Business Transformation Requires Transformational Leaders

© 2000 by Frederick C. Van Bennekom and Mikael Blaisdell. All rights reserved.

Obsession with technology often leads us to miss the obvious in our search for the inobvious. Customer relationship management (CRM) is no exception, with the data mining, Web warehousing, clickstream tracking, and channel integration solutions that are being feverishly deployed by e-businesses.

As Y2K infrastructure build-up and retooling efforts wind down, corporate America is focusing on the development of software applications that will enhance its service offerings. E-business and customer relationship management (CRM) initiatives are the two main areas of such growth. The media have cultivated the e-business sound bite but have been slow to publicize CRM.

Outsourcing involves business decisions, financial considerations, strategic direction, and so on -- but don't forget, it also involves people. And it is the people who will either make outsourcing work or cause it to flounder. Think about it: management is just a group of people in the role of managers. The "organization" everyone talks about is made up of people.

Outsourcing affects everyone in the organization. Business decisions, financial considerations, and strategic directions all drive the decision to outsource, but people will make it work or let it flounder. Managers must be able to observe what people are experiencing, feeling, and thinking and how this is affecting everyone's efforts. Managers should then act to help people make outsourcing work.

Outsourcing the maintenance of an organization's application portfolio to a third party is an IT strategy that's receiving a lot of attention lately. Typically, the decision to outsource the maintenance of production systems is centered around the need to reduce expenses and free up valuable internal resources.