I'm old, I'm used to crummy service, I'm trained to get crummy service. To me, the fact I can get through to a call centre and then hold for 15 minutes, I don't get that upset. My kids won't. They want to know the answer to their question now. As a company you have to provide an answer to that consumer.
Without execution, 'vision' is just another word for hallucination.
I know only a few ways to take market share and drive new revenue. I can engineer better products and services, I can build better relationships with my customers and deliver a higher level of service, or I can give my customers a lower price.
It's counterproductive to lower my price, because I have to sell more units to make up for that lost revenue. Generating brand-new products can take a long time. Improving service is typically the quickest way that I can take market share. So aligning technology strategy to better service customers becomes an essential path to revenue growth.
CIOs have to be able to lay out a clear path in concert with the business leader - I used to make the business guy responsible for the apps and force them to answer the question of why they feel they need non-standard apps when they know that's how the costs skyrocket.
