The connected customer is very much going to dictate terms with marketers in 2016. Certain transformational ideas business must consider to leverage this trend. Marketing research conducted by Forrester has pointed out that self customer service is now more popular than all other such forms including phone. Thus customer service agencies must consider such methods in-fitted with video based instructions. Instead of large corporations, majority of customer facing mobile apps will be developed by individual developers. Marketers will increasingly invest in e-commerce platforms. IT firms will get more aligned with business needs by developing capabilities in cloud computing, social analytics and Big Data. HR departments must encourage employees to improve health and engagement by using wearable technologies. Chief Marketing officers will invest more in automation by developing buyer personas and buyer process maps. CEOs on the other hand will focus more on innovations. Finally, data driven sales organizations will do better than others in the market.

Source:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vala-afshar/2016-the-year-of-connecte_b_8833496.html?ir=India&adsSiteOverride=in