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Low-tech can be the right answer [financeME](financeME Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Technologyisgreatisn'tit?Theweb is wonderful; email is marvellous, instant messaging is, well, instant. As Voltaire's Candide had it, "Everything is for the best in this, the best of all possible worlds." Except when it isn't; who among us has not been reduced to a combination of incandescent range and murderous impotence by a recalcitrant computer or flaky internet connection? Who among us has not occasionally called down curses upon the silicon microchip's denizens when they don't do what we want or expect them to? Just me? I don't think so - be honest! However, spleen safely vented, this is 'a marvellous modern world we live in' (that's a movie quote by the way but I'll leave you to guess which one). What that means is that no business now can survive without being part of the information age. You'll be managing your business banking online, managing your customer relationships, your accounts, promoting your business, marketing to new customers both domestically and internationally. Chances are you will have a corporate website - perhaps right now little more than a placeholder acting as an online brochure or possibly much more advanced, offering customers the ability to interact with you online as well. There is, of course, one thing most businesses cannot do online with their customers. Unless you happen to be in the knowledge business like, well, us. As publishers we provide information. You may be reading this magazine in your hands, flicking through paper pages but you are just as likely to be reading it online on the website (www.cpifinancial. net). Any 'knowledge-based' business can deliver information direct to its customers' desktops, laptops, notebooks, notepads or smartphones. It may be stating the obvious to say this but I will anyway, anybody not in the knowledge business has a rather more complicated time of it. You can't deliver tangible 'real world' goods and services down an online datafeed, no matter how many Gb it promises you in speed! Many businesses may claim to go the 'extra yard' for their customers. However, it's not the extra yard that matters so much as the 'final yard'. Your online interaction with customers can be as efficient as anybody else's... your emails slick and your website wonderful. But you still have to get your product to the customer's doorstep both metaphorically and literally. How are you going to do that? This is where we have to get low-tech and this is where solutions such as the joint venture recently announced by Aramex and InPost come in. The agreement will, they claim, 'transform regional e-commerce'. That was the punchline of the headline. What is this magical solution, some super-duper, super-fast, super-secure, uncrackable, unhackable piece of software? No. What Aramex and InPost are proposed is a network of parcel lockers! The agreement formalises a partnership between Aramex and InPost and aims to ensure consumers across the Middle East and Africa will ultimately be able to access private automated parcel lockers in all major cities and towns. Through these automated self-service terminals, e-retailers will be able to send goods ordered online direct to parcel lockers, whilst customers will be able to collect their e-shopping at preselected terminals at their leisure. Anyway that's the plan. The MENA e-commerce market is growing, in the UAE alone it is currently valued at more than $2.9 billion and is expected to grow to over $5.1 billion by end-2015, provided that customers are satisfied they will receive their goods. And the answer is as low-tech as a parcel locker... (c) 2014 CPI Financial. All rights reserved. Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info). |