Why Frictionless Business?

Business friction is anything that prevents a potential customer from buying your product or service.

As a practical matter, if frictionless business were possible, it could lead to outcomes such as higher lead-to-customer conversion rates, lower churn, and higher account retention, plus higher renewal rates as well as enhanced productivity (the ability to produce and sell more while reducing the cost of doing so).

That is why PTC’s new webinar series will focus on frictionless business, examining from many angles key strategy, product development, technology, distribution channels, marketing, customer service, governance, human resources, capital resources, information technology, customer segmentation, and supply chain issues, all with the objective of helping attendees understand how to operate more effectively.

PTC’s Webinar Series: Frictionless Business™ kicks off with its first webinar examining the impact of COVID-19 on data centers and network infrastructure, looking at opportunities and challenges.

The following webinar will focus on network evolution in the 2020s, while the third installment will explore regional finance and investment issues. Frictionless business is the theme that unifies the webinar series for a fundamental reason.

As the second law of thermodynamics and second law of motion suggest, all business efforts to achieve a result are resisted. Obstacles might be the lack of human or capital resources, competitor market domination, or inefficiencies in supply chains or sales channels.

An unstated objective of every organizational action in support of its mission and goals is the effort to overcome inertia and friction. A frictionless business might use artificial intelligence or machine learning to achieve:

• 100 percent efficiency and knowledge of buyer demands, preferences, and tastes
• complete understanding, in real-time, of the state of a firm’s supply chain
• as-good-as-can-be-expected employee productivity, based on knowledge of actual behavior
• full effectiveness of all information technology systems, devices, and software
• real-time knowledge of any legal or regulatory compliance issues
• robust feedback loops and intelligence gathering that aids in the development process for new products and features

Additional webinar installments might look at stakeholder issues, applied machine learning, Internet of things, edge and cloud computing, and changes in industry business models and opportunities.

Frictionless business is the sum total of all actions any business can take to create and keep customers, increase the volume of products sold to those customers with acceptable profit margins, and maintain or grow market share with superior return on investment.

Frictionless business reduces every barrier to business success, allowing firms to operate more effectively – doing the right things – as well as efficiently, with minimal waste and maximum productivity.

Companies that operate with less friction are able to achieve superior results with less resource intensity. And that is why PTC’s webinar series is about frictionless business.

Authored by →

Gary Kim