Do our IT systems provide the flexibility we need in the marketplace?

There is no more reason to think that they expected the world to remain static than there is to think that any of us holds a crystal ball.

The only way to create a foundational document that could stand the test of time was to build in enough flexibility that later generations would be able to adapt it to their own needs and uses.

                                                Diane Wood 

Barriers of entry have fallen across most industries.

Traditional competitors take new approaches.

And non-traditional competitors take very new and different approaches.

So companies must create flexibility within systems to handle the expected changes, and more importantly, the unexpected changes.

Today, IT system changes represent the bottle neck in every part of an organization - operations, billing, finance, marketing, customer service, supply chain, human resources. 

And changes in the market place won't stop. The pace of these changes will accelerate, not slow down.

So the question is rather simple to ask but extremely difficult to answer:

If conditions change, and systems have to change to meet the new market place conditions,

·         how fast can a company change the systems

·         how much would it cost

·         how long will it take

·         what would be the impact during the change?

These questions require a great deal of time and effort to analyze and answer.

But, ultimately, these may be the most important questions of all to ask.

Because all of us know one thing - what works well today, won't work well tomorrow.

Questions to ask:

·         How do our business and IT systems adaptability measure up with our direct competitors?

·         Our potential competitors?

·         Do we have a long term plan in place for our systems that meet our short term and long term goals?

·         Do our systems give us a strategic advantage over our current and projected competitors?

·         Can we reconcile information across systems with minimum effort or do we have to spend a great deal of time and resources on it?

·         Does operations, finance, marketing, billing, human resources systems all talk to each other?

CASE STUDY - THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION

The Digital Revolution

Forrester’s “Trends for the B2C CMO to watch in 2013” report warns new digital disruptors will threaten all businesses– such as YouTube challenging broadcasters and bank platforms competing with services such as Square – if marketers do not expand the utility and value of the experience their brands deliver.

The report suggests marketing budget should be repurposed out of channel silos and into new cross-platform divisions organized around consumer segments, with experts on the relevant media, channels and devices sitting within the new product or services verticals.

Underpinning the call is its forecast digital budgets will become 20 per cent of total marketing budgets in 2013, accounting for $50bn (£31bn) worldwide.

Corinne Munchbach, Forrester’s CMO and market leadership professional’s analyst and author of the report told Marketing Week: “Consumers switch from in store, to online, to mobile - sometimes all at once. Having separate budgets for each is counter intuitive to what customers are actually experiencing. Logical brands will be able to join all this together in a functional way to deliver the experiences customers expect from them.”

Shaun Gregory, Telefonica’s global advertising director, says other major brands need to organize themselves in this way going forward.

“Ultimately you have to push your own personal specialism’s to one side and think of your consumer – when did you last hear a consumer talking about ‘digital?’ they just see it as a multitude of screens. The [marketing] industry needs to catch up with consumers’ behavior – even though there may be push back from talent and [specialist] agencies,” he adds.

Forrester’s Digital  Marketing Predication Spark Hot Debate

Marketing Week, Jan, 2013