“It’s Getting Better All the Time” is one of my favorite Beatles tunes. I happened to hear it the other day and it provided inspiration to me as I prepared to write this article. It’s uplifting and, as the lyrics say, "it can’t get no worse." So with that as a theme, I wanted to take a look back and optimistically gaze ahead.
As we started the New Year, the economy made for uncertainties in all of our businesses. There was lots of gloom and doom. But, as the saying goes, “when the going gets tough the tough get going” and that’s exactly what we saw as we moved into the year. Innovation is what drives our business, not just in products and technology but also in operations, marketing, merchandising, and more. Rather than wait for the market to come back, we came to the market.
We examined all facets of our businesses and gave ourselves the opportunity to be better. Better executives, better merchants, better salespeople, better promoters. We developed a better eye for the calls to action needed to transform niceties into necessities. We looked hard at the value propositions given to our customers and better articulated solution selling. While we all were making our businesses better, we also continued to make our products better. New and improved products like 3D TV, tablets, Smartphone’s, Blu-ray and more helped to keep CE top of mind on consumer shopping lists.
As chair of CEA’s Accessories Division, I know firsthand that these technologies have in turn driven more innovation in the form of accessories that further enhance the enjoyment of these new products. They have also created need for further development and refinement of existing accessories to take products that consumers had bought and make them “new” again. Perhaps a new stand to show off that older TV or new piece of software to bring fresh enjoyment to that PC you bought a few years ago.
We’ve also seen our space grow this past year as a result of convergence. Who would have thought that a video game could become one of the hottest selling mediums for home exercise or the chair of an automobile company would be a keynote speaker at CES. This convergence has generated new categories within our business such as digital health and home technology. On the accessories front, we’re looking at apps and subscription services as part of our 2011 definition of accessories.
