How technology is changing the way we do business

Last week, I attended DM Forum featuring Colin Barnard, Sales Director of Google (Australia and NZ). The most valuable takeaway from the presentation was about how Google is changing the current marketplace.

I learned that having Google at our fingertips has changed the balance of power between company and consumer. For example, with the amount of information available online, chances are the customer interested in buying a particular car will know more about it than the salesman on the floor.

Therefore businesses need to change their sales strategies. Assume the customer already knows about your products or services. Making sales isn’t about “wheeling and dealing” anymore – it’s about fostering the ultimate experience and knowing how to close.

Just for fun, here are a couple of other interesting things I picked up:

• The power of computing is doubling every 18 months.
• Today’s smartphone is more powerful than the computers we used 10 years ago.
• Old telephones took 35 years to reach mass adoption. Smartphones only took 3.
• Half of Google’s 40,000-strong team is dedicated to innovation.
• Google has just shown its first prototype contact lens for diabetics (see image above) which will detect insulin levels in tears and send out an automatic alert.
• Here’s something creepy. See this AT&T commercial to view starkly accurate predictions of the future from 1993.

Colin guarantees the future will be here a lot faster than you think.

So watch out – and start adapting now.

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