Veni, Vedi, Simplifique (I Came, I Saw, I Simplified)

Three Ways to Maximize the Impact of Technology Investments

The goal of any new technology is to simplify our lives. No company would intentionally market a product that makes a process more complex. But the search for simplicity often becomes a paradox: The technology made to streamline our jobs ends up being complex, further complicating our jobs.

The Wright Way

Think about the way the aviation industry has changed, for example. In 1903, the Wright brothers made their famous flight with the first fixed-wing airplane. Only 33 years later, the first commercially viable aircraft—the DC7—was ready to whisk the public through the air to its destination. "Please return your tray tables to an upright position" entered the customer-service lexicon, and people had a new way to travel.

And next? Commercial space travel. Richard Branson is funding and testing a spaceship that will carry five passengers into orbit. "Every passenger will have a spectacular view; they will have considerable windows and luxurious seats," Sir Richard said.

These aircraft, while incredibly complex in their totality, are built on highly flexible, modular objects that are surprisingly simple in concept at their lowest level. The combining of these objects into a workable system creates complexity. Millions of objects must integrate perfectly.

This same complexity—engendered from a search for simplicity—causes chaos in many companies. Far too many organizations that add new technologies are not prepared to change or even manage the complexity of their internal processes. When complexity is not handled correctly, companies fail to get maximum impact from their technology investments.

The Search for Innovation through Processes and Technology

One of the worst excuses that customer-service reps give to disgruntled customers is, "We're a company made of people. And people make mistakes." But that excuse also holds a grain of positive truth. The cure for complexity resides in each employee's adaptive, flexible and innovative mind.

When organizations are flexible, they are in a position to gain the most from technology investments and to operate more effectively. Three aspects of corporate life hold the key to enhancing openness and agility: structure, functions and environment.

When companies fail to address and simplify their organizational frameworks—the tasks and processes that employees perform on a daily basis within the company's culture—they essentially limit the potential for technology to help them. For example, many businesses invest millions of dollars into customer relationship management software. But they do this without first examining their internal systems, functions and environment. When their old processes don't mesh with the new technology, the software implementation fails.

At this point, the company is back at square one. The technology implementation has added to an organization's problems instead of solving them. To prevent this type of scenario and to maintain and improve effectiveness, the search for simplification calls us to have a continuous—often radical—focus on innovation.

Yes, "innovation"—the buzzword that makes everyone roll their eyes. Every few years, everyone gets excited about innovation, makes bold changes and then reaps the rewards. That is, until management and employees get complacent, the search for innovation wanes and enthusiasm for change fades. At some point, productivity falters and returns to the level before innovation was embraced.

But if management is careful to observe where it is in this cycle of innovation and complacency, the best timing for implementing innovation becomes apparent. If this kind of observation is not performed regularly, the impact of any technology to provide benefit to the organization will be minimized.

However, when you move from a theoretical to a practical world, keeping everyone on board with new technology becomes incredibly difficult to accomplish. This is one of the main reasons why only 10 percent of U.S. companies maintain consistent growth over any consecutive six-year period. Fortunately, there are ways to keep your feet firmly planted in reality and still keep the momentum moving forward.

Three Techniques to Improve the Impact of Your Technology Investments

How do you keep your organization focused on innovation and continuous improvement? The following three techniques stir innovation in even the most calcified companies.

1. Simplify process pass-on

Most software applications are designed to automate organizational processes. But to get the most impact from your technology implementations, you must work at simplifying your processes.

For example, consider a database that taps into your customer information and then guides your customer-service reps through personalized conversations with those customers. This should make the rep's jobs easier while creating a more customized customer experience, right?

It will, if reps can easily pass a customer onto the next level of support, when necessary. If the customer has to start all over again with a different rep, all of the gains of the new system will be lost. Instead, use technology to enable a level-one rep to notify a level-two rep that a customer is being referred. The second-level rep should instantly have the updated information from the level-one rep's conversation with that customer, so that the conversation can continue without missing a beat.

2. Standardize IT architecture

One major recent breakthrough in technology implementation is something engineers call software-oriented architecture. In non-engineering terms, this means standardizing databases, network capabilities, software and PCs across an organization. When standards are established and followed, more employees have access to more information with less complexity.

These standards enable companies to dramatically increase organizational flexibility. Any department in a company can leverage existing infrastructures and take advantage of smaller, more agile technologies that can easily be integrated into this standardized IT construction.

Returning to our customer-service application, standardization helps everyone across the company have access to the same customer information. If the CSM application is deployed as a web-based application, everyone from customer-service reps to technical support can view the same data. Even remote employees can access vital customer data through something as simple as a web browser.

3. Integrate information company-wide

Technology managers have a distinct responsibility for integration. At the basic level, they must integrate applications and databases. At the big-picture level, technology managers must integrate information across the company to produce unique value for customers. For intellectual property to be optimized, all of the parts must be as tightly integrated as jet fighters in a formation.

As complexity grows, the demand for a pre-designed, intelligent integration is even more critical to success. The silo nature of business to isolate functions, the cornerstone of the past 45 years of technology development, is dying quickly.

Consider our customer-service solution one more time. Integrating the tech-support customer database with the main customer-service database can prevent headaches for customers and staff. Customer-service reps don't necessarily need to see the details of technical support calls, but at a minimum, they should be able to see that a certain customer has spoken with tech support five times in the past two days. With that information, they can quickly pass the customer onto tech support and reduce customer frustration.

Complacency Kills

It can be difficult to transform the enthusiasm for change into action. Complacency kills simplification initiatives. Change comes hardest when profits are stable. Summoning the will for change becomes easier as losses mount.

So how do you rally your company to embrace innovation? Keep the focus on the customer experience. Simplification initiatives are really about aligning customer strategies so employees sense and respond quickly to demand. In addition, technology can turn quality into a competitive advantage. When you focus outward—on the customer experience—the momentum for positive change can only grow.

Building a jet plane that can fly 300 passengers non-stop from London to Tokyo is no small task; neither is convincing your accounting department staff members to tap into the customer-service database before they handle a customer complaint.

In either case, examining your internal processes and focusing on the customer-service experience will help any company maximize the benefits of a technology investment. That positive customer-service experience isn't an intangible nice-to-have; it's vital to the bottom-line profitability of your company.

About the Author:

Thomas M. Nies is the founder and CEO of Cincom Systems, Inc. Since its founding in 1968, Cincom has matured into one of the largest international, independent software companies in the world. Cincom's client base spans communications, financial services, education, government, manufacturing, retail, healthcare, and insurance.

The longest actively serving CEO in the computer industry, Nies was recognized by President Ronald Reagan in 1984 as "the epitome of the entrepreneurial spirit of American business." In 1992, British Prime Minister Edward Heath honored Nies for Cincom's role in bringing the software industry to England. In 1995, he was profiled by the Smithsonian Institute as one of the "pioneers of the software industry," alongside other industry giants such as Bill Gates (Microsoft) and Larry Ellison (Oracle). In 2004, Ernst & Young inducted Nies into its Entrepreneur of the Year Hall of Fame. In 2005, along with the CEO of Adobe, Nies won the International Stevie Award for Best Executive in the International Business Awards—"the business world's own Oscars," according to the New York Post. In 2005, Nies also received the University of Cincinnati Lifetime Achievement award and in 2006, was named as one of the Top Ten IT Visionaries by START-IT magazine. In 2008, Tom and Cincom were featured in the a Harvard Business School Study.

Nies holds a bachelor's degree in Marketing and a master's degree in Finance from the University of Cincinnati and has served on the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, one of 12 regional banks that, along with the Board of Governors in Washington, D.C., comprise the Federal Reserve System. He has also served on the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra Board, and in various civic, software industry and educational organizations. Nies has been a featured speaker at conferences throughout the United States, Japan, Australia, Canada, Europe, and South America; has been interviewed by various television hosts; and has been featured in numerous articles and interviews in various worldwide publications.