May 19, 2015
There’s an ongoing disconnect between what IT managers at many organizations consider as their immediate priorities and actual business requirements in the age of the digitally enabled customer.
When asked to rank business priorities for the next 12 months, IT managers in Computerworld’s 2015 Forecast Study ranked customer satisfaction dead last, behind other goals such as cost containment, business process automation and optimization of existing investments. Barely 15 percent of IT heads and just 10 percent of lower-level IT pros felt that getting better acquainted with customer needs was a priority.
More broadly, companies need to incorporate customer insights into every aspect of their product design and technology pursuits, says Eric Berridge, CEO of business consulting firm Bluewolf. Writing for Computerworld, Berridge says IT organizations need to be thinking about taking advantage of tools like the connected cloud and the social web to better listen to customers, interpret sentiment and use that information to make decisions on how to support them better.
