external customers

Customer-centric IT

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 20:01:39 -0400

Instead of thinking of IT as a support for the rest of the enterprise, more and more CIOs are turning their IT shops into mini-businesses of their own, treating internal customers as if they were external customers. By doing so, IT departments become more effective and efficient, able to deliver real value to the company and its users. But moving to an "IT as a service" model is complicated. Some base the move on the tenets of ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library), adopting best practices for managing service requests, changes and IT assets--but ITIL is only one part of the puzzle. If you can navigate the change--including getting the support of your prospective customers by showing them the benefits--customer-centric IT department can increase productivity, improve project success rates and create a higher profile for technology within an organization.

Read more about how some companies have rolled out IT as a service:
- read the article at BPM Today

ALSO:
- read this about IT as an independent function
- and this on the ROI of ITIL

Being an analytic competitor

Wed, 07 Mar 2007 19:01:38 -0500

An analytically competitive organization is one that uses analytics extensively and systematically to out-think and out-execute competitors. According to a new book, Competing on Analytics: The New Science of Winning, the most analytically sophisticated and successful had four common characteristics:

analytics supported a strategic, distinctive capability
the approach to and management of analytics was enterprise-wide
senior management was committed to the use of analytics
the company made a significant strategic bet on analytics-based competition.

The use of analytics will grow in the corporate world, both internally and offered to external customers as a value-added service. The content of analytics also will change from mostly quantitative analysis of tangible entities to analysis and management of intangibles such as human capital, intellectual capital, brand, R&D capability, and other non-financial assets.

For more about the importance of strategic analytics:
- read the article at CIO Insight

Related Articles:
Making the most of web analytics. Report
Defining analytics key to gaining data insight. Report

IT as an independent function

Mon, 05 Mar 2007 19:01:39 -0500

Forward-thinking CIOs are turning their IT departments into independent business units that function much like a separate business. Delivering IT as a service--and that means treating internal customers like external customers--is more efficient and effective, but not always that easy to pull off. It involves project portfolio management, re-engineering of workflows and process improvement. Companies approach this transformation in different ways, including ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) and application lifecycle management. But the most important route to success involves getting buy-ins from your prospective customers by showing them that the benefits outweigh the hassles.

Read about four companies doing it right:
- read the article at InfoWorld

ALSO: more on ITIL

Making your customers happy

Sun, 25 Feb 2007 19:01:39 -0500

Long considered the responsibility of marketing and sales, customer advisory councils are now being broadened to include IT--a long overdue change, many believe. Without valuable feedback on what both internal and external customers consider important, IT runs the risk of offering up products, applications and services that don't fit anyone's needs. To make sure that your customer advisory council is successful, define only a few highly specific objectives, such as determining the gap between what the organization has delivered and the needs, pricing, service and overall performance of the company. It's also important to get feedback on the pitch presentation and guidelines from both sales managers and trusted customers and to budget at least 60 percent of the agenda specifically for feedback. Finally, make sure to get input from high-ranking executives as well.

Learn more about the value of customer advisory councils:
- read the article at CRMBuyer

Simplicity drives customer requirements

Thu, 01 Feb 2007 19:01:39 -0500

Both internal users and external customers have come to expect the type of simple, easy-to-use, reliable technology that they experience in consumer applications, and it's up to IT departments to provide it. That's somewhat of a sea change from the traditional approach, which emphasized functionality over simplicity. Companies, however, have a long way to go to provide users with the ease of use they demand. Instead of simply tweaking your current IT strategy, complying with these demands means changing the way that you think about technology and how you serve both your internal and external customers. This new way of thinking means being willing to make changes early and often, exploring new technologies, putting the customer first, and building systems from the outside in.

Learn more about creating simple, functional systems:
- read the article at Optimize