Companies that fail to get serious about their management of customer service e-mail now will ultimately pay the price with higher customer service costs and lost revenues down the line. Bruce McCracken finishes his series on targeted e-mail with a look at the growing reliance on business intelligence for companies looking to meet customer demands.
In Sync, in Step, Into the Future
Hagerty notes a cultural change that is having an impact on business. “As senior executives move up the ranks, the people who were brought up using computer systems will be much more in tune to figuring this out. Analytics become more important over time as people become more comfortable with this way of viewing business and have a more savvy key management team.”
Dresner sees a viable value proposition. “Ultimately, there is the opportunity to deliver deep insights into the business without the latency. Organizations will be able to react to critical business events without having to anticipate what is going to happen in the future or reacting too late.”
Hagerty submits, “What you will see in the next couple of years is a much more of an intense look at using performance management as a drive to a desired state of performance in goal setting, meeting those goals, and predicting performance in a sense of being able to determine something to drive the process to its conclusion.”
Anderson sees a faster business speed looming. “By sheer necessity, businesses are going to have to take BI more seriously than they ever have before. As soon as the economy revives, those who made the investment to get ready for it will be the winners. This train is coming. This is a strategic focus that needs to be invested in for when the economy picks up. In the future BI can be an active watchdog for the CEO, CFO, and COO.”
Through dashboards and other aspects of BI that are increasingly being offered in a cost effective manner, business will have the vision to potentially meet customer demands. The dots can be connected to create a clearer picture of how the experience works for both the customer and company. A strategic approach that is proactively based upon reality will yield a positive change. As the Spaniard Santayana observed many years ago, “Those who do not learn from mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them.”
Bruce McCracken is a business writer with specialization in outsourcing. His coverage areas are primarily in IT, eCommerce, CRM, HR, and supply chain/distribution with focus on small to mid-sized companies. He may be emailed at [email protected].
