The pandemic has altered your company’s value proposition. How to deliver it?

It has become a cliché that all businesses had to readjust, seek new channels and actions to reverse the impacts of the pandemic. And it is practically a consensus that the main effect was the anticipation of plans, investments and strategic movements.
Consumers, also had to adapt and expand the “frontiers” they were used to consuming various products and services. This is also true for some B2B segments. Google recently released results of a survey of food retail consumers in Brazil (culturally recognized as the “last frontier” of e-commerce) that gives us indications of the size of this change and the challenges that will arise. This should be no different for the other segments.

As Google itself says throughout the research, a new value proposition is emerging:

• Price
• Product
• Protection
• Readiness

Assuming that “price” and “product” are attributes that companies consistently work on the best way to deliver to their customers, it remains to understand how businesses can deliver “protection” and “readiness”. In other words, 2 new values were imposed on your company’s proposal, in addition to the other values already sought, such as convenience, personalization and better experiences.
Another interesting data from the same research:

Although 51% is a relevant number, at the same time it shows us that 49% intend not to continue with the same habit. This only reinforces that we will have an increasing integration between digital and physical and that the challenge of delivering “protection” and “readiness” should consider a combined environment between these two worlds.

How to deliver these new values ​​in the current context?

The challenge imposed is complex. But observing and mapping ecosystems, we can see some movements that tend to solidify and show sustainable paths:

1-) Verticalization of platforms and marketplaces
It is a movement that was already happening and a natural consequence of the growth of the major players. The more new categories grow in a marketplace, the more customers want new experiences, customizations, more portfolio and better services. Vertical platforms appear to cover this.
Marketplaces like Apptite, connecting chefs and customers saw this. In the B2B segment, the startup E-Comprei connecting distributors with perfumeries and small pharmacies are already reaping good results with this model.
Even for called “traditional” industry it can be a path. Nestle recently launched its “Vem de Bolo” initiative. A platform to connect “bakers” and consumers.
Initiatives that deliver both protection and readiness, differentiated and customized experience and more product assortment.

2-) Dark and Ghosts X
A model already followed today by almost all current delivery platforms should also gain more and more strength in several segments.
The meat marketplace Içougue pivoted its model to B2C at the beginning of the crisis. He created the concept of “dark butcher shop” and is expanding his business.
More agility in order processing, greater geographic coverage (readiness) and no contact with the end consumer in the store (protection). In addition,a scalable growth strategy.

3-) Platforms within platforms
To react more quickly, even platforms that already orchestrate an ecosystem are “outsourcing” part of their activities to other platforms with more specific operations and a more mature ecosystem.
The Delivery Center, a “last mile” delivery platform, is within large digital marketplaces like Americanas.com, as well as within physical marketplaces like Shopping Malls.
This “junction” ends up drawing the attention of major players in the market into platforms. Mcdonalds recently announced a partnership with the Americanas marketplace for orders and deliveries from its stores. Readiness and protection for your customers.

4-) New products and services “off premise”
Many products and services that have always been consumed “on premise”, that is, locally where it is produced and offered, such as stores, clinics and gyms also go through the movement of being “consumed” and provided outside the original locations and closer to the final customer.
This is what Hirota supermarket did when launching container stores inside large condominiums, without the presence of employees. And what the Doghero platform also did when it launched the home veterinarian service for pet owners.
Readiness and protection in its “purest way”.
The delivery of these new values, combining the best of digital and physical, seems to be a model that will accompany us for a long time.
Some of these examples were already on this path before the pandemic and, of course, are going through it in a less turbulent or even positive way. Others have found the way now. But everything indicates that it is not just a temporary movement.

Platforms will be part of the new value chains

These movements have been reorganizing value chains. And they will be increasingly supported by platform and ecosystem businesses throughout it. The speed of “connection” with the ecosystem, the ability to scale through “asset outsourcing” are factors that make this scenario more and more followed. What we see below are the emergence of aggregators and orchestrators of interactions between producers and consumers at the top of the chains, bringing delivery closer to the final consumer. In addition, whenever value chains change, the infrastructure to support them also adapts. And then more platforms will act. From fintechs to data storage.

It is very important for companies to map the ecosystem and the value chain in which they are inserted to assess possible movements. The approach above, which we generally use in our projects, is fundamental for the company to assess whether it will transform its business, or any part adjacent to it, into a platform. Or if not, at what points in the chain will they rely on existing platforms to deliver what they need to their customers.

Whichever path you choose, modeling interactions along this new value chain is the next key point for the success of these movements.

Historically, models that survived crises are those that established the new way of things happening. Let us be prepared.

Fernando Teixeira da Silva