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Investing in the greatest asset
Monday, 14th June 2010The global financial meltdown concentrated the world of IT on cost containment, but with the rebound of most economies in 2010, particularly Australia and New Zealand, that focus is starting to shift.
A CIO Magazine survey published in March provides evidence of this trend. Almost half of the CIO respondents were focussed on positive, value creating activities like business process innovation and creating top-line revenue growth. Less than half were focussed on lowering their business' operational costs and managing their IT infrastructure more efficiently.
This renewed interest in growth differs from the expansion at all costs approach of the last boom. It is more oriented towards leveraging any business' great asset – its existing customer base. There is a realisation that this is the easiest, lowest cost route to building revenue and improving profitability.
IT leaders are looking at ways they can support the business in achieving this goal, and it is not just in customer relationship management (CRM) systems.
Simply slapping in a new CRM, or upgrading an existing application is not a recipe for improving customer key performance indicators (KPIs). It takes an integrated strategy to make a difference.
CRM is of course the enabling technology for improving customer satisfaction as well as revenue and profitability per customer account. Applications like Microsoft Dynamics CRM can bring a lot of value in terms of tracking customer interactions, storing key customer data and streamlining processes around managing the customer experience.
Effective CRM systems also increase the visibility of the sales and account management process and enable companies to continuously improve the efficiency of those processes. Smart, more streamlined account management can contribute to significant improvements in the length of value of customer relationships.
While CRM is at the core of driving improved revenue from customers, business intelligence (BI) systems also play a crucial role.
The right BI tools are crucial in delivering the insights required to improve an organisation's customer focus. The right historical, current and predictive data enable a firm to understand more about their customers – demographics, number and type of interactions, transactions and their value, profitability per customer account and so on.
Good analytics also feeds into product and service innovation, creating opportunities to upsell and cross-sell to existing customers. It also helps identify and build KPIs for the most important, and sometimes neglected, factors that drive customer satisfaction.
There are many tools available to improve the extraction, analysis and presentation of data, the challenge is choosing the right mix. It doesn't matter how sophisticated the extraction and analysis of data is if you can't share it effectively.
Adding value to a strong CRM and BI strategy is effective collaboration tools. Every employee in an organisation can impact on the customer's experience either directly or indirectly, so providing your whole organisation with the right information is crucial. Tools like SharePoint make this collaboration possible, provide easy access to relevant media and help guide good process around key elements of the customer experience.
Having a solid platform of CRM, BI and collaboration is almost a basic requirement for effectively driving more revenue from your existing customer base. Maximising the gains of enhanced customer satisfaction requires even more lateral thinking in terms of IS strategy.
For example billing processes must reinforce your value proposition to the customer. For some businesses this is the main direct interaction they have with a customer. The invoice and following payment process can significantly influence an individual or company's perception of your organisation. A financial management system must be flexible enough to deliver a good experience and integrate with other systems.
Datasouth provides technology solutions that assist organisations in enhancing their business by improved information flow and productivity. As an organisation that has been giving advice to government and corporate clients for over fifteen years, we can advise, design and implement solutions that truly provide a competitive edge and reduced cost structures.
To better understand how we may help you to drive your business forward, please contact Datasouth to discuss your specific requirements.
