Three pillars to explain the latest consumer trends – ‘cost effectiveness’, ‘sharing economy’ and ‘pursuit of convenience’.
The consumer buying trends are keeping pace to the fast-changing market environment and drastically advancing technologies. Cyclic rise and fall of world economies, evolutionary technology and science development, and the corresponding consumerism keeps reshaping new trends. Especially, internet, smart phones and the likes are leading digital cultures to have raised the recent natural adaptors for so-called millennials who are in the center of the changing trend, increasingly becoming the majority of this society.
With a few years or even decades of consumer trends, we can’t miss out or over emphasis the term, cost-effectiveness or value for money. As an active response from consumers to the ongoing economic recession, ‘cost-effectiveness’ simply demonstrates the consumer’s search for products with superior functionality and performance at a reasonable price. These smart consumers are no longer loyal to manufacturers or distributors, but seek reasonable consumption, which is driven by a variety of digital devices and social networks that closely compare the price and value of their products.
Consumers are now beginning to focus more on services or product utility than on the satisfaction of ownership. They find something cheaper and more satisfying or choose a more convenient or high-quality service if the price is similar. What’s being highlighted in this trend is the shared economy, which has already begun to deepen our lives in many areas, including Uber (vehicle sharing), Airbnb (lodging sharing), and We Work (office sharing). It is safe to say that businesses and consumers are now at a crossroads between owning and sharing, especially with the advent of a hyper-connected era based on everyday IT technologies such as 5G, AI, and big data.
The last trend that needs to be pointed is ‘the pursuit of convenience’. Much to do and less time is what we all confront in the modern days. Time saving means a lot now. The convenience is the new premium. Now it’s time to reduce the time and effort that goes into useless or relatively less important things and use them for more important work or various experiences.
Implication of the three trends gets down to ‘Pay as You Go’
The trend of ‘cost effectiveness’, ‘sharing economy’ and ’pursuit of convenience’ from modern consumerism does not only belong in a specific field or market. The trend is also visible in the business communications solution market. PAYG (Pay as You Go), the concept of paying only for what you have used is one of the greatest examples that the trend’s existence is now indisputable.
In the past, a product or a solution had a characteristic of solidness or the inability to be flexible so that a solution architect or a buyer should analyze the business forecast. Thus, not only was the initial investment cost high, but some of the systems invested could be unnecessary if the company’s growth went in a different direction than planned, and sometimes the communication system could not keep up with the speed of the company’s growth, which hampered the business.
Nevertheless physical or systematical limits still exist in adopting perfect flexibility, recent development methodologies of a communications platform are now with greater flexibility, especially when the cloud solution which needs no ownership of any expensive hardware but rather paying for subscription model for various solution services are incorporated.
PAYG model benefits the customers for below reasons.
– Initial or upfront investment is minimal, and they can gradually purchase add-ons as they grow.
– No costly forecast analysis is needed.
– You pay for what you’ve used so you can be assured that there are no unnecessary expenses.
– Corporations needs and structure change constantly, but PAYG is super elastic to adjust accordingly.
In short, PAYG model is used to optimize a company’s investment for a communications system, which enables resource concentration on the core business, thereby conveniently and efficiently optimizing the use of limited resources.
Ericsson-LG Enterprise already provides ’Pay As You Go’ model in every communications platform.
Differentiating from other manufactures, Ericsson-LG Enterprise has both a conventional ‘On-Premise’ communications solution as well as ‘Cloud’ solutions that the customer’s business needs, and environment can be provided with for the optimum fit.
On-Premise type of communication platforms such as iPECS UCM, iPECS UCP and iPECS eMG features simple yet rich functionality to minimize customer upfront investment and is designed to scale systems flexibly as businesses grow with minimal hardware additions and smart licensing, even when expansion is needed.
‘Pay as You Go’ model is based on the cloud communications solution, ‘iPECS Cloud’. iPECS Cloud enables immediate adjustments to the capabilities and the number of users required by the software licensing scheme, enabling you to quickly and conveniently create an optimal unified communications environment. In particular, the service provider can provide support from initial consulting to maintenance so that businesses can focus on their own business without the burden of managing the communication platform.
Click here to find more information about the various solutions from Ericsson-LG Enterprise providing the best convenient and economic but premium solutions to our customers.
