The Business-Oriented CIO: A Guide to Market-Driven Management

Chapter 5. Customer Management

Spend a lot of time talking to customers face to face. You'd be amazed how many companies don't listen to their customers.

—Ross Perot

The customer is the only one who can fire us all.

—Sam Walton

Willie Sutton, the famous bank robber, was asked why he robbed banks. His reported answer was, "Because that's where the money is." Sutton was an intelligent guy despite his unfortunate career choice. He escaped, or at least almost escaped, from prison more than nine times, once remaining free for more than three years. He also managed to be paroled despite his two life terms "plus 105 years" sentence. He finished off his life consulting to banks on how to avoid being robbed. What did Sutton know that information technology (IT) could learn? Willie knew that you can not wait for things to come to you; you have to be proactive and go out and get them. IT departments could stand to learn that to be successful, they have to get off their corporate duffs and get out to where the customers are.

THE PROBLEM

Right or wrong, front-line users see IT as an ivory tower that is disengaged from the trials of those who spend each day in the corporate trenches working for a living. Fat, dumb, and happy, though unkind and inaccurate, is not an uncommon description of IT, at least from the self-proclaimed technologically disadvantaged. The fat, dumb, and happy (FDH) label is location dependent. The farther away you are from corporate headquarters, the fatter, dumber, and happier ...