Over the past few years, almost all major IT giants have launched their own language assistants. These are evolving step by step through the enormous technical progress to intelligent assistants who know the habits and preferences of their users. The resulting increasingly personalized interaction is used by the IT giants to strengthen their core business. As the first player in this area, Amazon expands its commerce strategy by placing a device with language support for ordering products and services at the customer's home. In the future, this wizard is expected to be integrated into all networked devices, resulting in increased customer loyalty to Amazon's ecosystem. Michael Mücke, Managing Partner at MS & C, explains, "Amazon has recognized that a digital assistant that simplifies the purchasing decision has great potential as a sales channel. Through the continuous expansion of connected services, he is becoming the central contact person, who places contexts-sensitive and user-oriented offers directly at the customer. "
The analysis by Mücke, Sturm & Company revealed the following findings:
1. Monopolizing the customer relationship
Conversational Commerce includes digital assistants, who place themselves as central sales points with the customer, with a large number of connected product and service offers. The ecosystem of its suppliers will thus control the customer relationship and can specifically integrate third-party suppliers - or completely exclude them.
2. Influencing the purchase decision by digital assistants
Digital assistants develop a new sales channel in the home through their specially developed devices, by means of which they orchestrate and promptly influence purchase decisions. In the future, they will be self-sufficient, know the customer and his preferences exactly and integrate into all networked devices. In this way they can exert their influence contextually and situatively. As a result, sales channels like the traditional sales shop or online shops and the associated comparison options of price and quality lose relevance.
3. Continuous expansion of ecosystems
The providers of digital assistants will continually expand their ecosystems into more and more business segments in order to cover increasingly the full value added. This enables them to offer the customer a holistic range of products and services and strengthen the bond. This development will particularly threaten trading companies, which must react at an early stage in order to protect their core business - for example, by cooperating with providers of digital assistants.
Mücke, Sturm & Company (MS & C) was founded in 2002 by Michael Mücke and Patrick Sturm as a partner-led consulting company in Munich. Today, MS & C, as a top management consultant, accompanies its clients on all strategy, organizational and technology issues. MS & C specializes in the various topics of digital transformation and looks back on many years of experience with internet-based business models. Industry orientation began in the TIME industry (telecommunications, Internet, media, entertainment). For several years, MS & C has been integrating its expertise into other industries such as energy, automotive, trade and healthcare, and has made leading companies fit for competition in the classic and digital economy. MS & C has offices in Munich and Hamburg.
