The researcher Esko Kilpi explains how the relationship between the company and the consumer has changed.
Work has always been the same and always will be: working means finding solutions to other people’s problems. What changes over time is the kind of problems to be solved and the way in which we solve them.
This is Esko Kilpi’s opinion, a Finnish researcher, founder of the Esko Kilpi Company (www.kilpi.fi). The company brings together researchers and strategists to help businesses and people grow and develop their skills in today’s business world, which is dominated by new technologies.
Kilpi explains that what has really changed today is the relationship between the company and the consumer. Businesses, through their products, used to generate value for their customers, in exchange for which they received payment. It is not so today: Different customers, with the same product, share different experiences. Therefore it is not the company that creates value with its products. Instead it is the way in which customers use and experience the products that generates value. This radically modifies the relationship between the company and the customer. Companies need to be present whenever and wherever customers use their products and need to interact with them, helping them to enjoy the best possible experience. The new digital technologies enable customers to do so, this relation is based on interaction.
Should interaction become the main activity in the future, empathy will clearly be the most important skill for each worker, in order to bring us closer to other people.