| | June 20188CIOReviewCUSTOMER EXPERIENCE ­ A GAME-CHANGER IN THE DIGITAL AGE FOR CONSUMER-FACING BUSINESSES ith the advent of smart devices, the current era has more or less become a mobile revolution with people of all geographies and income groups becoming a target group for mobile devices (smart phones, smart tablets, smart watches etc). According to the reports published by consulting firms, there would be an estimated 2.5+ billion users of smart devices around the world by 2018.On one hand, there are several speculations going on about what the future has in store ­ Artificial intelligence driving robots to enable them to take their own decisions ­ like Sophia, who created a sensation by being provided with a citizenship in Saudi Arabia recently.On the other hand, with the internet of things prac-tically moving ahead to connect all connectable devices which influence the lifestyle of a person, enhancing the customer experience by using better technologies is be-coming a major focus area in practically all domains which is customer-centric.The new digital age brings forth an entirely different set of possibilities for the consumer-facing businesses like retail, hospitality, and travel. Physical spaces are being enabled through digital means to enable a better chance of understanding the customer better to provide them with a right experience at the right time. This overlap of the physical and digital realms can be termed with jargons such as phygital as well. Some of the new age concepts which have a keen focus for the consumer-facing businesses are:1. Real-time personalization based on context: Huge amount of data are available with the consumer-facing businesses which can enable the business to address their consumers better. With data analytics coming to a fore on the technology front, there is a huge opportunity for the businesses to make better sense of the existing data and build a profile of the consumer.This can be further used effectively to provide the most probable recommendation that the consumer would love to see, maybe in the form of a targeted promotion or even a targeted information. While online products and services from giants like Google, Apple, Amazon and Facebook have already started using this to their bene-fit since a few years, businesses with a physical presence which also constitute a huge chunk of market are now em-bracing technology to enable them to identify the areas, analyze the data to get better insights and use algorithms to target and address the consumer with the right action at the right space at the right time.WBy Hemanth Sheelvant, Founder, Business Head, iero, Bosch Engineering and Business Solutions SoftwareHemanth Sheelvant drives an entrepreneurial venture - iero in Bosch Engineering and Business Solutions focusing on new age edge based context-aware personalization solutions for consumer business with key offerings in the area of retail and mobility recommendations space. Hemanth SheelvantIN MY OPINION
< Page 7 | Page 9 >