As a commercial strategist* (I don’t like the term futurist), I am always looking for what might change tomorrow. Most of the time I’ve been right and, if you don’t believe me, checkout this link: https://thefinanser.com/2020/12/what-is-the-future
Today, most of the big things that are changing are political (new governments in USA, UK, France …); economic (recession, depression, oppression, obsession …); social (I love you love … but someone hates me); and technological (AI, crypto, blockchain, quantum …). PEST: political, economic, social and technological change are the ways we track the future. That’s what I spend almost every day thinking about.
If you’ve seen my presentations, I always say that change is the only constant … but change into what? That’s my mantra. So, I was intrigued to stumble across a very nice quote from Jeff Bezos, you may have heard of him, and the quote goes like this:
“I very frequently get the question: ‘What's going to change in the next 10 years?’ And that is a very interesting question; it's a very common one. I almost never get the question: ‘What's not going to change in the next 10 years?’ And I submit to you that that second question is actually the more important of the two – because you can build a business strategy around the things that are stable in time. ... In our retail business, we know that customers want low prices, and I know that's going to be true 10 years from now. They want fast delivery; they want vast selection. It's impossible to imagine a future 10 years from now where a customer comes up and says, ‘Jeff, I love Amazon; I just wish the prices were a little higher.’ ‘I love Amazon; I just wish you'd deliver a little more slowly.’ Impossible. And so the effort we put into those things, spinning those things up, we know the energy we put into it today will still be paying off dividends for our customers 10 years from now. When you have something that you know is true, even over the long term, you can afford to put a lot of energy into it.’”
Jeff Bezos, Founder and former CEO of Amazon
What he left unsaid is therefore that, if there’s an opportunity to change Amazon to deliver better on the things that are not going to change – prices, delivery – then that’s where the real focus is. In other words, if you have technologies, partners, structures that can deliver better on core customer needs that never change – service, price, speed, etc – then that’s where you should invest.
What gets me therefore is the never-ending issue of calling companies because their process broke for whatever reason, and getting that disgusting message: sorry, but our call levels are higher than expected at the moment, you are tenth in the queue.
I mean come on, we all know that you just don’t hire enough people to service customers on the telephone, and the one thing that’s never going to change is people wanting good service so … SORT THIS OUT!
Meanwhile, yes, I agree with Jeff unsurprisingly. Focus on the basics and build with the latest to make the basics better.
* A commercial strategist tracks future trends to see where to make money and opportunity
Chris M Skinner
Chris Skinner is best known as an independent commentator on the financial markets through his blog, TheFinanser.com, as author of the bestselling book Digital Bank, and Chair of the European networking forum the Financial Services Club. He has been voted one of the most influential people in banking by The Financial Brand (as well as one of the best blogs), a FinTech Titan (Next Bank), one of the Fintech Leaders you need to follow (City AM, Deluxe and Jax Finance), as well as one of the Top 40 most influential people in financial technology by the Wall Street Journal's Financial News. To learn more click here...
