customer expectations and customer behavioris changing and brands are working hardto keep pace. With much of the informationavailable at their fingertips, consumers arein control like never before. It is all about data -brands are expected to have more data about their consumers, and this data today is the real powerthat is driving customer experiences and consequently revenues, market share and profits. At the same time, with these new channels, marketers areno longer required to invest heavily in the formof marketing budgets on traditional channels. Personalizationis taking the lead. The more intensework that the brand does in creating and delivering personalized customer engagements, the more meaningful is their relationship with the customer while continuing to gain valuable customer dataalong the way.

Going direct to the consumer has always existedfor quite some time. Dedicated stores ofthe likes of Nike and Apple have always existed;however, digital has brought in benefits in termsof significantly shrinking time to customer reachas well as the associated costs. Done effectively,these channels have delivered completely newbusiness models for enterprises across segments.In a recent report from the Reuters Institute for theStudy of Journalism (RISJ), the use of mobile devicesto access news on a weekly basis surged toalmost half 46 percent in the previous year and therise of sites such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.Traditional advertising based business modelsare being severely challenged with the consumerbacklash against digital ads. The financial resultsof Facebook for the June 2016 quarter are just reflectiveof this trend. Going by its numbers, Facebookwill make more revenue in advertising thanall of the U.S. newspapers put together - of a $6.4billion of total revenue 59 percent growth, advertisingrevenue was $6.2 billion 63 percent growthof which mobile advertising was 84 percent. Thetravel industry is going digital – 60 percent of leisureand close to 45 percent of business travelersare making their arrangements via the internet.

Recommendations and social media reviewsare increasingly influencing consumer decisionsrelating to destination, choice of hotels and others.There is significant work being done to attractand retain customers using social and mobile platforms, right from AirBnB, Hilton,Accor to Denver International Airportand Four Seasons and others, the successstories are many. Take the case ofTurkish Airlines which posted a recordhigh net profit in 2015 largely drivenby profit from main operations. Rightfrom the world’s first ever ‘Periscope’live broadcasted flight to creating anintegrated multi-platform approachthat communicates that they fly tomost destinations in the world, TurkishAirlines has been investing in severalinitiatives to reinforce the brand.

The pharma industry is moving to a solutions and outcome based industry working with an ecosystem of players to offer combo solutions that leverage the strength of each partner for what it does best. Companies like L’Oreal and Nike are investing in portale-Commerce experiences that allow the consumer to continue the transaction across channels from where they left. Insurers like Aetna, MetLife and Aflac have been investing in creating personalized digital experiences to provide unprecedented levels of customersatisfaction, brand engagement and trust. The retail business modelwith digital is now a long told story.

The world is changing very fast. Big will not beat small any more; it will be the fast beating the slow

Digital business is not only shaping new revenue models for enterprises but also helping them engage with customers during the sale, post sales in the form of taking feedback, reviews as well as ongoing customer support.There are predictions that sales professionals will be eventually replaced by robots. In fact some industries have already started doing it. The Forrester 2015 findings for pharma suggests in their report titled ‘Its Death of a (B2B)Salesman’ suggests that reps involved in basic 'order processing' for commodity products are most vulnerable,while sales professionals that promote more complex products will continue to add value to customer interaction.As bots take over, they will soon become the face of a brand. They notonly help consumers find the right product but also provide recommendations and tips based on customer history and user profiles, allowing agreat opportunity for brand to up-selland cross-sell. Take Domino’s experimentationof tweeting the pizza emojisto take orders. Tailoring a service foreach consumer has experienced severalinnovations using bots. It not onlytakes orders but could potentially alsoaddress customer complaints if the pizzadelivery is late. A whole new market with bot builder platforms is nowcoming up, making it simple to createa customer satisfaction or a sales bot.

Today’s connected consumer always wants their needs to be immediately met. Virtual reality is anotherpotentially disruption that can shapecustomer decisions like never before.Goldman Sachs estimates that virtualreality will be bigger than the TVmarket by 2025. With VR and AR,customers can see exactly how productswill look like and provide all theinformation they need to make theright decision. The hospitality industryis using VR to let consumers totransport themselves to the venue evenbefore they make the booking andtravel the world from anywhere theystand. VR is shaping new models forvarious industries including education,marketing, gaming, automotive, retailand manufacturing.

Beacon technology is another innovationdriving customer engagemen tlike never before. Retailers like Macy’s are using beacon to send specialoffers to customer smartphones inthe form of coupons. Beacons are also used for instance to enable consumersto use their smartphones and doin-location store searches, get pricingin formation and so on. There are severalother technologies that have beenshaping customer experiences. Personalizedvideos provide powerful waysto communicate with customers thatare uniquely designed for each viewer.Social media is no longer a tool onlyused to get customers to comment and like; now social networks have also opened up their systems of selling –Pinterest and Twitter for example haveopened up their channels to allow customers to also sell their items directly.The Pop-up is making a comeback to offer something for free in exchangefor an email id – these pop-ups are designed to come very rarely and workwonders for email marketing. Calltime wait diffuser that allows significantreduction in call wait times, calltracker to track traffic and measure performance, proactive chat that allowsa non-intrusive user experienceand innovation in online loyalty programs– the list is endless.