[{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BlogPosting","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2019\/07\/25\/it-in-the-experience-economy\/#BlogPosting","mainEntityOfPage":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2019\/07\/25\/it-in-the-experience-economy\/","headline":"4 most important roles of IT in the experience economy","name":"4 most important roles of IT in the experience economy","description":"Each part of an org plays a part in CX. What's IT\u2019s place in the experience economy? How can IT become the engine room of an experience-first organization?","datePublished":"2019-07-25","dateModified":"2021-03-01","author":{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/contributor\/daniel-saunders\/#Person","name":"Daniel Saunders","url":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/contributor\/daniel-saunders\/","identifier":328,"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a76fc11d04c264705680c4e53b78a5c877e97a76e53c974e2fd40bd1da845e41?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a76fc11d04c264705680c4e53b78a5c877e97a76e53c974e2fd40bd1da845e41?s=96&d=mm&r=g","height":96,"width":96}},"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"The Future of Commerce","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/logo-foc-schema-app-1.png","url":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/logo-foc-schema-app-1.png","width":172,"height":60}},"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/thumbnail-7933f3976f3c43dda76ee964ee0fe1d5.jpeg","url":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/thumbnail-7933f3976f3c43dda76ee964ee0fe1d5.jpeg","height":375,"width":1200},"url":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2019\/07\/25\/it-in-the-experience-economy\/","about":["Consent data management",{"@type":"Thing","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/customer-experience\/customer-data\/","name":"Customer Data","sameAs":["https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Customer_data","http:\/\/www.wikidata.org\/entity\/Q56278300"]},{"@type":"Thing","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/customer-experience\/","name":"Customer Experience","sameAs":["https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Customer_experience","http:\/\/www.wikidata.org\/entity\/Q984142"]}],"wordCount":1182,"keywords":["Customer Experience | CX","Data Governance","Experience Management"],"articleBody":"The way organizations compete and win business has changed. Once they were locked in a battle over goods and services, but today\u2019s most successful organizations are competing on a whole new front \u2014 experiences.Over the past decade, spending on customer experience has grown 4X faster than spending on goods and services.It\u2019s a shift that\u2019s already opened the door to disruption in everything from\u00a0financial services\u00a0to personal transportation, and has permanently shifted how customers and employees interact with brands.Each part of an org plays a big part in CX. So, what is IT\u2019s place in this new\u00a0experience economy? And how can IT become the engine room of a thriving, experience-first organization?The role of IT in CX: Coming to grips with X-DataOver the last 20 years, businesses have been inundated with operational data to help them optimize customer, employee, product, and\u00a0brand experience\u00a0\u2014 we have sales figures, cart abandonment rates, win rates, profit, employee attrition, and thousands of other data points to help us fine-tune the machine.When it comes to the systems organizations use to collect, analyze, and act on O-Data, IT is a central player tasked with building and maintaining the infrastructure that enables everyone in the organization to use it to drive change.But for organizations to succeed in the experience economy, they need a new type of data that tells you\u00a0why\u00a0things are happening \u2013 they need\u00a0experience data\u00a0(X-Data).X-Data is nothing new, and every organization has tons of the stuff.Think social media comments, online reviews,\u00a0customer surveys,\u00a0employee engagement results,\u00a0360 feedback, face-to-face conversations,\u00a0user testing, focus groups\u2026 there\u2019s hardly a team in the organization that\u00a0isn\u2019t\u00a0collecting X-Data. And if a company doesn\u2019t have an approved enterprise-wide tool to collect X-Data, employees just find their own.So the challenge has always been organizing it, and structuring it in a way that allows it to become as useful to the business as O-Data has been in the past.Every organization has systems in place to capture and organize O-Data whether it\u2019s CRM, ERP, website analytics software \u2013 in fact, more than $600 billion is spent on these systems every year.X-Data on the other hand is collected across such a wide variety of platforms, with each team in the organization running their own programs, that it has become almost impossible to control.How data is collected and stored: A break-downThe exponential growth in X-Data over the past decade and the multiple ways of collecting it and storing it within organizations has led to:Siloed data\u00a0\u2014 without an enterprise-wide system for collecting and managing X-Data, it\u2019s become diluted, as teams across the organization are unable to access vital insights collected by \u2018other\u2019 teams. It means teams rarely see the complete picture, and make decisions based on just a small portion of the data available. The end result is bad for the organization, and bad for customers.3 \u2013 the average number of feedback platforms in use in a typical large enterpriseFailure to drive action\u00a0\u2014 data without action is meaningless, so it\u2019s vital your X-Data collection is plugged in to your internal processes and systems in order to drive action from the people who can have the biggest impact. Take a low\u00a0NPS score\u00a0for your latest product as an example. It could trigger an immediate resolution from your customer support team to step in and resolve it immediately.Beyond that however, it your raise a ticket for your R&D team too, giving them vital feedback as they plan the product roadmap. Or it could update that customer\u2019s record, so the next time your sales team is talking to them, they have all the background they need to be most effective.Security and compliance risks\u00a0\u2014 with multiple tools in operation, many without IT oversight, organizations face the very real (and expensive) risk of falling foul of data security and compliance legislation. In a recent study, we found 1 in 3 IT organizations didn\u2019t know how many tools employees were currently using to collect customer data. In a post-GDPR world, the prospect of so much customer data on unsanctioned platforms, with little oversight or control, is a terrifying prospect.Organizations that use multiple platforms are 5X more likely to say they expect GDPR finesIncreased costs\u00a0\u2014 it goes without saying that using multiple tools for the same purpose across the organization is missing out on economies of scale. That means extra costs, not just financially, but also for resources for data joining, cleaning analysis, support, maintenance, audits, training, and more.Lack of impact\u00a0\u2013 as we\u2019ve seen, X-Data is most effective when it\u2019s integrated with your operational systems. By combining X- and O-Data you\u2019re able to see the impact of your improvements on key metrics like revenue, sales, profit, engagement, attrition and much more. Without that ROI, investing in improvements based on X-Data alone is a risk few execs are willing to take.IT: Building the foundation for Experience ManagementWhen it comes to the systems organizations use to collect, analyze and act on O-Data, IT is a central player tasked with building and maintaining the infrastructure that enables everyone in the organization to use it to drive change.X-Data is no different.There are 4 key roles IT plays in enabling and driving change in the experience economy:1. BUILD A WORLD-CLASS X+O INFRASTRUCTUREAs you look to transform how the organization operates in the experience age, standardization is essential. You need a tech stack that fully integrates your X- and O-Data, breaks down silos between departments and provides best practice methodologies, controls and tools across the business.2. PROVIDE INTELLIGENT TECHNOLOGIESAs we\u2019ve already seen, X-Data is everywhere. So you need to use technologies that help you find the signal amongst the noise. Is it a one-off comment on social media or a sign of a bigger trend? Will sales of your latest upgrade rise high enough to justify the increased cost of production? Which activities should your learning & development team focus on to improve productivity?You need to find a technology solution that parses huge volumes of data, both structured and unstructured, makes sense of it and automatically surfaces the insights that matter most.3. EMPOWER EVERYONE IN THE ORGANIZATIONThere isn\u2019t a team or individual in the organization that can\u2019t contribute to\u00a0delivering experience\u00a0whether it\u2019s your customer support team, your HR org or your product designers. But without access to insights, they\u2019re hamstrung. IT teams have a key role to play in providing the right tools that give everyone access to the insights they need, whenever they need them, to inform their most important decisions.4. MITIGATE SECURITY AND COMPLIANCE RISKSThere\u2019s nothing more personal than X-Data. So IT plays a vital role in managing compliance and security when it comes to collecting and using customer and employee data, which can often contain sensitive and confidential information.  Your competitionwants your customers.Is your brand built to keep them?Unlock strategies to power your enterprise HERE."},{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"2019","item":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2019\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"07","item":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2019\/\/07\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"25","item":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2019\/\/07\/\/25\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":4,"name":"4 most important roles of IT in the experience economy","item":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2019\/07\/25\/it-in-the-experience-economy\/#breadcrumbitem"}]}]