Build For Change summary

These days, data is king! Many savvy businesses are aware of the important role that Big Data will play in their customer relationships. Some even see it as their key to success. Yet, Big Data simply isn’t enough to inform the future of a company. Why?

Big Data is nothing more than a snapshot of the past. Users’ past searches, transactions and requests can tell you a lot about who your customer was, and can tell you something about who they are at the moment, but tell you very little about their future desires, hopes and needs.

Data brings us one step closer to winning the favor of the Generation that demands personalized customer experiences and undivided attention. But what they want most of all is ease.

Digital technology affords businesses many opportunities to streamline their processes. Rarely, though, do businesses use this opportunity effectively.

Do you know how to code? For most of us, coding sounds like something that belongs in The Matrix. IT experts, with their knowledge of complete foreign languages comprising numbers and symbols, may even seem like an alien species. This is precisely the divide that causes problems in so many technological systems today.

The majority of companies designing their IT systems witness a clash between the businessmen who come up with product designs and the developers hired to build them. Business owners take it as their responsibility to work out what they want from their IT system. Yet, most have little to no knowledge as to how such systems operate, and their plans are often hopelessly complicated or impractical.

If you want to avoid the technology issues described in the previous blink, it’s time for your business to completely rethink its approach to designing digital systems. Naturally, this starts with bringing your IT and business teams together.

A truly modern company is founded on great communication between businesspeople and IT people. For inspiration, we need only take a look at the world of botany. When scientists want to develop a plant that’s hardier and more bountiful, they take parents from two different species to breed together.