The role of acquiring and retaining customers is no longer the sole responsibility of the sales team. In order to fully maximize the resources of the enterprise, technology needs to be applied to the activities that identify, engage, interact, and connect with customers. IT is the prime enabler of those technologies and needs to become even more involved in defining how and where they are used.
Aaron Skonnard, CEO and cofounder of Pluralsight, a leading online training platform for developers and IT administrators, looks at the role of technology as part of the reason some companies excel while others fail. According to Skonnard, "Today's best businesses rely on technology to power sales. Email, CRM, point of sale systems — a sales force can't stay competitive without them. But efficiencies gained with modern tools are quickly negated if an IT department isn't operating in lockstep with sales." Forward-thinking IT professionals can spark the imagination of their sales counterparts because they understand more fully the possibilities for things like big data tools, virtualization and cloud infrastructure.
Customer data is one of the main contributors to the massive stores we identify as 'big data' and are ripe for use in appropriate ways. There are enormous amounts of customer data that, if used correctly, can lead to increased customer engagement and business. Skonnard says, "The complex systems needed to collect and analyze that data require an IT department that is totally in tune with the business's needs. Otherwise, technological miscues can jeopardize in an instant customer relationships that took years of shoe leather to build." These systems don't build themselves. Even if they are purchased or cloud-based systems, a forward thinking CIO needs to be guiding the way.
Scott Koegler practiced IT as a CIO for 15 years. He also has more than 20 years experience as a technology journalist covering topics ranging from software and services through business strategy.