One world, one partner: procurement solutions for global, omni-channel communications
As global companies seek to more closely align their business with their customers, delivering a consistent and innovative communications strategy and Customer Experience (CX) across international borders has fast become a top priority. Whether consumers are based in London, Barcelona, Dubai, Hong Kong, Washington, or anywhere in between, organisations must work to create a consistent customer engagement plan.
Most multi-national brands have grown through a combination of acquisition and organic expansion and this leads to a raft of communication challenges unique to global businesses. Among these are fragmented, non-standard delivery; culture and systems diversity; the differing levels of business maturity, language and currency; as well as the lack of visibility and control; and the complexities of complying with various international regulations.
To overcome these challenges in the modern, digital world, a well-defined, global, omni-channel communications strategy is an essential requirement. Putting an effective communications strategy in place, however, raises challenges of its own. The pace of technological advancement has accelerated, and will continue to accelerate and expand as the number of channels through which today’s increasingly technophile customers expect organisations to communicate.
Progressively organisations are recognising that, as segments of their customers want access to more specialised communications platforms as digitisation takes hold, it would be extremely costly to build a market-leading offering from scratch.
As trusted advisor to the world's leading businesses, governments and institutions, McKinsey, reports “digital technologies themselves, therefore, are opening pathways to collaborative forms of innovation," especially as digitisation and the wider adoption of next generation of digital frontier technologies remains slow.
According to a new McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) report, ‘Twenty-five years of digitisation: Ten insights into how to play it right’: “On average, it may take to 2045 for full, worldwide diffusion of emerging smart automation and AI technologies in new use cases. In the case of established digital technologies, even if their adoption accelerates, various uses have proven to be complex and adoption remains slow.”
As the world continues to be radically transformed by the diffusion of new digital technologies, there remains a growing need for organisations to partner globally to deliver the digitisation strategy to meet the ever-evolving needs of customers across various countries and, indeed, continents.
On the face of it a multi-channel communications strategy may require multi-vendor procurement, with specialist suppliers needed for each of the different services, such as print, email, SMS, social media and app notification.
Global companies will need to find an effective way to manage a purchasing process that involves multiple suppliers in order to prevent it from becoming dispersed and convoluted. Dealing with multiple vendors can lead to siloed divisions, each with their own cost centres, priorities, and supply risks.
Such an approach can also result in a purchasing environment which lacks cohesion, where sourcing, tendering and evaluation become disruptively complicated and where productivity is held back by prolonged, burdensome ordering processes. It can also result in higher overall purchasing costs.
A dedicated communications partner
A far more effective solution, and one which has become increasingly valuable for modern, global brands, is to work with a single, dedicated global communications partner that can consolidate the separate elements into a cohesive and integrated omni-channel communications strategy.
Moving away from the multi-vendor approach to a trusted, dedicated partner enables organizations to bring all the channels together, eliminate silos and, importantly, run campaigns that meet the needs and expectations of customers across different geographies and markets. Businesses are provided with a more consolidated, streamlined service that compromises a single supplier and a single voice for all communications.
Paragon Group is a global business, helping brands connect with their customers everywhere. Operating from over 20 countries, and delivering services to over 170, we generate substantial value for international companies in three core service areas – marketing and CX, transaction and BPO, and digital services.
Our dedicated team of experts, together with sales and account management teams who work in cooperation with your own local teams, will take global ownership of your supply chain, consolidating it, standardising processes across service lines and leveraging global procurement spend. In doing so, we significantly lower risks of inferior product quality, inconsistent product delivery, contract non-compliance and poor supplier management.
A consolidated approach
Indeed, the benefits of a more consolidated approach to global procurement are far reaching. In the current economic climate where many global businesses are operating under tight budgets, the cost savings that can be derived through greater supply chain efficiency can be especially valuable. By working with a single supplier, organisations can maximise the value they can squeeze out of each channel, reaching customers and prospects via the channels or devices they prefer, all while saving themselves time and money.
However, that is not enough. With research revealing that by 2020 customer experience will have overtaken price and product as the key brand differentiator, with 87% of customers believing brands need to put more effort into providing a seamless experience, today’s multi-national brands are seeking more than just cost efficiencies.
Consolidating the separate elements of an omnichannel communications strategy through a single provider – communications that had previously been purchased by multiple sites from multiple suppliers – can enable global brands to deliver customer experience excellence via mobile, digital, social media and print technologies, all within a more cost-effective procurement framework.
What’s more, a collaborative approach with a single specialist partner such as Paragon not only releases the value of aggregated assets such as data, enabling organisations to maximise each individual piece of data held to its full growth potential, but also ensures GDPR compliance across all communications.
As a trusted communications partner, we also establish collaborative working relationships with our customers where the sharing of resources and intelligence on new product development, customer marketing and market penetration are mutually-beneficial.
To find out how Paragon can support your global communications strategy, download our latest Lead Supply E-book: https://www.paragon-cc.com/node/1284