new (and successful!) Star Wars has allowed grandparents, parents and children to talk to each other about something other than changes in fashion, the price of bread, and ‘that horrible stuff you call music’.

And now there’s PokémonGo…

What is PokemonGo?

If you were a child anywhere after 1996, you’d have grown up with pokémon. There were cards to collect, video games to play, television series to keep track of, movies to watch and millions of dollars worth of merchandising that you just had to have. I myself still have the Pikachu stuffed animal that I insisted on having, and I’m pretty sure many of us still have the card decks we studiously collected, traded and won. Pokémon have been a Millennial obsession.

We now have competition for that obsession:

“Omg! The sweetest thing just happened! I was sitting here watching Netflix when all of a sudden I hear two cute little knocks at my front door. A boy and a girl, like 12. I asked what’s up? They said, “excuse me, sir, but there’s a pikachu in your backyard and my sister and I were wondering if we can go in and catch it?” I look down at these two young Pokémon trainers and see myself in the little boy. So I slam the door and run to the back yard. GUESS WHO HAS A PIKACHU…” [Source]

Which raises the question for the uninitiated: what in the name of all that is holy is PokémonGo?

First, we have to assume by this stage that you’ve been hiding under a rock the entire month, but we’ll forgive you and explain. Basically, it’s the latest outbreak of what’s been fondly referred to as ‘pokémania’ [source]. A free Android and iOS based game that involves using your phone to find and ‘catch’ pokémon in the real world.

Creating a Product that Closes the Generational Gap

When a new product or service is launched, marketers tend to target a specific demographic. We pick who, what, where, and why – it’s easier to track the impact this way and we can better guarantee positive outcomes.

Say we’re in charge of creating an advertisement campaign for the latest smartphone. We’ll be targeting the younger Millennial generation and Gen Zs, people who are ‘good’ at adapting to new technology and are eager to upgrade at every given opportunity. We might segment even further, maybe we’ll aim at the male population, specifically in western Europe and North America rather than Asia and Oceania. Every segmentation made will determine the style and design of the advertisement: what colours we’ll use, whether we use a voice-over – what type of voice we’ll use! – what message we really want to send. Why do we want you to buy this phone? Because it’s cool, and it’ll help you win the attention of gorgeous women like Scarlett Johansson.

How we market well we market the product will determine how many sales we make and that means knowing our target audience.

Now imagine we’re twenty years into the future when Gen Z is in full-swing and are baffled by the super-virtual-worlds of the Alpha Generation (assuming that’s what we’re going to call them! [source]). We come up with a brand new smartphone-equivalent that we Millennials find just as interesting and easy to get into as our Alpha grandkids.

Congratulations, we’ve successfully closed the generational gap and created an omni-generation product that sells to pretty much everyone on the planet. Nice work. Bonuses all around.

Entertainment values aside: This is what Star Wars: The Force Awakens accomplished. This is why everyone is talking about and playing PokémonGo.

What’s the big fuss?

The generational gap is often ignored because it can be incredibly difficult to bridge them. Why would you waste time, effort and money attempting to market to the entire world when you can narrow your target and generate better ROIs?

From a sales and marketing perspective both Star Wars and PokémonGo are powerful examples of the possibilities that are out there. Innovative ideas sprung out of ideas from the older generation can give rise to powerful opportunities to create better communication across the generational gap.

For those of us in business, understanding these innovations and really learning what makes them tick can give us deeper insight into our marketing and sales strategies.

And it never hurts to have a little fun on the side. Just remember, work first, pokémon later.

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