Business IT Alignment (BITA) is also a 4 letter word

Recently, an international event management company approached me to conduct a workshop on Business-IT Alignment. It made me wonder whether CIOs are really interested in one more presentation on this subject unless these CIOs lived off another planet (or have just been born), and needed to be seasoned with a dose of the much discussed subject. I think, maybe apart from the subject of CIO reporting into the CFO/CEO as well as what next for the CIO (role of the CIO), the most oft discussed topic in the IT industry is definitely IT’s alignment to business.

No event or seminar is ever complete without a reference to the wonderful BITA. Most presentations assume that BITA is indeed an issue for CIOs, and the CIO requires help. In fact, many vendors and consultants project their products or solutions as the key ingredients towards achieving BITA. Now I can’t claim to be an expert on this hallowed subject, but have had my share of contributing to the discussion based on some experience and observation. Based on these, I have a hypothesis on what enables BITA, and where it is a challenge.

Let me first list out the standard assumptions (or ‘Conditions Apply’). A CIO understands the business, and is able to conduct a dialogue where he is understood across the organizational layers. He has good verbal as well as written communication skills, and is able to use these in internal and external meetings. He has the confidence required to debate a business or IT issue without getting so frustrated that others do not understand him. He has a reasonable track record of creating value from projects undertaken which meet (or exceed) expectations most of the time. He has a good network of vendors and partners who provide the CIO with technology advisory based on the domain. Finally, he is a good leader of people, as well as able to motivate and lead large cross-functional teams.

As I wrote the above paragraph, I wondered—if a CIO has all the skills listed above, can he still be challenged with BITA? Many might say yes, that is, if he did not report to the CEO. So let’s assume that a CIO does not report to the CFO. Will all these factors contribute to BITA? My analysis indicates a high probability of success, but I will still give it an even chance, i.e. 5/10 for the combination to lead to BITA. Have we not considered all factors? One might argue that if the CEO is technology friendly, the probability would go up to 6/10. So what can nudge the figure higher to 8/10 or 9/10 ?

My ‘Oh I See’ moment happened in a chance conversation with a CFO. When is an enterprise willing to invest in new initiatives? When are budgets relatively easier to get? When do justifications not get into the realm of fiction? The simple answer is that when a company is profitable. Not just simple profitable, but with good cash flow and available money. If the company is meeting analyst or shareholder expectations, is growing faster than the industry, and has higher margins than competitors, it’s not possible to deny BITA. So every opportunity gets the budget, as well as every employee is charged and amenable to change, as they all understand the dimensions contributing to success.

Unprofitable or marginally profitable companies always struggle to cut costs, reduce (or defer) new projects, and challenge every investment, looking for the lowest cost option. All these challenge the CIO, and keep the focus on business as usual rather than innovation. There will be exceptions to this too, but then they will be the 1/10 or 2/10 driven by the force of the leader or CIO, as compared to the higher propensity of success for a profitable company.

CIOs in business roles or add-on responsibilities are likely to have higher appreciation of the hypothesis. The new normal post 2009’s slowdown may have contributed to a shift in a few cases—in profitable as well as profit-challenged companies—based on the role played by the CIO during difficult times. If the CIO was a key player, the alignment pendulum would have shifted right, if he was not, then it may have shifted left.

The power of CRM to alienate a customer

Last week, I was subjected to five calls in a day from an insurance company wanting to sell me a new improved high return insurance cover. The first time round, I listened to the caller, and politely advised her that I already subscribed to the said policy. I interrupted half way through the second time and told the lady I already had the policy. The third caller was not fortunate enough, and as soon as he announced the company name, I told him I had no interest in their products. The fourth could not get beyond the first line, and had to answer questions on how the CRM worked. And the last cut the phone when I advised him that I had taken a policy a few weeks back, and now wanted to cancel it. These were different sales agents armed with a database trying to “sell” insurance.

How many times do we wish that CRM solutions work the way they are sold to companies by the vendors? Why can’t the stupid CRM tell sales and marketing teams that the customer has already been contacted five times in the last week, and that the last interaction resulted in the customer calling the caller unsavory names for repeatedly calling him? This is despite the customer saying that he is not interested in one more credit card, insurance policy, new personal loans, or whatever the company offers. The problem compounds itself when the harried customer is already a receiver of the service.

Every customer facing enterprise seeks to implement a CRM solution to service the customer effectively, as well as to understand the customer requirements and behavior for tailoring the product or service based on customer preferences. All such initiatives start with big expectations; the processes are sometimes complex and time consuming. In a few cases, these initiatives are not aligned to reality at the front office, thereby rendering usage ineffective.

When data entry ends up being outsourced, the quality of customer information suffers. So when it’s not possible to find the customer quickly, adding one more record is an easy solution. Buy databases, simply upload, and in no time, rest assured that you will figure a dozen times. Attempts to scrub and de-duplicate may bring some efficiency, but as the number of records increase exponentially, the effort starts losing its efficacy.

Successfully operational CRM solutions have little relevance to the technology deployed, but are built on the foundation of strong processes, buy-in from every function which will interact with the customer, technology sizing that can address peaks in capacity, and a simple design that is effectively implemented and executed across the enterprise. The IT organization diligently reviews data quality with the marketing and sales organizations to ensure uniqueness of the customer records. Data quality is never an accident; it requires significant planning and discipline of execution. Despite the best efforts of men and women, we still end up with some challenges when integrating with external data. These are as yet being addressed through innovative strategies, but are not fool-proof. Maybe the unique identification number (UID) initiative will help solve this issue, but that is a long way off for now.

Coming back to my “friendly” insurance company, I called my insurance advisor with the promise of canceling all policies, should I get one more call from his company or their sales agents. He profusely apologized and promised to fix the issue. I am hopeful until the next bought database gets uploaded or a new agency is appointed or the pressure to acquire customers based on month end, quarter end, or yearend pressure begins, and the calling starts again. Sometimes I pity them the barrage they face every day for no fault of theirs, but then companies don’t appear to care beyond a point, as the universe of customers is still probably 1-2% of the addressable market. So who cares!