Thanks to increased smartphones and social media penetration, a data-driven transformation has become possible in the retail sector for the last decade. Recent research shows that more than 75% of retail customers shop from multiple retail channels. As expected, digital channels are coming to the fore with the effect of the pandemic.
With the effect of this, retail companies have increased their focus on digital channels and increased digital advertisements. With a similar transformation on the customer side, nearly 80% of customers search for products on mobile devices.
Today, the terms omnichannel and multichannel are often confused. So, first of all, let's start with the answer to the question: what is omnichannel retailing.
If we analyze Google trends, there is almost no search data for "what is digital transformation" until 2014. However, the "popularity" of the concept, which started to rise afterward, seems to have reached the highest level, especially after 2019.
Of course, our aim is not to evaluate the importance of digital transformation according to its popularity in Google searches. Since the beginning of the 2000s, companies have been working to position the transformation strategically. Although the concept is unique, we observe extensive application practices.
The pandemic affected the telco industry just like all the industries and accelerated the plans for the adoption of digital technologies.
Watch Mark Newman, TM Forum’s Chief Analyst, and Etiya’s Chief Commercial Officer Apostolos Kallis as they discuss the impact of the pandemic, key challenges faced, and telco priorities for investment in future technologies.
The inflexibility of legacy customer segmentation is holding communications service providers (CSPs) back as they seek to evolve and expand their B2B operations. To maximize their commercial opportunities, they need to find smarter ways to segment their market that address the evolving needs of their customers, taking into account key trends such as hybridization, consumerization and verticalization, as well as new channel strategies and B2B2X models.
Today, the retail industry is changing rapidly and dramatically. Global economic fluctuations could limit growth in this sector, which accounts for roughly 30% of the worldwide economy and is worth more than $25 trillion globally. However, new business models, changing customer behavior, and technological advances have triggered a significant shift to e-commerce, creating a wide variety of new market opportunities.
Little has changed in how telecom operators segment their B2B markets over the last 20 to 30 years. But B2B is changing. Businesses are moving to embrace digitization. They want to improve the digital experiences that they are offering their own customers. And they have a growing belief in the transformative power of new technologies such as cloud computing and the IoT. Business people, and in particular those who make technology purchasing decisions, want access to services that are as simple, intuitive and affordable as the ones they use as consumers.