Software Assets -- Not Financial Assets -- Will Determine Business Success Over The Next 10 Years

Software assets — not financial assets — will be most critical to your brand in the age of the customer, a 20-year business cycle in which the most successful companies will reinvent themselves to systematically understand and serve increasingly powerful customers, according to a recent Forrester report.

Mobile, big data, the Internet of Things, and digitization have changed the ways customers interact with brands: Customers expect to be able to interact with brands through software. Digital business in this era will be akin in scale and complexity to the ERP re-engineering that took place in the '90s to address Y2K issues. Why? In the age of customer, a good software experience can build trust, capture consumer attention, create unique customer experiences, and make a brand essential.

A bad software experience? "The next 10 years will see more change than any time since Great Depression in the makeup of the Fortune 1000 as some companies figure out the power of software and others do not. Increasing customer expectations fueled by an accelerated pace of technology will increase the delta between the haves and have-nots in term of overall financial performance," writes John McCarthy, author of the report.

According to George Colony, Forrester CEO, in the age of the customer, all companies will be software companies. Your most important assets will not be financial assets, they will be software assets. Software will allow brands to become customer-obsessed: to know what their customers want — and how, when, and where they can meet (and exceed) that expectation.

More information on Mobile, big data, the Internet of Things can be found at www.CRMindustry.com.