Fixing the fundamentals: Understanding new business models and opportunities in the wake of Covid-19

Over the past few months, businesses in all industries have seen their value chains disrupted, forcing them to rearchitect their organization and rethink their business models—virtually overnight.

Customer experience was already growing in importance when the pandemic laid new pressures on companies: fractured supply chains, reduced access to resources, and restricted movement, rendered it nearly impossible for people to travel and engineers to reach customers. Changing demand patterns further stressed value chains, while man-made disruptions like Brexit also reared their heads.

This landscape has fundamentally altered the fabric of business. Long before the pandemic, the ‘Amazon effect’ had revolutionized customer expectations for speed and consistency. But now, companies in industries ranging from paint manufacturing to air travel are finding the pandemic has made both business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) customers even more demanding.

Central to these new customer demands is service. They want reliability and consistency in quality, delivery and returns, and want to get continuous value throughout an asset’s lifetime. For this reason, expectations for quality service continue to increase, and businesses are recognizing that they must shift to selling ‘outcomes’ and ‘experiences’ instead of just products. As a result, it is critical that businesses ensure each part, department, and discipline in their operation is aligned not around immediate sales or revenue, but around delivering a quality ‘Moment of Service’. This moment of service, in which people, decisions, processes, and technology come together to create a result for a customer, is the key determiner of business success.

However, while much attention has been paid to the rising importance of customer service, the critical inflection points that contribute to the overall moment of service are frequently overlooked, stifling business growth. But these inflection points—which occur throughout the lifecycle of an operation and encompass processes, technology solutions and human coordination—hold the key to success.