Leverage technology and smart solutions - Rancard CEO on Springboard

Leveraging technology in today’s high-tech world is a must for growing businesses as innovation in technology has improved operations at companies and helped turn small local businesses into global ones.

Every aspect of a business goes hand-in-hand with creating a better customer relationship and technology plays a major role in doing so. Companies collect huge amounts of data using leveraging technology, however, that data will serve no purpose if it is not used to better customer relationships and enhance every experience customers have with the company.

It is, therefore, necessary for companies to be on top of technology and continue to bring out new technologies that will bring more convenience and excitement to customers.

It is for this reason that Springboard, Your Virtual University, a radio programme on Joy Fm, used this week’s edition to educate companies on how they can leverage technology to improve their efficiency.

The show, which is hosted by Rev. Albert Ocran, had the Chief Executive Officer of Rancard Solutions, Mr Kofi Dadzie, who spoke on the topic “Leveraging technology and smart solutions’.

Mr Dadzie urged business leaders to be on top of technology and move beyond using generic technology to define, design and build their own specific technologies to solve the problems of their customers.

“Companies must look at having their own softwares and hardwares that are designed to provide bespoke solutions that will give them an added advantage,” he stated.

Not always about profit

In designing products and services that are technology-driven, the CEO urged businesses not to think about profit but rather think about how to delight the customer with the products or service.

“Your first consideration must not always be profit, it must be delighting the customer and ultimately that would drive the numbers and profit,” he noted.

He said profit was not the first consideration in a number of companies and used UBER as an example.

“UBER is experiencing exponential growth through the use of technology that is changing customer experience,” he said.

He also urged companies to focus on products and services that would bring maximum benefits to the customer but at an affordable cost.

“For individuals, often we are looking for convenience, efficiency, getting maximum value but at a minimum cost. So we are not giving up what we want but we want to spend less time, money and effort in getting it,” he said.

“So businesses must deploy technologies that would make their services more convenient, accessible and affordable. The driving force for the consumer is to get more convenience, more efficiency, and more affordability in the consumption of products and services and this must be at the back of the minds of companies as they design these solutions,” he added.

Packaging of innovations

Mr Dadzie also mentioned that packaging was very important as far as innovation was concerned.

“For people who believe they are creative and innovative in organisations, they have to add another ingredient which is learning how to package their innovations. It is not just about designing the product but it is about how to communicate it and  knowing how to enter the business development process of creating the customer experience out of it. It is one thing creating a great product, and another thing to get it to find its way into the hands of people,” he said.

“So it is about crafting an experience, how your customer discovers the product, how it is delivered, and the experience they get out of it. It is about how to craft all these together,” he added.
 He said companies that continuously deploy technology and packaged it well would always stay ahead of competition.

“They will be in the mode of constant experimentation and constant learning and often they take the customer along,” he said.

Speed is necessary

The CEO also noted that speed was very necessary in coming up with new innovations.

He said companies should, therefore, not take a long time in trying to perfect their innovations before coming out with it but rather introduce it early, get feedback from customers and use the feedback to improve upon it.

“It is not about taking a long time to perfect your new products and services, it is about how quickly you bring it to the market, it is about letting your customers become part of the process of testing and refining how effectively the new product or service will be,” he explained.

“If you bring the products early and let the customers give you feedback, you can then refine it with them. That is the way to go,” he added.

Festival of ideas

Touching on the relevance of the Festival of Ideas conference which is set to come off on August 17, Mr Dadzie said the programme served as a dedicated platform that allowed emerging leaders to engage with experienced executives.

“It is a programme that seeks to deliberately expose emerging leaders, communicate with them, groom them, and give them the opportunity to understand what it takes to get to the top,” he stated.

“The programme is like the missing bit in our higher education because we don’t always get this and sometimes, depending on what organisation you are working in, you don’t even get it in such an open forum format where your peers and other emerging leaders are in the room with you, asking some of the questions you haven’t thought of,” he mentioned. — GB