This is the second installment where we’ll be reviewing business insights from press mentions and interviews I gave over the past quarter. Customer experience is a common theme here, and particularly its interaction with technology. If you want your business to remain competitive in the specialty consumer sector, experience is the name of the game.
Mixed Reality and Customer Immersion
Article: Why Mixed Reality Could be a Business Game-Changer
Publication: The Food Institute
Date: July 31, 2023
Commentary: Metaverse-adjacent technologies like virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality are still finding their place in business, though the buzz around AI in 2023 displaced some of the prior focus on them. However, they aren’t going away and still have a profound impact on customer experience. Particularly for brands in food & beverage (F&B) or consumer packaged goods (CPG), there are multiple ways to provide a more immersive experience for your customer.
Customer Experience in the Travel Sector
Article: Why Airlines are Asking Passengers to Step on the Scales
Publication: CNBC
Date: August 28, 2023
Commentary: Most industries have been pressured into prioritizing customer experience, but one notable exception is airlines. Customers are pretty much stuck with a handful of options, most of which aren’t very different from one another. With substantial regulations forming a high barrier to entry, it’s incredibly difficult for new competitor airlines to get started; this insulates legacy airlines from standard market forces. While that may seem like an advantage at first, it also leads to consumer resentment. It’s far better to just take care of your customer.
The Fusion of Operations with Finance
Article: 11 Essential Soft Skills for CFOs to Enhance Their Leadership
Publication: TheStreet
Date: September 21, 2023
Commentary: Finance has evolved such that great CFOs need to be deeply in tune with operations. Many companies have actually merged these roles into a combined COO-CFO position. But regardless of how your organizational chart is set up, CFOs must understand and partner with operations, particularly in forward-looking functions like innovation. The biggest step for finance executives is to get out of the office once in a while and into the field where the actual production and sales are happening.
Solving Calendar Management and Scheduling
Article: 8 Game-Changing Technology Tools for Business Efficiency
Publication: Grit Daily
Date: July 6, 2023
Commentary: Calendar management can be incredibly taxing for any professional, and especially for business owners and executives who don’t have assistants. Between business and personal, trying to keep track of multiple calendars and scheduling availability is hectic and often rife with errors. Earlier this year I was looking for a solution to this for myself and came across Morgen, an innovative company from Switzerland that securely integrates my calendars and scheduling through one interface. I personally use this service and am glad to recommend it to others.
Building Stakeholder Trust
Article: Effective Strategies for Building Trust with Stakeholders
Publication: Conscious Capitalism Arizona
Date: July 7, 2023
Commentary: Business is largely trust-based, whether that’s your relationship with a customer, employee, investor, vendor, or whomever else. One of the best ways to get that relationship started off right is to deliver on a small promise. This lays a solid foundation on which you can build toward bigger projects or asks down the road.
Choosing an E-commerce Platform
Article: Things To Consider When Buying an E-Commerce Platform
Publication: U.S. News & World Report
Date: September 27, 2023
Commentary: For those of you with a direct-to-consumer sales model, few tools are as important as your e-commerce platform. Picking the right one for your business is a very nuanced decision, but one thing to keep in mind is your ability and desire to incorporate cutting-edge technologies like AI and AR as part of your on-site customer experience. Doing so can have a profound impact on sales, so think about what integrations you might need from your e-commerce platform in order to make it happen.
FULL-LENGTH INTERVIEWS
How to Adapt to the Future of Retail
Show: The KAJ Masterclass LIVE
Date: September 5, 2023
Secrets to Omnichannel Success in Today’s Digital Landscape
Show: Financial Freedom for Physicians
Date: September 15, 2023