Emma Okonji
One month after Vodafone Group unveiled its newly rebranded enterprise division, where it noted the importance of addressing key concerns about digital transformation and the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology, the company recently launched its research report on 2019 Customers’ Business Expectations.
The company polled enterprises from a number of sectors on priorities and concerns going forward, mostly related to technology.
Across the areas covered, the operator group noted increased customer expectation for businesses to take a “people-centric approach” during a period of increased use of automation. This includes: ethical use of AI and addressing concerns from employees disrupted by the new technology.
The research also pointed to enterprise success becoming increasingly tied to a company’s ‘purpose, ethics and trust’, with 93 per cent of the business leaders surveyed stating they believed companies were now expected to act ethically by customers. From an ethical business outlook, 83 per cent said the new business trend for 2019 would ultimately generate more revenue.
Vodafone Business CEO, Brian Humphries said: “Our research has identified the key concerns, challenges and opportunities that businesses will face over the next year. In an era of unprecedented change, the most important factor for businesses is customer centricity.”
Director of Marketing at Vodafone Business, Iris Meijer, said the concept of customer centricity had stood the test of time.
“When we began to explore the idea of our brand refresh, reaching out to our customers from the home office to the boardroom, each was worried about the same thing: digital transformation,”Meijer said.
The Vodafone Business brand was revealed at the company’s financial update in November as one of a number of sweeping changes to the structure and strategy of the operator group.
However, in the latest research report, which was released this December the company highlighted its latest Business and Trends survey report, the results of which form some of the core elements of the new ‘customer-centric’ strategy.
