Marketers and retailers have dubbed baby boomers generation with another title: the silver generation. As the post-war generation enters the retirement phase of their lives, businesses are focusing on the needs of this mostly affluent generation to fine-tune the features of the goods and services they are prepared to spend their money on.

Some statistics about the spending power of baby boomers are indeed impressive. In the US the over-50s control 70 per cent of the total disposable income. In the eurozone, those aged 55 and over own 56 per cent of the eurozone’s net wealth. No wonder businesses from those in financial services to carmakers are considering this age cohort as the one that could bring some life back to western economies.

The financial services industry is caught up between two opposing dynamics. On one hand they are intent on reducing costs through the greater use of technology to deliver services as regulatory costs increase and shareholders demand better returns for their investment. On the other hand, many older customers, who have been labelled as ‘tech-nos’ by marketing analysts, still demand a personalised service form their service providers and are reticent to use technology.

A Barclays’ senior banker described the dilemma facing financial services providers very succinctly when he said: “People aged 15-30 are natural digital adapters. But older people, who account for a lot of the country’s wealth and wealth generation, often feel uncomfortable with technology”.

While one solution could be to encourage older people to fall in love with technological services, another viable solution is to give older customers a choice of how to get served. The effects of ageing are inevitable; failing eyesight, slower reflexes, joint stiffness, memory problems and impaired hearing are just some of the realities that prevent older people from feeling at ease with electronic services.

While young people struggle to find jobs and buy their first home, the silver generation have stacks of wealth that they would rather spend than leave to their children

Those businesses that ignore these realities by closing down physical delivery channels and forcing older customers to adapt to technology, are bound to lose the support of the affluent older generations. Smarter business leaders will provide a choice of service delivery options with different pricing strategies.

Another industry that is being forced to adapt is the publishing industry. Printed newspapers are facing a formidable challenge. Most people prefer to read their newspapers online from the comfort of their home, office or wherever they may be. Even if they have to pay a fee for access to their favourite newspapers, they would rather pay to have continuously updated news rather than buy a printed newspaper from a corner shop up the road.

For people of my generation it will be a sad day when we can no longer buy a printed version of our daily. But I fear this will become inevitable.

Some publishers are possibly speeding up the demise of printed newspapers and books. For instance, the printed version of the Financial Times was revamped a few months ago, in my opinion for the worse. The font used has become smaller, making it practically impossible to read it with ease. I now prefer to access this and other newspapers online just as I now opt to buy electronic versions of books since I have the option of using a bigger font size when reading electronic books.

Perhaps one of the industries that wants to win the favour of the silver generation is that of carmakers. Older people want safer, more economical cars that are still trendy and do not look like hearses. The challenge is to design cars that provide the features that appeal to older people, but at the same time are appealing enough to younger generations. Some carmakers are quite successful in striking this balance.

One of the top priorities of political and business leaders is to stimulate more significant growth partly by encouraging private consumption.

While young people struggle to find jobs and buy their first home, the silver generation have stacks of wealth that they would rather spend than leave to their children.

One way that wealth can be transferred from older to younger generation is through the focus of business leaders to convince older people to spend more of their money on goods and services that deliver the features that appeal to them.

Replacing people with machines to deliver services is probably an irreversible trend, but this does not exclude a parallel strategy of traditional tailor-made solutions for older consumers.

johncassarwhite@yahoo.com

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.