| |November 201719CIOReviewCUSTOMER CENTRICITY BY DESIGN: ENGINEERING THE NEXT-GENERATION BACK OFFICEBy Scott Alcott, CIO, Comcast Cable [NASDAQ: CMCSA] CIO INSIGHTShe best back office technology is invis-ible to customers, but getting your back of-fice system to deliver that kind of seamless functionality requires a CIO to take a closer look at core architectural de-cisions. Creating an elegant customer experience starts with placing the customer at the center of your design and development processes. Back office systems are sticky. Built and evolved over years, if not decades, and home to essential func-tions and data, enterprises often find it easier to iterate and bolt onto exist-ing systems than to tear things down and start afresh. This process of iteration can ac-complish quite a lot. We have dra-matically streamlined and redesigned the user experience for our care pro-fessionals, providing clearer, more actionable data in a simpler more in-tuitive format. We've seen and meas-ured how our efforts have led to bet-ter, faster resolution of issues and a better customer experience. We've also invested in an enter-prise-wide resiliency program that has already reduced IT incidents by 55 percent and led to an 80 percent reduction in time-to-repair. As we continue to expand that program to more sys-tems, we see measurable improvements in perfor-mance and reliability. Those are impor-tant steps, and ones that work within the context of a traditional back of-fice environment, but to achieve the full performance and functionality, we need to serve our customers. We knew we had to go a step further. Today, we are engaged in an enter-prise-wide effort to re-architect our back office from the ground up, and that process began with a laser focus on the back office's most important stakeholder: the customer. Evolving from Address-based Systems in a Mobile World Our world has changed. Twenty years ago, it made sense to think of the home as the center of our customers' lives, and the focal point for our service delivery and IT systems. In the world of telecommunica-tions, Operations Support Systems (OSS) and Business Support Sys-tems (BSS) have traditionally been centered on homes, rather than in-dividuals. Built during a time when a household would have a single cable or phone service that custom-ers used exclusively in the home, the address-based structure was logical and effective. But as technology has evolved, we've begun to see the limitations of that design approach. Today--in any given home in our network--different household members are likely to be enjoying a range of distinct experiences. In a single household, four or five people can easily interact with our services over four or five differ-ent screens, and they can have those experiences virtually anywhere if there's an Internet connection. Each TThe best system in the world won't perform properly without the right data to support itScott Alcott
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