USHERING IN THE ERA OF CONNECTED EXPERIENCES December 2017 With businesses interacting with their customers in numerous, diverse ways, digital customer experiences are becoming more critical to a company’s success than ever before. Connected experiences leverage data from automated processes and self-learning software to build meaningful relationships with customers across channels. Connected experiences are consumable, adaptable, and can enable customers to achieve their objectives anywhere, anytime, and in a personalized and efficient way. Connected experiences are helping businesses across industries improve their bottom line and strengthen their competitive advantage. Companies that do not work towards accomodating this shift will risk losing their business to disruptive newcomers. 2 Ushering in the Era of Connected Experiences Connected Experience is King Digital engagements are at the heart With experience becoming king in the hotels, and activities across different of how enterprises address customer digital age, it is more important now than platforms and through different busi- needs today. People are more connect- ever that businesses create connected nesses. With the rise of connected ed to the world around them than ever experiences for their customers. Con- experiences, planning a vacation will before due to the growth in the volume nected experiences are defined by their become easier and more efficient in the and variety of devices and touchpoints. ability to leverage data from automated future. Vacation planners will work on a Businesses are challenged in response processes and self-learning software to single platform that integrates all travel with integrating multiple channels— effectively build meaningful relationships applications and suggests personalized products, websites, applications, and with customers across channels. These recommendations for travel, activities, other solutions—into seamless and experiences are consumable and adapt- and restaurants. This platform will pull connected experiences for their con- able, and feature seamless connectivity in data from a wide variety of sources, sumers.1 Companies must find a way to support users in achieving their objec- including social media accounts, loyalty to create better experiences for their tives in a personalized way. programs, and other sources such as customers or risk leaving money on the weather and maps. Itineraries will table for their competitors. Think of a person looking to plan a va- adapt to changes and disruptions (flight cation as an example. Today, individuals cancellations, traffic, overbookings) in Companies that are considered to be are usually forced to input data manually real time to ensure that consumers have customer experience ‘Leaders’ have and book airfare, ground transportation, great experiences (Figure 1). been shown to outperform the market and generate a return higher than the average S&P 500 Index by 35%, while companies considered as customer experience ‘Laggards’ trail the broader Customer experience ‘Leaders’ outperform the market by 45%. Even companies with market and generate a return higher than the a slight advantage in customer expe- average S&P 500 Index by 35%, while companies rience ratings have shown a 17% lead in both customer trust and number of considered as customer experience ‘Laggards’ customers willing to spend more, over trail the broader market by 45%. businesses that delivered poor customer experiences.2 Figure 1: From Connected Solutions to Connected Experiences - Vacation Scenario TODAY TOMORROW Connected Solutions: A Connected Experience: Disjointed Technology & Applications Seamless, Integrated & Interoperable Hotel Technology Hotel Airline Maps, on the edge Airline Weather Ground Technology Technology Entertain- Consumer Consumer ment Transport embedded embedded Ground Restaurants Transport Maps, Technology Restaurants Weather Entertain- on the edge ment Today different applications /solutions require In the future, consumers won’t have to provide consumers to create the experience they want the context needed but instead technology will because each location or brand is on a play a central role in orchestrating and different technology platform delivering personal experiences 3 Ushering in the Era of Connected Experiences Shifting to a Digital Landscape Markets are already changing in re- a new ‘stay-at-home’ economy, where higher margins in the process. Com- sponse to the need for connected customers can fulfill more needs from bining in-store information with online experiences with companies such as the comfort of their homes. shopping data will enable Amazon to Uber, Airbnb, Blue Apron, and WeWork expand its foothold in the retail indus- disrupting industries and expanding These drivers enable the shift to try by improving the digital shopping ecosystems to create better customer connected experiences, evidenced by experience for their consumers.5 experiences. Multiple drivers are pushing the expansion into new markets by enterprises to create these experiences non-traditional market players. For ex- for their customers including: ample, when Amazon acquired Whole Foods Market, not only did it gain brick- 1. Digital Natives3: Millennials’ native and-mortar storefronts and distribution comfort with technology and desire for centers, but also the opportunity to better experiences is forcing enterpris- capture a wealth of information on how es to cater to them Whole Foods’ traditionally high-in- come customers shop in stores. Useful 2. Device Proliferation: By 2020, data points that Amazon can leverage there will be 20.4 billion connected from the acquisition include habitual things and consumers will manage purchase data and relationship data 85% of business relationships without between different products being human interaction.4 Growth in personal purchased. Amazon can now predict device usage has made users more ca- when a customer runs out of groceries pable and connected than ever before. and upsell other products in conjunc- 3. Stay-At-Home Economy: Auto- tion. Amazon can also use sales data to mation, IoT, and devices like Amazon build up another private brand, Whole Echo and Google Home have spurred Foods’s 365 label, and benefit from 4 Ushering in the Era of Connected Experiences Key Capabilities for Connected Experiences There are three foundational capabili- data visualization tools provide access The third capability of a connected ex- ties that help distinguish between static to a huge amount of data and analytics perience is the seamless connectivity digital engagements and connected that can be easily consumed for rapid required to constantly deliver real-time experiences: consumability, adaptive insights. As technologies like voice-to- insights without interruption. As IoT engagement, and seamless connectivity. voice communication and AR become expands, a nonstop stream of data will For businesses to successfully create more sophisticated in their ability to be generated, at annual rates of 15.3 connected experiences, the following reason and understand context, con- Zettabytes by 2020.6 Connected ex- questions need to be addressed: nected experiences will become more periences will need infrastructure and consumable and engaging. connectivity to handle diverse sets of 1. Consumability: How do we create structured and unstructured data and a fresh and engaging user experience Adaptive engagement is another key input from sensors, images, audio, and with each customer interaction? capability. At the core of all connected video in the future. experiences is a comprehensive and 2. Adaptive Engagement: How can integrated platform that continuous- The seamless connectivity technolo- we quickly leverage vast amounts of ly learns and adapts to improve the gies delivering connected experiences data available to increase the engage- quality of engagement. The platform will create a network-of-networks sup- ment quality needed to drive consumer ingests and analyzes different types ported by 5G/spatial spectrum, block- intimacy and loyalty? of data (consumer, shopping history, chain for consistent records, wireless 3. Seamless Connectivity: How do environmental, etc.) to understand the power, and next-generation sensors. we securely stream real-time insights consumer and take intelligent, proac- 5G wireless technologies will provide at all times even in remote or compro- tive actions to improve the quality of consumers and enterprises with the mised environments? the experience. For example, in the stable connectivity capacity and speed previous vacation scenario, an inte- needed to power a future with billions Consumability helps create an excep- grated, interoperable vacation platform of connected devices. Companies such tional and fresh experience with each exploits user data to ensure restaurant as the Kymeta Corporation are working engagement. These experiences are recommendations are dynamically on enabling a future state of constant interactive, immersive, and collabo- adapted to preferences and dietary connectivity by developing new an- rative, all while delivering a specific restrictions. The underlying platform, tenna technology that can tap into the trusted outcome. Consumability not or “platform of platforms,” uses inter- satellite spectrum and offer more than only ensures consistency and person- connected data platforms, dynamic 5,000x the spectrum compared to ter- alization, but also seamless orches- synchronization, deep learning and restrial networks. Kymeta’s networks