Zero distance: Cómo trabaja T-Systems con los clientes para aportar innovación al negocio

1. Zero Distance: How T-Systems Works With Clients on
Business Innovation
by Mette Ahorlu, Mike Cansfield, 19 September, 2013 | feedback
Top Line: T-Systems is aiming to take a lead in using IT to change how companies do
business with individuals, consumers, and corporate employees
Zero distance is T-Systems' new marketing term for its service offering helping clients
to innovate their interactions with their clients using technology to create customer
proximity. While not as intuitive and catching a term as eBusiness we believe the
initiatives that are covered are hugely interesting and reach far beyond T-Systems.
All companies need to innovate to develop their businesses, and eBusiness as we
know it is only the first step. T-Systems shows in its campaign a host of examples in
banking, auto retailing, clothes retailing, insurance, utilities, and transport that the
zero distance is here now. One example is the German MyTaxi app in which individuals
wanting a taxi in Germany use the app to summon a cab when they need one.
Apparently, 25% of all taxi journeys in Germany are booked now this way. This is not
just T-Systems idea; other providers are thinking along the same lines. What
differentiates T-Systems is that it has been able to conceptualize the approach, can
engage in these business innovation conversations, and has the underlying
technologies available.
T-Systems believes business clients can innovate more easily and quickly by focusing
on their IT infrastructure. The underlying technologies, which T-Systems is using to
make this happen are cloud, big data and mobility
Bottom Line for ICT Buyers:
1. 3rd platform technologies of mobile, cloud, big data and social create
unprecedented opportunities for innovation - especially when combined. But the
technologies are only enablers; it is the business thinking that will drive the
innovation. Although innovation is risky and some get it wrong, in the end, it is the
innovators that will survive and thrive. Have a look at what others have done - you
can find the examples on the internet, go to conferences, try out what they say on the
TV-adds, and talk to non-IT people about how they would like to interact with you. In
short, get inspired on how to think differently. The innovation starts in the business,
not in IT, but it takes IT to make the vision real.
2. Cloud and big data/analytics are the short answer to how new client interaction
models can be created. Cloud can create the capability, while big data is the
commodity from which analytics draws understanding and creates the value.
Delivering this requires a close proximity between the end-user, the company, its
suppliers/partners, and the infrastructure required to deliver it. A company needs to
transform its ICT so it is automated, integrated, and rationalized in a way that
facilitates innovation (unlike legacy that tends to act as a barrier). IDC believes that
companies will need to have the dialogue about customer interaction internally and
with its ICT partners in the coming years as apps come increasingly to the fore.
3. Focusing on innovation is different from focusing on optimization and modernization
of your existing ICT estate. The two don't exclude each other, and modernizing your
existing IT will potentially make it easier and faster for the company to innovate.
Having flexible ICT can enable your company to adopt new initiatives faster. But it is
not a prerequisite for technology enabled business innovation. You have to do both in
parallel - what you need to make sure is that the activities are aligned towards the
same goal