Support demand is rapidly and continuously increasing and few businesses are prepared to address the rising needs of their customers. According to TeamSupport’s State of Support report for 2022, overall support demand is rising at an average rate of 11%. That means your support team is getting more emails, more requests, more everything. Chances are that your support team is already getting hammered by the sheer volume of customer issues, not to mention the potential for complexity.

Current headlines predict a global recession on almost a daily basis, leaving us to wonder whether and when it will finally arrive – and if it does, how deep the recession will be and how long it will last. It’s unsettling but we’re no strangers to uncertainty. If anything, we’ve learned over the past few years that we should both expect and prepare for change. After all, many things are still in a state of flux.

CEOs are getting nervous. According to a quarterly survey of business leaders conducted by the Conference Board, 98% of US-based CEOs say they are preparing for an economic recession over the next 12 to 18 months. European leaders are even more fearful – 99% believe a recession is imminent. “CEOs are now preparing for near-inevitable recessions in both the US and Europe”, Roger W. Ferguson, Jr., Vice Chairman of the Business Council and Trustee of the Conference Board said.

Interest rates are rising, the housing market is slowing and according to the Consumer Price Index report released on 12 October, inflation is increasing at the fastest rate in 40 years in the US. Prices for everything excluding food and energy climbed 6.6% over the year up to the end of September. With the ongoing war in Ukraine and rising energy costs, the economic picture across the world is just a bleak.

The concept (if not yet the realization) of a single view into the enterprise has existed for some time. In the realm of ITSM, thought-leaders at AXELOS envisioned how systems across an enterprise can integrate to provide comprehensive visibility into virtually all data that touches any part of the Customer Journey.

Don’t panic. That’s generally good advice—but when business leaders are facing one of the worst economic downturns in more than a decade, it’s not particularly easy guidance to heed. With inflation hitting a 40-year high, companies like Amazon, FedEx, and Meta are in the unfamiliar position of tightening their belts. Yet crisis breeds opportunity.

Today’s shoppers insist on immediacy. They use their phones to get anything they want instantly. When it comes to shopping, a customer walks into a store and expects an item to be waiting for them on the shelf or immediately available through buy online, pickup in-store (BOPIS). What does this mean for retailers that want to stay ahead of consumer trends? Let’s take a closer look at what an endless aisle is and what it means for the retail world.