Leveraging Information Technology for Leadership

One of the most important factors that have changed the dimension of every business happens to be the technology. Systems, connectivity and the undreamt of possibilities that exist with internet and communications have been used by Organizations to aim at building not only their global empires, but of creating new meaningful ways of engaging with their customers and providing superior value and performance to them.

Organizations that are leaders in their chosen field stand apart from the rest and an understanding of what makes them stand apart gives us the clue to understanding how to build and aim for leadership.

First and foremost you will see that these Organizations are totally committed and focused on providing flawless, efficient and hassle free service to their customers.

Secondly they find ways and means to continually refine their business operations and efficiencies to bring down the cost while striving to innovate internally and pass on the advantages and benefits to their customers.

Thirdly these Organizations leverage on technology to drive both the above mentioned agenda.

Take the case of your credit card company, the car rental company or the airline that you frequently fly with or even the hotel chain that you patronize during your travels. You would have to take the time and effort to fill out your personal details into their database only once and they make sure that they get to know you better, understand your needs, pay attention to your requirements and ensure that you have a pleasant and hassle free transaction or service with them.

Whenever you wish to rent a car, it takes only a few minutes for you to make a request with Hertz through their system. You will be pleasantly surprised to see that they know your preference and make sure that the right car is made available to you at the city of your choice. Your hotel reservation system ensures that their customer service person at the airport is given your details and facilitates the logistics and other arrangements at the airport leaving you free to enjoy and feel good.

Are you wondering how it is that the customer service of the hotel and the car rental got all the details about you?. Thanks to technology. These Organizations are using systems to drive their processes. They use the latest technology whereby hand held scanners, mobile and other such devices allow the customer service executives to get to know the details of their guests, to know the requirement and are guided to the tasks that they are required to perform. All of the information and action happens seamlessly and instantaneously through technology and systems.

When a supplier’s truck leaves the warehouse to reach Wal-mart, the in warding supervisor at the store already knows the entire details of stocks that are coming in the truck with details down to the last piece of shirt, the color, the model, the size including the containerization plan of the truck and knows where that particular shirt is stocked in which box.

When you try to look up for an item on Home Depot online store, you are prompted by the system to view few of the alternatives and brands that could be of interest to you. The system also picks up items that you might want to buy but have forgotten and this is done so based on your previous purchase history that is recorded and analyzed by the system. No wonder people love ordering online with Home Depot.

Why do people love buying books and music etc from Amazon, because Amazon continually keeps investing into getting to know your tastes, preferences and offering you more value to help refine your search, by suggesting books based on your interests, by offering you book previews and allowing you to write reviews etc.

They use systems and technology to make your online browsing and shopping more meaningful and valuable. They continually improve their system features and capabilities aimed at giving you more richer and valuable experience, cut down your time on searching or having to enter a lot of details etc.

After shopping a few times with Amazon, it is quite likely that you will get used to shopping only with them for you feel that you know the system, Amazon and their system knows you and your needs and it is a hassle free and efficient system to deal with. There are those who log in regularly to check out the new releases and read or write reviews and they get addicted to the Amazon system.

The differentiating factor in all these above cases is the technology. Organizations that are leaders in their chosen field have unleashed the potential that exists with information technology and built their entire business model using technology as the driver.


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