Holiday Reflections: The Shift in Business Dynamics
During the holidays I was offline most of the time. I took a break, reflected on what had been and made mental notes of things that I think to have observed. Many in my network were largely offline during the first week of the year, yet I did have a few calls and a couple of lunch meetings with people that I hadn’t seen in a while. During one of the lunch meetings the mental notes of what I think to have observed came into the conversation.
Observing the Shift: Business Communication in the Digital Age
I’m qualifying what I think to have observed for the simple reason, I hadn’t discussed it with anyone else yet. Maybe what I believe to have seen is a symptom of something else. I learned long ago to not assume that all is as it seems.
So, back to the lunch meeting. We played catch up on a personal level, we’ve known each other for over 20 years. After a bit, we started talking about business and those mental notes were in my thoughts.
Shared Experiences: Echoing Frustrations in Business Interactions
I said something to the degree of “I think I’m seeing a shift in business-to-business behaviors, internally and externally. People are becoming more and more frustrated with the lack of genuine conversations and relationships. There’s so much focus on process efficiency and all things digital, people are growing weary of continuous change and not being able to communicate on a personal level.” He agreed emphatically, saying he’s noticed the same thing and mentioned a couple of examples.
Rethinking Digital Transformation: A Call for Genuine Interaction
One example was the frustration of self-service being pushed on people while prices continue to rise. Another example was how difficult several companies and organizations make it to have a conversation with an actual person. If your question or need is slightly different than the bot you are chatting with, you can pretty much bet on having to start over again.
The conversation got me to thinking, if we are all experiencing this, then why aren’t we seeing companies do something about it?
Expertise and Digitalization: Finding a Balance in Business Strategy
Sure, we’ve all read and heard the promises of how the digital experience is becoming more personal, but I think a lot of it is smoke and mirrors, and not just from a B2B perspective, also from a consumer perspective. Many if not most companies are working to become more and more digital. We constantly hear about what AI is already doing and what it’s going to bring us, but I think we need to pump the breaks a bit. We need to have real conversations in parallel to qualify what we are thinking to be achieving with AI from a relationship perspective as to not alienate our employees and customers.
“Expertise loves to talk with expertise, it’s human nature, but bad for business”… I’ve said this for the past 10 years. I don’t think it’s ever been truer than it is today with digital transformation continually being a top priority in most strategic plans.
Invitation to Dialogue: Enhancing Business Relationships in the Digital Era
Here at NECXT we understand the complexity of this and would like to talk about your digital experience challenges. At the end of the day, digitalization has an undeniable influence on our relationships; the way we work together, the way we interact with our customers, and the way we live our lives.
Would you like to have a conversation to see how we can help your company evolve while remaining genuine. What are your thoughts? Let’s talk!!!