Enterprises have moved beyond refreshing their customer communication management in response to the consumers’ increasing preference for digital media and are now expecting to derive additional benefits and revenue by framing these communications as conversations.
For those who have not yet begun the journey, this article seeks to set out the route from modernisation to transformation, highlighting an approach that will use the benefit case and measured returns on investment to drive the delivery of staged changes, suggesting a pragmatic approach to strategic investment in pursuance of the enterprise goals:
- Modernise and deliver efficiencies and cost savings
- Scale up in order to drive optimum benefit returns
- Transform to deliver new opportunities in addition to staying relevant to, and even exceeding customers’ expectations
The time has come for enterprises to urgently invest in modern customer communication management capabilities, regardless of their industry sector. Consumer trends now demand a conversation rather than a one-way broadcast and an experience rather than merely a delivery note, statement, or invoice. Enterprises that respond to this demand will likely differentiate themselves in their marketplace, however, care needs to be taken to ensure that the investment of precious funds is targeted correctly and will deliver the step change to real benefits. This requires a strategic approach.
In its turn, a strategy can only be useful to an enterprise if following it delivers the expected benefits. Its proposed route map of changes needs to make a compelling benefit case showing substantial return on investment and clear metrics for measuring progress towards these goals. In this article we have shown how to set out the stages in this journey and how to navigate between them.
The initial benefit case must promise a return on investment within 3 years and is rooted in the identification of core business processes that will benefit most from migration to a centralised content management and composition platform, delivering cost savings through reuse, increased automatic controls, and automation of production. This justifies the initial investment but also paves the way for the second stage in the journey.
The second stage ratchets up the benefits by scaling upwards and outwards: more volume of automated production and more processes migrated to the platform. This requires careful management using the metrics and design principles set out in the implementation phase and is facilitated by a design authority governing which processes will benefit and thus should be included in the programme portfolio, and ensuring design and best practices are adhered to. Not only does this complete the step change to a modern customer communication management capability, but it also makes it possible for the transformation that will assure the future vision is realised.
Transformation will require a new benefit case but the foundations and key capabilities will already be in place from the previous stages, each of which have been justified in themselves from a return on investment basis. This final stage delivers cross media conversational experiences for customers and in turn a rich source of data for better understanding needs and opportunities. The opportunity for high levels of customer satisfaction as well as the identification of new revenue streams will have been delivered and can provide considerable advantage to the enterprise at much lowered cost levels than initially expected. Furthermore, the staged approach has provided flexibility to respond to unfolding events that influence the transformational model, while delivering benefits throughout the journey rather than merely at its destination.