ÄLYKÄS LIPUNMYYNTIRATKAISU ÄLYKÄSTÄ TULEVAISUUTTA VARTEN

No one would like to revisit 2020, but the transition to 2021 doesn’t feel easy either. While 2020 was a battle for survival for many, 2021 might be the battle for the survival of the fittest. It is a somewhat exhausting thought but at the same time an invigorating opportunity.

Nowadays we observe how many banks are going through metamorphosis towards high-tech companies with a banking license. Many banks started to apply the term “ecosystem” in their business vocabulary. Big actors are aiming to become serious competitors to one-stop tech companies like Google, Amazon, and Alibaba. At first, this approach was perceived ambiguously by participants in the banking sector. But now it is becoming quite obvious that the chosen strategy is valid and far-sighted. For example, Russian Sberbank ecosystem includes more than 20 companies which are not directly related to the traditional banking business.

Covid has definitely been a game changer in mobility. First it brought on a disaster when people stopped moving, and while the hard times are dragging on, it is slowly also triggering changes in thinking, many of which are welcome. One of them is a strong trend towards partnering. The idea of organizing relationships among actors in a field through partnering instead of competition or subcontracting is of course nothing new. Airlines have formed and run successful partnerships for decades. But in ground transportation competition, subcontracting and monopolies have been the standard.

There’s no denying it. It’s been demanding. When you are in the mobility business and people stop moving, you are in dire straits. We are engineers and therefore reorganizing our internal workflow was quick. Making cash flow estimates that make sense, securing financing to bridge the crisis and rethinking our sales strategy to meet the new challenges of our customers has taken a while.

During my years as a research specialist in MaaS, I would very often compare ecosystem successes based on collaborations. Take the airlines for example, they were the first to go mobile and have several solution providers like car rentals and hotels integrated.