In the course of the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, corporations had been scrambling to spin up new buyer and worker experiences at a time when the financial outlook was getting increasingly unclear. For some corporations, it felt like a race in opposition to the clock — a race for survival. In truth, many corporations didn’t survive the pandemic, and Forrester projects {that a}s many as 20% of the Fortune 500 usually are not going to make it by means of 2021 complete.
When it got here to expertise technique, most corporations fell into one in all two camps. For leaders, the pandemic simply accelerated current digital transformation plans and spending. They tailored their plan and made it occur in a matter of weeks. They digitized processes quickly and pivoted enterprise fashions utilizing current expertise roadmaps. They did actually superb issues and put distance between them and their rivals.
For different corporations, it was extra of a scramble. They had been caught off guard and put right into a “survival mode” mentality, which drove rushed expertise choices. They applied expertise choices that will not have been on their authentic expertise technique roadmaps. And, in lots of circumstances, they made alternatives in the second that always deployed the finest accessible possibility for prospects’ most quick wants. They stitched collectively current methods with APIs and did the naked minimal to get their distant staff entry to the instruments they wanted.
At present, as many enterprisees return to a “new regular,” the query expertise leaders needs to be asking themselves is, “Are the choices we made a 12 months in the past nonetheless the appropriate choices for the enterprise immediately and sooner or later, or do we have now some digital regrets that we have to deal with?” Forrester evaluation reveals that productiveness from tech investments has been falling for the previous 20 years. Think about what occurred through the pandemic — one other less-than-fascinating outcome: digital sameness. Digital sameness is if you put money into digital options solely to seek out that your providing is extremely much like your rivals.
If you’re now seeking to consider your tech with an eye fixed towards a extra unstable future, listed below are some strategies:
- Be customer-obsessed in tech choices. Being customer-obsessed means taking a look at every part by means of your buyer’s eyes. And that applies to expertise analysis and consolidation. Whether or not it’s a front-end customer-facing expertise or a back-end inside system, consider its price and worth primarily based on the shopper’s wants first. Which means constructing options that interact prospects on the units and channels they select, so it’s important you perceive your buyer’s preferences and behaviors.
- Attempt for resiliency, creativity, and adaptivity. Your broader expertise technique ought to assist your agency turn out to be extra resilient to ship in your model promise regardless of the disaster, turn out to be extra artistic in your supply of experiences to prospects, and turn out to be extra adaptive to reconfigure your core enterprise ideas when wanted.
- Assume platforms, not level options. One of many underpinnings of Forrester’s Future Match expertise mannequin is the usage of expertise platforms — bundles of enabling applied sciences and companies preassembled to ship a particular buyer expertise or enterprise functionality. Sure, that features a cloud-first mentality, however it goes a lot deeper. When new enterprise alternatives happen, enterprisees can use these platforms to quickly assemble new, distinctive worth propositions for patrons that drive important enterprise for the agency. To get a deep dive on this matter, watch this webinar.
Of all the teachings realized through the pandemic, maybe an important lesson we realized was to anticipate the sudden. Shifting to a 100% distant work atmosphere wasn’t on most CIOs’ radars. Restrictions of in-person eating and buying weren’t, both. As a expertise govt, your position is now to make sure that your expertise technique not solely adapts to future disruption however permits your agency to take advantage of sudden change.
Forrester’s future match expertise technique prepares you to deliver wonderful buyer and worker experiences and drive progress whatever the modifications coming at you within the market. And we have now the information to again it up: Our evaluation presents that future match leaders develop 2.8x quicker than their friends. To study extra about it, verify out this podcast, by which my colleagues Bobby Cameron and Allen Bonde present an outline of the technique.
