Where will you invest – in technology or in emotion?

To move forward you need technology, at least for the more visible steps. So far, in my 20-year career, I’ve not been persuaded otherwise … perhaps because selling and launching innovative technology on the market is what I do. Over the past 9 years, I’ve mainly focussed on the field of business development and customer facing business processes.

FrodX = Marketing Automation?

FrodX has become recognized as a pioneer in marketing automation and personalisation, although we have always spent more time using this technology to explore shopping habits and marketing content transformation and sales in companies rather than just introducing technologies and supporting companies to use it. Two years ago, we took the CRM activities from two Slovenian system integrators and furthered the technological know-how in the field of marketing platforms with the work that sales and customer care require.

As a result of this step, Miha and I saw the key strategic advantage of FrodX; we offer our customers a one-stop-shop partner. We’ve got what no business advisor can offer in Slovenia, no marketing agency and no CRM provider can offer individually. Two years later and there are still only a handful of serious players who offer what we do. A single-hand-to-shake seems to me an extremely comfortable and effective option, one which I have always chosen as an entrepreneur; you reach your goal quickly, you lose the least amount of communication time, but above all, you deal with one person at one place and you do not have to negotiate with numerous people at numerous providers. Adding to this, we’re a certified partner of the world’s largest global technology providers such as SAP, Microsoft, Hubspot and Net-Results, many would say that we have peaked in our business …

Well, I must admit that for some time I’ve not been sleeping well because of my fear that our clients will become prisoners of technology and addicts of our technology partners. To a certain extent, it’s true and it’s hard to resist if you want to keep up with the best. However, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to solve our content related problems. Purchasing habits of people and their patterns of behaviour are constantly changing; we’re dealing with more and more demographically different groups, and consequently an increasing number of value patterns and communication channels and styles. I wonder how much longer we’ll still be able to advise our clients on how to design and communicate value, find a space and a communication channel where they’ll address their customers and try to build a relationship with them? Without this know-how, technology will lose its purpose.

Do you always need technology to achieve almost the same business result?

You’ve probably also heard that the police in some US cities use technology that tells you where and when a crime might happen. This information allows the police to optimise and improve the levels of security in those areas. We may come to the conclusion that people will be imprisoned in advance to prevent crimes happening. Like in Black Mirror …

To a certain extent, we have similar technology for predicting purchases, if I simplify it a little. We can give you a system that will tell you how likely it is that a certain person is your customer. Only a step or two into your webpage are required to simulate the sales results of an ad campaign and how the campaign will affect the average purchase value. Here is technology that listens to the web and social networks and understands sentiment messages in Slovene as well; Furthermore, it personalizes and automates the communication with this individual who “heard you” and recognizes their needs in real time and offers the customer a product when there is the greatest purchase probability at a given moment. The fact that technology today is able to adjust the time of sending a message to each individual and automatically selects the most suitable communication channel for it, is almost self-evident.

With all these technological possibilities available, I wonder who will be able to use it and in how much time. Only early-adopters, and to an extent early-majority clients, can bet on technological advances. Once technological equipment becomes a standard, differences can only be made by customer experience and perception of values in the eyes of the customer. Technology will become a commodity. Sooner or later.

Technology and Customer Experience Design to help you visibly transform your value to customers

Do not misunderstand me – it’s not that I don’t like selling technology. The opposite. This is how we (also) make our living. In my opinion, in most cases, it doesn’t serve as an advantage for companies. But I don’t mean that they don’t implement any functionality. I’m more aware of the fact that the introduction of new technology doesn’t further the development of value offered to its customers. It hurts me not to see the need to change the business model and personalize the product itself. To have no vision of how to step into the Transformational Economy. To offer such a degree of personalization of what they offer, so that everyone can recognize the purpose that best suits them. In the end, their product becomes the customer itself. When you reach this, every cent is smartly invested in technology. At that time, your brand may represent each of your customers with its own meaning. In the long-run, long-term relationships are the most important things to build on.

In a world where everything else has been commoditized, transformations may be the only thing left worth paying for.Jay La Fontaine