Michael Maoz1 December 2008
Memo to project managers
From: Office of the CIO
Over the past seven years we have had a number of initiatives in place to improve customer processes. We are still fully commited to the principles behind each of the four initiatives in customer service, data analytics, marketing and sales. We are going to have to reduce headcount at least five to ten percent this year. I don’t know how deep the cuts will be, because the next two quarters are going to make the difference, and we just don’t have good forecasts. But I do have guidance for all of you on how to keep your jobs, how to keep your teams engaged, and keep morale high. We’ve built this department slowly and painstakingly. We don’t have a lot of fat. In fact, we have just about no fat. I suggest the following:
Let’s go with one major innovation push around social networking. There is so much data showing that our marketing departments are under pressure because there is no immediate way to judge the success of so much of their budget. Social networking technologies that will engage customers on our website and on mobile phones are not that expensive and the data can be analyzed with our existing systems.
Whenever we look at extending contracts on some of our old systems used for customer service, email, survey, chat, and knowledge management systems, look at the functionality in our enterprise business application suites to see if any of these systems have matured enough to the point that we can use our enterprise agreement.
If we can use the functionality in the enterprise business application, open up negotiations with the vendor. A lot of this stuff will otherwise be considered a ‘swap’ for licenses set at a higher price.
Look to see if any of the applications you want to trade out are available through cloud computing. Even if we decide we don’t want to go with software as a service, we at least have a starting point for negotiation, and an alternative.
I don’t want to shut down projects, but we will have to be careful with our investments. I want you all to come to our January meeting with your priorities, and I want them each to have a business case showing what the anticipated return is on each project.
We are going to get through this, and I don’t want our ongoing CRM initiatives to take a hit. Our end customers – not the sales, service, or marketing departments, but the customers who buy our goods and services, are going to remember how we responded to this economic period. They know our budgets are not going to grow this year. Their’s have shrunken overall, so they understand it is not business as usual. But they will not like it if we deliver an inferior customer experience.
I expect that we will keep our team together. I am considering ways we might restructure to achieve results that we may not be reaching. I want us to explore all options.
I’ll see you in January, and in the meantime, I will be meeting with each of you individually over the next four weeks.
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