Older computer systems are not able to satisfy the demands of the “new” customer – Oracle
Businesses and governments can service the new generation of consumers only if they update their information technology systems.
This was revealed by Alain Ozan, vice president, technology at Oracle while speaking at the IDC Francophone Summit today. People are shopping, paying their bills and communicating with each other in a very different way compared to ten years ago, but old information technology cannot cope with the new business needs.
“The average age of enterprise software is 20 years old, built in the early 1990’s before even the Internet came into common use,” he said.
Ozan says that mobile technology, social media, and sensor technology all present opportunities to understand their customers better, but they also make companies more vulnerable to negative customer experiences.
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“Not so long ago in the buyer/seller relationship, the balance of power was with the seller. Companies were able to dictate to the world: ‘This is who we are, here’s what you know about us, here’s how you do business with us.’
Now the balance of power has shifted to the buyer. Ten years ago it was okay to have a 95% customer satisfaction rate. Today, that 5% of dissatisfied customers can bring a business to its knees.”
He maintains that older technologies are too slow, too complex and too expensive to perform this task. “The budget just to maintain these systems needs to increase by 4% every year. To cope with the enormous amounts of data generated through doing business online, analyse it quickly and respond to these needs, businesses need to have a powerful, flexible and above all affordable IT system.”
Oracle has over the past few years released hardware and software systems that have been engineered together. “It’s like buying a car today,” he explains. “You don’t buy the components from different manufacturers and then build your own car, you buy the complete car from one manufacturer and you are assured that everything works as it should. This is the direction in which modern computing is going.”
