Innovate - IT is the business
Seriously, with all the virtualization, cloud and external focus squeezing your IT department, your users are looking for a more efficient solution for IT. If you are running an internal CRM or email solution, your business colleagues probably believe it can be done cheaper elsewhere, and they are probably right. Therefore, you need to blur the lines between where they stop and you start. You need to be a relevant business partner to your customers. They must understand what they can get from you that is unique. Is that the case today? What is the one thing you provide the business that no one else can? What do you excel at? Do your customers know that? What is your run rate, innovation versus maintenance? How long can you eek life out of the legacy systems? Are you providing new innovative solutions, or just slapping lipstick on a pig?
Think about your legacy systems; you have given them facelifts, tummy tucks and Botox, and they look fantastic. They attract other equally gorgeous systems, but when those two systems create off-spring, it is bound to be ugly, because you cannot fix genetics. What is genetically flawed about your infrastructure? How can you fix it? Do your customers need to know about what lurks beneath, or can you migrate with them being blissfully unaware?
How can you better reach out to your clientele? How can you become the first number they call in times of trouble? Recently, while working in Europe, I received an email from my U.S.-based employer; we needed to update the corporate web presence in a hurry, and while they knew it was almost eleven p.m. my time, they still reached out. They knew I was their first call in cases of emergency, and we resolved the issue quickly. However, it took years for that relationship to develop, and lots of battles fought, lost and won along the way. Because we integrated better into their business, they knew we would not let them down. Do your customers believe that about you? Do you know, or are you afraid to ask?
|
|
|
