Are You Ready For the Big ‘C’?
Posted by Lorcan Sheehan on Tue, Jul 20, 2010 @ 10:57 AM
You know deep inside what is required to bring your customer relationships to the next level. People have been telling you for years about customer lifetime value, but in the past you could get away with one-off transactions with little customer intimacy. It’s not that you don’t want to c..c..commit to a long term customer relationship; Maybe you are just not ready!
The big C is of course, ‘Content’ and it is rapidly changing the rules of customer relationships for electronics device OEMs forever. It started pretty innocently when we introduced calendar applications and Internet access but now customers are accessing news, maps, blogs, books, movies, applications (apps) and services through their devices. While this drives increasing demand for products, the question is whether companies are ready to take these relationships beyond a one-off transaction?
Traditional ERP and financial systems are the lifeblood of many organizations but they are inherently designed around the management of a physical transaction as a driver of revenue. Even our CRM systems manage customer profile and contact history but do not adequately manage the content and service rights of customers into the future. While the industry has yet to settle on a universal term for this requirement, ‘Entitlement management’ seems to be gaining momentum and is indeed the one which we have settled upon (see Exploring the Potential of Access Rights and Licensing.)
Customers are already starting to ask the difficult ‘second date’ questions:
- I bought my device 12 months ago – how can I get an upgrade for my maps and apps?
- I now have multiple devices – how can I gain access to my content across these devices?
- I want to upgrade to my device - can I port my content to the new one?
- My device has gone in for repair – can I transfer my content and service rights to a new device?
- I have bought your product through retail or distribution – can I update or upgrade my content preferences?
The answers to these questions come from a structured approach to the management of how content is delivered and the relationships between customers, content and their devices. The true content champions are not waiting for customers to ask these questions. They recognize the revenue opportunities from proactively managing these relationships and providing customers with options to manage, upgrade and renew their ‘entitlements.’
ModusLInk announced a new set of On-Demand Entitlement Mangement Solutions today, which includes prepackaged tools and functionality for B2C companies to start monetizing access to content, features and services. As our economy adapts to the new world order of subscriptions and apps versus single-transactions for a tangible product, the customer, and your relationship with her, will become more important than ever.
Are you ready for the big ‘C’? What are the other challenges that you see companies face in managing the parallel physical and digital value chains? We would love to hear from you.