CIO.com announced its annual 2012 winners – 100 companies – all of whom are leveraging IT for big wins within their industry. Interestingly, these winners each have in common how they are leveraging technology to improve the customer experience, which is ultimately driving revenue and lowering costs. Here’s a sample:
Hospitality – Mobility solutions that serve the customer
Caesars Entertainment recognizes that food and especially beverage sales are a significant revenue stream, and contribute to the client entertainment experience on the floor as well. By making the experience seamless and swift for the customer, the company realizes increases in revenue and customer satisfaction. How did they do this? Caesars implemented a new drink-ordering system via a mobile application on the iPads and iPhones of its waitstaff. Orders are immediately sent to the bar, and the first available staffer delivers the order.
Automobile Manufacturing – Doing Big Data right
American Honda implemented a Global Services Platform (GSP) that “lets employees in search of information access a range of applications from other Honda companies around the world. For example, a user can use the Service-Oriented Architecture-based system to investigate a warranty claims check and receive a response from both North American and Japanese divisions in seconds flat. Not only does GSP guarantee customers a unified response, but transactions are completed in a fraction of the time previously required.” Honda says it is realizing significant savings by increasing customer satisfaction, boosting productivity, and lowering business costs.
Manufacturing – Global Collaboration & ERP solutions for BIG savings
Goodyear Tire and Rubber aligned its legal teams across 110 countries and simplified and standardized their business processes and operations with a global ERP system. This system reduced back-office paperwork, removed redundancies, and improved data maintenance and access. These efforts resulted in a remarkable $90 million-plus in savings. The biggest success is the collaboration between IT and business groups, leading to better business decisions for customers and the company as a whole.
The Proof
As the role of IT shifts from procurement to governance, from traditional IT management to strategic planning and cloud solutions, companies are experiencing meaningful changes. The proof, says CIO.com: “CEOs who involve their CIOs in setting business strategy and leveraging innovative IT outperform their peers financially -- by a margin of nearly 2:1.” That’s inspiration.
