At Online we've been building custom applications for over 30 years. They're called applications, because we are applying the computing hardware to solve some problem in our world. At Online, we have developed thousands of custom applications to solve our customers’ problems.
Today we still build applications, but the problems we're applying them to have changed significantly. Digital disruption and transformation have re-prioritized the problems our customers need to solve with custom-developed applications. The digital revolution is creating a demand for innovative Digital Experiences that extend beyond traditional application development.
At Online we look at our work from two perspectives – the problems we aim to solve and the actions we perform in response (aka the products we produce). At its root, the shift to Digital Experience is based on a few factors:
Redefining Your Brand
Our understanding of a brand/company or product is determined by the sum of our experiences, and when those experiences are redirected from the tried and true towards digital technology, you’re not just deploying another application, you are literally defining the experiences that customers will know you by.
The Need for Innovation
Traditional experiences have been built up over decades, through trial and error, and expectations of these have been inherited from generations before. Where innovations have been introduced, they've largely been extensions of traditional models. For example, while self-service checkouts reduce the time make a purchase, customers still arrive, shop, and leave in nearly the same manner as they did 20 years ago.
Responding to Demand
In 2016, former analogue, off-line, paper-based, and in-person processes are being supplanted by web, mobile, and smart machine interactions at an accelerating pace. This is driven by the wide-spread adoption of these technologies and heightened expectations for responsiveness, personalization, and convenience.
Digital Experiences are created when traditional experiences are significantly altered or replaced by new experiences that leverage digital technology. The online marketplace experiences of Amazon, Expedia, and Etsy bear little resemblance to the warehouse stores, travel agencies, and craft fairs they have replaced. They are successful only because these new experiences were carefully designed and refined to meet both basic and new-world digital experience expectations.
The reason we focus on Digital Experience is simple: for our customers to adapt and thrive in a world where their traditional interactions are being turned upside-down by digital disruption, they need to define new Digital Experiences that not only meet basic transactional needs, but are as good or better at communicating their brand identity.
Our Digital Experience team helps customers discover and invent the brand supporting, customer-centric Digital Experiences that deliver business results to the bottom line. Our team designs, builds, and supports the application software that powers the technology used to deliver those experiences on the device of their choice.
To learn more about Online’s Technology Consulting practice click here or leave a comment below.
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