The Strategic Concerns before heading to technology-based CEM solution

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CEM is not limited to the technology-based package, but technology is an unavoidable part of any CEM solutions. As far as technology is concerned, there is a remarkable debate among the practitioners over the function of technology in the experience-oriented firms. CEM technology still plagues by various issues in implementation. After spending too much money on CEM technologies, firms mostly find out that their problems remain. In my perspective, the challenges for CEM technology associate with certain organizational issues rather than the utilized technology per se. Leadership is one of these issues, which plays a determinative role in choosing effectual technologies. The leader, in this context, refers to who makes the final decision over purchasing and implementing a particular technology-based solution for the organization. Through this post, you will find some prominent concerns regarding the leaders’ role before employing any technology-based CEM system.

CEM implementation is a strategic decision over how one organization applies its competencies to meet its customers’ needs and creates sustainable values in the context of product use. Applying the competencies and offering the sustainable values essentially need resource integration and collaborative innovation across all functional departments. Therefore, it is essential that the leaders first gain enough insight into their organizations’ competencies and the cross-functional relationships to make the best use of future CEM solutions. On the other hand, experience-oriented organizations should be properly prepared for resource integration and collaborative innovation. Leader should be certain about these potentialities before CEM implementation. Without pondering these concerns, the outcomes of CEM solutions – in the strategy level – would be unpractical and worthless.

In addition, before any strategic and usually expensive decisions, leaders should pay careful attention to the relationship between the context of their offerings and technology utilization. However, there are several customizable solutions, but validation of the providers’ assertion is typically necessary. A well-organized audit can examine the solution in the context. This audit should reflect four facts (1) the markets and customers technology acceptability, (2) the context connectivity and network capacity to synchronize with the solution, (3) organizational competencies to process and response through the solution, and (4) the technology reliability in the context of target market(s). This assessment usually leads to select an appropriate technology-based solution, which facilitates the specialization, enhances collaboration, boosts innovation, and consequently sustains competitive advantages.

Moreover, leaders are responsible to decide over the level of the customer involvement. In fact, technology increases customer engagement in co-creation of values and co-promoting these values (e.g. brand promotion through social networks). However, the collaboration in values co-creation and promotion should be optimized by the leaders to sustain the competitive advantages across the network. It is notable that the co-created values for a particular group of customers may not work for another group. By this consideration, organizations properly empower the customers with reasonable opportunities for collaborating in both value creation and extension within the network. Without doubt, the best technology is the one by which organization can motivate customers for collaboration in value network.

Finally, CEM philosophy encourages the organization to reconsider their employees as the main resource of value creation. Besides, at the end of the day, the employees would be responsible for making the ultimate benefits from the technology. Putting back the employees into the center of attention would pave the way for the CEM implementation. For instance, the nominated technology should be the most convenient one for the employees.

To sum up, following outlines can be added to the leaders’ to-do-lists before allocating budgets to any CEM technologies:

1. Gaining insight into the organizational competencies and the cross-functional relationships
2. Figuring out the organization capabilities for resource integration and collaborative innovation
3. Evaluating the potential solutions by concerning the technology versatility, the organizational adaptability and the customer acceptability
4. Deciding over the level of customer involvement through the solution
5. Considering the employees convenient in the technology utilization

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