Forgo the Silos: Convergence is Key
Long ago, it used to be that a company’s technology assets were locked up in the datacenter, and its business assets were in the hands of its business people, and never the twain should meet. “A white collar professional,” writes Eileen Feretic, editor of Baseline magazine, “had to be satisfied with having access to fax machines and word processors.”
And then a curious thing happened: the internet democratized not only information, but technology as well. What was once only the purview of the datacenter—access to information and the technology to wring business value from it—was suddenly thrust into the hands of business people outside the datacenter. The result? After much sturm und drang, business managers are now working hand-in-hand with IT professionals to craft and execute technology strategies that drive the bottom line.
In fact, according to the results of its Baseline/BTM 500 study, Baseline determined that enterprises that fully integrate business and technology management are more agile, more competitive, and potentially more profitable than those companies in which business and technology remain siloed. The concept makes simple horse sense: when a company’s business strategy and technology strategy are aligned, and complimentary, the company can innovate more quickly, get products to market faster, and react speedily to market feedback. What’s more, internal productivity increases, and that bolsters the bottom line.
CIOs at forward-thinking companies are on board, too. According to Marriott International CIO Carl Wilson, as quoted by Baseline: “We do not have technology projects. We have business initiatives that are shaped and enabled by technology.” According to Gregory Buoncontri, CIO of Pitney Bowes, again as quoted by Baseline: “We constantly look at what we (in IT) are doing in the context of whether it is what the business wants and needs.”
From the point of view of the customer, business and IT convergence can often be a deal maker or a deal breaker. Consider the following condensation of a graphic tale of woe told by Vaughan Merlyn in his blog IT Organization Circa 2017. It seems that Merlyn’s company was moving some voicemail servers, so he had to contact AT&T in order to change the phone number to which his office forwards calls that reach a busy signal or no answer. Merlyn figured he could handle the transaction online, but couldn’t—he had to do it by phone. And getting it done by phone took him three weeks, all because AT&T’s service representatives were siloed according to business lines. Some handled land lines, others handled wireless, and others handled its U-Verse service. Each service silo had its own separate systems in place for handling service calls, and since no representative was able to handle Merlyn’s request in one shot—or forward him directly to a service representative who could—presumably, those systems had no integration point.
“From my perspective,” writes Merlyn, “part of the AT&T value proposition is a single provider supposedly creating an integrated, uniform, and satisfying customer experience. Nothing could be further from the truth! Three different websites, different billing systems, different support systems, and zero appreciation or concern for the customer experience.”
Take ye heed, then, of Merlyn’s admonition. Business and IT convergence needs to extend beyond the walls of the enterprise and include the customer experience as well. A service structure, say, might make sense internally, but does that structure hold true for customers who care little about internal consistency, and just want to get something done? After all, business and IT convergence don’t go very far if it the convergence omits the customer experience. When customers experience problems, or when customers contact you to perform transactions, they want—and they should get—a single, unifying experience that solves their problem or completes their transaction in one shot. There’s no single biggest dissatisfier in the business world than a company that can’t seem to solve a problem that oftentimes they created themselves.
By Robert Pothier