Marketing 0

#1 “Origin” Quadrant
This quadrant includes industries that are the hardest hit during the
pandemic. Companies in these industries would be less ready to face
this crisis mainly because their business processes still include
significant physical interactions, which are harder to eliminate or
substitute for. At the same time, it is also unlikely for them to
migrate customers to digital touchpoints, mostly due to the lack of
urgency for purchase during a crisis. The examples in this quadrant
are the hospitality and healthcare industries, which rely heavily on
human-to-human interactions. For players in these industries, it is a
chicken-and-egg dilemma: invest in digitalization or wait for
customers to migrate to digital behavior.

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FIGURE 5.3
Digital Readiness by Industry
The hospitality industry has been disrupted by digitalization for
many years. The travel review sites and online booking platforms
have brought transparency to service quality and pricing. Online
lodging marketplaces such as Airbnb have also put pressure on large
hotel chains. But the digitalization mostly occurs in front and back
segments of the customer journey. Customers use digital tools to
plan and book trips as well as to review and recommend
destinations. But the middle section of the customer journey is
largely nondigital.
And the digitalization is mostly on the surface level and not yet at a
transformative level for the industry. The form of technology used is
only basic, leveraging the Internet mainly for digital ads, content
marketing, and electronic channels. A few hospitality players have
made sporadic attempts to use advanced technologies such as
robotics and the Internet of Things (IoT), but customer responses
have been lukewarm.

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The healthcare industry has somewhat the same degree of digital
readiness. Artificial intelligence (AI) has the power to transform
healthcare, and early signs have been promising. Despite the
potential, healthcare delivery is still very traditional, involving face-
to-face interactions. Before the COVID-19 outbreak, telehealth was
not really an option for both healthcare providers and their patients.
After the pandemic is over, it will remain a question of whether the
trend will continue its stride. Aside from the regulatory barrier,
providers seem to struggle to provide the infrastructure and
healthcare professionals who are digital-ready. And it is doubtful
whether the payers will have the same willingness to pay for
telehealth.