Digital Transformation has brought several changes in our lives, changes in technology, processes, workflow, communication, and even overall services and products. But more changes will come in near future due to millennials getting active in the workforce environment.
Millennials are those who are born after 1985 and grew up with the internet. They are the first to grow up surrounded by digital technologies like broadband internet, home computers, video games, social media, and smartphones. They don’t know what is a floppy drive or audiotape or beeper.
Millennials are very different from their parents and grandparents. While my wife and I prefer to go to the jewelry shop and buy something for ourselves, my daughter will order anything and everything on Amazon. So much cross-selling is happening to them that they take the decision in a split second.
Millennials employ a variety of devices and are omnichannel to conduct research prior to purchase and expect a seamless experience across every channel.
On-demand is a way of life for them. They use mobile apps for transferring money, checking balances and getting loan approvals, calling an Uber, and watching movies they like.
Further, they believe in using all the mobile payments like apple pay, google wallet or Samsung pay more than cash. This way ATM machines will vanish from the streets as the telephone booth had gone.
P2P payments like Paytm are made more popular by millennials leading to less use of cheques or cards.
They are a highly connected generation and use social media extensively.
They prefer to have a digital relationship with the service provider – whether it is a bank or telephone or insurance. They don’t want to visit physical branches anymore and want to get all their problems solved immediately – digitally.
They value their time more than anything and instead of driving around to buy products they want to buy, they prefer online shopping.
Millennials are influential drivers of technology trends. They adopt new technologies faster than older generations, and they have a major impact on how companies develop products and services. For example, Snapchat was developed mainly for millennials, and it has been extremely successful because it meets their needs and preferences.
They are keen to exploit technologies like IoT, Augmented/Virtual reality, wearables or Artificial Intelligence enabled digital assistants.
This has led to more and more businesses becoming digital to service them.
As we enter a time where millennials begin to dominate the global workforce, it is important to acknowledge and understand what they are bringing to the table and how times have changed and evolved for all generations.