Consumer influence has, and will continue to play a fundamental role in the shaping of today’s competitive climate. With the large majority of interactions, engagements, and purchases occurring through digital channels, modern enterprises must adapt their operations to reflect the demands and preferences of their customers. It used to be that organizations could differentiate themselves from competition through a unique product or service offering, but now that customer loyalty is a notion of the past, delivering a superior customer experience has become critical to maintaining relevancy and surviving in the age of the customer.
IT Transformation and the Customer Experience
Placing the customer experience at the core of its mission, IT transformation strategically leverages the opportunities of digital technologies and its impact on society to enable businesses to accommodate rising demands. Although IT transformation delivers the agility and flexibility needed to improve capabilities, minimize expenses, and mitigate risk, the impact it has on an organization’s ability to serve its customer base is equally, if not more, important.
For most modern enterprises, improving and enhancing the customer experience is the main driver behind pursing IT transformation. With the ultimate goal of addressing various customer pain-points, business and innovation needs, as well as growth and transformation imperatives, IT transformation allows organizations to facilitate a holistic customer experience. While the result of these efforts will likely be realized in front-end, customer-facing functions, enterprise-wide adoption and involvement is vital to delivering the seamless and integrated user experience that today’s consumers have come to expect.
With that said, it’s important to remember that IT transformation is not an end-goal; it’s a continuous journey. Businesses will continue to be challenged with connecting the dots between data and consumer behavior, mapping customer journeys, and continuously redefining them to better meet demands and expectations.
The Bottom Line Benefits
As we’ve discussed, IT transformation is largely focused on aligning business strategy with IT to deliver a comprehensive, responsive, and individualized customer experience. However, consumers aren’t the only ones benefitting from these efforts. While there are a multitude of business advantages to pursuing IT transformation including increased agility, flexibility, and interdepartmental collaboration, the most significant can be attributed to one key factor, financial optimization.
It may seem self-serving, but an enterprise’s ability to create an intuitive user experience can facilitate substantial financial benefits. The customer experience is, and will continue to be a key determinant for consumers when making purchasing decisions. Meaning, organizations that are able to consistently deliver a positive experience will increase their chances of acquiring new customers as well as retaining existing customers. In addition, providing customers with a straightforward and easy-to-use digital platform will help to increase transaction velocity while minimizing the number of resources that need to be allocated towards assisting those customers with their purchase.
It’s no secret that today’s competitive landscape offers little room for organizational and operational inefficiencies, and although this will always be a focus area for IT leaders and CIOs alike, organizations in pursuit of IT transformation are taking the necessary steps towards achieving a more agile, effective, and cost-effective operation.
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