The IT Perspective

IT leaders in the Public Service sector understand the challenges of ensuring customers are served whilst maintaining the complex array of IT Systems supporting them. With many systems needing to generate their own customer related documentation, but having to be consistent with each other and the corporate brand, the challenge is to support, maintain and develop these systems in a timely manner within very tight IT budgets.

Common requirements of Customer Communications are often addressed with piecemeal solutions based on readily available components. However, these are often resource consuming to maintain, with simple demands for template changes requiring careful scheduling and specific - and often scarce - IT expertise.

An even greater maintenance problem emerges when organisations wish to embrace and integrate new channels for correspondence: the shift from pure print to interactive, on-demand servicing with delivery via email, SMS, smartphone, etc. introduces a whole new set of IT challenges ­ and an even greater maintenance workload.

CIO’s seek a solution that offers:

1. A foundation for consistent, extensible, multi-channel architecture for communications
2. Better ‘Value For Money’ through reduced complexity
3. Fewer legacy skill sets needed for electronic communications giving staff flexibility
4. Very large print runs now fit into batch windows without disrupting other operations
5. No IT resource dependency for user letter construction, but ensures that re-use is optimised
6. A de-risked approach to systems and process rationalisation is provided
7. Strategic alignment with Business and IT objectives
8. A 360⁰ view of the client portfolio and full audit-ability of both original data and new views
9. Safe “self-service” for customer account management and other applications.

At Icon UK we specialise in managing such challenges, creating customized solutions for each client and working with IT teams to guide them through assessments to maximise desired improvements in the ‘more for less’ agenda (Revenue enhancement, Customer Service, Cost reduction, Compliance, etc).

Challenges

Being able to communicate to customers in an effective and relevant way, whilst remaining within budget is a key challenge. Public Sector organisations need to communicate more now than ever with the Public and other departments. However complex systems can unnecessarily lead to costly rework and delays. Key challenges include:

• The historic complex array of core systems can range from the latest web based systems to those over 20 years old. All have their own document generation tools. Since these are often independent, there are multiple, separate maintenance and support arrangements.
• Many in the Public Sector have core legacy systems that are many years old, producing accurate documentation but in older styles. High complexity and systems duplication make it is all too easy to introduce mistakes into the output processing, or overlook critical system performance issues when implementing changes.

Other issues include:

1. Struggling with multi-channel - need for a consistent architecture for content interchange
2. Centralised bulk print takes too long (crashing, or over-running the overnight batch window)
3. Generating 360⁰ view of Customer information in real time is beyond current capabilities
4. Retention of too many different IT skills and attrition of frustrated communications/print staff
5. High-levels of IT input needed just to create a new letter, for example
6. Previous attempts at document systems integration and Case-based Workflows have failed.

Against the backdrop of these challenges, IT leaders in this sector need to an enterprise tool that will tackle these issues whilst under the watchful eye of politicians and the public service regulators. This means that without such tool, not only is the organisations reputation at risk but public confidence too.

In a disciplined “Value for Money” conscious sector, early adopters in enhanced Customer Communications Management are rapidly realising increased organisational performance.

Learn why some of the world’s largest and leading service organisations use our technology solutions. Call us to find out how we can help your organisation.

How Icon Helps

Icon Suite offers Public Sector organisations the opportunity to address all these challenges in one solution platform. Practically every type of document can be flexibly constructed from pre-approved templates, incorporating powerful re-use and multi-lingual features. Structured, Interactive and On-demand output types can be produced and include Proposals and Quotations, Order confirmations, Policies, Statements, Customer Self-Service, Correspondence and Agent Communications, etc. (see ‘Uses’ on Public Sector Overview).

Different modes of customer engagement are supported across all media types. Through deploying this platform, with transformational change and operational services where required, we help organisations change the way they engage with customers. Customers benefit from highly personalised, flexible and positive experiences they are pleased to recommend to others. Icon provides many forms of industrial strength enterprise document solutions.

Icon solutions offer:

1. Consistent architecture and view of data lends itself to multi-channel communications
2. A powerful document engine capable at generating over 1 million documents per hour
3. Tight, centralised management of the print function and enterprise component re-use
4. Easy integration with existing systems allowing their gradual rationalisation
5. Reduced training and IT staff retention costs
6. Real-time information integration and management capabilities
7. Strong ROI and Payback cases

Icon UK can assist in the all areas related to improving customer communications including:

Organisations that engage Icon find they can understand what customer communications are really costing and translate this into a compelling Return on Investment case. By investing in the right solutions they can improve content and policy control, increased customer loyalty and by achieving top-quartile performance in customer communications management, develop a robust platform for objectives such as rapidly re-branding following restructuring, or large scale personalised multi-lingual, multi-channel communications delivered cost-effectively.

Some of the world’s largest and leading service organisations use our technology solutions. Call us to find out how we can help your organisation.