Consumer Change Agents

Consumers control the velocity of change in the marketplace and they are continuously pushing the velocity as a result of change and developments in the wireless and Internet capabilities. Consumers learn quickly to take advantage of the gains in wireless technologies to push the changes in the marketplace to support their lifestyle demands. Now we are on the cusp of another major advance in wireless technology with 5g wireless networking to be delivered in the next year. This new wireless network technology brings the potential to dramatically change the networking and capabilities in a dramatic way and the retail marketplace must prepare to embrace these new demands and capabilities. There is simply no time to waist in preparation for this change because the velocity of change will only increase with the extended networking capabilities.




Consumers have used technology to become leading agents of change in the retail marketplace and the coming wireless changes are going to shift this role into high gear for a period of time. Understand that there is always a difference between the hype of new technology and the reality and this new technology will be no different. The change though opens the door for change that will start with a trickle in the market as the technology forward consumers experiment and will quickly increase to a rush when the new capabilities are flexed and niche vendors deliver trial capabilities. Technology forward consumers and niche vendors will very quickly drive the change into the marketplace and this technology, just like the release of the 4g wireless technologies, will have extreme disruptive impact on the marketplace as consumers quickly embrace the capabilities to support their lifestyles.




The consumer acceptance of the new 5g technologies will be must faster than the 4g technology. Of course it will take some time for contributors to roll out enhanced 5g capabilities, however, the consumer is now prepared and anxious for the change. This time around there is a much larger market of technology savvy millennials that will quickly push the capabilities of the technologies and and also the marketplace. The demands and the consumer capabilities will build quickly pushing the marketplace into another round of disruption.




The market must prepare and brace for this new wave of disruption because it will come with a breathtaking speed that can overcome those that are not prepared. This means that partners must increase their collaboration across all channels. This means that partners must improve and increase their interactions and collaboration with consumers. This means that partners must improve their integration flexibility to support new niche partner integrations quickly and efficiently. The change will start slow but it will grow in volume and velocity very quickly and this will require imagination, collaboration and flexibility from all partners in the market to meet the challenge.