At SXSW in Austin this year, Altimeter Group launched an incredible series of research themes exploring the Dynamic Customer Journey, an Adaptive Organization, and our Sentient World.

“What’s smarter: A college grad or your future fridge?”

As more and more inanimate objects start to develop data and intelligence as they connect to each other, a network of autonomous interactions will emerge. Such a question, on many ways, becomes real as our devices are increasingly able to manage, analyze, report, predict, forecast and more — hopefully, as a result, we will experience our days more intelligently and efficiently. Practically speaking, this exploration of our Sentient World has very real implications. Content has largely evolved from the printed page to the digital page. Now it needs to come alive in response to interactions, creating a layer of data that has not previously existed and enabling desktop-level insight for business decision makers. Who will deliver the content for and based on these interactions? Who will manage the data that arises?

Arguably, that Sentient World demands Adaptive Organizations as employees are enabled with and become accustomed to better tools at homes. Many are asking, with the proliferation of remote workforces, outsourcing, video conferencing, and coworking, if traditional leadership and organizational structures aren’t prevent organizations from taking full advantage of new technologies. Indeed, organizations that adapt their organizational and leadership structures will be able to not just manage, but also anticipate and leverage these disruptions to stay relevant.

And those organizations efficiently adapting to new methods, technologies, and models in their day to day work, bring us to the Altimeter Theme of particular interest to us.

“Today, the new customer is empowered to make faster, smarter, more-informed decisions using technology, for instance, by accessing real-time information on their mobile devices or connecting with trusted peers across open and closed social networks. To respond to a dynamic customer journey, organizations must transform their rigid sales, marketing, and customer service programs and adopt an intrinsically more flexible organizational, technological, and go-to-market approach.”

Altimeter proposes that organizations can’t continue to rely on traditional strategies, tactics, and approaches. We’d not only agree but posit that organizations need not when the technology and services are so readily available to evolve organizations with customer intelligence, social data, and rich analytics.

How Organizations Synchronize with the Dynamic Customer

As an analyst and research firm focused on disruptive trends, Altimeter’s research into the Dynamic Customer will explore these key questions:

• * How does this impact the distinction between paid, owned, and earned media? Are they converging? What will this future experience look like?
• * How do experiences on devices and across channels shift? How do organizations balance useful, usable, and enjoyable content with resource constraints? How should organizations deploy their platforms and applications accordingly?
• * What new sources of information influence the journey, for example: friends, experts, or customer reviews?

I’d only add an inquiry into the technology and innovations that change our world and make it more sentient: How does your organization embrace the technology that enables you to synchronize with your customers?

What has been your experience with the Dynamic Customer? How has your organization transformed from a rigid sales, marketing, and customer services groups to the more flexible; appreciating not just your engagement with customers but the role of our sentient world and it’s impact on your adaptive organization?

More than our own curiosity, Altimeter would like to hear from you. Learn more about their research themes here or provide feedback and request more information.