92% of CIOs Struggle to Combine New and Old UC

IMImobile, an innovative enterprise CPaaS provider, recently discovered that 92% of CIOs find integrating legacy systems with new communication tools to be a significant challenge. This finding comes at a time when 98% of CIOs say that they feel pressured to deliver better customer experience solutions for both their business and consumers. Companies are under ongoing pressure to deliver the same level of speed and consistency in customer service, regardless of which channel they’re using. However, 52% of CIOs say that they’re unable to provide a truly integrated and connected experience across every platform.

When asked to consider the significant barriers they face in delivering a frictionless experience for customers, CIOs cited data being spread across various systems (51%), legacy IT systems (51%) and budget issues (42%).

Overcoming Challenges to Growth

According to the EVP for IMImobile, Aseem Sadana, the ability to improve and innovate in customer communications can often make or break a business. The latest research suggests that there’s a significant gap between the kind of experiences that customers expect and the opportunities that companies can provide. Companies are constantly struggling to overcome the challenges in delivering better experiences. This is particularly common for large consumer-facing enterprises, where legacy and fragmented IT environments make it challenging to integrate old communication tools with new solutions. CIOs need to think carefully about how they can centralise their approach to communications.

In the recent study, CIOs also revealed some changes in the issues they’re facing around the piecemeal development of customer communication space. 83% of respondents said that their current developmental approach reduces their ability to develop new customer journeys in an agile manner. Another 88% said that a low-code approach might be the best way to increase agility and make them less reliant on specialist skills. 88% of respondents also said that they are eager to empower teams to innovate with new customer journeys and experience solutions.

The IMImobile research also found that CIOs mostly struggle with control. 88% said that they think it’s a challenge to make sure that customer communication remains complaint with the new regulations like PSD2 and GDPR.

Developing a Platform for Success

Today’s CIOs are doing whatever they can to overcome the barriers in transformation. This often means embracing new platform-oriented approaches to communication and collaboration. CIOs now understand the need to invest in a new and aligned platform for cloud customer communications. IMImobile research indicates that 45% of respondents are planning to invest in the cloud in the next 18 months. A cloud approach would provide a more manageable and unified view for today’s business leaders, allowing them to improve customer interactions.

Additionally, adopting a platform approach will allow for a higher level of automation throughout the customer lifecycle. The latest research indicates that CIOs see the value of automation for their business, with 82% fearing an inability to automate customer journeys completely could cause them to fall behind their competitors. Currently, however, only 50% are automating customer communication journeys, and only 35% can automate from end-to-end. IMImobile’s research indicates that 45% of respondents plan to invest more in automation over the next 3 years.

source uctoday

Industry: Unified Communications