That Thing’s Gonna Blow Up

We’re old enough to remember the days when our grandmothers would come to our childhood homes to help out with some of the chores. As she was washing the dishes by hand, we’d say, “But Gram, we have a dishwasher.” As she was washing the clothes by hand, we’d say, “But Gram, we have a washing machine.” In response to both of those statements and referring to either of those machines, she’d invariably say, “That thing’s gonna blow up.”

We recalled those days and those grandmotherly conversations when we read a recent post from Celent. It was called, “WHAT HAPPENS WHEN? FIVE TIPS FOR FULLY DIGITIZING THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE”. We didn’t think it was important enough to put in all capital letters. But what do we know? The upshot of the post is this:

Too many live humans begin tedious processes that take too long and upset the customers. These processes are a drain on operating costs and keep the expense ratio high … institutions need to … utilize flexible rules-based systems with open integration protocols to automate human-based processes out of existence.

Well, yeah. If human beings are involved in anything, there’s the potential for errors. The more more human beings involved, the greater the potential for error. If that weren’t true, we wouldn’t have Murphy’s Law.

Can You Digit?

Here are some rules to live by and to run your business by:

1. Minimize the number of manual processes.
2. Digitize and automate as many processes as you possibly can.
3. The faster and more accurately you can perform any business process, the more responsive you’ll be (to say nothing of efficient and profitable).
4. The more responsive you are, the happier your customers will be.
5. If your software vendor can’t help you live and run your business by those rules — if the vendor can’t help you digitize, automate, and be as responsive as your customers expect you to be — you’re working with the wrong vendor.

Your grandmother didn’t live and work in a digital world. But your customers do. And if your customers do, you do, too.

Don’t worry: Digital technology isn’t going to blow up. But your business might blow up without it.