2017 predictions: O2 sales director Ben Dowd

O2 sales director Ben Dowd tells Mobile News his thoughts on what might happen this year, including the blurring of lines between work and personal lives and improving customer experience

This year has certainly been a turbulent one. But uncertainty drives productivity and open-mindedness. As the uncertainty continues, I expect customer experiences to become so much more important than products. Customers will become more focused on how products and services enhance their work and lifestyles and companies will need to be aware of this.

There’ll be further blurring of the lines between work and personal lives as business software will start to mimic consumer apps. This will of course drive the need for more mobility, increased connectivity and a further increase in data demand, whether that’s insight for business or content for consumers. This will also continue to drive business and consumer purchasing decisions and digital infrastructures will have to evolve to support it.

The customer is at the heart of all of this. Consumers now expect every business to focus on transparency, immediacy and context, and that means that everything will be on-demand. We’ll see more investment in digital solutions to improve customer experiences and drive digital transformation. Customer insight will drive this, and help us better understand how digital trends affect the way people work, shop, communicate and what they value. It will essentially enable a customer-centred digital transformation.