The Customer is Always Right & CIOs Know it
 

The customer is the boss, creating a new leadership style.

Ask yourself, what was your recent interaction with a supplier, recruiter, publisher, bank, retailer or travel organization? Chances are it was a web-based interaction. If that interaction was successful you may then have progressed to a face-to-face meeting, visit to a store, office, facility or event. It’s inevitable that an interaction via technology is an integral part of customer service for any organization in any vertical market.  As a result, today’s C-level business technology leaders are highly customer centric, because the customer’s first touchpoint with an organization is most often via technology.

Research by auditing and advisory company KPMG states that customers demand “more speed, more access, more information, more choices, more connectivity, more personalization, and more simplicity.” Seeking to understand how the CIO has to be customer centric found that “organizations that deliver seamless, responsive, relevant and consistent customer experiences are able to grow higher revenues and become more resilient to market disruptors.” The research found the modern customer centric CIO is responsible for providing “insight to the customer,” which is using the power of data and information technologies to create a personalized experience for the customer. A customer centric CIO is also constantly working in tandem with chief marketing officers (CMOs) as well as sales directors to ensure they and their teams are making optimal use of technology to meet the needs of the customer. 

How To Be Customer Centric 

“You have to make yourself comfortable with the products,” says Nutanix CIO Wendy Pfieffer.

The KPMG research endorses Pfieffer’s view, “for the organization to truly embrace and enable a customer-first approach, customer technology alignment in the IT business model is mandatory. As such, the CIO is now expected to be a leader in aligning the technology strategy to drive the customer agenda forward.”

In developing this “aligned” strategy, it requires the CIO to move beyond a purely technology leadership role. Jordan at CWT sought out and built a data practice that not only informed CWT and the CIO, but also developed into a consulting service that on a number of occasions has been the initial engagement with CWT and its customers. Jordan describes how CWT has become a consultancy that reshaped the internal business travel arrangements of an organization. 

CIO of international shipping insurance firm North of England P&I James Holmes spent time away from IT in a previous role in the retail sector developing a new retail concept. The key lessons from developing that concept were incorporated into the businesses wider retail chain. Holmes says that experience has been highly beneficial as he now leads a major business and technology transformation.

Mark Aikman, a technology leader with Upfield, the world’s largest maker of plant-based consumer packaged goods adds, “there is nothing wrong with creating a subculture if it produces results.” Aikman adds that the CEO like the customer wants results and that for CIOs to turn their teams into customer centric operations may require alternative ways of thinking.

However, as a CIO becomes more customer-centric the demand for such skills are set to increase. As KPMG concludes, “today’s customers are better informed, better connected and more demanding than ever before. Customer experience is overtaking price and product as the number-one brand differentiator.”