Last Friday, Engageware had the privilege of having Rackspace Futurist, Robert Scoble and Crowd Companies Founder, Jeremiah Owyang, join Engageware’s CEO for a webinar on the On-Demand (Concierge) Economy.
The webinar panelists discussed drivers for the on-demand economy and how consumers today expect services and goods at their fingertips.
Per the discussion, leading companies are meeting consumers’ basic human need for help, and in a way that is affordable and frictionless. Companies such as Uber, Operator and Luxe were cited as prime examples of on-demand services.
Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) were mentioned as technologies that will complement both digital and physical channels to create a blended experience (in retail for example), though panelists had their varying timelines for how long both will take to become ubiquitous.
All agreed that traditional big name brands such as Ford, Sephora, Whole Foods and Sprint are making efforts to bring on-demand services to you.
Another topic of discussion is the retail paradigm shift that is happening with traditional pure-play e-commerce players and why, among the rumors, Amazon is actually going to need physical stores.
As a moderator I found this webinar to be a great conversation!