How do you know something's broken? You test it, and if it doesn't do what it was meant to do, then it's broken. You test it by comparing what it does to your set of specs for it. Does your broom still sweep the floor? No? Ok, throw it out, it's broken. Simple.
But what do you do when you don't know where your machine begins, and where it ends. In modern enterprise IT, the levels of abstraction and complexity are almost limitless. You may not know what your machine is, you may not know where it is any more.
On even the most basic level of computer software, we are sinking armpit-deep into this problem of multiplying complexity. Take a basic Web site development tool for consumers, something like Joomla. It's a front-end to a CMS that stores stuff in a mySQL database and plays it out to the Web through an Apache server. And if it doesn't work, where do you even start to test it?
For the layman, the multiple levels of software abstraction are inconceivably dense. Even a slightly clued-up user probably still believes computers are just dumb machines that do what you tell them to do, but really fast and without needing a rest, just like they were told back when computers were big dumb machines that added numbers really fast without needing a rest.
The reality for the tech professional is that modern information systems are the most stupidly complicated things. Today, there is always something new and cleverer to do, more speed to throw at problems, new interfaces to make things talk, new schemas to share information.
Do it all
Large companies have information systems that manage billing, customer data, CRM, content delivery, e-mail hosting, technical support, user support, finance, marketing campaigns and even some kind of mobile service. Just for starters. The scale of systems design is immense, with big rooms of powerful servers thundering though lookups and hookups and chin-ups, and teams of highly trained, highly paid technology people finding ways to do it better, faster and with more and more focus on feeding the insatiable demands of the boardroom.
The reality for the tech professional is that modern information systems are the most stupidly complicated things.
Roger Hislop, Contributor
But, these are often the companies that are impossible to reach by telephone, where making a sales enquiry requires repeated effort, where, in short, customers have almost no way to talk to real people that can do anything about their real problem.
Many companies don't have people whose job it is to talk to people anymore. That's people, not call centres where well-drilled robots execute call centre policy to the letter of predefined scripts. People that communicate the old way. You know - one person speaks, the other listens. Eye contact. Voice inflections. Intuition and empathy, understanding and emotional involvement. Independent decision-making, discretionary judgement. The kind of thing that information systems, no matter how advanced, cannot do.
We're caught in a self-perpetuating cycle of less people, more machines, because not only are information systems becoming exponentially more complex, but often the people that run them, design them and champion them are highly technical... and without wanting to reinforce stereotypes, are generally not very 'people' people. For many, if not most, IT types, the further they can get away from other people, the happier they'll be. The more machines they can lovingly buy, tweak and get lost in, the better.
Ask me
And so we have a situation where a company will spend millions of rand on technology to analyse patterns to tell it more about what it's customers think, but never even think of hiring a small team of researchers to go out and ask them, or having enough in-house customer-facing people that already know which customers or suppliers or partners are important, and what they're feeling. We end up in a situation where companies know more and more about an increasingly abstracted, extrapolated and otherwise interpolated customer, while knowing less and less about the flesh and blood beings that actually buy their products. And then they wonder why their customers behave differently to what they expect.
Maybe turn the machines off for a while and see what the people are saying. Listen, without the white noise that your giant machines are blasting out through Cognos and Hyperion and Frontrange.
Too many companies spend more resources taking care of their servers than they do managing their customer channel. At budget time, who gets the bigger slice of the pie - the IT department, or customer relations?
A CRM system is a technology problem to solve; a customer relationship is a personal interaction to spend time on. One is a complex, difficult task requiring many clever people with a clearly defined end-goal to achieve an ROI metric. The other is an unending quest to make sure customers are happy by spending time with them. One definitely results in more loyalty and sales. Guess which?
How do you know something is more than broken? When you spend more time working on the tools to fix it than deciding whether you even need it. When a means to an end becomes a means to avoid reality.
'Hi, my name is Your Human Customer, and my needs are a lot less complicated to understand than choosing a new enterprise software development environment.'
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