CIO – the Customer Service Experience Orchestrator
The successful company of tomorrow is the company that can offer its customers a superior customer experience. This requires that the focus of IT must shift away from processes to the customer experience. The CIO needs to adopt a more strategic role and ask a crucial question: Am I a business leader with special responsibility for IT or an IT leader who’s delivering to a business?
Rautakesko and Tieto share the same objective – to keep Rautakesko’s customers satisfied
The web and social media have made consumers demand a lot more from services. Customers have access to real-time information and take the initiative.
As noted by Johannes Milén, Head of Global Process Development & IT, Rautakesko Group, the trend can be characterised in terms of the changing doctor-patient relationship: the patient searches the internet for information about his or her symptoms in advance and possibly has already come up with some kind of diagnosis before the appointment. Or in terms of the mattress buyer who has become familiar with the qualities of different mattresses before entering the store. Both the doctor and salesperson must know something that the customer doesn’t, or otherwise the customer will find them redundant.
This sets new demands on service processes. Johannes emphasises that although there has been plenty of talk about customer orientation, less thought has been put into how things are made visible for customers.
“We know quite precisely what customers want, but often things are still done the old way as dictated by process requirements.”
From processes to customer experience
Whereas efficiency has been a value in itself, the changing marketplace is turning this basic setup on its head. As noted by Johannes, the process no longer has the starring role. It is now played by the customer experience with the process built around this experience.
This means a changing role for the CIO. The focus needs to shift away from leading service processes to leading the customer experience.
At Rautakesko this has been made possible by teaming up with a partner. IT services have been outsourced to just one partner responsible for the functioning of services, which has allowed Johannes to focus on business development. Indeed, Johannes encourages the CIO to ask whether s/he wants to be a business leader responsible for IT or an IT leader delivering to a business.
“A good partner takes your attention away from IT systems and thinking about them, allowing you to focus your time on serving your own customers”, Johannes emphasises.
You have to make a conscious decision
Johannes Milén has a background in business, which has made it easier for him to expand his focus on business development. He characterises his own business-IT expertise ratio at 80/20, but notes that more technically inclined CIOs can also embrace a more strategic approach if they only make a conscious decision to do so.
“Embracing this role is easier in some organisations than others. To know your objective is a good start.”
Focus on serving the end customer Johannes Milén, Head of Global Process Development & IT, Rautakesko Group, and Hannu Syrjälä, President & CEO, Tieto Corporation, gave a joint keynote presentation at Gartner Symposium / ITxpo 2010 in Cannes in November. They continued their lively discussion on the changing focus of IT systems at Tieto’s stand after the keynote address. “Once the focus has shifted to the customer experience, the entire IT ecosystem must be receptive to end customer needs and understand its role in generating the customer experience,” Johannes Milén notes. It is precisely this mindset that he came across when Tieto’s India team asked him: “What services does Rautakesko offer to its customers?” Instead of asking about Rautakesko’s IT processes, they wanted to hear what Rautakesko does or sells to its customers, and how Tieto can help in this regard. “They were not only interested in serving their client, that is Rautakesko, but also wanted to hear about our customers, that is who is the end customer.” Johannes remembers that the question took him totally by surprise, and that he didn’t really have an answer. Hannu Syrjälä emphasises that focusing on the customer experience is a great way to differentiate yourself from the competition – the winner is whoever offers best user experience to the customer’s customer. You also no longer compete with price. According to Hannu, IT investments have picked up clearly after the cuts of 2009. “Now is a good time to think carefully about what systems to build. Improved cost-efficiency is freeing resources for development work. And companies should channel these resources to build a network that genuinely serves the customer.” “Otherwise someone else will come along with a cheaper price and a superior customer experience.” Hannu Syrjälä encourages large established organisations to also make the leap. The challenge faced by such organisations is not the lack of resources, but sticking to old practices. |
Rautakesko Group is an international company specialising in building materials and home improvement. Rautakesko has operations in Finland, Sweden, Norway, the Baltics, Russia and Belarus. Rautakesko is also a strong player in the agricultural equipment retail market in Finland. Rautakesko leads and develops its store chains K-rauta, Rautia, K-maatalous, Byggmakker, Senukai and OMA in their respective market areas.
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