3 Keys to Embracing the Trends and Technology of Tomorrow

If there is one word we’ve heard with great frequency in recent months, it would be ‘unprecedented’. While so much of what we’ve all experienced in 2020 is the definition of extraordinary, it’s important to remember that many businesses have faced existential threats and crises over the years - only to emerge stronger resulting from the experience.

From IBM to Converse, Lego and even Apple, there is much we can learn from businesses that have emerged from acutely difficult times and bounced back strongly.

Examining the recovery journey of businesses such as these, there are 3 key themes that emerge - ones which are relevant for us as we consider how to thrive in a post-COVID world:

1. Be revolutionary, not evolutionary

“The electric light did not come from the continuous improvement of candles.”

I love the pertinence of this insight from the former head of the business faculty at San Francisco University, Oren Harari.

One of the biggest dangers for organisations and leaders is to fall into the trap of viewing strategy and innovation as merely an exercise in continuous or evolutionary improvement. If we’re not careful, we can work very hard at merely making a ‘better candle’ than we did last year without realising that we’re on a collision course with obsolescence.

Leaders must think creatively, act boldly and change quickly. Evolving over time is simply no longer enough. This is especially true in the midst of a crisis that’s seeing rapid, fundamental and structural changes occur in the world around us.

The challenge is that crises can easily trigger an instinct of fear that drives us to retreat to what is safe and predictable. We must resist that urge. The success stories of 2030 and 2040 will be written in the coming 3-5 years by businesses that have been bold enough to be revolutionary - even in the face of massive uncertainty.

A powerful example of this principle in action is Amazon’s rise to dominance. In the midst of the dot-com crisis of the early 2000s (which saw the company lose 90% of its value in 14 months), Amazon took some enormously revolutionary steps. While their competitors opted to aim for efficiencies and cut costs to ride out the storm, Amazon launched their Marketplace initiative and thus redefined eCommerce. Most significantly, this was also the time when Amazon made their first and most significant B2B play with the launch of Amazon Web Services. A revolutionary step indeed!

In the words of Winston Churchill, ‘Never let a good crisis go to waste.’ While the COVID-19 pandemic has brought about some horrific ramifications, it also represents an enormous opportunity for businesses and industries to fundamentally re-think assumptions that have held true for decades. There is a reason that necessity is often referred to as the mother of invention. This crisis could well be the catalyst for revolution and reinvention that many industries and businesses have needed.

2. Identify the opportunity in change

Times of rapid change offer significant opportunities for growth for those who can anticipate the future and gear up for it.

COVID is seeing the acceleration of numerous trends that will prove to be game-changing and industry-redefining. In many ways, this crisis is seeing the future arrive ahead of schedule.

Of all the industries impacted by COVID, banking and retail are perhaps most pronounced. While success rates of the physical retail world have been dwindling steadily for years and digital options for banking and shopping have been made much more prevalent, full immersion in the online world has remained a thing of the future… until now.

COVID has understandably brought about an unprecedented need for online options for groceries and other retail services. With lockdown measures in place and the general fear of infection being widely felt, the incentive to conduct both purchases and transactions online is great. Handling money and interacting with physical stores simply poses too great a risk for many people and many are turning to the options of the online world.

Existing online businesses and e-commerce options saw extreme leaps in sales while hybrid services struggled to keep up with the increase in online demand. One online grocery store in New York jumped 60% in online activity in March 2020 compared to March 2019.

I’m sure many of us would have experienced at some point this year the effect of these increases in demand, with the delays in deliveries being almost guaranteed with most online purchases.

The clothing retailer, Zara, is among those that are accelerating their online strategies and fully embracing the digital age. Despite already owning multiple online clothing giants, Zara’s parent company, Inditex, plans to have 25% of its sales occurring online by 2022.

The company’s commitment to this goal is evident in its planned closure of over 1000 stores worldwide. This will enable the company’s renewed focus on their online platforms. Online shopping has been growing for years with brands like ASOS, and The Iconic conducting their business online for a wide market. However, with brands like this embracing their online futures so rapidly, our current crisis’s impact on this transition is clearly visible.

Also a member of this online conversion is the banking sector, with digital payments invading the banking world since the start of COVID. Many businesses and individuals have turned away the option of cash over the course of the virus on account of health concerns, and home delivery and online options for shopping have made online modes of payment much more prevalent. ATM and branch closures have come with this transition, offering banks the opportunity to save money on those operations.

Leaders within the Big 4 Banks are on the whole unanimous in their sentiments regarding this transition, viewing it as one which was bound to happen, but which arrived early and occurred rapidly. ‘Permanent change… has just been made in 10 weeks. It would have taken us another 5 years,’ states Ross McEwan, the CEO of NAB.

Many of the trends that have accelerated in recent months aren’t expected to reverse when this crisis passes. The opportunity now is to examine how COVID has permanently changed the behaviour and expectations of our customers and adjust accordingly. Now is not the time to long for a ‘return to normality’ but to rather embrace and redefine what normal is going to look like in the wake of this crisis. Those that can adjust quickly will be handsomely rewarded.

3. Think momentum not motivation

In difficult times, we often assume that the key to sparking productivity and rebuilding morale is to motivate or inspire ourselves and our teams. And while motivation has a place, the key challenge in the coming months is for people to be reminded what it feels like to ‘win’.

Success breeds success and after a crisis that has seen many of our business rhythms thrown into chaos (or shut down completely), breaking the shackles of inertia and getting back into a groove quickly will be critical.

In his bestselling book Atomic Habits, James Clear puts it well when he says “The best form of motivation is progress.” Rather than trying to shift the emotional state through motivation, we’d do well to make progress achievable and quantifiable.

Many business leaders are familiar with the notion of setting BHAGs or ‘Big Hairy Audacious Goals’ for themselves and their teams. However, to build momentum and give a sense of progress, we’d be better to focus on SBAGS (Stretching but Achievable Goals).

For one of my clients in the B2B software sector, this has meant each business development team member setting weekly goals for activity and having check-in calls every Monday with their team leader to celebrate wins and discuss learnings. While some of these weekly goals can seem insignificant in themselves, it is the sense of progress coupled with renewed confidence and momentum that team members are beginning to feel that matters most.

Former Intel head Andy Grove put it best when he said “Some companies are destroyed by a crisis, good companies survive them, but great companies are always improved by them.” Very few of us would have chosen the year that 2020 has been but if we play our cards right, this crisis can be a gift. Only we get to choose whether we will be in the group that merely survives this challenging time, or whether will be one of those organizations and individuals that emerges stronger and better as a result of it.

Digital embellishment adds an extra element to printed materials that makes them tactile and three-dimensional. This isn’t new; printers have often been able to spot varnish or create a metallic look when the customer has been willing to pay a premium and when the job run was sufficient to make the inefficient and time-consuming set-up process worthwhile.

With the rise of digital print, customers have become accustomed to being able to achieve high-quality printing with a fast turnaround even with short print runs. However, until now, digital embellishment has been too expensive to offer on these short print runs.

Digital embellishment technology has changed this. It lets printers add that three-dimensional, shiny, glossy, metallic look to just about any print job without adding premium costs. This means printers can add digital embellishment options to attract more customers and at the same time improve their bottom line. 

High-class materials that customers are willing to pay for

Digital embellishment technology lets printers spot coat prints, highlight defined areas, and add 3D effects, creating a tactile and impactful experience that makes materials pop. This makes it ideal for applications like greetings cards, invitations, menus, name cards for corporate and personal events like weddings or christenings, and more. 

Using this technology creates the kind of materials that look expensive and high-class, so customers are willing to pay a little extra for them. You can maintain your margins on these jobs because the digital varnish technology doesn’t increase costs substantially for your printing business. The result is an improved bottom line, happy customers, and a line of new customers looking to make their materials stand out from the crowd. 

The value of a tactile experience

Printers can help organisations transform their printed materials into an experience for their target audience. People are naturally inclined to touch raised and metallic lettering, for example, making them more engaged with the product and, therefore, more likely to buy it. 

In fact, research has shown that, the more people can touch and interact with a product, they more likely they are to buy it. Touching an object increases the customer’s perception of ownership and, in fact, the effect of encouraging touch can be stronger than previously believed. Psychological ownership increases by 22 per cent when customers can both see and touch a product, and their valuation of the product increases by 24 per cent, according to the research.[1]

This suggests that using digital embellishment technology to deliver a wow factor with marketing materials and product packaging can increase sales of that product, making it a hugely desirable print effect for customers. Printers who add digital embellishment to their offering can therefore charge a premium for these services.

With the holiday season on the horizon, very soon to be followed by Valentine’s Day, Easter, Mother’s Day, and more, now is the time to consider how digital embellishment could enhance your print offering. To find out how you can improve your bottom line with digital embellishment, contact the team at Konica Minolta today.

 1. Hamel, G. 2002, Leading the Revolution, Penguin, New York, p. 137.
2. Osterwalder, A & Pigneur, Y. 2010, Business Model Generation, Wiley and Sons, New Jersey, p. 72.
3. 2017, ‘Jobs Lost, Jobs Gained: Workforce Transitions In A Time Of Automation’, Mckinsey Global Institute, December.
4. Menear, H 2020, ‘The rise of the ‘cobots’’, Gigabit, 15 January.
5. Malik, A 2019, ‘Meet the cobots: the robots who will be your colleagues, not your replacements,’ The Conversation, 28 October.
6. 2017, ‘Jobs Lost, Jobs Gained: Workforce Transitions In A Time Of Automation’, Mckinsey Global Institute, December. 1. Hamel, G. 2002, Leading the Revolution,