Technology opportunities for product developers in the post-COVID-19 market place
What COVID-19 experiences will have lasting impact on customer requirements in the post-crisis market?
The COVID-19 experience has far-reaching effect on people’s lives, and I believe it will have lasting impact on demand patterns and preferences of people and businesses in the post-COVID-19 future. I also strongly believe that when markets change new opportunities arises.
This article will provide my initial reflections about starting the journey towards identifying, clarifying, and capturing the opportunities for developing and launching new technology-based products and services in the post-COVID-19 market:
Winners will adapt to the New Normal by launching products and services fit for the new opportunities. Losers … well, they will lose when not responding to customer requirements
I will start our journey towards the launch of New Normal products and services by studying, what I believe are important experiences for people during the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, experiences that may have significant impact on their behavior and preferences as consumers, clients, advisors and decision makers in the post-COVID-19 era.
At IPU we call it the COVID-19 Experience Base. (Figure 1). In addition to presenting the COVID-19 Experience Base, I will outline inspirational examples and ideas for new products and technologies.
Figure 1 – The journey from understanding COVID-19 experiences to launching new products and services
We have identified 6 key experiences (Figure 2) that may have lasting impact on clients, advisors, and decision makers on the B2B market. The COVID-19 crisis has amplified our attention on several negative risk factors however, we have also learned new skills, we will bring into the post-COVID-19 period.
Figure 2 – Six key COVID-19 experiences that may have lasting impact on B2B markets
Health and Safety Vulnerability
– We have experienced how exposed our loved ones and ourselves are. We will continue being concerned about our health and safety at work, in public and at home. The speed and aggressiveness of the invisible COVID-19 virus have brought fear and worries into our lives. We are concerned about our seniors and other dear one, belonging to risk groups. We may also be frightened for our personal well-being. We have all been reminded of our own mortality.
Now we are aware of the risks of being in close physical distance to other people, being part of larger groups, entering and staying in contained spaces with strangers, touching door handles, pushbuttons, touchscreens, shopping carts etc., shaking hands, public transportation,…
In general we have grown our attention to many types of health and safety risks, not only the COVID-19 related, and we have experienced the value of self-protection and systems, guides and procedures, that ensure other persons will or cannot harm us with their negligence and carelessness.
| Health and Safety Vulnerability: Tangible, visible, and effective health & safety features will without doubt become important design factors of future products, systems, and services. |
| Technology opportunities – Examples: We have already experienced launch of new products and relaunch of existing products, claiming the ability to kill COVID-19 virus on surfaces, e.g. UV light treatment provided by hand-held devises and mobile robots. Protection gear for shops, office spaces and restaurants including use of e.g. acrylic glass screens is widespread. However, we also expect hygienic and cleaning friendly surfaces to become popular for a wider range of professional equipment, machinery, and installations, as well as self-cleaning features and mechanisms, non-touch technologies (e.g. voice or gesture responsive, and artificial intelligence enabled user interfaces), and functionalities that eliminates person-to-person transmission of viruses and infection (e.g. disposable units, and automatic functions). At IPU we already experience a growing interest in applying our skills from developing e.g. hygienic surfaces and automation solutions for the pharmaceutical, MedTech and food industries to other industries and domains. |
Supply Chain and Service Fragility
– Our supply and service networks have been hit radically, and we will try minimizing these risks going forward.
Many European enterprises working on world markets have been hit by a series of events, starting with supply shortages due to lockdown of e.g. China, later lockdown of facilities and markets in Europe, and eventually lockdowns of facilities and markets in USA, while demand starts growing in the markets that were hit first and now are able to slowly return to a new normal business activity level. The ability to adapt production, sourcing, and service to rapidly changing market needs and supply constraints has proven to be extremely important.
Long complicated global and in some cases single sourced supply chains have proven their extreme vulnerability. These experiences will most likely amplify a trend, already started prior to the COVID-19 crisis: Insourcing and sourcing locally, enabled by digitalization and advanced automation.
| Supply Chain and Service Fragility: We expect design for agility, business continuity and local/internal sourcing to be high priority preferences for decision makers designing, building, and operating manufacturing and logistics systems in the post-COVID-19 marketplace. |
| Technology opportunities – Examples: The most popular lever to insourcing of activities from low-cost to high-cost regions is automation. Typically, it has been challenging automating low volume tasks that require high level operators’ / technicians’ / specialists’ competencies. However, the choices and options are much broader today from implementing robotics, autonomous systems technology and condition-based monitoring supported by artificial intelligence. We expect the demand for units, machines, equipment, and systems with “brains” will continue to grow and create opportunities for early movers. We also expect the increased focus on business continuity and awareness of single sourcing risks will change priorities of future product development towards simpler, standardized, modular, platform-based product designs, supporting dual sourcing and enabling minimal contingency stocks, and avoiding e.g. components and materials only available from e.g. Chinese suppliers. |
Travel and Transportation Challenges
– Our new sense of risk associated with travelling combined with higher prices and reduced capacity will influence our preferences. During the COVID-19 lockdowns national, and in some case even regional borders have been closed, travel by flight cancelled, and other ways of transportation of people and goods have been obstructed. People and companies have been forced to find alternative solutions. Looking ahead we believe that in line with projections from several airlines, we will reduce flying for a long period, due to higher prices, reduced capacity, more tedious health and safety procedures in airports, and our personal and corporate concerns about health and safety.
| Travel and Transportation Challenges We expect travel and transportation reducing technologies to be preferred in the post-COVID-19 B2B marketplace |
| Technology opportunities – Examples: Travel and transportation can be reduced in multiple ways, including remote monitoring and service of products and systems, supported by IoT technology, data-based and artificial intelligence enabled services, as well as implementation of Software as a Service (Cloud) platforms, and augmented reality solutions. Products and systems may also be developed for customers’ / users’ do-it-yourself installation, operation, service, upgrade, maintenance enabled by IoT – Bringing the “Ikea-concept” to new professional domains. |
Key People Dependencies
– Many have experienced missing that particularly skilled colleague or external specialist being at site fixing an urgent problem or task. In our pre-COVID-19 corporate lives, we may have been slightly lazy: You may recognize the situation, when a problem or a non-standard situation occurred with our IT, changing set-up and operating the special machine or system X, analyzing and interpreting non-trivial data etc. we called the special skilled colleague, or external service technician/specialist, who entered your office, workshop, lab and solved the issue. He or she may even have jumped into a car or airplane and travelled to your point of interest. During the crisis it has in many cases not been feasible, due to problems with illness, quarantine, travel restrictions and many other practical problems. In other words, our clients’ attention has been turned to their exposure to very experienced technicians, specialists, operators, service technicians etc.
| Key People Dependencies To ensure business continuity, but also improve OEE (Overall Equipment Efficiency), and yield, technologies supporting self-service, operator assistance, and smarter automation, will have a bright future in the post-COVID-19 marketplace. |
| Technology opportunities – Examples: In several of IPU’s development projects a main driver for our clients’ investments in the autonomous systems technology is reducing the dependency of skilled operators and specialists, who are challenging to recruit, need long training and practice periods, and are hard to retain. AI combined with smart sensors and data analytics is a very powerful toolbox for creating e.g. operator assistance solutions, making the less competent operator perform at “expert” level – thereby making systems and processes performance more efficient and effective. In other use-cases the need for operators may be reduced, because more trivial tasks are automated. |
Virtual Meeting Efficiency
– We have learned how to complete tasks remotely, using digital communication and collaborative tools, and we will continue doing so. Many of us have learned new tricks and skills, becoming very capable in using MS Teams, Skype, Zoom, Slack, and whatever the systems are called. The crisis has accelerated the penetration of digital communication and collaborative tools, and they have proven efficient and versatile in many cases, in some cases even improving productivity, compared to the old world of face-to-face meetings.
| Virtual Meeting Efficiency: We expect digital communication and collaborative platforms to continue growing in popularity, and generally customer / user expectations will be changing: Most likely customers / user will expect products, systems, and services in general to be provided with digital communication and collaborative technology – the level of expectations will simply jump to a new standard.
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| Technology opportunities – Examples: We believe customers will appreciate services supported by digital communication and collaborative platforms – dedicated to special purposes and equipped with customized added services for the specific application. The general-purpose platforms like MS Teams and Zoom etc. are all rapidly launching new features and services, but what would be relevant for your customers/user in a specific use-case? Inspiration is available in platforms like Slack, Gitlab, but also e.g. the online music streaming and online concert platforms Livestream, ViewStub, Periscope, and Twitch. |
eCommerce Value
– Digital sales channels proved their point in particularly when leveraging insights based on data. Consumers have turned their attention to digital sales channel during the crisis. Traditional B2C brick- and mortar-based companies have either been left behind with no business or have been forced to develop or upgrade their digital sales channels urgently. Consumers have become more mature and more open to the digital way of shopping products and services. Consumer behavior will most likely influence their way of working professionally too. Clients expectation to digital services will grow.
| eCommerce Value: We believe digital business to business services covering e.g. advisory, configuration, ordering, remote monitoring, and maintenance needs to be further developed soonest, if companies want to fulfill customers’ expectations going forward. |
| Technology opportunities – Examples: The concept of installing a B2B eCommerce platform may be easy to grasp, however implementing the services in a more complex professional environment including integrating with back-end and support systems may in many cases prove to be a major challenge. However, we also believe that remote monitoring and service based on digital twin technology supported by processing clients’ real-time data will be preferred in the post-COVID-19 market, also providing condition-based maintenance services, remote upgrade of products functionality, and timely and responsive advisory. |
The COVID-19 experiences will have lasting impact on our future behavior and preferences as customers, decision makers, and advisors however, some fundamental change drivers continue to be relevant – even in the post-COVID-19 B2B markets.
The green transformation, bringing societies to a carbon neutral future, may not have been creating news headlines recently, but the global challenge remain, and many governments are suggesting investing more in this area to boost economies after the COVID-19 financial crisis. We believe that consumers as well as professional customers will increasingly expect and require carbon friendly products, processes and services, and require efficient waste reducing, and waste re-cycling and up-cycling services and enabling products
Finally focus on cost will obviously continue, ensuring that technologies with impact on reducing material, production and service cost will be prioritized.
In this article I have tried to capture some important changes in market demand patterns and preferences, that will create opportunities for technology enabled growth in the post-COVID-19 B2B marketplace. In the following articles, my colleagues from IPU and I will dig deeper into selected technologies, hopefully inspiring your future product and technology development planning.
