“Everyone is doing everything now,” said Alita Wong, head of marketing for Asia Pacific of amdocs. “The mentality is changing (because of) device proliferation.” This is why for Wong, businesses need to “know how to be enabled to monetize.”
Alita Wong
As a case in point, there was a time when people were just glued on TV. But this is no longer the norm, since what’s being shown on TV can now also be seen in handier gadgets. In this instance, businesses – particularly telcos and broadcasters, which use TV and/or technological devices/gadgets – “need to know how to be able to grow their businesses using the newer approaches.”
The merging of traditional media, particularly broadcast, with newer forms of media has been well noted. Since January 2016, for instance, the number of Internet users grew by 10% to add over 354 million; the number of active social media users grew by 21% to add over 482 million; and the number of active mobile social users increased by 30% to add 581 million.
The changes in technology is closely tied with changes in society, and “business models need to also evolve at an unprecedented pace,” Wong said.
As a business, amdocs, of course, offers solutions – including big data nalaytics, virtual agent, and artificial intelligence – that could help businesses grow. But Wong added that a lesson that is also worth learning is the importance of collaboration.
“Collaboration is the way to go,” Wong said. In amdocs’ case, “if we’re too uptight, it won’t work. So we identify partners to make (things) happen.”
Surprisingly, Wong said that even with the complexity in offerings due to the multi-interaction between gadgets, “businesses now still have to be able to serve a market of one. To do this, the services provided have to be contextual. Seamless experience is the goal.”
Wong believes that technology can help businesses grow; and that adoption should always be a business goal. The urgency is also stressed by noted trends. For instance, it is estimated that by 2020, 100 million consumers will shop augmented reality; and by 2022, IoT will save consumers and businesses $1 trillion a year in maintenance, services and consumables.
“Businesses need to learn best practices… to see how they use commonplace technology concepts, such as search and marketing, to advance disruption across industries,” Wong said.
Wong added that “sometimes we think (adopting tech is) scary; but it’s irreversible. Technology enables (changes); technology is changing lives.”
