Zebra: Digital businesses need smarter marketing & increased visibility

With the proliferation of smart devices and demand for constant connectivity, businesses big and small are challenged to quickly transform their processes to keep pace with the speed of change.

As businesses scramble to keep up with the times, they often overlook the importance of communicating the value-add of smart technologies to their end-customers.

Some may ultimately miss the opportunity to educate their stakeholders on how investing in the "intelligent enterprise" will drive their business forward.

Marketing professionals are tasked with articulating the value and impact of these technologies, raising the organisation's market relevance and brand awareness.

Gartner predicts that 50% of all enterprises will be digital businesses by the end of 2017, and this number will rise to more than 80% by 2020. Let's explore the trends, or rather megatrends that are driving this growth and forever changing the way businesses operate.

The convergence of IoT, cloud and mobility are all driving real-time insights into operations and giving organisations the opportunity to gather the information needed to act on this visibility.

By 2020, there will be an estimated 1.75 billion global mobile workers, giving organisations more insight into their operations than ever before. The cloud enables organisations to leverage data collected from IoT devices and easily analyse and deliver real-time insights.

And with mobility, organisations can bring an omnipresent device into the workplace and empower their employees to individually act on insights in real-time even on the go.

Together, these trends create the perfect environment for new levels of Enterprise Asset Intelligence (EAI). EAI aims to move enterprises beyond improving efficiencies and increasing productivity to also help accelerate business growth and improve customer service through real-time operational visibility.

These megatrends are already changing the landscape of today's digital businesses, and marketers need to ensure the impact on operations – and ultimately the end-customer – are communicated to drive a competitive advantage.

With the laser-focus on implementing new technologies and keeping up with consumer demands, often updating or even rebranding corporate's mission gets overlooked, and that is to an organisation's detriment.

Articulating the corporate brand story helps build trust with current and potential customers, significantly impacting an organisation's bottom line. It is equally important to elevate beyond simply products and features, fending off any future commodification and communicating the significant, tangible benefits.

Gone are the days that marketing can only concentrate on leads and launches. Everything marketing chooses to do must have an impact on revenue. This requires Marketing to transform as much as digital enterprises are transforming.

We need to be able to sense data from the market and customers, analyse that data and take action to move the needle on revenue.

When it comes to digital business, the one thing you can count on is change, and marketers must move quickly to keep pace. IoT, mobility and cloud are creating an environment that enables new levels of productivity and accelerated growth to improve customer service.

But none of that matters if Marketing is unable to articulate the value-add for the end-customer.

By increasing strategic Marketing efforts and focusing on the brand, organisations can create a strong foundation for their businesses today and future-proof their business processes for an ever-evolving technology market tomorrow.