Network and Communication / Communication Technology

Every successful shopkeeper is an expert at sizing up a customer as soon as he or she walks in the door, making them feel welcome and comfortable, steering them in the direction of what they are most likely to buy, then guiding them towards a purchase. It’s called personal service and there’s nothing unusual or special about it. It's the sort of thing every shopkeeper does instinctively, without really thinking about it. It's also the sort of thing that's quite easy to do in real life but, until now, has been incredibly difficult to replicate online.

For organizations, the Internet is an integral strategy and a fundamental consideration when meeting business objectives. In fact, it has revolutionized how organizations do business. More than just a source of corporate information, the Internet is now an extension of business processes and communication strategies. As we have moved into the era of the customer, new requirements are forcing customer-facing organizations to rethink how to engage and inspire online audiences.

There is a theme in this paper which states that, to use online banking effectively, a financial institution must offer three things: integration, personalisation and relevance. Now I know that you, the reader, the seasoned and sceptical professional who has been there, done that and seen it all before will read that first line and yawn. I know that, because that’s what I did. Because we’ve heard it all before. How often have we talked about multichannel integration? How often have we pondered the issues of a consistent customer experience? How often have we discussed the ability to leverage online capabilities through branches and vice versa?

Flexible working for efficiency and effectiveness Following the May 2010 general election and resulting budget cuts, the UK public sector faces the toughest challenges in decades. Adoption of leaner, more agile work styles, implementation of mobile and flexible working solutions and some strong executive leadership will be called for if the sector is to continue delivering the required levels of public services while producing the many billions of efficiency savings that will be expected of it.

Many companies are enduring a recovery from recession that can best be described as tentative. They may not regard it as the best time to be investing money and management time in privacy protection. In fact, the opposite is the case. The business imperatives for building and maintaining the walls that will prevent data breaches have never been so urgent. Not only are the legal requirements to maintain data security – and sanctions in the event of failure – higher than ever, customers increasingly regard the protection of their data as a differentiator between businesses with whom they choose to work with and those they don’t. All this must be done at a time when the amount of work being done by employees outside the traditional confines of the office is growing rapidly. This development makes the task of preserving data confidentiality exponentially more difficult.