“There is a danger that we can overlook the simple things”: Customer Experience interview, Charlie Casey, Barclays

Charlie Casey, Senior Customer Experience Performance Manager at Barclays, is speaking at Ovum’s 3rd Annual CX Forum, taking place in London on 8th October. We caught up with him to talk about customer experience and his hopes for the event.

What is the most important aspect of customer experience management from your perspective?

There is a danger that we can overlook the simple things.  This starts with taking ownership of what the customer wants.  If that happens everything else falls into place on the back of the trust you have built with the customer.

What does The Customer ‘look like’, going into 2014?

The customer has choice and they can select the channel of engagement that meets their needs.  They are well informed and know where to look for further information.  They will (rightly) not tolerate poor service and they will tell others when those expectations have fallen short.  They value great service but in their eyes they don’t often receive it.

What do you hope to learn at the CX Forum?

You learn so much just by listening to what is on the minds of other organisations.  Whilst many of the challenges will be similar there are always fresh ideas and innovative approaches for looking at situations.  You always learn something new.

What will you be covering in your presentation?

I will be joining the panel discussion on voice of customer and customer feedback and some of the points on my mind include the level of response rates; how we reach the silent majority and maximising all the channels that collect feedback.

Enterprise end-users can claim a complimentary pass for CX Forum, and gain insights into Ovum’s latest research on the Customer Adaptive Enterprise. Get your pass here.

New tools, leap-frogging and BYOD fuel surge in enterprise collaboration

A chat with Simon Farr, BT expert on innovation. BT are Gold Sponsors at Ovum Industry Congress Europe, taking place in Amsterdam on 2nd October.

What’s new in enterprise collaboration?

I think we’ve finally reached an inflection point where companies are moving from dabbling with these technologies to really deploying them.  Everyone has been trying to be as agile as possible to meet economic pressures, and they’re realising that the latest tools for communications and collaborative working are powerful ways to make that happen.  This has been going on for a while, but now the user community is really pushing.  People are using these tools in their everyday lives and if the technology isn’t available officially, they’re going to find a way around the rules.

Who’s setting best practice?

There’s no one standout; different companies are doing different things well.  We see some industries, for example, taking a more aggressive stance than others in adoption of specific tools.  We’ve worked with a lot of banks who are strong, early adopters of video.  Telepresence has been very widespread in FMCG, and now that’s proliferating down to desktops.  Oil and gas companies, we’ve found, are keen on all sorts of collaborative technologies because of their need for expert opinion, fast, in some pretty inaccessible regions.

So what’s holding corporations back?

Enterprise 2020: IT for the workplace of tomorrow

The Road Ahead for the Knowledge Worker

Ovum has published a series of reports on Enterprise 2020: the workplace of tomorrow, with specific focus on the activity and status of the tech giants Citrix; Google; VMWare and Yammer. A summary of the analysis is below, and you can download all the reports, as well as the conclusive report, by completing the form here. You can find out much more about the workplace of tomorrow by attending Ovum’s Future of Work Summit (21 November, CBI Conference Centre, London). Don’t forget that enterprise end users can claim a complimentary pass for all of Ovum’s events. Don’t miss out!

“This report examines the changing nature of IT strategy and the role of the IT department as we head toward 2020. It considers the influencers and drivers of new provisioning models for enterprise applications, tools, and collaboration services, and evaluates the changing nature of the relationship between employee and employer.

While most CIOs are rightly concerned with the here-and-now, Ovum foresees disruption to traditional approaches to IT, and predicts new opportunities for IT to bring earnings growth to the enterprise. The technology decisions taken now by business and IT professionals will determine how well prepared and adapted their organizations are for the new employee and market requirements that emerge over the coming years.

A handful of vendors dominated the enterprise collaboration market through to the end of 2010, but in the past 24 months new delivery models, enterprise application genres, and devices have created a market that is wide open to fresh entrants. This analysis brings together the thoughts, opinions, and strategies of four major vendors – Google, Citrix, VMware, and Yammer – and explores how they are shaping the future of the enterprise collaboration space. We compare and contrast their differing approaches while also highlighting key areas of commonality. In the brave new world of SaaS, cloud, and consumerization, these vendors are promising to help take their enterprise customers on a journey and to be true innovation partners. For the CIO, the choice is which vendor to go along with.”

Download the reports to find out more…

Get the latest Business Process Management insight from Oracle and Ovum

Oracle, Platinum Sponsors at Ovum’s 5th Annual Business Process Management Forum, have shared some insight with us, and by extension, you, on the topic. This is right up-to-the-minute, insightful stuff, so download the whitepapers and register for the webinars today. There is more information here, and below.

The Business Process Management Forum is a must-attend event for professionals engaged in BPM, for the following reasons:

• Learn all about how BPM helps organizations become more agile and effective by enabling them to better understand, manage and adapt their business processes
• BPM is Ovum’s longest standing event and is now in its 5^th Year
• With 25+ speakers in one 2 streamed information-packed day, be inspired by the thought leaders in BPM including GKN, Barclays Bank, Centrica, Co-Operative Bank, TNT, Balfour Beatty, Great Ormond Street Hospital
• Access in-depth business intelligence from Ovum’s expert analysts. 2 of our most senior and specialised BPM analysts will present and host discussions, and you can also book a session with them in the analyst clinic
  • Maxine Holt, Practice Leader, Software – IT, Ovum
  • Gary Barnett, Principal Analyst Ovum
• Network amongst peers and industry visionaries. We will help you arrange unlimited pre-scheduled one-to-one business meetings either via our speed networking sessions or our networking app, maximizing your chance of doing real business at the event
• All of the above is free to IT decision-makers
• Meet leading suppliers and source practical “how to” advice in our exhibition

The Oracle BPM resources are as follows:

Whitepaper: Transforming Customer Experience: The Convergence of Social, Mobile and Business Process Management

Business processes are at the heart of what makes or breaks a business, as well as what differentiates it from the competition. As organisations strive for greater efficiency and effectiveness, they create or adapt technology to fill their needs. BPM, Social, and Mobile technologies are helping to drive a fundamental business transformation.

Whitepaper: The New Business Imperatives: Social, Mobile and Cloud

In order for organisations to use a mix of private and public cloud services, an effective integration is needed for a secure hybrid cloud environment This white paper will explain how a unified strategy that will enable you to deliver both on-premise and cloud-based services through a single cohesive platform

Webcast – New Directions with Business-Driven BPM

This webcast highlights the new functionality of Oracle BPM Suite: making processes more consistent, eliminating brittle customisations, enhancing the visibility of business transactions across applications, extending applications to social and mobile capabilities, and improving user experience by streamlining navigations.

Webcast: Extend Your Applications with Oracle Business Process Management

Watch this webcast and demo to learn how Oracle BPM Suite helps you unlock your applications that are stuck in silos, better manage end-to-end processes that span multiple applications in multiple departments, and work more collaboratively.