Writing for Wharton’s blog, Todd Hewlin and Scott Snyder in “Unwiring the Enterprise: Are You Ready to Lose Control?” mention an interesting concept, that of wireless becoming the last foot for moving cloud content to within arm’s reach of every person on the planet. I thought about this and wonder why IT and telecoms folks always dis their customers in this fashion. It isn’t the last mile or the last foot, or the last micron: it is the first foot! The customer should come first, always. It is time to change this thinking.
Remember when DSL and other high-speed access were getting strung around the utility poles of our countryside, and a customer was having problems with his connection? What did these aforementioned companies call the resolution process? A truck roll! Not: service calls, or customer care (although that term is getting more airtime). Again, tells you lots about how they thought (and some say still think) about their customers. We have to get people in a truck out to fix your darn problem.
The authors say that wireless “connects the physical and virtual worlds, providing real-time access to systems and resources while acting as the ‘eyes and ears’ for centralized IT systems.” Having wireless to every person makes decisions happen faster, gives you real-time visibility into all your critical systems, and redefine which technologies you should purchase too. All true, but again, these are the high-touch places that IT wants to play a critical role, so start thinking about your end-user customers first and foremost if you still want to play a role in the process.
If you still want to have customers, that is.
