As the world adapts to global instability and relentless disruptions, making life decisions are no longer as straightforward or an “either-or” scenario. Consumers’ choices are becoming increasingly contradictory, such as turning to express deliveries for speed and efficiency on sustainable products or choosing cheaper alternatives to ethically farmed produce due to inflation.
In the Asia Pacific (Apac) region, 61% of consumers say their priorities keep changing because of everything happening worldwide. In this state of flux, consumers have one powerful message to businesses: “My life and needs are changing faster than ever. How will you stay relevant?”
Business reinvention
Consumers expect reimagined products and services, culturally impactful communications, and unique experiences. Businesses that want to thrive have their challenge cut out for them. In an environment of perpetual change, they must contend with multiple forces of change — economic, social, environmental and more — and harness rapidly evolving technology.
The problem is that they need to deliver faster, and consumers see it. Nearly three-quarters (71%) of consumers in Apac feel that businesses need to respond faster to their changing needs. Moving into 2023 and beyond, business leaders must identify ways to meet consumers’ evolving needs. Adopting a life-centric approach to business could be the answer.
There needs to be more than the tried-and-tested playbook of customer-centricity. Prioritising experiences and shaping them based on consumers’ needs do not match up when consumers are constantly evolving, pulled in all directions by multiple pressures of life.
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Businesses must embrace a life-centred approach — seeing their customers for who they are, considering their lives in their entirety and recognising the unpredictable life forces surrounding them.
Accenture Song’s research shows that businesses focused on life-centricity are three times more likely to outperform their peers on speed-to-market and almost five times more likely to outperform customer lifetime value.
Japan’s Fukuoka Financial Group is a company that has embraced life-centricity. The use of its traditional banks dropped by 40% over 10 years, so it needed a way to serve better its digital native customers who skip the storefront and see money differently than previous generations. Rather than just adding a basic app or website to its traditional banking structure, the company wanted a new model with technology at its core.
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The result was Minna Bank, Japan’s first digital bank. It was powered by a cloud-driven banking system created by the company Accenture, which has set a new standing for digital banking in Japan and on the global stage. The planning and design process was grounded in a deep and thorough understanding of the thinking and behaviour of digital natives, including when and how they want to use financial services.
This approach enabled Minna Bank to become a frictionless app people want to use daily. In less than 18 months, there were over one million downloads and 400,000 new customer accounts.
As businesses incorporate life-centric strategies to stay relevant to their customers, here are five key considerations.
Understanding customers
Instead of seeing customers as just “buyers” with a one-dimensional categorisation of who they are, life-centric businesses harness data and intelligence to understand them in their full light. Doing so helps to create more dynamic, expressive customer segments that can evolve as their customers do.
Shiseido launched Beauty Key, an app that draws on data to deliver more personalised consumer services and tailored experiences in the Japanese market. Consumers can access skin analysis services from home, obtain custom beauty advice, and get beauty information tailored for each season via the app.
Broaden your canvas
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People are rethinking their sense of purpose, and businesses must focus on sustainable growth. They must solve unmet needs and provide broader value —prioritising social, environmental, economic and other values to stay relevant.
For example, brands such as Bottega Veneta are introducing lifetime warranties to encourage consumers to maximise the mileage of their bags, prioritising sustainability over profits.
Creatively transcend norms
The challenges customers face today are complicated and multi-faceted. It takes a creative application of technology and talent to drive exponential growth and draw the business closer to the customer’s life.
Thailand’s food-delivery app Robinhood has ambitions to evolve into a ”super app” to offer expanded services such as travel booking, grocery delivery and more. Together with Accenture Song, they are shaping the super app’s ad engine and running operations to monetise and manage the data.
With a robust digital advertising-as-a-service offering, Robinhood can more easily manage its ad programme, fill available ad space and better leverage data to help merchants and evaluate the customer experience. This evolution reinvents brand experiences that bring creativity into the boardroom to seize opportunities for value creation, growth and relevance.
Design a delightful experiences
Technology is known for making things easier, but it risks becoming overcomplicated. And when developed in silos, it can result in underperforming experiences that fail to satisfy customers.
A life-centric approach eliminates complexities by designing for thoughtful connectivity across all functions, allowing customers a seamless and more engaging experience.
Toys “R” Us moved away from independent retail websites in various markets to create a centralised system across its Asian markets, resulting in a unified and seamless purchasing experience.
Build a fluid operation
Internal operations cannot be ignored — teams must sync internally to deliver relevant customer experiences. Instead of misaligned groups that operate in silos and are resistant to change, businesses must ensure that teams are integrated and agile. They must also provide an environment fertile for innovation, where communication and creativity can be unleashed.
Life-centricity is about understanding unmet needs and finding additional avenues to stay relevant. Businesses must evolve against the global macroeconomic environment to keep pace with consumers’ changing priorities and circumstances. By broadening the aperture and seeing customers in their entire lives, businesses can also unlock lasting advantages for themselves.
Flaviano Faleiro is the growth markets president at Accenture Song
