Team Dealboard recently attended CONXEMAR, the International Fair of Frozen Seafood organized by the Spanish Association of Wholesalers, Importers, Processors and Exporters of Fisheries and Aquaculture Products. While there, we engaged in 120 conversations with representatives from over 100 companies in the seafood industry. We share our observations about the CONXEMAR event, the current state of the seafood industry, and the impact of COVID in this multi-part series.
One outcome of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the rise of
videoconferencing. Almost overnight, in the middle of March, 2020, businesses,
organizations and families across the world pivoted to video conferencing as a
primary means of communication. The ramp-up was astounding – years worth of
digital transformation achieved in mere months; millions of people adopting new
systems within weeks for both business and personal use.
But, as we discussed in our last post, videoconferencing is
no substitute for human contact. And, the other ways we used to communicate –
WhatsApp, Skype, mobile phone, email and more – haven’t gone away. Where
previously we had, say, 6-8 ways to get in touch with someone, now we have
10-20 with the acceptance of Zoom, Microsoft Teams and other videoconferencing
facilities. How many channels are too many, and what happens when we reach
channel overload?
Our conversations at CONXEMAR indicate that the seafood
industry has reached channel overload, and it’s causing a lot of overhead. With
only very few exceptions, teams buying or selling seafood products are using
multiple ways to contact each other, to build relationships and to negotiate
and finalize transactions. We heard time and time again about how frustrating
and inefficient it is to juggle all of these different methods at the same time.
Across all of our conversations, we didn’t hear even one person say “I use all
of these channels because I love them all.”
To make matters worse, none of the commonly used
communication channels is really optimized for the unique conditions of the
seafood industry. Alibaba might be OK for selling retail goods to the general
public, but try posting your products there to attract wholesalers, and you’ll
quickly find you’re sharing more information with more unknown and untrusted parties than you'd like.
We’ve added channels, but haven’t taken any of the old ones
away yet. Have you experienced channel fatigue? How are you coping?
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