New study shows 45 percent of customers beyond pilot phase for cloud deployment

Companies are moving forward with cloud deployments at a rapid rate, according to Hosting and Cloud Go Mainstream: 2014, a Microsoft Corp.-commissioned study conductedby 451 Research LLC. The new study showed that more than 45 percent of organizations surveyed are beyond the pilot phase, and 32 percent now possess a formal cloud computing plan as part of their overall IT and business strategy. The data also highlights that on-premises private cloud adoption accounted for 26 percent of on-premises infrastructure spending in 2013, and hosted private cloud is expected to experience the highest rate of growth for off-premises infrastructure, accounting for 32 percent of hosted spending in the next 24 months.

Convergence of Digital Technologies Opens Doors for Enterprise Growth

Mobility is the most important digital technology priority for large enterprises, a new global study by Accenture has found. Reflecting its role as an enabler of other technologies in today’s digital businesses, 43 percent of respondents ranked mobility as a top one or two priority, with 77 percent placing it in the top five. Big data analytics came next with 72 percent putting it in the top five, followed by connected products at 65 percent.

 

Over one third of enterprises (35 percent) expect the convergence of social, mobile, analytics, cloud and connected products – grouped together as digital technologies – to increase their sales in existing markets, according to this research. Three quarters view the adoption of digital technologies as a strategic investment rather than something to be evaluated on a case by case basis, as 29 percent expect their adoption to generate additional revenue; 28 percent plan to build entirely new digital businesses or services as a result of convergence, and 27 percent expect to penetrate new markets altogether, showing significant promise around the world from mobility and digital technologies, and demonstrating that they are viewed as drivers for better engagement with customers, and the creation of new revenue streams.

However, new revenue streams are not the only financial consideration. One in ten respondents reported over 100 percent return on investment (ROI) for mobility implementations in the last two years, and while a further 26 percent saw returns of between 50 and 100 percent, those with the greatest ROI, the leaders, shared common traits in their approach to new technologies, which are viewed as enabling operational efficiency and long-term growth.

Organizations with over 100 percent ROI, of whom over two thirds claimed to have effectively adopted and deployed mobile technologies compared to 45 percent of others, shared a number of common traits:

A formal, enterprise-wide mobility strategy and measurement: Eleven percent more likely than other respondents to have a formal, enterprise-wide mobility strategy, leaders are ahead of the curve. This year, 43 percent of enterprises on average were found to have developed a formal mobile strategy, a vast improvement on the 23 percent that claimed one in a similar survey carried out by Accenture last year. Processes and metrics also offered insight, as 29 percent of leaders have a formal process for identifying, evaluating and prioritizing ways in which mobility can benefit business, versus only 18 percent of others. For leaders and others, measurement is shown as a low priority, as only 22 percent of the former and 13 percent of the latter have formal metrics in place to measure the effectiveness of mobility initiatives.

An aggressive, ambitious attitude: Over half the leaders (54 percent) reported having aggressively pursued and invested in mobile technologies across their business, considering mobility as a key tenet of business strategy. Compared to just 40 percent of other respondents, this was also reflected by leaders being more likely to report they have effectively adopted and deployed mobile technologies (69 percent versus 42 percent). Leaders were also more likely to believe that all the major digital technologies are a top-five priority, an average eight percent ahead of those companies performing less well in mobility projects.        

Securing senior leadership buy-in: Leaders showed a higher likelihood to report that the CEO and the leadership team or board of directors ultimately own their mobile strategy, and that their companies’ senior leadership are highly engaged with the organization’s mobility initiatives. Amongst all respondents, 35 percent had CEOs involved in formulating mobile strategy, with 30 percent of CMOs or equivalent also having a say.

The study found that only 30 percent of respondents believed they had the right talent and skills to properly plan and execute their mobility initiatives, which goes part way to explaining why only 27 percent feel they keep pace with new mobile devices, systems and services, adopting them as necessary to improve their businesses.

 

IDC: On-Demand Contact Center Services Forecast Shows U.S. Spending Will Grow to $1.6 Billion in 2018

In a newly released study, International Data Corporation (IDC) forecasts that U.S. spending for on-demand (cloud) contact center services will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17.5% to $1.6 billion in 2018. A majority of companies are using or evaluating a hosted or on-demand solution for their contact center, according to IDC demand-side data.

“End consumer demands combined with a need for speed, flexibility, and cost reduction are all driving companies to evaluate hosted and on-demand solutKey research findings include:

-- While the majority of companies are still using on-premise contact center solutions, most of them are also using or evaluating a hosted or on-demand contact center service. IDC survey data shows that 39% of respondents were using a hosted or on-demand service, 38% were evaluating a hosted or on-demand service, and only 23% were using an on-premise system and not evaluating the hosted or on-demand model.

-- Factors contributing to the growth of hosted and on-demand contact center services include cost reduction and pricing model, cloud-based outsourcing, increased shift in spending, and multi-channel customer care.

-- As customer experience becomes more of a strategic focus for enterprises and the pressures for speed, flexibility, and multi-channel increase, hosted and on-demand contact center services must continue to evolve to keep up to client expectations and support consumers' future channels of preference.

 

 

Software Assets -- Not Financial Assets -- Will Determine Business Success Over The Next 10 Years

Software assets — not financial assets — will be most critical to your brand in the age of the customer, a 20-year business cycle in which the most successful companies will reinvent themselves to systematically understand and serve increasingly powerful customers, according to a recent Forrester report.

Mobile, big data, the Internet of Things, and digitization have changed the ways customers interact with brands: Customers expect to be able to interact with brands through software. Digital business in this era will be akin in scale and complexity to the ERP re-engineering that took place in the '90s to address Y2K issues. Why? In the age of customer, a good software experience can build trust, capture consumer attention, create unique customer experiences, and make a brand essential.

A bad software experience? "The next 10 years will see more change than any time since Great Depression in the makeup of the Fortune 1000 as some companies figure out the power of software and others do not. Increasing customer expectations fueled by an accelerated pace of technology will increase the delta between the haves and have-nots in term of overall financial performance," writes John McCarthy, author of the report.

According to George Colony, Forrester CEO, in the age of the customer, all companies will be software companies. Your most important assets will not be financial assets, they will be software assets. Software will allow brands to become customer-obsessed: to know what their customers want — and how, when, and where they can meet (and exceed) that expectation.

More information on Mobile, big data, the Internet of Things can be found at www.CRMindustry.com.

While Many Companies Try SaaS for Cost Savings, Top Performers Discover Competitive Advantage

IBM announced that nearly half of the businesses using Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) are achieving competitive advantage, rather than simply reducing costs. Leading enterprises—those gaining competitive advantage through broad SaaS adoption—are collaborating more effectively  through social business tools, improving the customer experience, and accelerating time to market through their SaaS initiatives, according to a recent survey conducted with more than 800 IT and business decision makers worldwide by the IBM Center for Applied Insights.

Global spending on SaaS is expected to reach $45.6B by 2017, according to industry estimates. SaaS is often used by line-of-business leaders who are looking to deploy technology to rapidly provide their teams with needed functionality, increase productivity and address new market opportunities. In fact, industry analysts estimate that by 2017, CMOs will spend more on IT than CIOs, while Forrester reports that 65 percent of business leaders have plans to buy technology for their group without involving IT at all. 

However, circumventing IT to deploy SaaS without provisioning and securing it first can have unintended consequences, and IBM’s study suggests that organizations in which IT and business leaders work together to select, secure and deploy SaaS applications are in fact the ones who deliver the greatest value to their organization. Further, organizations that are gaining the most out of their SaaS deployments are more likely to see it as a critical piece of their enterprise cloud strategy when compared to their peers. 

Nearly one in five companies that responded to IBM’s survey has deployed SaaS broadly and is now gaining competitive advantage as a result. By developing mature and cohesive enterprise-wide SaaS strategies, these Pacesetter organizations are able to improve market agility, achieve a deeper level of collaboration and make better decisions than their peers. Specifically, compared to peers that are newer or less advanced with their SaaS adoption, Pacesetters are:

-- 79 percent more likely to have increased collaboration across their organization and ecosystem through SaaS

-- More than twice as likely to have leveraged analytics across the organization to turn big data into insights using SaaS

-- More than twice as likely to have increased innovation using SaaS

More information on CRM and SaaS can be found at www.CRMindustry.com

Measurement and Analysis Across the Entire IT Infrastructure Is Key to IT Operational Excellence

Continuity Software™, a provider of service availability risk management solutions, announced the results of the Continuity Software IT OperationsAnalytics Benchmark. Based on results collected across a variety of industry verticals - including financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, and retail - the benchmark underscores the importance of operational analytics in meeting IT performance goals. 

The IT Operations Analytics Benchmark survey's key findings include:

Large organizations are the most common users of analytical tools to monitor and measure IT performance goals.

-- 57% of the large organizations surveyed use analytical tools to monitor, and measure IT performance goals (versus just 29% of small companies).

Cross-domain operational excellence is mostly measured by uptime.

-- 89% of the organizations surveyed measure uptime across most or all IT domains; 66% measure performance; 51% measure the number of open issues.

Frequently tracking configuration consistency helps organizations meet their goals.

-- 53% of the organizations that track configuration consistency on a daily basis across the IT infrastructure are meeting or exceeding their goals, compared to 31-33% of the organizations that track only portions of the infrastructure.

Better measurement and analysis tools are required for IT operations excellence.

-- 40% of organizations surveyed cited better measurement and analysis tools as the most effective means for achieving operations excellence, followed by tools to detect cross-domain IT configuration issues (22%) and tools to enforce IT best practices (19%).

Storage and network performance rank highest.

-- 71% of the organizations surveyed monitor storage and network key performance indicators (KPIs); other areas of IT operations that are commonly monitored and measured include applications (69%), databases (66%), and clusters (49%).

Cloud environments continue to lag behind.

-- Only 14% of the organizations surveyed monitor and measure cloud KPIs.

-- 43% of the organizations never analyze configuration consistency in their cloud environment.

More information on IT and CRM can be found at www.CRMindustry.com

ForeSee Releases the ForeSee Experience Index (FXI): 2013 U.S. Retail Edition

ForeSee, the global leader in technology-driven customer experience analytics, today released the ForeSee Experience Index (FXI): 2013 U.S. Retail Edition. Based on data gathered during 2013’s holiday shopping season, the report features company-level and channel-specific customer satisfaction analysis for the top 100 U.S. retailers.

The new FXI Retail report offers a comprehensive view of satisfaction at the Company-level and across every applicable sales channel including Store and Contact Center as well as Web and Mobile. The study is based on more than 67,600 surveys collected between Nov. 29 and Dec. 17, 2013, for the 100 biggest U.S. retailers as reported by the Fortune 500 and Internet Retailer’s top 100 websites. Retailers listed in this report include Amazon, Dell, L.L.Bean, Apple, QVC, Keurig, Costco, Ralph Lauren, Victoria’s Secret, Barnes & Noble, eBay, Groupon, Family Dollar, Best Buy, Toys“R”Us, zulily and others.

Key Findings:

Company-level: retailers that satisfied the most (and least) during 2013’s holiday shopping season:

Amazon (90) and L.L.Bean (90) tied for the highest Company-level satisfaction. While this is the first time ForeSee has studied Company-level satisfaction during the holidays, the L.L.Bean website has scored an 80 or above in Web satisfaction eight out of the nine years measured, and Amazon has topped the Web satisfaction list every year. Amazon and L.L.Bean set the bar for customer experience excellence.

Priceline.com came in with the lowest Company-level satisfaction (76), as well as one of the lowest Web satisfaction (75) and Mobile satisfaction (73) scores.

Store channel: Apple, which prides itself on stellar Apple Store customer experiences, lost to the supermarket chain Publix Super Markets in Store satisfaction with a score of 86 – three points higher than Apple’s score of 83.

53 percent of retailers register merchandise as the main priority affecting in-store purchase, and 35 percent register service.

Web channel: While Amazon (88) led the pack for Web satisfaction, some retail sites such as vitacost.com (86), keurig.com (84) and llbean.com (84) are creeping closer. Basspro.com (83) and crateandbarrel.com (80) tied for the most improved sites with seven-point gains in customer satisfaction from last year. 

57 percent of retailers identify merchandise as the top driver affecting customer web experience, compared to only 7 percent that register price.

Mobile channel: In a category that saw satisfaction stagnate this year, Walmart (80) was the only company to experience a significant increase of more than three points in Mobile satisfaction, seeing a five-point improvement from 2012’s score. Again, Amazon led the pack with a Mobile satisfaction score of 87.

38 percent of retailers register functionality as the top priority affecting the mobile customer experience, above both merchandise (34 percent) and content (31 percent).

Contact Center channel: QVC (88) beat Amazon (85) in Contact Center satisfaction by three points. Costco (85) and O’Reilly Auto Parts (85) tied Amazon in Contact Center satisfaction.

55 percent of retailers record knowledge of the customer service representative as the top priority affecting the customer contact center experience.

Survey: Cost Benefits of Cloud-based CRM the Major Advantage for SMEs

The cost savings possible with a subscription model is seen as the major advantage of cloud-based CRM solutions among small and medium-sized enterprises, with nearly 60% of SMEs citing this as a key benefit, new research from Maximizer Software reveals. The survey also showed that scalability of cloud-based CRM is also a major part of its appeal, as is the potential to upgrade the applications as the technology and functionality improves.

SMEs were also polled on their most significant concerns about adopting a cloud model for their CRM systems. The risk of service outages or interruptions topped the list, with more than 70% of the companies surveyed listing this as a key worry.

The independent survey of more than 500 SMEs reveals that the biggest attraction of cloud-based CRM is the ability to avoid incurring high upfront costs, including the need for additional infrastructure and IT staff, necessary to implement an in-house solution – along with the rapid return on investment delivered by the subscription model. The highest proportion of SMEs surveyed – 58% – consider this to be the key benefit of cloud-based CRM at a time when businesses of all sizes are keen to cut costs.

The flexibility of cloud-based CRM also extends to the ability to upgrade the system at little or no cost, which is the third biggest plus for SMEs – listed as a key advantage by 40% of the businesses surveyed. With a cloud-based solution, the software is upgraded automatically on the host server, enabling SMEs to keep pace with the latest features without having to make significant re-investments.

Other advantages, listed in order, include:

-- the reduced maintenance and staff costs that come with hosting data in the cloud, which 32% list as a key benefit

-- the easier access to multiple functions and integration between departments possible with a cloud-based solution (30%)

-- the fact that hosting data in the cloud gives businesses access to the powerful processing and performance hub of a third-party specialist, cited by 23% of SMEs

SMEs are less interested in the capacity of cloud-based CRM to deliver remote and multi-device access or real-time database updates, largely because these functions are also available with in-house solutions.

As well as their concerns over the reliability of a cloud-based solution (named by 71% of the respondents), SMEs are also worried about the speed of service it would deliver, with 52% citing this as a major source of anxiety. Just under half are also particularly concerned that the security of their data will be compromised by hosting their CRM system off-site.

More information on CRM can be found at www.CRMindustry.com

CIO research: 86% of businesses are failing to see the strategic value of mobility

Mobile Helix, the enterprise application and data security expert, announced the findings of an independent CIO survey of 300 IT decision makers in the UK and US; exploring how enterprises are making use of mobile technology. The research shows that although 78 percent of enterprises have a mobility strategy, 86 percent are failing to utilize mobility to transform their business or open new revenue streams.

87 percent of CIOs believe that a majority of their employees would benefit from increased access to enterprise applications, like CRM, ERP and SharePoint on mobile devices. However, complexity concerns play a role in contributing to the reluctance of CIOs to invest more into mobility: 66 percent of CIOs say that they think that it’s too complex, and 72 percent say it’s too costly to integrate mobile innovations into legacy applications. Development, support and security concerns are also factors in limiting mobile initiatives. Yet, if these issues can be overcome, 70 percent of CIOs stated that there is support from their business to use mobility to drive strategic business value.

Enterprises that fail to see mobility as a tool to transform how they do business and open up new revenue streams are missing out on the enormous potential strategic value of mobility.  Only 14 percent of businesses surveyed are currently using mobility solutions to transform business processes, drive increased revenues and develop new income streams. Many CIOs are hesitant to fully explore the potential of mobility innovations as they believe the cost/benefit ratio of implementing them to be prohibitive.

CIOs are most likely to use mobility as an extension of the office today. Less than half of enterprises are adding mobile-specific functionality to add value to specific enterprise applications. In terms of the mobile capabilities that businesses are actually integrating into their existing enterprise applications, secure offline access is the most common, with on-device storage and development tools to push real-time updates to workers. GPS/location-based capabilities are also becoming more popular.

More information on CIO's, CRM and mobile strategy can be found at www.CRMindustry.com

Survey: Mobile and Social Technologies Complicate B2B Sales Processes

Avanade, a global business technology solutions and managed services provider, released results from a large-scale global survey on the changing sales process and buying patterns of business and IT decision-makers. Avanade’s latest research shows the “consumerization” movement is shifting the sales process out of the control of the seller as enterprise buyers begin to mimic consumer shopping behaviors. With this shift, the value of the customer experience is now more important than price to business and IT decision-makers.

News Highlights

-- Customer experience now tops price as the most important factor in a buying decision by an enterprise decision-maker. Notably, business buyers are willing to pay up to 30 percent more for a product or service that offers an improved customer experience.

-- Businesses no longer have control over information shared about their products or services. Sixty-one percent of business decision-makers report third-party sites and feedback from business partners, industry peers or social channels is more important than conversations with a company’s sales teams when making a purchasing decision.

-- To help navigate this change, companies are enlisting new people and departments to manage the customer experience. Compared to three years ago, customer service and call centers, IT and marketing are the leading groups now playing a larger role in the customer experience.

-- Seventy percent of respondents believe technology will primarily replace human interaction with customers in the next 10 years. Anticipating this change, businesses are making new technology investments, changing business processes and redesigning organizational roles. More than 80 percent of companies have changed at least one business process in the past three years to better interact with customers.

This new global study builds on findings from Avanade’s Work Redesigned research conducted in January 2013. Progressive companies are changing business processes to adapt to a new style of work influenced by mobile devices, collaboration tools and social technologies. In this latest survey, Avanade found that businesses are changing processes to embrace the new business buyer and by increasing customer service and support technologies (44 percent), increasing the number of employees interacting with customers (40 percent) and adding automation to the sales process (32 percent).

 There are business benefits to making these changes. The research shows that businesses investing in technology to support better customer service and modifying internal roles are seeing positive results. Specifically, the companies making these changes are experiencing increases in customer loyalty (61 percent), revenues (60 percent) and customer base (60 percent).

Avanade surveyed 1,000 C-level executives, business unit leaders and IT decision-makers in 19 countries across more than 12 industries.

More information on mobile and social technologies can be found at www.CRMindustry.com

Gartner Says by 2017 Your Smartphone Will Be Smarter Than You

Smartphones will soon be able to predict a consumer’s next move, their next purchase or interpret actions based on what it knows, according to Gartner, Inc. This insight will be performed based on an individual’s data gathered using cognizant computing — the next step in personal cloud computing. 

The first services that will be performed "automatically" will generally help with menial tasks — and significantly time consuming or time wasting tasks — such as time-bound events (calendaring) such as booking a car for its yearly service, creating a weekly to-do list, sending birthday greetings, or responding to mundane email messages. Gradually, as confidence in the outsourcing of more menial tasks to the smartphone increases, consumers are expected to become accustomed to allowing a greater array of apps and services to take control of other aspects of their lives - this will be the era of cognizant computing. 

By 2017 mobile phones will be smarter than people not because of an intrinsic intelligence, but because the cloud and the data stored in the cloud will provide them with the computational ability to make sense of the information they have so they appear smart.

More information on CRM and mobile solutions can be found at www.CRMindustry.com

Study Reveals More than 2/3 of Marketing & IT Leaders Report Being “More Effective” Due to Collaboration

To meet the needs of today’s evolving digital, mobile and social world, marketing and technology executives are finding collaboration across people, processes and technologies is leading to more effective business outcomes. To demonstrate how organizations are embracing collaboration, Oracle, in partnership with Leader Networks and Social Media Today, launched an executive study revealing opportunities and obstacles for senior marketing and technology leaders to more effectively collaborate and to deliver real-world business value. The results of the survey highlight how marketing and technology teams are working together, when they are working in silos, and the business value of becoming a socially enabled enterprise.

Key Findings

-- Marketing and technology roles are changing: Both marketers and IT leaders report seeing their roles evolve due to a greater emphasis on social business activities. Both groups indicate they now have the ability to collaborate more effectively. They also recognize the need to acquire new skills and hire new skillsets to meet the needs of today’s evolving digital, mobile and social landscape.

-- Marketers lead the collaboration charge: Marketing respondents were more likely to report a higher level of collaboration than their IT/technology counterparts.

-- Current collaboration leaves room for growth: Only 36 percent of marketing respondents and 26 percent of IT/technology respondents report collaborating with each other “frequently” on projects. Slightly more than half of marketing and IT/technology respondents classify their collaboration as “adequate.” Sixteen percent of IT/technology respondents reported that collaboration with marketing is “non-existent.”

-- Despite challenges, collaboration is better than before: Very few respondents reported collaborating less than they did a year ago. Moreover, 41 percent of marketing and 38 percent of IT/technology leaders indicate improved collaboration from last year.

-- Collaboration delivers business value: More than two thirds of both marketing and technology leaders stated that they are “more effective” professionally due to increased collaboration. Reported benefits included stronger and more compelling marketing messages, faster speed-to-market, greater product adoption, project cost reductions, and fewer defects in product and services.

More information on IT, marketing and CRM can be found at www.CRMindustry.com

Investing in Digital Technologies and Improving Customer Experiences is Enabling Companies to Identify New Growth Opportunities and Enhance Performance

While many organizations are focused on IT cost reduction, productivity gain and process improvement, the latest global research from Accenture reveals that companies that invest in digital technologies and improving customer experiences are able to identify new growth opportunities and enhance performance.

The research report, HighPerformers in IT: Defined by Digital, features insights from senior IT executives in more than 200 global companies across a range of industries. The report shows that high performers devote 55 percent of their information technology (IT) budgets to delivering strategic capabilities that support growth and business performance. Their counterparts, however, invest only 37 percent. Moreover, five times more businesses (50 percent) that excel in their use of IT, look beyond a narrow IT lens to consider broader business implications - social, economic and geopolitical factors - as part of their strategy and planning.

Accenture’s research found that the adoption rate of key technologies, including cloud computing, analytics, social, mobility and security, was greater across-the-board for companies that excel in their use of IT than their counterparts. According to the research, these companies have recognized and embraced the transformational impact of digital IT to create new products and services that supports growth. 

For example, the high performers are leading the way in “mobilizing” their businesses. According to the research, 69 percent of them are committed to mobile transactions compared to 42 percent of other organizations, which allows their customers to reorder their favorite pair of shoes, book travel, pay for their coffee and even transfer cash between bank accounts on the go. And approximately twice as many IT leaders than non-leaders are achieving or exceeding expected business value from their investments in predictive and descriptive analytics.


Mastering a Hybrid IT Environment
According to the findings, the leaders in IT are also moving to the cloud faster and reaping more benefits sooner than other organizations. One-third (33 percent) of the executives representing those companies responded that they are effectively replacing legacy components with private and public cloud alternatives while almost one in six (15 percent) already centrally manage a fully virtualized, dynamically provisioned hybrid infrastructure.

The survey also found that companies expect to operate in a hybrid IT environment for the foreseeable future. The top performers predict that a substantial part of their IT footprint – whether infrastructure, middleware or applications – will remain “traditional,” both hosted and on-premise. In fact, these leaders believe that they will still maintain nearly six in 10 of their applications (59 percent) in a traditional license model by 2020.

It’s clear that high performers are more effective in taking advantage of cloud technology considering that:
 

       -- 40 percent see measurable improvements in IT agility, with only 9 percent of other organizations claiming the same.

-- 43 percent declared strong results in aligning between project portfolios and IT business goals, a 23 percent advantage over other organizations.

      --  33 percent see direct cost reductions as a result of their cloud investments while only 14 percent of other organizations see similar results.

Having the Right Data Creates Competitive Advantage
Leaders in the use of IT have been investing in master data management and data quality assurance for years, and as a result, they hold a significant advantage in the race to getting the right data. Their investments are now paying off. According to the research, twice as many high performers as other organizations are achieving or exceeding the business value they expected in key areas such as data management (77 percent vs. 30 percent), content management (77 percent vs. 23 percent)  and predictive analytics (54 percent vs. 21 percent).

By successfully navigating the dynamics between information and business processes and systems, those performing at the very top are much better equipped to build strategic analytic capabilities than their counterparts. Almost half (46 percent) say they already have developed and capitalized on new insights on changing customer behavior, compared to just three percent of other organizations.

It Really is All About the Customer
Leaders in IT consistently chose customer-focused business objectives among the top three priorities that guide their IT investment strategies. This includes providing the right information to the right person at the right time, finding better ways to interact with customers and delivering new services and products to customers. They also rated front-office applications among their best-performing in terms of technical and business adequacy, which was significantly higher for their companies than for other organizations.

Managing IT Security and Business Risk
Organizations are increasingly focused on ensuring the security of their growing digital business but many struggle to keep pace with new security technologies. Although most survey respondents believe they currently have the right level of investment in compliance and overall security, 44 percent concede that they have been underinvesting in cyber-security. There is a general acknowledgement that endpoint security is not sufficient.  But the shift to active defense strategies – staying one step ahead of the attackers – has not yet taken hold. Still, 75 percent of high- performing organizations have made it a priority to further lower their risk profile and more rapidly upgrade their IT security practices within the next year. 

More information on CRM and customer service can be found at www.CRMindustry.com

 

Technology CEOs should consider nine disruptive forces that are impacting businesses

The accelerated pace of business disruption is being triggered by the impact of new technologies combined with the challenges and opportunities of creating a connected experience, which are bigger than ever before, according to a new PwC report, The new digital ecosystemreality: Nine trends rewriting the rules of business. The nine trends outlined in the report are too inter-related to be tackled with an independent strategy.  PwC recommends two complementary strategies, one targeting the short-term trends and the other targeting long-term challenges.

Trend number 1: Disruptive innovation

Radical shifts in technologies translate to radical shifts in business models. In order to prepare, technology CEOs should consider a variety of steps, including: developing an appropriate innovation strategy that ties in with the corporate vision and company capabilities; determining the best ways of fostering and sustaining organic innovation; identifying opportunities for growth; determining strategic investment bets and identifying appropriate partners for highly integrated digital ecosystems.

Trend number 2: Managing cost and complexity

According to PwC, in terms of IT complexity, more than half of all companies are turning to the cloud to reduce expenses. They must also adjust their operating model to increase agility through focus on innovation both in technology and processes, in order to lay the foundation for a more-efficient cost structure. Additionally, companies are using technology to get better information faster and cheaper through using social analytics within the connected experience they have with customers and creating a connected experience with suppliers and partners through digital ecosystems.

Trend number 3: Convergence

The convergence of consumer and corporate capabilities has forced most companies across industries to become technology companies. Many companies will need to increase the pace of their customer communications in order to meet these increased expectations.

Trend number 4: Consumerization of IT

Employees have become accustomed to the ease of accessing information online, whether through mobile devices, tablets or personal computers. Companies will need to develop enterprise applications that are easier to learn to improve productivity and those that are easier to use on smartphones and other mobile devices.

Trend number 5: Changing dynamics between developing and developed countries

Technology companies will likely be looking to emerging markets for new business opportunities. Therefore, technology CEOs should think about rationalizing their global operations and simplifying and standardizing business processes and products so that development can be applied across any region, and also tailored for a particular region.

Trend number 6: Social media

According to PwC surveys, 90 percent of technology companies are focusing on strengthening relationships with customers and clients by increasing engagement and 84 percent are enhancing their focus on social media in search of new customers. Companies can use social media to interact on a regular basis, to deliver information and advice, and thus potentially increase the value of the experience.

Trend number 7: Data explosion

Technology companies must be able to accommodate input from social media with input from sales results in order to harness the broad flow of information. This requires developing a variety of systems, for example: data warehouses, analytic tools, storage systems, and business intelligence.

Trend number 8: IP and data protection

Being able to compete in the global world of technology requires maintaining a balance for technology companies. Companies need to ensure that their systems are accessible to their friends (i.e. employees and business partners) and unavailable to their competitors.

Trend number 9: Changing political and regulatory landscape

Technology CEOs have already been subjected to extensive regulatory conditions, therefore they must be prepared to track manufacturing and product information, and to be audited on a regular basis.

To address these nine trends, PwC recommends that technology companies focus on extending their own digital transformation across their business units, including manufacturing, supply chain and finance.  Digitization supports automation, which decreases response time and increases the accessibility of information which in turn enables companies to be more agile and able to respond to change faster.

More information on managing customer relationships can be found at www.CRMindustry.com

Gartner Identifies Top Vertical Industry Predictions for IT Organizations for 2014

Gartner, Inc. has revealed its top industrypredictions for IT organizations and users for 2014 and beyond. Most industries are facing accelerating pressure for fundamental transformation, including embracing digitalization in order to survive and stay competitive.

CIOs and other IT and business leaders should use Gartner's predictions and recommendations to better understand the forces that are changing their world and develop strategies to address the requirements of this fast-changing business environment.

Top industry predictions include:

-- By 2016, poor return on equity will drive more than 60 percent of banks worldwide to process the majority of their transactions in the cloud.

-- By year-end 2017, at least seven of the world's top 10 multichannel retailers will use 3D printing technologies to generate custom stock orders.

-- By 2017, more than 60 percent of government organizations with a CIO and a chief digital officer will eliminate one of these roles.

-- By 2017, 40 percent of utilities with smart metering solutions will use cloud-based big data analytics to address asset-, commodity-, customer- or revenue-related needs.

-- By year-end 2015, inadequate ROI will drive insurers to abandon 40 percent of their current customer-facing mobile apps.

-- Full-genome sequencing will stimulate a new market for medical data banks, with market penetration exceeding three percent by 2016.

-- By 2016, 60 percent of U.S. health insurers will know the procedure price and provider quality rating of shoppable medical services in advance.

-- Through 2017, K-12 online education spending will increase 25 percent, while budgetary constraints will keep spending on traditional instructional categories stagnant.

-- By 2018, 20 percent of the top 100 manufacturers' revenue will come from innovations that are the result of new cross-industry value experiences.

-- By 2018, 3D printing will result in the loss of at least $100 billion per year in intellectual property globally.

-- By 2017, 15 percent of consumers will respond to context-aware offers based on their individual demographics and shopper profiles.

-- By 2015, 80 percent of life science organizations will be crushed by elements of big data, exposing poor ROI on IT investments.

More information on IT and CRM can be found at www.CRMindustry.com

Digital Business Incompetence Will Cause 25 Percent of Businesses to Lose Competitive Ranking by 2017

Digital business incompetence will cause a quarter of businesses to lose competitive ranking by 2017, according toGartner, Inc. During the second quarter of 2013, Gartner conducted a survey of 151 participants who were intimately involved in making digital business strategy decisions or in locating, developing and acquiring talent for those digital business strategy endeavors. Ninety percent of respondents thought that competition for talent will make or break digital business success.

According to Gartner, a digital business strategy creates value and revenue from digital assets. It goes beyond process automation to transform processes, business models and customer experience by exploiting the pervasive digital connections between systems, people, places and things.

Digital business has rapidly become a lingua franca of modern business, a common and unifying language across people whose native languages — in the modern age, the languages of organizations, companies, cultures and occupations — are different.

To jump-start digital business activity, Gartner recommends identifying key strategy players and possessors of technology and business expertise both inside and outside the enterprise and engaging them to launch a digital business community of practice to enrich cross-business understanding. CIOs who learn to orchestrate talent across multiple employment models and channels can take advantage of global ecosystems to build digital expertise quickly.

The world of digital business does more than pose challenges for CIOs and other executives. It also opens opportunities to use digital technology to reach beyond organizational boundaries, to assemble problem-solving expertise from around the world, to weave a fabric of knowledge and expertise across communities of practice, and to understand and exploit new models of work. Notably, the quest for digital business expertise provides an undeniable opportunity for CIOs and HR executives to create a robust alliance that helps them meet their respective outcomes. Leading-edge CIOs become leading edge because their HR and talent strategy counterparts support them.

Gartner advises CIOs to work with high-influence HR executives to investigate talent orchestration and to redesign the learning programs required to build digital business expertise. The focus should be on hiring, developing and deploying versatile and multidisciplined teams of people. Once teams are hired, the organization should promote employee engagement as doing so will make the organization more attractive to prospective employees and increase talent retention rates throughout the shift toward the digital strategy.

More information on digital strategy and CRM can be found at www.CRMindustry.com

US Consumers Want Today's Companies to be Proactive in Customer Service

inContact, a provider of cloud contact center software and contact center agent optimization tools, announced the findings of their July 2013 customer service survey, that examined the preferences of consumers when it comes to incoming calls and other proactive communications from companies.

The study, conducted online by Harris Interactive, on behalf of inContact, among 2,034 U.S. adults aged 18 years or older, shows that consumers are open to being contacted proactively by companies. According to the findings, 87 percent of U.S. adults want to be contacted proactively by an organization or company.

Yet a major hindrance to proactive customer service is the initial pause or delay that often occurs in traditional legacy predictive dialers. The inContact survey uncovered that the pause is not only common, but it prevents customers from talking to companies. The most common initial reaction to a delay or pause, among those who answer calls from unfamiliar numbers, is to simply hang up (49%).

Customers would be more receptive if the pause could be eliminated. Over half (55%) of those who answer incoming calls from unfamiliar numbers say that if there was no delay or pause they would be more receptive to what the caller might have to say and/or more interested in hearing who’s calling them from an unfamiliar number.

Additional Key Findings Include:

-- Nearly one-in-five (17%) of those who answer incoming calls from unfamiliar numbers believe the delay/pause conveys that they are not important to the caller.

-- The most popular reasons why U.S. adults would want to be contacted is about fraudulent activity on their account (65%), for setting appointments or reminders (53%) or with questions about an order they placed (51%).

-- Nearly three-quarters (73%) of those who have had a pleasant surprise or positive experience with an incoming call from a business/service provider report they had a positive change in their perception of the organization calling them.

-- 62% of those who have had a pleasant surprise or positive experience with an incoming call from a business/service provider have taken an action as a result of that positive experience.

More information on customer service, support and CRM can be found at www.CRMindustry.com

 

Disconnect Between CMOs and CIOs Threatens Marketing Effectiveness of Companies

A disconnect between chief marketing officers (CMOs) and chief information officers (CIOs) threatens the ability of companies to deliver effective customer experiences, according to a new study by Accenture. The study, based on a survey of 400 senior marketing and 250 information technology (IT) executives in 10 countries, revealed that only one in 10 of the executives believes collaboration between CMOs and CIOs is currently at the right level.

CIOs appear to be more committed to greater collaboration than CMOs, according to the report, The CMO-CIODisconnect. More than three out of four CIOs surveyed – 77 percent – agree that CMO-CIO alignment is important, compared to 57 percent of CMOs participating in the survey. However, despite CIOs appearing more open to engaging with CMOs, only 45 percent of CIOs say that supporting marketing is near or at the top of their list of priorities.

Regarding the use of technology, CMOs and CIOs agree that technology is essential to marketing and that its primary purpose is to gain access to customer insight and intelligence (60 percent of CMOs and 73 percent of CIOs). But while CMOs claim that gaining customer insight is their number one motivator for collaborating with IT, CIOs rank this tenth on their list of reasons to work together. CIOs’ top motivation for collaborating is to improve the customer experience, which CMOs rank as their third most important motivator.

Challenged Collaboration in Action
The report reveals that when collaborating on a marketing initiative, neither the marketing executives nor the IT executives come away satisfied. According to the survey, 36 percent of CMOs say that IT deliverables fall short of the desired outcome, and 46 percent of CIOs say marketing does not provide an adequate level of detail to meet business requirements.

The survey also shows that a disagreement over the freedom and control of the use of technology and data also prevents effective collaboration. While 45 percent of CMOs say they want to enable their teams to leverage and optimize data and content without IT intervention, 49 percent of CIOs counter that marketing uses technologies without consideration for IT standards.

A Positive Shift
Despite the issues in collaboration raised by the survey, both CMOs and CIOs believe their relationship has improved over the past year: 45 percent of marketing executives and 47 percent of IT executives share this opinion. Additionally, almost an equal number of CMOs (41 percent) and CIOs (42 percent) believe that significantly more collaboration with each other will be required to drive relevant customer experiences. 

More information on Customer Relationship Management (CRM) can be found at www.CRMindustry.com