“If you were to seal one prediction in a time capsule that you feel would come to fruition on or before December 31, 2020 what would it be and how would it impact payments and commerce as we know it today?”
The reality is that you can‘t predict the future. When you try to do so, you will likely find that your year-end looks at year-out predictions are obsolete by March. What you can and should do is try to identify and prepare for the high-level trends that are occurring, realizing that they are continually evolving over time, not in response to a single event or timeframe.
For instance, we know that technology in general – and artificial intelligence (AI) specifically – is enabling hyper-personalization. Although in its earliest implementations, the ability to create one-to-one personalized products and offers that are presented to individuals when they are most responsive to them will result in more meaningful engagements, higher customer satisfaction and lasting loyalty. Although considered an oxymoron now, “mass personalization” will be the end result, causing positive disruption to the status quo of how we market and buy today.
The single most important capability to develop is agility. That trait will provide the bridge from the old and traditional to the new and yet to be discovered. By being open to change and continuously adapting to it, we’ll never miss an important shift or underestimate a nuance. We’ll increase speed to market tenfold, we’ll move from physical formats to all-virtual, we’ll eliminate friction, fraud, and risk in the system, and we’ll use business intelligence and machine learning to create bespoke services that virtuously improve and adapt. We’ll create and implement any use case on any scale for our clients and their customers.
How many times have we seen a continuance of established methodologies and systems? Rather than continuing to modify or tweak what exists, let’s focus on what could be and drive toward the end goal. Let’s learn how to incorporate challenging the norm as an everyday mindset. Let’s respond to new challenges with curiosity and openness to the “new possible.” The instant we do, we will free ourselves to proactively create what the future can be.
Download as PDF: Agility Will Be Your Best Friend
As founder and CEO of i2c, Amir is responsible for defining a clear vision and setting strategic direction for the company. Today, as market opportunities for payments & emerging commerce continue to expand at a dramatic rate, Amir is leading i2c's continued push to innovate the enabling infrastructure and solutions that transform commerce. Today's consumers want choices, and Amir's vision is to build the flexible solutions they seek in an increasingly mobile and global world. Recognized as a pioneer in the prepaid/stored value industry, Amir founded software development firm Innovative Private Limited in 1987 and led the global launch of the transaction processing platform FastCash. Propelled by the success of Innovative, he founded i2c, Inc. in 2001 to bring next-generation processing solutions to the payments industry. Contributing to the company's expansive growth curve, under Amir's guidance, i2c has introduced a number of industry firsts, including card-linked offers, event-driven account holder communications and gift card voice personalization.
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