LOOKING BEYOND the obvious

Original thinking will always be a valuable asset. Increasingly, organisations are also waking up to the art of ‘borrowing’ – often from seemingly unrelated sectors

When a business encounters a new challenge, the standard response is to see what competitors did in the same situation. If there is no precedent to draw on, the business will either hit a brick wall or embark on an expensive programme of innovation and invention.

Only very rarely will an organisation broaden its horizons and seek answers in less-than-obvious places. But Anne Stokes, Fujitsu’s Business Unit Director for Transportation, suggests that information sharing between sectors will soon be commonplace.

Rail follows in Retail’s tracks

What, for example, do trains and shops have in common? Perhaps more than you think. Indeed, rail may now be in a position to leapfrog a generation of development and investment by drawing on the retail sector’s greatest achievements, avoiding the most common pitfalls along the way.

The big lessons from retail lie in loyalty and engagement; customer insight and managing the customer experience across multiple channels.

Rail industry is currently trying to find who its customers are or what it is they want.

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