Transparency in IT: Improving the customer experience

As an IT leader, the biggest challenge I’ve found is that people look to you to know everything — and that’s simply not possible. That’s why I’ve made myself into a totally transparent leader.

Precipart is a custom manufacturer of discrete components and an OEM for major suppliers in medical, aerospace and industrial applications. I oversee IT and digital solutions, but I have a role in a little bit of everything — and that goes for my team too. What I don't know, someone else can teach me, and vice versa. That sense of continual learning and transparency in our roles is what makes us a successful organisation.

Today, many IT organisations are beginning to realise the benefits of adding that transparency to their roles and accountability to their responsibilities — such as streamlined processes, increased productivity and improved customer service and support.

Transparency in leadership

It started when I began to network with other IT leaders and build that sense of community. Having the ability to ask someone for help or offer a helping hand was what really led to me becoming a transparent leader.

At Precipart, I brought all the qualities I admired most from my past mentors and leaders to morph the role of Chief Information Officer into a Chief Execution Officer. I basically took everything a CIO is responsible for — such as project management and business architecture — and added things like emotional intelligence, trust and transparency.

Communication in any department is key, but IT tends to have a particularly poor reputation in this area. That's why I make sure different departments are in consistent contact with each other, so they can work together toward the common goal of improving the customer experience and helping the business grow.

For instance, I always have someone from the IT department in meetings or on the ground floor. That way, my team learns that we have to know the finance processes, sales processes, even manufacturing processes. Adding that layer of transparency has enabled us to be agile and pivot at any point to ensure our business keeps running and growing exponentially.

Transparency in the customer experience

I remember a stat from the MES IT Leadership Network State of the Midmarket that said, "about 25% of an IT leader's time is spent with their end customers as opposed to internal organisational opportunities, and they expect that to go up about 10% in the next three years."

It's important that internal employees feel like they can have a connection with us in the IT department, including the ability to come speak with us about anything they need. We want to ensure we're offering a safe space for them to talk through their frustrations, as well as a level of transparency so we can help them deliver what they need to deliver.

Whether it's assisting a sales rep to enable a better customer experience or assembling a team to build a new customer portal - at the end of the day, if everyone's having a better customer experience, the company succeeds.

Externally, open communication is key to enabling our customers to succeed. That's why I've made it our job to make sure each person in the IT department reaches out to customers - because how do you know if you need to improve or if they have an issue, unless you ask? I think if we continue putting the customer first, everything else will follow.

Transparency in technology

Digital transformation is a popular buzzword that's been heavily influencing the IT industry. At Precipart, we define digital transformation as "business transformation using technology as a disrupter."

Nothing is transformative if we don't find a reason to use that device other than just to use it. We use the term digital transformation to describe how we're actively learning about our customers, their businesses and their challenges in order to implement the right technology that'll help disrupt them.

Robert will be speaking at Deskflix: Hybrid and Multicloud next week. Click here to register your free place.

This article was originally published on the MES IT Leadership Network, a resource for senior IT leaders to build long-term strategic relationships, discover new technology solutions, and access critical content and resources.