A 6:00 A.M. alarm goes off on the “My Clock” mobile application on your phone. You drag yourself out of bed. The first thing that you do even before you put a pot of tea to boil is checking your emails and messages. Your first wishes of Good Morning are not to people around you but to people on your social networks. Your “My Gate” mobile application alerts you that your maid has entered the building. As you sip your tea your security alerts you that your Big Basket order is on its way up to you. You book your cab to work on one of the latest ride-sharing applications you heard about. You are considering evaluating alternative transport to your workplace using “Shuttl” which helps you book a seat on a bus that picks you up from home and drops you to your office.
As the day progresses you are constantly in touch with the world outside your office through digital means of communication. You check out updates on your Whats App more often than you check out your own appearance in the mirror through the day. You end up ordering a gift for a family member on Amazon after comparing prices and checking reviews. Instead of reading the newspaper you check out news feeds on your smartphone. For the important news you believe that you don’t have to find the news, the news will find you. Cyber-crime issues pique your interest as you are an avid user of all things digital.
You take the best route home with least traffic by checking out google maps. By the time you reach home, you know that your water filter maintenance personnel has been home and fixed your water purifier since your son was at home. All this was managed by you remotely through your smartphone. By evening you receive your son’s school report on your email. You reply to the teacher whom you are also in touch with. If you step out for an evening meal then your network gets to know via selfies, status updates, and check-ins. You get to know of events far and wide and sharing of the information becomes so easy through just one click. You have more friends and conversations on Facebook than you do in real life.
The above-mentioned person in the story could be you! We are all living in a digital world now. To understand the potential of how big digital can be for companies today we need to acknowledge that consumers are increasingly going digital. From your household help to your children, everyone is interacting with technology to take the benefits of an increase in convenience, an improvement in communications, an increase in choice and a reduction in price. Read the following results of a market survey on Customer Insight and Analytics to get a brief perspective of the future potential of digital growth published by SAP in 2015.
Here I would like to share five top statistics as mentioned by Erik Qualman, the American author in his book “Socialnomics” which went on to be voted Book of the Year by American Marketing Association in 2010.
- 93% of all the buying decisions of people below the age of 30 are influenced by digital media
- In 2020, the average person will have more conversations with bots than with their spouse
- People own more smartphones than toothbrushes
- 1 in 3 marriages start online
- 2 in 3 people get their news from social media
Thus, I would like to conclude by saying that this is just the beginning of a digital tomorrow. In Erik Qualman’s words “You don’t have a choice whether you do digital or not it is how well you do it.”
My name is Neha Agarwal and I am currently an Assistant Professor of Marketing at Indira School of Business Studies. Apart from being passionate about my subject of marketing, I am a digital consumer. The above description is that of a day out of my life. If marketers want a piece of the digital pie that will lead future business strategies and growth then they need to focus on getting the right tools, knowledge, and skills. The best way for future generation marketers to do that is to pursue higher studies with a focus on Big Data, Business Analytics, and Digital Communication. The courses suitable to such a profile would be Masters in Digital Communication, Masters in Big Data and Masters in Business Analytics. With such a degree you can have an edge over traditional MBAs. One of the leading courses available on these topics is offered by Indira Global Study Centre in partnership with FOM University, Germany. The power of choosing your future is in your hands now.
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