After years of buying Apple product purchasing a Nokia isn't something I'd seriously contemplated.
Post getting past the giddy schoolboy envy of wanting the next cool object, I reflected on how fleeting fame could be, even for a powerhouse like Apple. Simply, we are all only as good as our ideas and in the era of hyper-innovation irrelevance is never far away. Brand loyalty will only stretch so far.
Building on this theory, in a world where many an industry is seeing their products and services being reduced to a commodity the final battle will be fought around design and customer experience. In essence those businesses which amaze and delight via beautiful contextual customer experience will win the day.
Bringing this logic to the digital world, as a broad brush stroke statement the major brands seem to be slow in realising the requirements of the digital age with the innovation being delivered by the disruptive forces. Financial services is a cracking example, check out Mint, BillGuard, Square, Zopa, Prosper and eToro to see some future challengers chipping away at the big guys via their focus on design and customer experience.
Interestingly, I attended the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo this month on the Gold Coast and for a technology conference the subject wasn't much about the machines but around creating great customer experience. Now if the smart guys at Gartner are pushing the customer experience theory be sure it's coming to a boardroom near you real soon.
So in short, the threat is to be yesterday's fish'n chips wrappers or to live is to build great customer experiences. Simple choice really.
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