The best advice I ever received when I was looking to start a consulting business was this:

“To guarantee success, find a need and fill it.”

There is no value in creating products or services for which there is no need. On occasion, an organization will come up with a game-changing product and redefine a whole industry, such as RIM in the early days, replacing pagers with email anywhere, and Apple with its iPhone and iPad, which brought smart devices to the masses. But, for the most part, the businesses that thrive are those who have mastered the ability to identify a need and fulfill it.

It is evident that they excel at anticipating what their customers would need, and when. They have essentially put themselves in the place of the user, and walked through what a successful experience would be. Interacting with these organizations is uncannily intuitive. The website is informative, expectations are clearly defined, there are no unpleasant surprises, and if it is a product, you could likely hand it to a child and they would be able to figure out how to get started.

As you read this, I’m sure you are remembering your own experiences in dealing with companies offering this type of product or service. This may be anything from the great little restaurant you frequent or the car dealer you have bought a second or third vehicle from because you loved the service.

But not all businesses are thriving.

There are far too many companies, service organizations, and manufacturers more concerned with numbers, and specifically how high can their sale numbers reach in the next quarter, than they are with the experience of their customers in interacting with their products.

No one will deny that Apple has made a huge impact with the iPad. Even if you are not an Apple fan, you can’t deny the device is simple to use. I can hand mine to a 3-year old and she will flick and swipe at the screen like a pro to find her games and books.

I got an iPad for my parents (who are in their eighties). A week later, they wanted to buy a second one so they don’t fight over who gets to use it. These devices have opened up a whole new world of opportunity and discovery from the comfort of their La-Z-Boy recliners.

And the best part (for me), I have barely spent mere moments providing them with tech support. When you consider that I’ve had to help them with setting up almost every other device (i.e. their first computer, programming numbers into phones, setting up HD television, replacing the 8-track player with an iPod) this is almost a miracle.

In my role as a CIO, I get to preview and try a lot of different devices, software applications, and computer hardware. I admit that much of what I see leaves me underwhelmed, like the array of slate devices that have come my way recently.
I also know that I would never, ever recommend that my parents use one of these other slate devices.

The iPad comes with the Apple ecosystem. The iPad, while intuitive to use, is like celery – designed to move the dip (or in this case the experience) from the bowl to your mouth. A lot of the other devices are like celery without the dip. The experience runs out of steam pretty quickly.

I am remiss to quote yet another saying by Steve Jobs, but the following is fitting of the streamlined user experience and device capabilities of the iPad:

“You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work backwards for the technology.” (WWDC 1997)

So what can an IT leader learn from this?

It would seem that many of us in IT leadership missed the class on customer experience:

We have a service catalogue but have never defined what a successful experience would look like.
We ask our users to use products and services that we ourselves would never incorporate into our own department.
We launch new technology initiatives without ever consulting the people who will actually have to use the new system.
We get defensive when we are questioned about missing functionality or dismissive when new features are suggested that we didn’t think of.
And on and on…
It doesn’t sound very nice to be a customer of this type of an IT department but, unfortunately, many of our users have these experiences daily.

What is different though is that given the influx of personal devices and cloud- based applications and services, our users now have a choice. For example, marketing departments can set up a contract with SalesForce.com and completely end run your department.

Don’t think it isn’t happening, or won’t happen to you, so let me suggest something:

It’s time to change the way IT is done in your organization.

Dust off your service catalogue; sit down with your team. Take each of these services and discuss what a successful user experience would look like. It’s not about what’s most convenient for your team, but what would make the user experience the best it could possibly be. Talk about how you are going to make it happen. Then do it.

If you start at the end, you are leveraging proven wisdom for running a successful organization.

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Note: A version of this post by the author previously appeared on the IT World Canada website.

Images:  Used under Creative Commons license

About the Author:

I’m the Chief Information Officer for Appleby College, in Oakville, Ontario Canada, where my team is transforming the delivery of education through innovative application of technology. I'm also a beBee Brand Ambassador.

I'm convinced that IT leadership needs to dramatically change how IT is delivered rather than being relegated to a costly overhead department.

In addition to transforming IT in my role as CIO, I look for every opportunity to talk about this... writing, speaking and now blogging on BeBee (www.bebee.com/@kevin-pashuk) , LinkedIn, ITWorld Canada, or at TurningTechInvisible.com.

I also shoot things... with my camera. Check out my photostream at www.flickr.com/photos/kwpashuk 
IT - Information Technology
Kevin Pashuk Kevin Pashuk
Chief Information Officer - Appleby College/ beBee Brand Ambassador • Appleby College and beBee