Digitization: The most important trends

Food retail: Smart tools offer more relevant and connected offers for digitalization

Digitalization and digital change in the food retail sector will accelerate, both for online and offline shopping. Personalized prices, more flexible delivery and pick-up concepts and virtual shopping are just some of the drivers - and not just for the big grocery chains. In future, customers will receive offers that are highly relevant and will therefore spend less time on one of the most regular of all everyday activities. The right tools for this will be increasingly linked, such as recipes with shopping lists and online orders, thus enabling customers to enjoy a new shopping experience that optimizes their everyday lives.Accelerated information channels and changing consumer habits are creating a range of new opportunities for long-established service providers, particularly in the insurance and banking sectors. To avoid continuing to be an easy target for nimble fintech start-ups, the industry giants will focus more on the young, up-and-coming competition in 2017. As CDOs, digital thought leaders will find their way into established companies and increasingly focus on smart innovations such as consumer communities. There, users can independently gather information about insurance and digitalization, recommend the best offers to each other and take out insurance solutions directly. The transparent and user-friendly processing of contract conclusions will be a core issue in the digitalization of large companies.For many, digitalization and digital transformation sound abstract and intangible. Consultants need to become more concrete - in the interests of their clients, especially when addressing SMEs. Digital agencies must provide answers as to how customers can be inspired and processes innovated with the help of "digital". E-commerce offers concrete starting points for this. Several trends can be observed here: Individual commerce, B2B commerce and emotional commerce. Target groups and the individuality of customers are thus becoming the focus of the digital transformation process.The topic of customer reviews is no longer just important for the e-commerce sector, but is also becoming indispensable for services in all industries. Nine out of ten consumers today gather information on the Internet before buying a product or booking a service - and the experiences of previous customers are immensely important in making the right decisions. More and more companies and service providers are recognizing the added value of proactive review marketing and are increasingly relying on all-in-one solutions with which customer reviews can be obtained, evaluated and even bundled from a wide variety of review platforms.Whether newsfeed on Facebook, books on Kindle, magazines with Readly or via the apps of daily newspapers - reading has long been digital everywhere and digital trends are on the rise. What is important is a user-friendly presentation, optimized for the respective device, from smartphone to laptop. In 2017, publishers will therefore increasingly focus on improving usability. As in the film and music industry, there is no shortage of good content, because a good story remains a good story, regardless of whether it is digital or print.With the enthusiasm for good brand stories, the possibilities in the mobile age are also growing. Virtual reality, in particular, holds exciting potential for brands as a storytelling tool. Customers become heroes who can experience brand stories close enough to touch in the middle of the action. To successfully accompany target groups on their virtual hero's journey, companies should learn to create 360-degree worlds for their customers.is a PR and storytelling agency that supports companies in various fields such as fashion, health, travel, finance and digital marketing.