source: https://goo.gl/VPzLdy
In monitoring global trend so as to match up with today's commerce, there are two major things you should consider.
- Whatever idea you have must bring mass engagement, which is millions of customers should be able to use it.
- Have fun; in whatever you want to do, you and your customers should enjoy or have fun while using it.
How Will You Compete?
No matter the field you find yourself, you must have to think unconventionally. You do not have to belong to a financial institution before you can think innovation for a medium of exchange.
What Are the Key Factors in the Mega Trend?
- Time Frame: They are sustainable and in existence in the next 15 years at least.
- Global: It trends worldwide.
- Reach Out: They cut across every part of the society.
- Impact: They induce disruptive innovation which is hard to escape.
Three Ways of Doing Things
- Iteration: Doing the same things better.
- Innovation: Doing new things.
- Disruption: Doing new things that make the old ones obsolete.
What Examples of Mega Trends Can We Think of?
- Generation Y: They determine most of the trends (they ranges from age 15 to 35 and are highly inclined in IT)
- Internet and Smart Phone Tech: The link between phones, Banks and online retail stores.
- Mobile Transformers: Makes work easier; example is the keyword suggestion on keyboards.
- Drones: Are not just for photography anymore, online stores like Amazon uses it for delivery.
- Blockchain: Cryptocurrency, this is presently the major thing in commerce.
- Virtual Reality: A form of augmented reality, it makes visual experience unimaginable.
- 3D Printing: Can print in a molded form just like the graphic is with all features.
- Social Networks: Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, Linkedin, Youtube, Twitter etc.
- Instant Messaging: People can connect in real time from all over the world.
- Artificial Intelligence: Robots and Machine Learning.
Take a look at the evolution of Instant Messaging, it started from emailing to whatsapp and now the Chatboard. Chatboard is a kind of automated response that is facilitated by a machine who attend to inquiries by identifying keywords. The machine gives helpful directive in the chat or redirects you to a platform that can solve your problem without you having to leave the chat page.
Questions Human Ponder On.
- Will artificial intelligence surpass human intelligence?
- Is artificial intelligence a threat to the future of life and human existence?
This leads to an innovative mind just so that we can be able to gain a compelling link with the changing world. Allow me to say in this context that, innovation is the process of translating an idea or invention into a good or service that creates value or for which customers are willing to pay for.
For an idea to be considered innovative, it should be replicable at an economical cost and should satisfy a specific need.
Innovation involves deliberate application of information, imagination and initiative in deriving greater or different values from resources, and includes all processes by which new ideas are generated and converted into useful products.
Technology Innovation:
I consider this as a process, product, managerial change and creation that improve a company´s productivity and quality, and most importantly add value to customer.
It comprises of activities that contribute to the research, development and design of new products, services or techniques, or to improving existing products and generates new technological knowledge.
The Four Ps of Innovation
- Product: Changes in the product/services which an organization offers.
- Process: Changes in the ways in which they are created and delivered.
- Position: Changes in which the product/services are introduced.
- Paradigm: Changes in the underlying mental and business models which frame what the organization does.
Why Innovate?
It is imperative that Companies and enterprises keep innovation as part of their organizational activities. Innovations contribute to the success of an organization. Entrepreneurs, as innovators, see not just one solution to a need. They keep coming up with ideas and do not settle until they come up with multiple solutions.
Innovation is extremely important that companies often see their employees’ creativity as a solution. They come up with seminars and training to keep their employees stimulated to create something useful for others and in turn, financial gain for the company.
Most often, planned and measured combination of ideas, objects and people leads to innovation resulting in new business ideas and technological revolutions. In order for an innovation to be termed 'valuable', new products and services need to be strong enough to progress through rigorous commercialization processes and into the marketplace.
Taking us back to the path of service-rendering companies, innovation will tackle challenges like queues (at some path of the world), poor customer experience, increasing customer base and how mobile wallet can be adopted and improved upon.
I hope you get enlightened on the inclination of technology in commerce, the basic mega trends used to push commerce, the role of artificial intelligence and its future effect on human existence and workforce. I hope you identify problems in the different industries and how best it can be solved through the innovative ideas you can always generate.