Storm Surge Storm Surge: the abrupt bulge of water driven ashore by a storm.
The Sunday Business Post February 15, 2015 Focus On: Storm ... · resulting in a disjointed, frag -...
1
S ome 84 per cent of Irish organisations are still unable to provide a connect- ed, cross-functional view of customer interactions with their business, despite the fact that 95 per cent of senior executives believe it is crucially important to the success and sustainability of their business. e stark findings are re- vealed in an enterprise re- search report into the status of connected customer en- gagement in Irish organisa- tions, commissioned by Storm Technology and conducted by Amárach Research. e research, concluded in Q4 2014, involved in-depth, quantitative interviews with over 100 senior executives, including chief executives, managing directors and gen- eral managers in medium and large enterprises across 12 industry sectors, includ- ing manufacturing, retail, financial services, health- care, transport, utilities and services. “We know this lack of cohe- sive customer engagement is something businesses struggle with, and we’ve experienced it in our dealings with clients,” said Karl Flannery, chief exec- utive with Storm Technology. “For every touch-point that a customer has with a com- pany, the organisation should be able to pull these together to garner a complete picture of every interaction the cus- tomer has with each part of the business. “From requesting a bill from accounts, through to despatch of a content-relevant email from marketing, the compa- ny should deliver a consistent customer experience, using the data it holds on every in- teraction, regardless of func- tional area. “Our research shows that the vast majority of organi- sations struggle to deliver on this, despite commitment and investment,” he said. e concept of ‘connected’ customer engagement is not a new one, yet many of us reg- ularly experience frustrating incidents of service providers who pass us from department to department, force us to regurgitate the same infor- mation over and over again and who appear to have no insight or understanding of our history as a customer or our relationship with their business. Flannery believes custom- ers expect to have “one rela- tionship with one company” and he’s not alone. Four-fifths of organisations interviewed believe that the ability to have this connected view of customer engagement has a significant impact on customer satisfaction, while 77 per cent cite customer re- tention as a key benefit. “e research speaks for itself and the market tells us that the inability to achieve a holistic view of customer in- teractions can have a negative impact on business perfor- mance,” he said. In an age where our digital environment has helped to shift buying power from the seller to the buyer, and where brand loyalty and customer retention rates are under siege, slick, agile companies who understand the importance of delivering this consistent, seamless customer experi- ence across multiple touch- points are making their pres- ence felt. And while it might be as- sumed that connected cus- tomer engagement is more prevalent in the B2C market where customers can switch loyalty at will, Storm’s re- search paints a different picture, highlighting similar levels of disjointed commu- nications between both B2C and B2B markets. Almost nine out of ten or- ganisations in B2B and eight out of ten in B2C admit they are unable to deliver a holistic insight into customer engage- ment. Historically, relation- ship-oriented organisations in the B2B market assumed that customer engagement was more manageable, as they were operating in an environ- ment of fewer organisational buyers and more enduring business relationships, forged over a longer period of time. But Flannery believes that the inability of B2B organ- isations to recognise that customers do business with companies, not departments, is actually more “damaging”. “As a high-value, long-standing customer for example, the impact of not knowing me is much more significant,” he said. “More and more, the emphasis in B2B is on building cross-func - tional enduring relationships – where each part of the busi- ness knows and understands the collective relationship be- tween their organisation and its client.” “Many of our clients are now demanding an easily ac- cessible, cohesive view of ev- ery interaction between their clients and operations. We believe that company-wide CRM strategies are the way to achieve it.” Despite strong indications that Irish organisations have work to do, Flannery is up- beat about the prospects of being able to achieve con- nected customer engage- ment and positively impact business-critical metrics of customer satisfaction and retention. “One of the great news sto- ries coming from the research is that organisations in Ire- land get it. ey understand the significance of connected engagement as 95 per cent of them say it’s incredibly im- portant for the success of their organisation,” he said. “Where we’ve seen this work really well, is when or- ganisations stop, take a step back and look at this from the customer’s viewpoint. ey look closely at the customer journey, whether B2C or B2B, and examine all touch-points into and out of the organisa- tion. Once we jointly start to devise strategies based on this mind-set, projects progress very well. Suddenly we’ve moved from a functional or divisional view to a custom- er-oriented view of engage- ment and that’s where the secret to company-wide CRM success lies.” Connect the dots – connect the customer Deploying company-wide CRM strategies sounds easy. But why do many organisa- tions struggle to convert the- ory to practice, despite high commitment and investment? With just 16 per cent of or- ganisations in the enviable position of having a compa- ny-wide, connected custom- er engagement strategy, one could be forgiven for thinking that lack of technology invest- ment lay at the root cause of the issue. But research commissioned by Storm Technology and conducted by Amárach Re- search reveals that 75 per cent of organisations interviewed already have three or more core line of business applica- tions in place. Two-thirds of those questioned have more than four such applications. “From financial systems to marketing automation, employee collaboration tools and CRM solutions, these companies have made substantial investments in functional systems, but have failed to ‘connect the dots’ and provide a single, cohe- sive, company-wide view of customer interactions,” said Derek Finnerty, Practice Di- rector, Business Productivity & CRM solutions with Storm Technology. “More than eight out of ten organisations are unable to roll up the data points across the different systems and func- tions to get a connected view of customer engagement with the business,” he said. Four out of five of those questioned don’t consider executive sponsorship a bar- rier to company-wide CRM, while just 5 per cent fail to see the benefits of building this 360 degree view of cus- tomer touch-points with all functions of the business and with it, a seamless customer experience. And Storm Technology is not alone in calling out cus- tomer experience as critical to metrics of customer satisfac- tion and customer retention in an Irish context. Its research is echoed by market analyst, Gartner which highlights the importance of what it calls “high levels of end-user in- vestment in customer experi- ence initiatives” in its analysis of the global CRM market. So what is the secret to achieving a connected view and how can companies en- sure that their investment in technology is geared towards creating a top down, not just a bottom up view of customer engagement with the busi- ness? “Our most successful proj- ects are ones that aren’t ap- proached from the standpoint of a department that requires a stand-alone technology solu- tion,” said Finnerty. “In reality, the conversation needs to revolve around the central business issue we are trying to address. If it starts in sales – and the business issue is we need more sales leads or more revenue – we untangle that problem and very quick- ly move to a broader, more strategic conversation that is cross-functional in nature. “Before we even look at technology, we work across the different functions and scope out the broader busi- ness requirements,” he said. Finnerty believes that this process of teasing out business issues and challenges is criti- cal to the success of achieving successful, company-wide CRM. And although most or- ganisations have the where- withal to scope this out them- selves, many clients choose to bring in an external partner to assist with this business-con- sulting task. “Individuals within organ- isations are incredibly smart, talented people. e problem is they’re busy with the day job and they have responsibilities, objectives and targets that are all related to functional areas,” he said. “e reason for bringing in an external company such as Storm Technology is to help them look at the customer journey through a different lens. at lens is a holistic or company-wide lens of how the customer engages with the company – the when, how, where and what they expect. “Strategy and execution go hand-in-hand, because if you do the strategy but don’t do the execution you end up with a really good plan on the shelf. And if you do the tactical without the strategy, you’re back to a functional imple- mentation. So they’re both hand in glove.” “Research from Storm Technology mirrors what we see in the marketplace,” according to Karl O’Leary, Director Public Sector with Microsoft Ireland. “It’s one of the reasons why we’ve always taken a platform approach to our technology development. e Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform for example has been designed to enable a company or organi- sation wide view of the cus- tomer across all touch-points, not just sales and marketing. It has also been developed with connection points to the entire Microsoft suite of products, from ERP right through to social listening. “Solutions built on Dynam- ics CRM with expertise from Storm are enabling companies to fully leverage this digital age and optimise customer en- gagement,” he said. Customer engagement strategy fuels real competitive advantage for Topaz Leading fuel and conve- nience retailer Topaz enjoys greater customer satisfaction, higher staff productivity and increased sales thanks to its company-wide CRM deploy- ment, performed by Storm Technology. e solution, built on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform, draws together cus- tomer interactions from ten business divisions, 70 staff and the company’s outsourced customer service partner to provide a top-down, holistic view of all customer activity within the business. “e impact of the project on our business has been im- mense,” said Liam Mulcahy, Commercial Director with Topaz. “Storm Technology has opened our eyes to how CRM technology can truly support our business strategy and how Microsoft Dynamics CRM can make that come alive. “It’s changed what we do and how we think. is project is cross-functional, it’s busi- ness-led and the customer is at the centre.” Established in 2008, the To- paz brand has created a strong market footprint for itself in a relatively short period of time, and can be seen in over 350 forecourts by 800,000 cus- tomers across the country each week. Topaz is unusual in that it services both B2C, through fuel retailing and B2B markets, through its bulk fuels, lubri- cant and fuel card business. Mulcahy and his team in- stinctively knew that having a cohesive view of customers would deliver better business performance and help it stay one step ahead of the compe- tition. But the company had several legacy systems across different product divisions, resulting in a disjointed, frag- mented view of its customers. Following assistance from Storm Technology to define a more strategic view of cus- tomer engagement encom- passing all functions and divisions of the business, the decision was taken to deploy Microsoft Dynamics CRM. “We had to integrate from multiple systems to get all of our customer information into one location so we could de- liver on this single, joined-up view of the customer,” said Mulcahy. “It’s been a very import- ant key win of the project as this transparency of activity allows us to up sell and cross sell. We’ve identified revenue gains and pipeline opportu- nities for the sales teams at Topaz. And it’s all delivered via Microsoft Dynamics CRM.” Each month around 12,000 customer interactions are re- corded. is data-rich intel- ligence allows the company to concentrate its efforts on delivering exceptional service and it cultivates an organisa- tion-wide dedicated focus on the customer. But other benefits have flowed from the project as Sharon Butler, CRM Project Manager, Topaz explains. “Centralised information with streamlined business processes and easy-to-use interfaces enable staff to work smarter, while consolidated customer views allow service staff to spot trends in custom- er feedback so they can take appropriate action to improve service levels. “e Topaz team, from sales to service, are much better equipped to engage with cus- tomers in a way that directly reflects our business strategy,” she said. Storm Technology is a leading Microsoft business technology consultancy. For more information visit www.storm.ie Connecting the customer to the business is crucial Irish businesses express commitment to customer-focused strategies, but struggle to connect customer engagements across the enterprise The Sunday Business Post February 15, 2015 Focus On: Storm Technology 31 Karl Flannery, Chief Executive, Storm Technology Picture: Maura Hickey Derek Finnerty, Practice Director, Business Productivity and CRM Solutions Picture: Maura Hickey From left: Mike Lillis of Storm, Sharon Butler of Topaz and Karl Flannery of Storm
Transcript of The Sunday Business Post February 15, 2015 Focus On: Storm ... · resulting in a disjointed, frag -...
Some 84 per cent of Irish organisations are still unable to provide a connect-ed, cross-functional
view of customer interactions with their business, despite the fact that 95 per cent of senior executives believe it is crucially important to the success and sustainability of their business.
The stark findings are re-vealed in an enterprise re-search report into the status of connected customer en-gagement in Irish organisa-tions, commissioned by Storm Technology and conducted by Amárach Research.
The research, concluded in Q4 2014, involved in-depth, quantitative interviews with over 100 senior executives, including chief executives, managing directors and gen-eral managers in medium and large enterprises across 12 industry sectors, includ-ing manufacturing, retail, financial services, health-care, transport, utilities and services.
“We know this lack of cohe-sive customer engagement is something businesses struggle with, and we’ve experienced it in our dealings with clients,” said Karl Flannery, chief exec-utive with Storm Technology.
“For every touch-point that a customer has with a com-pany, the organisation should be able to pull these together to garner a complete picture of every interaction the cus-tomer has with each part of the business.
“From requesting a bill from accounts, through to despatch of a content-relevant email from marketing, the compa-ny should deliver a consistent customer experience, using the data it holds on every in-teraction, regardless of func-tional area.
“Our research shows that the vast majority of organi-sations struggle to deliver on this, despite commitment and investment,” he said.
The concept of ‘connected’ customer engagement is not a new one, yet many of us reg-ularly experience frustrating incidents of service providers who pass us from department to department, force us to regurgitate the same infor-mation over and over again and who appear to have no insight or understanding of our history as a customer or our relationship with their business.
Flannery believes custom-ers expect to have “one rela-tionship with one company” and he’s not alone.
Four-fifths of organisations interviewed believe that the ability to have this connected view of customer engagement has a significant impact on customer satisfaction, while 77 per cent cite customer re-
tention as a key benefit.“The research speaks for
itself and the market tells us that the inability to achieve a holistic view of customer in-teractions can have a negative impact on business perfor-mance,” he said.
In an age where our digital environment has helped to shift buying power from the seller to the buyer, and where brand loyalty and customer retention rates are under siege, slick, agile companies who understand the importance of delivering this consistent, seamless customer experi-ence across multiple touch-points are making their pres-ence felt.
And while it might be as-sumed that connected cus-tomer engagement is more prevalent in the B2C market where customers can switch loyalty at will, Storm’s re-search paints a different picture, highlighting similar levels of disjointed commu-nications between both B2C and B2B markets.
Almost nine out of ten or-ganisations in B2B and eight out of ten in B2C admit they are unable to deliver a holistic insight into customer engage-ment.
Historically, relation-ship-oriented organisations in the B2B market assumed that customer engagement was more manageable, as they were operating in an environ-ment of fewer organisational buyers and more enduring business relationships, forged over a longer period of time.
But Flannery believes that the inability of B2B organ-isations to recognise that customers do business with companies, not departments, is actually more “damaging”.
“As a high-value, long-standing customer for example, the impact of not knowing me is much more significant,” he said. “More and more, the emphasis in B2B is on building cross-func-tional enduring relationships – where each part of the busi-ness knows and understands the collective relationship be-tween their organisation and its client.”
“Many of our clients are now demanding an easily ac-cessible, cohesive view of ev-ery interaction between their clients and operations. We believe that company-wide CRM strategies are the way to achieve it.”
Despite strong indications that Irish organisations have work to do, Flannery is up-beat about the prospects of being able to achieve con-nected customer engage-ment and positively impact business-critical metrics of customer satisfaction and retention.
“One of the great news sto-ries coming from the research
is that organisations in Ire-land get it. They understand the significance of connected engagement as 95 per cent of them say it’s incredibly im-portant for the success of their organisation,” he said.
“Where we’ve seen this work really well, is when or-ganisations stop, take a step back and look at this from the customer’s viewpoint. They look closely at the customer journey, whether B2C or B2B, and examine all touch-points into and out of the organisa-tion. Once we jointly start to devise strategies based on this mind-set, projects progress very well. Suddenly we’ve moved from a functional or divisional view to a custom-er-oriented view of engage-ment and that’s where the secret to company-wide CRM success lies.”
Connect the dots – connect the customerDeploying company-wide CRM strategies sounds easy. But why do many organisa-tions struggle to convert the-ory to practice, despite high commitment and investment?
With just 16 per cent of or-ganisations in the enviable position of having a compa-ny-wide, connected custom-er engagement strategy, one could be forgiven for thinking that lack of technology invest-ment lay at the root cause of the issue.
But research commissioned by Storm Technology and conducted by Amárach Re-search reveals that 75 per cent of organisations interviewed already have three or more core line of business applica-tions in place. Two-thirds of those questioned have more than four such applications.
“From financial systems to marketing automation, employee collaboration tools and CRM solutions, these companies have made substantial investments in functional systems, but have failed to ‘connect the dots’ and provide a single, cohe-sive, company-wide view of customer interactions,” said Derek Finnerty, Practice Di-rector, Business Productivity & CRM solutions with Storm Technology.
“More than eight out of ten organisations are unable to roll up the data points across the different systems and func-tions to get a connected view of customer engagement with the business,” he said.
Four out of five of those questioned don’t consider executive sponsorship a bar-rier to company-wide CRM, while just 5 per cent fail to see the benefits of building this 360 degree view of cus-tomer touch-points with all
functions of the business and with it, a seamless customer experience.
And Storm Technology is not alone in calling out cus-tomer experience as critical to metrics of customer satisfac-tion and customer retention in an Irish context. Its research is echoed by market analyst, Gartner which highlights the importance of what it calls “high levels of end-user in-vestment in customer experi-ence initiatives” in its analysis of the global CRM market.
So what is the secret to achieving a connected view and how can companies en-sure that their investment in technology is geared towards creating a top down, not just a bottom up view of customer engagement with the busi-ness?
“Our most successful proj-
ects are ones that aren’t ap-proached from the standpoint of a department that requires a stand-alone technology solu-tion,” said Finnerty.
“In reality, the conversation needs to revolve around the central business issue we are trying to address. If it starts in sales – and the business issue is we need more sales leads or more revenue – we untangle that problem and very quick-ly move to a broader, more strategic conversation that is cross-functional in nature.
“Before we even look at technology, we work across the different functions and scope out the broader busi-ness requirements,” he said.
Finnerty believes that this process of teasing out business issues and challenges is criti-cal to the success of achieving successful, company-wide
CRM. And although most or-ganisations have the where-withal to scope this out them-selves, many clients choose to bring in an external partner to assist with this business-con-sulting task.
“Individuals within organ-isations are incredibly smart, talented people. The problem is they’re busy with the day job and they have responsibilities, objectives and targets that are all related to functional areas,” he said.
“The reason for bringing in an external company such as Storm Technology is to help them look at the customer journey through a different lens. That lens is a holistic or company-wide lens of how the customer engages with the company – the when, how, where and what they expect.
“Strategy and execution go hand-in-hand, because if you do the strategy but don’t do the execution you end up with a really good plan on the shelf. And if you do the tactical without the strategy, you’re back to a functional imple-mentation. So they’re both hand in glove.”
“Research from Storm Technology mirrors what we see in the marketplace,” according to Karl O’Leary, Director Public Sector with Microsoft Ireland.
“It’s one of the reasons why we’ve always taken a platform approach to our technology development. The Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform for example has been designed to enable a company or organi-sation wide view of the cus-tomer across all touch-points, not just sales and marketing. It has also been developed with connection points to the entire Microsoft suite of products, from ERP right through to social listening.
“Solutions built on Dynam-ics CRM with expertise from Storm are enabling companies to fully leverage this digital age and optimise customer en-gagement,” he said.
Customer engagement strategy fuels real competitive advantage for TopazLeading fuel and conve-nience retailer Topaz enjoys greater customer satisfaction, higher staff productivity and increased sales thanks to its company-wide CRM deploy-ment, performed by Storm Technology.
The solution, built on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform, draws together cus-tomer interactions from ten business divisions, 70 staff and the company’s outsourced customer service partner to provide a top-down, holistic view of all customer activity within the business.
“The impact of the project on our business has been im-mense,” said Liam Mulcahy, Commercial Director with Topaz.
“Storm Technology has opened our eyes to how CRM technology can truly support our business strategy and how Microsoft Dynamics CRM can make that come alive.
“It’s changed what we do and how we think. This project is cross-functional, it’s busi-ness-led and the customer is at the centre.”
Established in 2008, the To-paz brand has created a strong market footprint for itself in a relatively short period of time, and can be seen in over 350 forecourts by 800,000 cus-tomers across the country each week.
Topaz is unusual in that it services both B2C, through fuel retailing and B2B markets, through its bulk fuels, lubri-cant and fuel card business.
Mulcahy and his team in-stinctively knew that having
a cohesive view of customers would deliver better business performance and help it stay one step ahead of the compe-tition. But the company had several legacy systems across different product divisions, resulting in a disjointed, frag-mented view of its customers.
Following assistance from Storm Technology to define a more strategic view of cus-tomer engagement encom-passing all functions and divisions of the business, the decision was taken to deploy Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
“We had to integrate from multiple systems to get all of our customer information into one location so we could de-liver on this single, joined-up view of the customer,” said Mulcahy.
“It’s been a very import-ant key win of the project as this transparency of activity allows us to up sell and cross sell. We’ve identified revenue gains and pipeline opportu-nities for the sales teams at Topaz. And it’s all delivered via Microsoft Dynamics CRM.”
Each month around 12,000 customer interactions are re-corded. This data-rich intel-ligence allows the company to concentrate its efforts on delivering exceptional service and it cultivates an organisa-tion-wide dedicated focus on the customer.
But other benefits have flowed from the project as Sharon Butler, CRM Project Manager, Topaz explains.
“Centralised information with streamlined business processes and easy-to-use interfaces enable staff to work smarter, while consolidated customer views allow service staff to spot trends in custom-er feedback so they can take appropriate action to improve service levels.
“The Topaz team, from sales to service, are much better equipped to engage with cus-tomers in a way that directly reflects our business strategy,” she said.
Storm Technology is a leading Microsoft business technology consultancy. For more information visit www.storm.ie
Connecting the customer to the business is crucialIrish businesses express commitment to customer-focused strategies, but struggle to connect customer engagements across the enterprise
The Sunday Business PostFebruary 15, 2015 Focus On: Storm Technology 31
Karl Flannery, Chief
Executive, Storm Technology
Picture: Maura Hickey
Derek Finnerty, Practice Director,
Business Productivity and CRM Solutions
Picture: Maura Hickey
From left: Mike Lillis of Storm, Sharon Butler of Topaz and Karl Flannery of Storm
