How do I advance my data and technology to enable my organization – including delivering stronger customer and workforce experiences? Discover below.
No company can exist without engaged employees and satisfied customers. In fact, companies choosing to focus on customer experiences are 60 percent more profitable, and for the companies that shift to this strategy, revenue increases by up to 80 percent.
That’s why, in part one of this series, we outlined the critical traits of premium employee and customer experiences: scalability, predictability, and repeatability. We also uncovered two frequently overlooked steps in the journey to delivering these experiences: 1) Modernizing data and systems and 2) Strengthening your operations for said modernization.
As for part two, we’ll be diving into the second phase of readying for modernization, so you can deliver scalable, predictable, and repeatable experiences: Fortifying your foundation. In this phase, you’ll find:
- A recap of the common problem areas found in part one,
- Four principles of modernization and how to use them, and
- Questions to help you apply these concepts to your own organization.
Let’s dive in.
Reviewing the common problem areas
Problem Area #1: A Disconnected Enterprise
A disconnected enterprise is characterized by fragmented operations, unidentifiable or inconsistent processes, lack of governance, and no shared operating model. This lack of cohesion and alignment is one of the greatest obstacles to readying operations for modernization.
Problem Area #2: Manual Processes
Often a result of outdated tools or systems, manual processes cause organizations to spend excessive time performing tasks that could have been automated. Aside from time-waste, manual processes also lead to a lack of transparency and inefficient procedures.
Problem Area #3: The “Lowest Common Denominator”
Directly or indirectly, organizations often fail to upgrade and update their entire enterprise. This generates pockets within the business whose systems and operations are left behind – rendering the upgrades they do make ineffective.
Problem Area #4: Lackluster or Unreliable Data
This one is simple: Poor data quality. Whether it’s unreliable, inaccurate, out-of-date, or inconsistent, lackluster data is a major blockade to successful modernization – even more so for creating premium experiences. Refresh with these questions from part one to start assessing your data quality.
Modernizing Phase Two: Fortifying Your Foundation
Phase One was about evaluating your challenges and current barriers to achieving data and systems modernization, and in turn delivering scalable, repeatable, predictable experiences.
Phase Two is about using governance and best practices to tackle the common problem areas addressed in Phase One. The Modernization Core Principles – outlined below – should make up your back-to-basics toolkit for data and systems preparedness.
Four Principles of Modernization
Modernization Principle #1: Common Tools
Breaking down barriers to cross-functionality and creating a common language across your business by ensuring that everyone has access to and is using the same tools. Examples of these include Microsoft Teams, Mural, Tableau, or Microsoft Power BI.
Problem Area Solution: Having a common set of tools helps organizations reduce manual processes and optimize operational efficiency. They help to standardize processes, making it easier to streamline and automate manual work. It would also reduce the risk of errors or inconsistency in your data by creating a central, single view of your customers and employees. On top of automation and data quality, common tools help create a connected enterprise, offering a shared language, framework, and platform.
Modernization Principle #2: Traceability and Measurability
Creating data-informed awareness of how your operations are performing today, how much it’s costing you, and how it’s impacting customers and employees.
Problem Area Solution: Traceability and measurability take center stage in mitigating lackluster data. You need strong analytical models and a single source of data to accurately track and measure all of your activities, helping you make decisions that allow your business to thrive. Of course, these data-driven decisions will support your ability to identify and reduce manual processes, improve the lowest common denominator, and better connect your enterprise.
Modernization Principle #3: Governance
Keeping operations and activities on track by monitoring status, efficiency, and accuracy. This applies to your data and your enterprise.
Problem Area Solution: Designing and implementing governance models is central to achieving data quality. This is because governance is about implementing policies, best practices, standards, and guardrails around data use. Governance, in turn, empowers the entire enterprise to use and follow a common language appropriately and effectively. This principle also serves to connect your enterprise by governing general processes, technology, and operating models. Ultimately, this all compounds to enable faster decision making and better leadership alignment.
Modernization Principle #4: Strategic Alignment
Ensuring business strategy is at the center of it all and your teams are united under shared goals and a common operating model.
Problem Area Solution: The principal impact of strategic alignment is connecting your enterprise. It enables better business decisions by bringing strategy and operations together, so that every member of the organization unites around a common goal and operating model. This will also prevent the lowest common denominator from holding your business back. Even the tangential parts of your business are critical to the core, so aligning every facet with your modernization strategy and initiatives will help keep you on track. We discuss this in depth in part three.
Like the common problem areas in Phase One, use Phase Two to reflect on how modernizing with these principles in mind will benefit your customers and employees. Consider questions like:
- “How will strategic alignment influence employee engagement and satisfaction?”
- “In what ways will traceability and measurability prevent customer attrition?”
- “How will enhancing data quality through governance enable me to identify customer and employee trends?”
Conclusion: Let’s get your house in order
Connecting your enterprise, retiring manual processes, and completing the foundational tasks that are critical to successful data and systems transformation can be overwhelming. And when the end goal of your modernization effort is an improved experience, it can become even more complicated.
North Highland can simultaneously help you identify the link between data and systems and customer and workforce experiences, while also helping you on the road to modernization. And we help you through this process with specialized methods fine-tuned to your unique problem areas. So not only will your enterprise architecture be elevated and streamlined, but you’ll have a crystal-clear view of how to apply these enhancements for scalable, predictable, and repeatable experiences.
Coming up next:
Part three of this series picks up with Phase Three: Moving to Modernization. In this next installment, we’ll put two premium solutions – AI and Strategic Portfolio Management – in conversation with the concepts outlined above and demonstrate how each option supports better experiences.
