a customer-obsessed brand today, you need to ‘be like water’ to stay current, relevant and connected. But in this world of constant flux, disruption, hyper-personalisation and real-time everything, how do you – practically and achievably – do this? In times of uncertainty, as Capgemini’s latest report on key technology trends, TechnoVision, refers to, the only true constant is your consumer. And faced with so many kinds of flux – economic, geopolitical, environmental, local and global – how does your organisation keep pace while also maintaining balance, perspective and impetus across these often-conflicting dimensions? And how do you keep customer experience front and centre as your number one priority at the same time?  As you plan for a future where the only thing certain is fluid change, the challenge for your organisation is this: What are the ‘moments that matter’ that you want to own and be known for? And what does your organisation need to do to make these a reality for your customers? From the experience ‘battleground’ to a fluid state Retail organisations in competitive markets have long known that it’s the consumer’s experience – the sum of all their micro ‘moments that matter’ – that ultimately creates the greatest differentiation, loyalty and customer lifetime value for their brands.  For decades, we’ve described a customer experience battleground, where retailers are pitted against each other in combat, land-grabbing for share of mind, wallet, clicks, bricks and market.  There’s no argument that competition will always be a constant in an always-changing world, nor any question that consumers’ choices will continue to multiply and markets will continue to over-saturate. Yet, in today’s world of flux and pace, disruption and distraction, the battleground metaphor loses its currency.  Brands today need to focus less on the idea of a battleground where the terrain is fixed and the greatest threat to existence is your competition, and more on achieving a state of fluidity to enable pace, relevance and customer connection. This fluid state is about your organisation’s ability to evolve constantly in an ever-changing world.  Unsplash ‘Be water, my friend’ Taking inspiration from iconic martial artist Bruce Lee, to become the ‘brand’ you aspire to for your consumers, you need to be like water, so you can successfully curate the moments that matter. With the rate of technological change today, technology itself almost becomes irrelevant the moment you decide to invest in it. What matters then is the state it helps enable for your organisation and your brand.  We often talk about the need for agility and the role technology plays in helping us be agile. Today, agility is not enough – we need fluidity.  Fluidity is the new state of play. Fluidity in mindset. Fluidity in expectation. Fluidity in action. Fluidity in investment. To be relevant for your consumer and provide moments that matter across all touchpoints and channels, to be multi-dimensional in your approach, and to be able to respond and execute in real time, you need to be fluid – like water. Same customers, different moments Creating brand-defining moments that matter is not in service to more customers. It’s in service to the same customers at different moments.  To truly capture your consumer, your organisation needs to enable these moments when, where and how your consumer wants to experience them.  It’s never just about transacting; it’s about how you are capturing the moment. (Because it stands to reason, if you capture the moment, you transact the sale.) If you’re leading the moment with efficiency, it needs to be value-led. If the moment is experiential, it needs to create room for the customer’s own process of discovery. The You Experience at the heart of it all At the heart of TechnoVision’s framework, the You Experience outlines the new frontier for customer and employee experience.  Our customers and our organisations’ people expect immersive, low-touch, empathetic experiences. And, by their very nature, these experiences are frictionless, seamless and integrated. They unobtrusively and intuitively meet the customer where they are and give them what they need. Or, to put it more simply: they are like water.  And critically, through the experience we deliver for our customers, we must also tread lightly in the world, mindful of the footprint and the ripple effect these ‘moments’ can create in contributing to a positive impact on society and the environment. Power to your people and your partners While technology has a critical role to play in enabling these fluid moments and experiences, everyone in our organisation and within our partner ecosystem, in parallel, has a role to play in delivering a compelling and frictionless customer experience. After all, if we focus on the one thing that always matters most – the moment – we can see how every person across our entire organisation and ecosystem delivers ‘nano’ moments, which cumulatively enable the ‘macro’ moment our consumer experiences.  This extends well beyond the four walls (if indeed you have four walls) of your organisation. Within your ecosystem, every interaction one of your partners has with your customers through their buying experience contributes to a nano-moment. The partner is as equal a part of the fabric of your brand and brand experience as any other.  A great example of this is last-mile execution. Take this familiar example: Your customer has a seamless experience with your brand at every touchpoint – right up until the last mile, when fluidity can very abruptly become friction (think damaged goods, lost items or late deliveries). Cutting through the noise with less In a world of clutter, noise and an often-daunting array of choices for consumers, we build relevance by focusing on the moments that matter for our customers.  And when we build relevance, we cut through the noise and clutter. When we cut through – and understand how and why we are relevant to our customers in these moments – we can do less. We can focus on doing only those things that really matter. And doing less gives us greater latitude and headspace for fluidity. In a world where we are often conditioned to believe that more is more, doing less or narrowing your focus as a business can seem counterintuitive or ill-advised. Yet it’s one of this year’s key TechnoVision themes: Do Good. Do Well. Do Less – and keep being like water.  I can’t think of a better example to give here of a brand that exemplifies this than Australia’s own Aesop.  Zen-like in its simplicity and clarity of purpose, for nearly the past four decades, Aesop has maintained a resolute and unwavering focus on being true to its purpose and mission: to offer skin, hair and body care formulations created with meticulous attention to detail, and with efficacy and sensory pleasure in mind. This narrow and simple focus is not the norm in a highly competitive beauty industry. Aesop’s purpose and brand essence is embodied simply, elegantly and consistently through its products, in-store experiences and online presence, in a way that feels almost effortless in its understatement.  Stores are unique, tailored to the distinct particularities and needs of each location. Associates know the products and science intimately and are always attuned and attentive to the skincare needs of the person they are hosting.  From the moment you enter an Aesop store until the moment you leave with your lightly scented muslin bag, the experience is highly sensory, immersive and deeply personal. It seems fitting – even symbolic – that each store has its own basin, and that a customer is literally immersed in the brand experience through the act of handwashing. This, to me, is fluidity personified. And technology is invisible, happening somewhere out of view, because the customer expects the technology to be fluid as they are immersed in the moment. What if you could reorient your organisation around the customer?  Imagine if you could orient your entire business around your most loyal, valuable consumers? Not only can you do it, but you should, by committing to being like water and focusing on the customer moments that matter and for which you want to be known.  Just think about the fundamental shift this would create. The next question, then, is how? Here are some questions to answer that can help your organisation get there: What does your organisation need to do to make this happen?  How do we respect our human capital and create the capacity to make this new way of being possible?  In our constrained world, how do we free up the financial capital and create the fluidity we need to do the right things in the right ways, responsively and at pace? How does your operating model need to change?  What role does technology play? How do you know what technology you need and, more importantly, why you need it? Which of these things comes first, and why?