the company’s journey does not follow a progressive and logical sequence, but it is based instead on market potential and concentration, industry trends and characteristics.

“After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.”

A sonic brand is not limited by geography, language or culture. Music and sounds are timeless and transcend branding barriers such as language and color.

in positively differentiating a product or service, enhancing recall, creating preference, building trust, and even increasing sales. And it gives a brand an additional way to break through audiences’ shortened attention spans

Some of the most memorable audio doesn’t even have words or a music bed. They’re just a few notes, like Netflix and NBC’s signature tones. 

t mimesis (DiMaggio and Powell 1983).

Cultural codes provide a short-­‐hand for the consumer, allowing them easily to understand and experience the intended meanings.

It provides answers to four basic questions:

the major consequences for the international strategies of digital firms, i.e., firms selling purely digital products.

the main forces driving this fragmentation

Born global firms exemplify early and rapid inter-nationalization.3 We defined born globals as “entre-preneurial start-ups that, from or near their founding,seek to derive a substantial proportion of their rev-enue from the sale of products in internationalmarkets”(Knight & Cavusgil, 2004).

It is vital to national security. Governments will intervene to protect industries that are deemed vital to national security—especially in high tech sectors such as telecommunications and aerospace. The FBI, for instance, delayed Deutsche Telekom’s acquisition of Voicestream for reasons of national security.

It is seen as a national champion.

Geographic distance, for instance, affects the costs of transportation and communications, so it is of particular importance to companies that deal with heavy or bulky products, or whose operations require a high degree of coordination among highly dispersed people or activities. Cultural distance, by contrast, affects consumers’ product preferences. It is a crucial consideration for any consumer goods or media company, but it is much less important for a cement or steel business.

The most prominent of these is country portfolio analysis (CPA), the hoary but still widely used technique for deciding where a company should compete. By focusing on national GDP, levels of consumer wealth, and people’s propensity to consume, CPA places all the emphasis on potential sales. It ignores the costs and risks of doing business in a new market.

they routinely overestimate the attractiveness of foreign markets. They become so dazzled by the sheer size of untapped markets that they lose sight of the vast difficulties of pioneering new, often very different territories.

Sonic identity, done well, can efficiently and effectively improve these brand met-rics while also addressing the following five important challenges:

It requires rearchitecting the firm’s organization and operating model.

As both learning and network effects amplify volume’s impact on value creation, firms built on a digital core can overwhelm traditional organizations. Consider the outcome when Amazon collides with traditional retailers, Ant Financial with traditional banks, and Didi and Uber with traditional taxi services.

PwC survey shows financial services industry as the leader in blockchain adoption (46%) followed by industrial products and manufacturing (12%), energy and utilities (12%), and healthcare (11%); the bottom three are government (8%), retail and consumer (4%), entertainment and media (1%).

more than three quarters of 600 executives took the survey say their companies are at least looking into how they can benefit from blockchain technology. The survey has also revealed interesting views such as 45% of respondents believe the “trust” could delay adoption, 30% see China as a rising blockchain leader, and 28% say blockchain’s success depends on interoperability of different blockchains.

n public permissionless blockchains, blockchain is the trusted machine using PoW or POS algorithms18 based on cryptographic proof to ensure safe and secure transactions.

Interoperability and lack of integration among different blockchains are also identified as major hurdles standing in the way of blockchain’s future prospects.

A sim-ple five-note mnemonic tune composed over 20 years ago that, with the help of a clever marketing slogan, helped Intel become one of the most recog-nizable brands in the world.

“the language of the brand based on its “essence, voice, values, promise, and personality”

an amalgamation of mathematical, statistical, and computer science techniques that rely heavily on a stable infrastructure and usable data

Decision-making is supported by other cognitive processes, such as memory and attention. These processes have limitations.

Similar to order effects, decoy effects occur because people evaluate options in the context of other options. Introducing a “decoy” option, such as the inferior house, changes how you evaluate what was originally on the table.

One common type of order effect is called a “primacy effect.” In this case, it is harder to update one’s beliefs after the first idea has taken hold.

Our home-buying decision exemplifies one of the common characteristics of human decision-making: Decisions depend on context.

Trends

This research assumes that two main direct determinants of behavioural and attitudinal loyalty are consumers’ value and trust.

Customers who trust their service provider will stick with the company and recommend its service to their peers (Deng et al., 2010). In telecommunications industry, customer trust is associated with the emotional side of consumer loyalty and quality of the customer-service provider relationship (Chiou & Droge, 2006).

trust is defined as customers’ perceptions of qualities of service providers, including the ability, honesty, and goodwill of the companies (Deng et al., 2010). Trust has been highlighted as a significant factor in the formation of relationship and loyalty (Morgan & Hunt, 1994).

In a research conducted in the Chinese mobile data services, value is proved to directly influence customer repurchase intention (Qian, Peiji & Quanfu, 2011; Wang, Lo & Yang, 2004) and attitudinal loyalty (Qian, Peiji & Quanfu, 2011). Similarly, it is reported that value is related more significantly and positively to customer loyalty than service quality and switching costs are in the Australian mobile service (Lee, & Murphy, 2008).

Consumers are more likely to buy and repurchase the service that can offer them the largest obtained benefits (Wang & Wu, 2012). In other words, the higher the perceived value of a brand is, the more willing customers are to come back to that particular brand (Wallace, Giese & Johnson, 2004).

On the other hand, the behavioural loyalty is reflected by the share of the market, the percentage and the likelihood of purchases (Richard & Zhang, 2012). Behavioural loyalty is often determined by evaluating how many customers who stay with their service provider (Zeithaml, Berry & Parasuraman, 1996

Attitudinal loyalty is implied by preference and commitment regarding a brand, and demonstrates through less price sensitivity (Richard & Zhang, 2012). Attitudinal loyalty is usually assessed by customers’ inner feelings of attachment, positive word-of-mouth and recommendations (Zeithaml, Berry & Parasuraman, 1996). Attitudinal loyalty can be concluded by examining whether customers deem themselves to be loyal to a particular ISP, and whether they consider the ISP as the best choice for them (Kim & Niehm, 2009).

Chiou (2004) also say that consumer satisfaction affect brand trust, which in turn influence brand loyalty in Taiwanese ISP industry. Hence the following has been hypothesised:

Previous research has suggested that customer satisfaction is the antecedent of customer trust (Danesh, Nasab & Ling, 2012; Suki, 2011). Consumer trust is affected directly by the level of satisfaction from the previous purchase (Singh & Sirdeshmukh, 2000). In another word, when customers happy with the current or previous buy, they tend to have greater trust toward their incumbent service provider.

Consumer expectations can be influenced by brand information, such as brand awareness, brand image and brand personality (Varela et al., 2010). Researchers also find that consumer expectations are related to consumer satisfaction (McDonald, Sutton & Milne, 1995).

Following the foregoing discussion, sales promotion is believed to weaken brand equity despite the short-term benefits offered to the consumers (Buil, de Chernatony & Martínez, 2013).

the success of lifestyle marketing lies in understanding what drives your customers, and the values and behaviors that inspire them in life. 

it's important to deliver a personalized experience to your consumers, along with better products and services that will meet their needs

A basic principle of lifestyle segmentation is that the more you understand your consumer's lifestyle, the more effective your marketing and communication strategy will be to your consumers.

Red Bull has managed to become not just the biggest energy drink in the world but also a brand that sells an adrenaline-fueled lifestyle, which lies at the heart of the success that Red Bull has seen.

Consider the lifestyle brand, Red Bull as an example and how their tagline is "Red Bull gives you wings." The energy drink has a marketing and advertising strategy that is geared towards people who are adventurous, who value doing the extreme and need the 'wings' to help them. Red Bull has managed to position themselves, and their brand, in such a way where fear isn't in their vocabulary and going where their customers are is part of the plan. 

lifestyle marketing is a marketing approach where a brand connects itself to the ideals, values and aspirations of their identified target audience.

In essence, a lifestyle is a way in which behaviors are based on a set of interests, activities, cultures, opinions or other characteristics that set a group of people apart from others.

Rolex is successful because of wide awareness of the brand name. Rolex is smart about the fact that their consumers want other people to notice the name on the watch on their wrist, and because of this the brand continues to enjoy wide demand. Having a well-made product without wide awareness will only make you a cult hit at best. Luxury brands like Rolex who spend money on both marketing and product have it figured out.

Luxury watch marketing is actually quite weak. For an industry that sells much of its goods to men, they have taken a few too many lessons from women's fashion marketing. In fact, the only upside of how luxury watch brands market is in that they know consumers like to buy from "famous brands." The most success luxury watch makers have with marketing is name awareness.

In most instances, people aren't buying luxury products for utility any longer - and that is something which is difficult to deny. It is also something the traditional watch industry knows very well.

People are more interested in being part of a brand that they have been marketed to, versus acquiring the utility or craftsmanship of a particular item they will appreciate.

Again, lifestyle marketing is designed to convey a message about what ideas and personality’s consumers should associate with a brand.

They hunger for information, transparency, and above all authenticity [9]

Marketing is an invitation for a consumer to learn more.

Marketing to watch lovers is so fruitful exactly because they are hungry for information, but the messages need to be appropriate. The company should explain the virtues of a watch and why it is so appealing; as opposed to creating a romantic scene that the brand would ideally like to see their watch existing within. That's lifestyle marketing, and it simply doesn't reach the needs of serious watch buyers.

The watch industry needs to do is refocus its marketing creation efforts on high-quality messages that reach the right people. They also need to dedicate resources to market to those people. The fastest way for the luxury watch industry to increase its pain is to further stop marketing. Again, the luxury watch industry is a marketing-driven industry. So they better put some more effort into it. A company's status as a lifestyle brand isn't achieved by providing a wide range of products but by the benefit and symbolic value that the customer associates with the brand.

This term is used probably far too often in the world of marketing today, and when people say it, they refer to a marketing philosophy that emphasizes what people who use products might ideally be like, versus marketing the particular benefits or qualities of a product

Watch lovers are hungry for information about watches that will help them make personal decisions about what watch to buy. They make these decisions as a function of their own lifestyle and interests versus the lifestyle and interests of others.

The bulk of watch advertising around the world focuses on the very simple formula of, "want to be like X, wear Y." This is totally apart from any actual message on why a particular product is interesting, useful, or noteworthy.

The emphasis is on how much the consumer wants to enjoy something that idealized image has, and in order to capture that, they are instructed to simply copy it. Thus, lifestyle marketing is about the perception that we gain attributes through mimicry

What happens is that rather than a brand pricing a timepiece as a function of its overall production cost, quality, and competitive value, the pricing reflects who a brand "hopes" should be wearing their products. Here, there is a firm disconnect between the qualitative nature of pricing, and the lifestyle-creating aspect of pricing.

focus on the illusion of how people are going to feel, look, and be perceived if they purchase a particular service or product.

The packaging of lifestyle isn't usually about helping people find new things to be interested in, but it is often packaged as a means of helping people to seek an ultimate goal – which is often about appearing more active, healthy, successful, or attractive, than one "normally" is.

Consumers are known to choose a brand that is acceptable to their self-image that they are trying to portray.

Lifestyle brands seek to inspire, guide, and motivate people, with the goal of their products contributing to the definition of the consumer's way of life. They often operate off an ideology, hoping to attract a relatively high number of people and ultimately becoming a recognised social phenomenon.

Furthermore, the consumer will believe that their identity will be reinforced if they publicly associate themselves with a particular lifestyle brand.

n organisation achieves a lifestyle brand by focusing on evoking an emotional connection with its consumers. Therefore, organisation can create a desire for a consumer to be affiliated with a particular group or brand.

A lifestyle brand is an ideology created by a particular organisation’s brand. It pursues to embody the identities, interests, lifestyles, attitudes and opinions of an individual, group or culture.

"Approach customers with a personalized warm welcome,""Probe politely to understand all the customer's needs,""Present a solution for the customer to take home today,""Listen for and resolve any issues or concerns," and "End with afond farewell and an invitation to return."

"You were never trying to close a sale. It was about findingsolutions for a customer and finding their pain points,"

Retail analysts say many of Apple'sadvantages over rivals such as Best Buy are technical: It sells a single brand, has far fewer products and has onlya few hundred stores compared to Best Buy's more than 4,000. As the company continues to expand, someanalysts expect it to face more pressure to consistently execute good customer service

There are external factors that relate to howcustomers see your brand with respect to your competition. These are oftenformidable by themselves. But more formidable are the internal factors thataffect loyalty. Much of it is about clearly defining and articulating yourbrand. Once you have done that your company begins to move with power,agility and a common purpose. The same purpose that we have explored inStarbucks and Barnes & Noble. Once you have unlocked the potential ofyour brand you will create an environment that enables and encouragesloyalty. With that in place you will be much more likely to have considerablesuccess with marketing programs that enhance loyalty

On the other hand, companies that do not encourage loyalty have a series ofmixed messages that drift through the company to employees, customers andsuppliers. Nobody is clear about the brand's purpose

The best companies at earning loyalty, such as Starbucks andBarnes & Noble, have done so with a two-part approach. First, they have asingular focus on what they do and who they are. They are passionate abouttheir business. They create genuine value for customers. This attractscustomers to and keeps them with the brand. Second, they create marketingprograms that enhance customers' experience with the brand. This increasesshare of customer.

Loyalty ultimately generates positive and measurable financialresults. Improvements in retention and increases in share of customer are theobvious economic benefits. There are certain other benefits that are notalways quite so obvious.

Outside of retailing, the opportunity lies in developing a value propositionthat achieves the same result. Make members feel special while generatingprofitable incremental sales. It is not easy and each industry and companyhas its own formula which must be developed. But look at the side benefits.A company which goes through the process of developing special value forgood customers benefits in three ways:•Customers stay customers longer. If they have a problem along the wayand they feel that you care about them, they will call and complain andfix their problem rather than quietly defecting.•Customers buy more. They consolidate their purchases in your categorywith your brand.•Employees stay longer. Yes, it is true. When you focus more on thecustomer, all employees think about how to ensure a delightful customerexperience. Employees enjoy treating customers well. It is humannature. As a result, employees feel better about their jobs andthemselves

The pursuit of customer loyalty is a perpetual one. It is more of ajourney than a destination. There are no clearly-defined guidelines to makeloyalty marketing approaches easy in any given industry. But understandingthe background and evolution of loyalty marketing can help make thestrategy definition process a bit easier. Reviewing some real-world examplesof loyalty marketing approaches can help reduce the amount of time requiredto develop a loyalty strategy and can help marketers avoid some classicmistakes.

When members earn points, you incur an expense on your incomestatement and set up a redemption liability on your balance sheet. Those arethe fundamentals; behind the scenes there is a great deal of complexity. Justdo not forget about all this complexity. Involve some smart people in youraccounting or finance department to help you assess this and do not overlookthe cost of redemption in your economic models

The redemption should be used to drive incremental sales. After all, theprimary objective of all this is to improve retention and increase share ofcustomer.

Select an appropriate unit of measureNot too large and not too small. As a rule of thumb, a promotional currencyshould be worth $ 0.01 on the redemption side of the equation.

Name your promotional currencyThe currency might be referred to as “points” or “miles”. It is important toname your currency.

a loyalty strategy can create a reluctance to defect on the part ofcustomers. Sometimes it is an economic reluctance to defect because thecustomer feels he loses something by defecting to another brand. Sometimesit is a psychological reluctance to defect because the customer feels engagedwith the brand and feels that a mutually successful relationship is lost if hedefects.

They know thattheir status as frequent travelers makes the airline listen carefully and act onany issues or concerns. And the traveler feels that he has a stake in the futureof the airline because he has equity in the form of miles. Ultimately,customers that feel good about the brand and feel they have a say in thedelivery of the brand experience become advocates for the brand

Conceptually, loyalty strategies seek to build stronger and more durablerelationships with customers. Durable relationships help encouragecustomers to do something about a problem they have had with a product orservice rather than quietly defecting from the brand.

a customer cannot experience the brand withoutexperiencing the loyalty strategy.

The model employed in the travel industry is known as the promotionalcurrency approach. A promotional currency – miles or points – is earned asthe member spends. The promotional currency is redeemed for something ofvalue – in this case free travel. There are certain characteristics of the travelbusiness, and especially the airline business, which have made thepromotional currency approach successful:

Share of customerLet us define this share of customer thing. I will not belabor this point, butthere are some important ground rules that the reader should embrace beforeproceeding.Let us use gasoline purchases as a category to explore the concept of shareof customer. Let us assume that I spend about $50 per month on gasoline formy vehicle and my expenditures are distributed among the following brands.Figure 1 illustrates my share of customer split in the category.In Figure 1, Citgo has 60 percent of my purchases or 60 percent share ofcustomer in the category. Exxon has 20 percent, Shell 10 percent and 10percent of my expenditures go to other brands.Let us consider another example. Let us assume I spend $120 per month ongasoline and it is distributed as illustrated in Figure 2.What is the difference in the way marketers often interpret these twosituations? Traditionally, marketers have focussed on customers that spendthe most with their brand. So Citgo would think that the customer in Figure1 is better than the customer in Figure 2, because the first customer spends$30 per month with Citgo while the second customer spends just $24 permonth with Citgo. But the greater growth opportunities exist with thecustomer in Figure 2. Does that mean that the customer in Figure 1 is lessimportant? No. But it does suggest different objectives and perhaps differentstrategies. We seek to retain the customer in Figure 1, we seek to increasethe share of our business with the customer in Figure 2. That is what share ofcustomer is all about.

People seek sen-sory stimulations (McAllister and Pessemier 1982) andshow negative effects under sensory deprivation (Gold-berger 1993). They seek pleasure and avoid pain (Freud[1920] 1950), and they need intellectual stimulation toavoid boredom (Cacioppo and Petty 1982). Thus, experi-ences provide value and utility similar to utilitarian attrib-utes (Brakus, Schmitt, and Zhang 2008). The notion ofexperiential value is also inherent in the applied work onexperience, especially in the work Pine and Gilmore (1999).Because experience provides value, we expect that the morea brand evokes multiple experience dimensions, and there-fore has a higher overall score on the scale, the more satis-fied a consumer will be with the brand.Moreover, because experiences result from stimulationsand lead to pleasurable outcomes, we expect consumers towant to repeat these experiences. That is, brand experienceshould affect not only past-directed satisfaction judgmentsbut also future-directed consumer loyalty. Consumersshould be more likely to buy a brand again and recommendit to others and less likely to buy an alternative brand (Mit-tal and Kamakura 2001; Oliver 1997; Reicheld 1996).

For IS organisations, it concludes that while the cultural, organisational and operational impacts of offshoringare low, the economic impact is significant and is leading tothe emergence of the modern heterarchy, a new form of multi-national enterprise (MNE).

IS offshoring, which involves distributed software development, defined as occurring when teams of geographically dispersed individuals work as part of a global virtual team across nationalboundaries

However, itsprimary role has been as a prescriptive model, a way of specifying of how individualsoughtto behave, rather than how they actually behave. Proponents of normativerational choice that just as rational beliefs (“theoretical reason”) ought to followthe rules of logic and probability in order to be valid, rational actions (“practicalreason”) must follow from the rules of utility maximization, which incorporate butgo beyond logic and probability, in order to be optimal

The self-interest of the individual participant at thislevel leads him to take a position as a ‘representative’ or ‘randomly distributed’participant in the succession of collective choices anticipated. Therefore, he maytend to act, from self-interest, as if he were choosing the best set of rules for thesocial group.” (Buchanan and Tullock 1962, 95).

This digital transformation depends upon Internet of Things: a diffusion of smartphones and apps, digital payment solutions, and the potential of big data for planning and operating public transportation, as well as the development of a technical platform

Important dimensions in digital transformation include the digitization of information, assembling and analyses of large amounts of data (big data), internet representation of physical objects (Internet of Things), and technical platforms acting as intermediaries of information. These are all important characteristics in the following cases

A failed digital transformation doesn’t spell the ultimate end of a company, but it can be incredibly costly in lost money, resources, time and credibility.

A digital transformation is a complicated and risky endeavor. When done correctly, it can lead to amazing, future-proof results, but when done incorrectly it can be extremely costly and embarrassing for the company. These failed transformations show common missteps, but the companies behind them prove that failure isn’t the end of the road and that successful digital transformation is possible.

Lesson: Look at the competition. The return on investment for a widespread and expensive digital transformation was small, especially with signs on an economy on the brink. P&G likely could have seen more success if it had focused on smaller digital efforts that were more targeted to its existing products and processes.

However, its broad goal led to broad initiatives that lacked purpose. Coupled with a slumping economy, P&G faced problems from the start.

Lesson: Integrate digital transformation efforts with the rest of the company. In this case, digital transformation as less of an actual transformation and more of a pivot into a new business area. To be successful, digital transformation needs to be integrated into the company.

The goal was to leverage data to turn GE into a technology powerhouse.

Not only was it headquartered far from the rest of the company, but it was seen as a separate entity with no cohesion to other business units.

Lesson: Focus on quality, not quantity. GE tried to do too much without a real strategic focus in any area. The company was simply too large to transform all at once, especially without a true vision of what it was trying to achieve. Digital transformations are often done best with a handful of passionate people leading the charge instead of thousands of employees.

In 2011, GE started a major effort to assert itself in the digital software space by building a huge IoT platform, adding sensors to products and transforming its business models for industrial products.

In 2014, classic American car company Ford attempted a digital transformation by creating a new segment called Ford Smart Mobility. The goal was to build digitally enabled cars with enhanced mobility.

Sorgenia, an Italian electricity and natural gas producer, launched a transformation project with a very clear goal: to increase its customer base from 300,000 to 1 million in only five years primarily by building and improving digital channels.

The remedy: Define and articulate not only the opportunity but also the problem it solves, and how the company will build the organization around the desired solution before investing.

Lesson 3: Design customer experience from the outside in. If the goal of DT is to improve customer satisfaction and intimacy, then any effort must be preceded by a diagnostic phase with in-depth input from customers.

Lesson 1: Figure out your business strategy before you invest in anything.

rely instead on insiders — staff who have intimate knowledge about what works and what doesn’t in their daily operations.

most digital technologies provide possibilities for efficiency gains and customer intimacy. But if people lack the right mindset to change and the current organizational practices are flawed, DT will simply magnify those flaw

In a circular economy, products, parts and materials are kept at their highest utility and value at all times, circulating between customers. These productive loops maintain value while minimizing waste and the extraction of finite resource reserves.

In marketing, the concept of value can be defined as all the benefits generated for the customer because of the sacrifice made by the customer in acquiring a product or service.

The marketing concept states that the most important task of the company is to determine what the needs and desires of the consumers are and to try to adapt the company to provide the satisfaction of those desires.

a social process in which individuals or groups obtain what they need and desire by creating, offering and exchanging valuable products with others.

Marketing is a set of activities that involve the process of creating, planning and developing products or services that meet consumer needs, and communication and sales strategies that outperform the competition.

He is a market researcher, a psychologist, a sociologist, an economist, a communicator, a lawyer, all in one person.

Marketing aims to maximize consumption, consumer satisfaction, choice and quality of life.

It is also a technique: a specific way of executing a trading relationship (ie identifying, creating, developing and serving demand).

Marketing is a philosophy: a mental posture, an attitude, a way of conceiving the relations of exchange

AR is already redefining instruction, training, and coaching. These critical functions, which improve workforce productivity, are inherently costly and labor-intensive and often deliver uneven results. Written instructions for assembly tasks, for instance, are frequently hard and time-consuming to follow. Standard instructional videos aren’t interactive and can’t adapt to individual learning needs. In-person training is expensive and requires students and teachers to meet at a common site, sometimes repeatedly. And if the equipment about which students are being taught isn’t available, they may need extra training to transfer what they’ve learned to a real-world context.

At Boeing, AR training has had a dramatic impact on the productivity and quality of complex aircraft manufacturing procedures. In one Boeing study, AR was used to guide trainees through the 50 steps required to assemble an aircraft wing section involving 30 parts. With the help of AR, trainees completed the work in 35% less time than trainees using traditional 2-D drawings and documentation. And the number of trainees with little or no experience who could perform the operation correctly the first time increased by 90%.

This explains why AR is so powerful. There is no better graphical user interface than the physical world we see around us when it is enhanced by a digital overlay of relevant data and guidance where and when they are needed. AR eliminates dependence on out-of-context and hard-to-process 2-D information on pages and screens while greatly improving our ability to understand and apply information in the real world.

Dedicated AR heads-up displays, which have only recently been incorporated into automobiles, have been a key feature in elite military products, such as fighter jets, for years and have been adopted in commercial aircraft as well. These types of displays are too expensive and bulky to integrate into most products, but wearables such as smart glasses are a breakthrough interface with wide-ranging implications for all manufacturers. With smart glasses, a user can see an AR display on any product enabled to communicate with them. If you view a kitchen oven through smart glasses, for example, you might see a virtual display that shows the baking temperature, the minutes remaining on the timer, and the recipe you are following. If you approach your car, an AR display might show you that it is locked, that the fuel tank is nearly full, and that the left-rear tire’s pressure is low.

Because an AR user interface is purely software based and delivered via the cloud, it can be personalized and can continually evolve. The incremental cost of providing such an interface is low, and manufacturers also stand to save considerable amounts when traditional buttons, switches, and dials are removed. Every product manufacturer needs to carefully consider the disruptive impact that this next-generation interface may have on its offering and competitive positioning.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is going a step further by combining AR instructions with VR simulations to train personnel in responding to emergency situations such as explosions. This reduces costs and—in cases in which training in real environments would be dangerous—risk. The energy multinational BP overlays AR training procedures on VR simulations that replicate specific drilling conditions, like temperature, pressure, topography, and ocean currents, and that instruct teams on operations and help them practice coordinated emergency responses to disasters without high costs or risk.

Ford, for example, is using VR to create a virtual workshop where geographically dispersed engineers can collaborate in real time on holograms of vehicle prototypes. Participants can walk around and go inside these life-size 3-D holograms, working out how to refine design details such as the position of the steering wheel, the angle of the dashboard, and the location of instruments and controls without having to build an expensive physical prototype and get everyone to one location to examine it.

AR will be far more widely applied in business than VR will. But in some circumstances, combining AR and VR will allow users to transcend distance (by simulating faraway locations), transcend time (by reproducing historical contexts or simulating possible future situations), and transcend scale (by allowing users to engage with environments that are either too small or too big to experience directly). What’s more, bringing people together in shared virtual environments can enhance comprehension, teamwork, communication, and decision making

AR complements existing print and 2-D digital communication approaches and in some cases can replace them altogether. Yet we see AR as much more than just another communication channel. It is a fundamentally new means of engaging with people. Just consider the novel way it helps people absorb and act on information and instructions. The web, which began as a way to share technical reports, ultimately transformed business, education, and social interaction. We expect that AR will do the same thing for communication—changing it in ways far beyond what we can envision today. Companies will need to think creatively about how they can use this nascent channel.

AR is redefining the concept of showrooms and product demonstrations and transforming the customer experience. When customers can see virtually how products will look or function in a real setting before buying them, they have more-accurate expectations, more confidence about their purchase decisions, and greater product satisfaction. Down the road, AR may even reduce the need for brick-and-mortar stores and showrooms altogether. When products can be configured with different features and options—which can make them difficult and costly to stock—AR is a particularly valuable marketing tool. The construction products company AZEK, for instance, uses AR to show contractors and consumers how its decking and paver products look in various colors and arrangements. Customers can also see the simulations in context: If you look at a house through a phone or a tablet, the AR app can add a deck onto it. The experience reduces any uncertainty customers might feel about their choices and shortens the sales cycle. In e-commerce, AR applications are allowing online shoppers to download holograms of products. Wayfair and IKEA both offer libraries with thousands of 3-D product images and apps that integrate them into a view of an actual room, enabling customers to see how furniture and decor will look in their homes. IKEA also uses its app to collect important data about product preferences in different regions.

We expect that in the near future AR-enabled devices such as phones and smart glasses, with their embedded cameras, accelerometers, GPS, and other sensors, will increasingly inform product design by exposing when, where, and how users actually interact with the product—how often a certain repair sequence is initiated, for example. In this way the AR interface will become an important source of data.

The effects of AR can already be seen across the value chain, but they are more advanced in some areas than in others. In general, visualize and instruct/guide applications are now having the greatest impact on companies’ operations, while the interact capability is still emerging and in pilot testing.

AR creates business value in two broad ways: first, by becoming part of products themselves, and second, by improving performance across the value chain—in product development, manufacturing, marketing, service, and numerous other areas.

AccuVein, for instance, uses AR technology that converts the heat signature of a patient’s veins into an image superimposed on the skin, making them much easier to locate. Boeing uses AR to show trainees how to assemble an aircraft wing—and has cut the time it takes them to do that task by 35%. At GE, factory workers have achieved a similar gain in efficiency by using voice commands in AR experiences to perform complex wiring.

AR improves how users visualize information, receive and follow instructions, and interact with products.

Pioneering organizations are already implementing it in product development, manufacturing, logistics, marketing, service, and training—and are seeing major gains in quality and productivity.

AR will become the new interface between humans and machines, say Michael E. Porter of Harvard and James E. Heppelmann, the CEO of the industrial software maker PTC.

Augmented reality, a set of technologies that superimposes digital data and images on physical objects and environments, is closing this gap. By putting information directly into the context in which we’ll apply it, AR increases our ability to absorb and act on it.

For instance, launching a new service concept (for existing or newclients) requires marketing expertise. Similarly, creating an adequate interface with clients, andadapting the service delivery system, require knowledge of how services are distributed (both in termsof where they are produced and of how they are delivered). The decision as to whether to develop newservices requires also organisational knowledge: can the current organisation deliver the new service?What organisational changes might be needed?The point here is that a particular service innovation may be characterised by one dominant featurerelated to one of the above-mentioned dimensions; quite likely, this particular feature will prompt a setof changes in other dimensions, in order to bring about a successful innovation.

Any service innovation involves a specific combination of the above-mentioned dimensions of serviceinnovation. A complete new service will usually mean that a new service delivery system will have tobe developed, employees will have to change the way they work or relate to customers (the clientinterface), the way IT is used in business processes, whereas a new service concept may also beinvolved. Apart from the meaning of these four dimensions separately as discrete vectors of change,the linkages between these dimensions may be of even more significance.

In manufacturing innovation, new products (and processes) are typically highly tangible and visible.This is often not the case with services. Some service innovations are highly visible, especially wheredelivery of the product is involved (ATMs, etc.). However, frequently it is not so much a physicalproduct but a much more intangible characteristic of a new service, like a new idea or concept how toorganise a solution to a problem. Although a particular service concept may already be familiar inother markets, the key thing is that it is novel in its application within a particular market.

It refers to the internal organisational arrangements that have to be managed to allowservice workers to perform their job properly, and to develop and offer innovative services. It isclosely related to the question of how to empower employees, to facilitate them so that they canperform their jobs and deliver service products adequately. On the one hand, new services may requirenew organisational forms, (inter)personal capabilities, and skills. On the other hand, an organisationcan be designed, and employees can be trained, so as to leave room for innovations and non-conventional solutions to practical problems.

Although not all service innovations have such a strong conceptual element, conceptualinnovations are much more likely to be found in service firms (or better service functions) than in puremanufacturing firms. Such innovations are usually highly intangible – meaning that while in somecases the service itself may have quite tangible elements, the new features are less to do with materialartefacts, etc.

As usual ininnovation research, there are thorny problems concerning when a product, function or concept isreally new. Judgements can vary according to whether and when it is new to the providing firm, newto the client, to the regional, national or global market and whether it involves new logic or scientificknowledge.

changes in the work-life and health domain,

useof information and communication technology

organizational hierarchies

performance andtalent management

Currently, the downsides of this merger are starting to become obvious, including the loss of privacy, political polarization, psycho‑logical manipulation, addictive use, social anxiety and distraction, misinformation, and mass narcissism.53

From a historical perspective of social change, the merger between biological and AI has already crossed beyond any point of return, at least from the social science perspective of society as a whole

Advancements in the field of AI have been dazzling. AI has not only superseded humans in many intellectual tasks, like several kinds of cancer diagnosis47 and speech recognition (reducing AI’s word-error rate from 26% to 4% just between 2012 and 2016)

The discussion of digital technology and social change is part of the broader literature of innovation theory.1 Inno‑vation theory is most commonly based on Schumpeter’s notion of socioeconomic evolution through technological change.2,3 The reputed “prophet of innovation” himself gave it an illustrative name: “creative destruction.”4Creative destruction works on different levels, reaching from product cycles, over fashion and investment‑ lifecycles (including so-called Kitchin and Juglar cycles), to so-called business cycles. The result is “an indefinite number of wavelike fluctuations which will roll on simultaneously and inter‑fere with one another in the process...

As always in technological para‑digms, the process of successful technological innovation was closely followed by a process of technological diffusion.3

Digitally maturing companies are in a position to recognize the benefits from collaboration. More than 80% of respondents from maturing organizations agree or strongly agree their workplace environments are collaborative compared to competitors. Only 34% of respondents from early­stage companies feel the same way. Digitally maturing organizations are also much more likely to use cross­functional teams to im­plement digital initiatives — 44% of respondents from maturing organizations versus a scant 16% from early­stage companies.

A culture conducive to digital transformation is a hallmark of maturing companies. These organiza­tions have a strong propensity to encourage risk taking, foster innovation and develop collabora­tive work environments. “Culture needs to support collaboration and creativity,” says Mohamed­Hédi Charki, an associate professor at EDHEC Business School in France who focuses on the outcomes as­sociated with the implications of an enterprise social network at a European cosmetics company. “In this fast­changing, complex world, if a company sees innovation as something incremental, it will be mar­ginalized in the coming years.

Whatever the end state of digital transformation turns out to be, reaching it is not simply about technology. Our research found a truism that is often lost in the face of technology hype: Digital maturity is the product of strategy, culture and leadership. To position their orga­nizations to move forward into a digitally transformed future, business leaders should tackle these questions

Business models will reach theirsell-by dates more quicklyLeaders of the so­called “sharing economy” such as Uber, the mobile ride­services company, and Airbnb, the online accommodations marketplace, are re­writing the economics of their industries. Other disruptions are waiting in the wings. Emory profes­sor Konsynski points out that the very premise of ownership is fading away, and Millennials are less interested in ownership than are members of earlier generations.

The digital transformation of business is a new phenomenon, and no company has yet reached the end state nor definitively defined it

Training to fill skill gaps is increasingly offered online and on a just­in­time basis. As part of its new ap­proach to learning, The Walt Disney Co., for example, has implemented a platform that offers video, mobile and digital content to employees as needed. “Three or four years ago, learning at Disney happened in class­rooms,” says Steve Milovich, senior vice president of global human resources and talent diversity, Disney/ABC Television Group and also senior vice president of employee digital media, The Walt Disney Com­pany. “Now we offer content such as TED­like talks featuring Disney executives that allow employees to seek knowledge when and how they need it.”Just as important as developing talent is reducing the risk of losing it. On average, nearly 80% of respon­dents say they want to work for a digitally enabled company or digital leader. The sentiment crosses all age groups, from 22 to 60, nearly equally. “The myth is that digital technology is a young person’s game,” says Scott Monty, the former executive vice president of strategy at Shift Communications, now principal at Scott Monty Strategies. “At one point, women over 55 represented the fastest­growing Facebook demo­graphic. This is about how humans interact, not just about how Millennials do.” (See Figure 5.)

Several obstacles stand in the way of digital maturity; lack of strategy and competing priorities lead the list of speed bumps. Lack of a digital strategy is the big­gest barrier to digital maturity for companies in the early stages, according to more than 50% of respon­dents from early­stage organizations. As companies move up the maturity curve, competing priorities and concerns over digital security become the pri­mary obstacles. (See Figure 2.)

Greater integration betweenonline and offline experiencesDigital strategies will need to address the increasingly blurred distinction between the online and offline worlds. At the Metropolitan Museum of Art, for exam­ple, the goal is to create compelling online experiences that induce people to visit the New York City museum and then stay connected through social and mobile.

Can Technology Change the Culture?Whether culture drives technology adoption or whether technology changes the culture is still an open question

Is your organization confident in its leadership’s digital fluency?Although leaders don’t need to be technology wizards, they must understand what can be accomplished at the intersection of business and technology. They should also be prepared to lead the way in conceptual­izing how technology can transform the business

Does your company culturefoster digital initiatives?Many organizations will have to change their cultural mindsets to increase collaboration and encourage risk taking. Business leaders should also address whether different digital technologies or approaches can help bring about that change. They must also un­derstand what aspects of the current culture could spur greater digital transformation progress.

Does our organization have a digital strategy that goes beyondimplementing technologies?Digital strategies at maturing organizations go beyond the technologies themselves. They target improvements in innovation, decision making and, ultimately, transforming how the business works

Physical components comprise the product’s mechanical and electrical parts. In a car, for example, these include the engine block, tires, and batteries.

The phrase “internet of things” has arisen to reflect the growing number of smart, connected products and highlight the new opportunities they can represent.