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Today’s electronics consumers expect muchmore than quality devices – they demand a quality experience. Their interest has shifted from the device itself to what they can do with the device. Electronics companies need to capitalize on this trend by offering not only advanced technology via products, but also services designed to enhance the consumer experience. To successfully expand their focus, device manufacturers will need to build capabilities that foster collaboration, glean customer insight, enhance service operations, and upgrade their software development capabilities and IT infrastructure.
Suffering the effects of decreased product differentiation, stalled growth and lowered margins, device manufacturers are looking for new growth opportunities. At the same time, they are faced with increasingly demanding consumers. With the proliferation of connected devices and continuous improvements in network accessibility, today's consumers expect to do more with their connected devices. They demand high performance and enhanced, integrated device experiences. As a result, there has been a clear shift in value from the devices themselves to the consumer’s experiences with them.
Responding to this value shift poses a challenge for many electronics manufacturers. To succeed in today’s connected world, they need to seek innovative ways to get closer to consumers. Device manufacturers need to focus on creating products and associated services that together meet consumers’ demands for superior experiences, ultimately transforming the way they live, work and entertain themselves.
Our latest industry study provides key insights to help guide electronics companies in this pursuit (see sidebar: Research methodology). To provide the compelling experiences that consumers desire – and those experiences they don’t yet know they want – electronics companies must expand their traditional focus on quality product manufacturing to include new capabilities for service excellence:
- Open collaboration – Support and facilitate collaboration with consumers, among employees and with external parties to uncover and test new ideas and seamlessly deliver innovative services.
- Customer insight – Capture consumer and usage data to generate new insights, and apply those insights to develop intuitive and relevant products and services, as well as personalized and effective marketing strategies.
- Service operation – Get past the idea of simply manufacturing devices and establish the necessary framework to enable service design, development and operation.
- Software development – Keenly focus on software – the driving force behind connected devices and associated services.
- Develop a plan to quickly and efficiently acquire necessary skills, as well as build long-term competence.
- Flexible infrastructure – Manage the consumer experience through flexible yet efficient technical delivery mechanisms.
- Explore creative options to reduce the initial cost burden and overcome IT complexity.
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