The race of startups in all parts of the world is one of the factors which affected the technological research the most. Small firms and companies fighting to make their names known have pushed them to take bold choices towards the development of new technologies. Investments ranging up to multiple millions have created more incentive than ever to create the next step in all areas of research.

Nowadays, it seems like that drive has strongly influenced technologies affecting the daily lives of consumers, focusing on the way they interact with their environment.

How did all this start? How big of an impact can a single product have on steady markets where giants dominate? One the first example of a product that disrupted a market on some scale was the first IPhone released by Apple in 2007.

At that time, Nokia was the steady “winner” of the phone industry, and Apple’s arrival, with the idea of adding access to the internet to our cell phones by creating a smart device, turned the industry upside down as analyzed by Moses Kirathe in his blog post. He renders the fact that after the IPhone’s arrival, Nokia’s undeniable dominance over the market of cell phones got seriously tampered with, as consumers discovered the (considerably) life changing capabilities of this idea. Different opinions have led me to believe that this advancement was disruptive but also sustaining, which I believe is the reason why it got so popular so fast. This evolvement of the industry stayed accessible to consumers (the technological change could be handled without training).

This is one instance of this type of technologic cultural change, but so many more have happened since then. Even without a thorough analysis, it is not hard to determine that the disruptive/sustaining changes in nowadays technology have a major impact on our culture, which is why the drive that is pushing companies to develop newer and newer technologies is also to be considered from a cultural point of view. The blog “The Influence of Technology on Culture” written by Timea Szell mapes out really well how different aspects of developing daily lives technology can impact the way we map out information and interact with it.

I believe that it is necessary for this drive to continue to happen in order for the general public to have access to life changing capabilities in the next few decades, even though the systems put in place sometimes tend to fail (kickstarter frauds, insurance scams…). Such creative potential is necessary for life standards and opportunities to expand our range of action.

What do you think of this? Feel free to talk about it in the comments!

A major part of our modern, connected world has seen quite a development in the food delivery systems that it uses. Over the past few years, a mind-boggling amount of third-party food delivery applications and websites. Mostly focused on urban areas, these systems give a whole new dimension to the restoration business. I want to give interest to how they function and why they became so popular so fast.

The principle is quite simple, the targeted consumer segments is slightly better-off households and individuals living in urban areas, with either not enough time or no interest in cooking, and who wish to eat at home. This segment being pretty wide, the strength of this business model is its value proposition: making eating out easier and more accessible.

First point of analysis is why the market responds so well. The first main reason is that the consumer have a greatly widened eating options since they now access to smaller restaurants that could not afford a delivery service before, but also to restaurants further away that had a limited delivery service before linking with these systems. The second reason is that it creates very accessible jobs for individuals that have access to a vehicle and wish to boost their finance. These jobs require close to no experience and are extremely flexible since for most of these services the worker checks in whenever they can/want, with no set timetable and a wide selection of work hours 7 days a week. There is also a good reaction from the market since with a larger access to restaurants offering similar cuisine forced some of these restaurants to lower prices, therefore adding even more weight to the accessibility value of this new food delivery system.

Second point of the analysis is why suppliers (restaurants) responded so well and why the firm side engagement developed so fast. This relates to last point I made, about having a wider selection. It works the other way too since when they get access to this delivery systems, most restaurants will widen their client-base since they now reach more customer through a simpler display and search mechanism then what they were used to. Depending on the quality of their product and therefore on their reviews, restaurants will either increase their revenue or fail in that sense, which has pushed a lot of firms to take the bet and invest in this system.

Overall, this new food delivery industry is sustaining improvement in the restoration market and had every reason to succeed in the first place: very low regulations, fairly low investment needed, but mostly a massive amount of demand, and even though consumers overall did not realize they wanted that service, they most certainly did.

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Source: https://mlsdev.com/blog/71-development-of-mobile-apps-for-food-delivery-services

It has been revealed to us during one of our last COMM 101 lessons that word of mouth human interactions are actually much more effective at conveying information about products, brands, and services.

This means that satisfying customers through a thorough study of their needs is extremely important, but an overlooked aspect of this statistic is that a perfect consumer experience can be an important part in the establishment of a consumer relationship that states: we care about our customers, and wish for our values to be aligned with the best possible service they can receive.

A company’s value proposition is always made with consideration to the company’s core values and their meaning. It defines the fact that profit is secondary to a list of principles that are directed to a consumer base.

It is possible to see that customer service (through online surveys, 24h phone lines, in-store areas…) is one of the most direct picture of how the company values their consumers. To incorporate the word to mouth aspect of marketing, it appears quite clearly that a polite, well trained, well organized, and well thought service can put a company in a great light.

Even though, to the contrary of the actual product, not every customer will have an encounter with the customer service, it is evident that those who do and find it very helpful, honest, and simple will have an enhanced view of the company, which would then enhance the view of that company of their surroundings. Customer service seems then to have become a part of marketing, making it a key piece of success.

I myself have had a great experience with the Best Buy customer service regarding a refund, and after having enjoyed a problem-free experience, I have found myself to have much more interest into buying electronics from Best Buy than ever before.

Consumers enjoy when they are well-treated, as do all humans, which is why I believe that investing customer service through research and a carefully elaborated service can be very important in the promotion of a company,  whether it is through return policies, or simply with well trained counselors. An extremely well designed customer service in a company that necessitates a lot of customer care could even be a point of differentiation for that company.

Any thoughts?

Feel free to discuss in the comments!

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Solomon, M. (2017, October 15). Turn Those Upset Customers Around: Best Practices For Customer Service Recovery. Retrieved October 15, 2017, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/micahsolomon/2017/10/15/bringing-upset-customers-around-best-practices-for-customer-service-recovery/#56c07e6526e2

Mele, C. (2017, June 15). How to Complain and Get Results. Retrieved October 15, 2017, from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/15/smarter-living/consumer-complaint-writing-letter.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FCustomer Relations

Teamwork is more important than ever in the workplace as projects get bigger, more intricate, and more technical. These projects require the expertise of professionals from different fields, who often took a different path either in their career or eve in their education. But what happens when even their cultural background, work habits, and nationality differ.

A Global Team can be defined as a team “in which members come from two or more national or cultural backgrounds”. They are proliferating as globalization has forced companies to address different markets worldwide at the same time. I myself am part of a global team as a part of my COMM 101 course, and even though we aren’t addressing international matters that much, it is interesting to see how we all do things differently.

A study made by google determined what made a great team work so well and what elements were shown to improve communication and efficiency between members. It found that personality (role, interactions, and values) is a major determinant of what makes a great team, so it could be counter intuitive to assign a task to a group of people from international backgrounds and expect great results, but it seems to be working surprisingly well for the companies that employ Global teams.

For example, McDonald’s states that it has used global teams to sort problems relating to customer satisfaction, health issues, environmental issues and more. The end result was that the performance in resolving issues was consistent, fluid, but also flexible.

On an other hand, global teams with members who operate mostly in their home countries or in different countries from each each other and who can only meet in person on certain occasions are a different concept. They need to put more work into the flow of ideas, the communication of advancement, and the fixing of issues and problems. Since they are only rarely in direct relation to each other, the need to make sure that the objectives, roles, and expectations are well understood, even more than in any other team. With today’s globalization, it may sometimes be necessary to have workers stationed in different parts of the world, if local immediate information is needed for example.

Global teams seem to be extremely efficient, and after doing research I imagined that that efficiency came from the fact that the heterogenous composition allows a very special flow of responsibility, since when one’s skills end, it is almost guaranteed that someone else takes over in the conception of solutions and advancements.

Is it necessary for all teamwork efforts to be international and culturally mixed?

Feel free to discuss it in the comments!

Sources:

https://hbr.org/2017/01/great-teams-are-about-personalities-not-just-skills

https://hbr.org/2015/10/global-teams-that-work

http://www.franchisedirect.com/information/markettrendsfactsaboutfranchising/thesuccessofmcdonalds/8/1111/