As companies undergo digital transformation, they need to incorporate an approach that will integrate data and applications from disparate/legacy systems. According to Ed Macosky, the head of product at Boomi, this allows businesses to create deeper customer relationships, improve process efficiencies, and overall, make better decisions.Â
We live in a digital age driven by algorithms and data. Whether at home or work, we increasingly relate to one another via data. It’s a systemic restructuring of society, our economy, and institutions, the likes of which are facing accelerated digital transformation sparked by the pandemic. It’s only natural that companies need to reinvent the wheel to make quicker decisions and deliver better experiences – and what better way than to create a whole greater than the sum of its parts?
When organizations used to think about integration, it was about connecting data and processes from systems and databases and getting your IT landscape to work cohesively. This process resulted in a fragmented experience because it presented customers, constituents, and employees with a siloed perspective. Each division or department had its own data set and view of the customer that it didn’t share with other divisions or data sets. In the end, the customer would have to provide their information multiple times, creating frustration and impacting loyalty.
To deliver the best experiences possible, enterprises need to incorporate an approach that will integrate data and applications from disparate/legacy systems. The integration allows businesses to create deeper customer relationships, improve process efficiencies, and ultimately, make better decisions.
In other words, businesses need to implement a new mindset to create integrated experiences, and we’ll explore what that looks like in more detail.
Learn More: ML-Enabled Developer Forums Can Find Quick Solutions to Developer Queries
What Are Integrated Experiences?
Here are a few examples of experiences that will sound familiar:
- I wish I had a driver right here, right now, to take me home.
- I want all of my favorite music with me at all times, and new recommendations.
- My pharmacy just sent me a text message reminding me that I need a flu shot, suggested an appointment time, and prepared all of my paperwork.
- I want to search for recommendations on take-out near me and be able to get it delivered as soon as possible
What’s common in all of these examples is that they require data integration. Businesses connect data from multiple sources, aggregate them, and present them to the user on one platform, making the experience easier, efficient, and seamless.
Integrated experience is an approach to solving combined human workflow and application integration challenges across systems. It’s tying together technologies to achieve a business goal that companies want to meet, many of whose digital transformation initiatives are not just about one specific problem but rather about achieving a specific business outcome. Â
Like any process, building an integrated experience is no different and has its own set of building blocks.
Learn More: Reinventing Modern Enterprises for a Post-COVID World
What Is an Integrated Experience Composed Of?
What makes up an integrated experience, and how do you create one? Impactful integrated experiences are composed of three core elements: data readiness, pervasive connectivity, and user engagement.
Data Readiness
If you don’t know where your data lives, it’s that much harder to collect. Today, every company is data-driven, and there’s a good chance that data on supply chains, operations, strategic partners, customers, and competitors all live in different locations.
Turning several data sources into a unified whole within a single structure is a significant technical challenge, and data readiness is a step to tackling this problem. It enables you to find, connect, and aggregate quality-assured data from almost an infinite number of sources, including cloud applications databases and shadow systems.Â
Pervasive Connectivity
Computing devices have become progressively smaller and more powerful. Our technology today is composed of the personal computer along with everyday devices. But pervasive computing goes beyond the realm of personal computers. The goal here is to create an environment where device connectivity is unobtrusive and always available.
Creating a pervasive network requires technology that will connect to systems apps and databases and devices, processes, and people to enable unique customer experiences by anticipating and responding to specific expectations.Â
Learn More: How Technical Debt Can Negatively Impact Customer Experience
User Engagement
Today’s customer experiences include innovations from personalized texting to real-time decision making to seamless interactions online and in-store. Cloud systems and data warehouses capture and integrate enormous amounts of data, making this possible.Â
The goal is to leverage data in the moment to create memorable connections with customers, increase engagement, and build overall customer loyalty. To achieve customer loyalty, data must be analyzed within the customer’s context and your relationship to them – who they are, where they are, what we already know about them, and potentially what they are doing.
Driving complete user engagement requires creating an all-encompassing view of the customer relationship to design new user touchpoints, create critical products, and incorporate innovative IT paradigms to drive competitive advantage.Â
Integrated Experiences in the Real World
Many companies have successfully implemented integrated experiences, and it has completely changed how they’re able to service their customers.
The American Cancer Society (ACS) has played a role in nearly every cancer breakthrough in the last 100 years. Before their digital transformation, ACS consisted of 13 separate organizations, each with its own IT structure, financial operations, and leadership. By integrating all their data sources and systems with an integrated experiences approach, they could access real-time, aggregated data to serve their patients, volunteers, caregivers, and donors better. ACS also significantly improved their digital customer experience because users didn’t have to enter the same information every time they returned to the website.
Another example is Sky, a British telecommunications provider. The company had 24 million customers calling them for help and used 21 different tools to run checks on its communication systems. After shifting to integrated experiences, Sky drastically reduced the amount of time employees spent on the phone. They freed up time to help customers even more – leading to greater customer engagement and, ultimately, loyalty.
Learn More: Customer Satisfaction: The New Battleground for ERP Vendors
Committing to Delivering Integrated Experiences
These are just a few real-world examples of businesses that have implemented an integrated experiences approach, but the journey to building these experiences is neither easy nor quick. It can take years to complete. Factors like a company’s starting point and its digital goals will impact it. It’s not as simple as implementing new tech, but instead is a shift in mindset. It requires a commitment from the business and technology groups to reconsider existing ways of working and collaborate on devising a new, effective path forward.Â
Delivering a quality customer experience is not a small matter and requires organizational transformation to meet and exceed customer expectations as they change. The best way to do that is to adopt an integrated experiences approach – or risk losing out to competitors who implement it first.
Let us know your thoughts on LinkedInOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , or FacebookOpens a new window . We would love to hear from you!