Personalization and Automation Expand Role of Customer Communications

2009 Trends: The Economy, The Economy, The Economy
The key trends in 2009 boil down to one phrase: the economy. This has been a looming factor for several years, but the unprecedented stress of 2009 forced a focus on “doing more with less” -- less budget and less manpower. As more companies worldwide were hit by the economic crisis, they looked for ways to cut costs, improve processes and shorten time-to-market for new products. Investments had to pay back quickly, preferably within the year. A 2009 study commissioned by Aia Software and conducted by Forrester Consulting on its behalf concluded that investing in an ITP document communications platform garnered a risk-adjusted ROI of 277 percent with a payback of nine months.*

More Value on Customer Communications
Increased competition for fewer consumer dollars forced companies to try more targeted marketing practices to stand out in the marketplace. Customer communication took on greater importance as it became easier to work with data, CRM and legacy systems, and create relevant personalization that sold products and services and nurtured client loyalty.

A tighter mix of personalization and automation gave companies a marketing edge in 2009. Coinciding with this direction, a new generation of document communications technology emerged that could help users reduce costs, improve the customer experience, and expand output beyond the print channel. Examples include policies, contracts, correspondence, statements, invoices, personalized marketing materials and welcome packets.

Forrester Research calls this segment “document output for customer communications management” (DOCCM), and defines DOCCM software as that used to compose, format, personalize and distribute content to support physical and electronic communications and improve the customer experience. This was a natural environment for ITP’s combination of correspondence personalization and development automation, and in 2009, Aia Software was recognized as a strong performer in the interactive output segment of  "The Forrester Wave™: Document Output for Customer Communications Management, Q2 2009," Forrester Research, Inc., June 2009.

Aia Achievements Mirror Market Needs
In 2009, Aia responded to the market with enhancements and additions to ITP software that supported the goal of “Business Owned, Business Managed, IT Controlled” correspondence. ITP version 3.5 was released, along with more features for the ITP/Repository. New ITP/Customer Communications Management software became an example of “right place, right time” technology for the emerging DOCCM market.

In 2009, Aia achieved solid results in extending our reach. We doubled our partner network, and more companies now include our document solution in their offering. We also received SAP certification, which connects us with more enterprises and corporate users.  ITP integrates directly with SAP systems and applications through standard-to-standard compatibility. Clients can get expanded SAP document capabilities up and running quickly.

What’s Ahead in 2010 
Hopefully, 2010 will find us enjoying a healthier economy, but no one can predict what that will look like. However, we can influence the ways our customers navigate through rough times and capitalize on better ones. We expect document professionals will focus on several areas in 2010 to maintain business security and competitiveness.

Stay Compliant
Compliance has been an ongoing concern, and in 2010, you’ll see more automated solutions. This ties in with the “do more with less” mantra, while maintaining standards for data integrity and accuracy. For example, ITP users can track who made what changes in correspondence and when, or revert to older versions if needed. Capabilities like these fit naturally into compliance-sensitive processes.

Accelerating Time to Market
In a hyper-competitive marketplace, speed to market is critical and it will cross new boundaries in 2010 and beyond as marketers use near-instantaneous delivery through email and mobile phones. In these fast moving environments, companies must react immediately with new products and their associated communications. In 2010, Aia will focus on innovative ways to make changing customer correspondence documents easy and fast. We want to help our customers reduce the time it takes to modify documents from days to hours and even minutes. We will also be paying close attention to communication opportunities in channels other than print.

Get Your CRM On
Facing greater competition for customers, enterprises will push their CRM systems to do more of the work. In 2010, as companies emphasize CRM, they can use ITP software to tap into the value of all their stored information and integrate legacy data with CRM systems. The result is more cohesive, effective customer communications, a key factor in building successful relationships and solid loyalty. 

Brands in the House
Reorganizations, mergers, acquisitions – we can expect more of these in 2010. Sometimes these changes result in more brands based within one company. Managing communications for multiple brands is a complicated process, and integrated branding and multi-label marketing will become more necessary, but also more challenging. Customer communications management under these conditions can be simplified using ITP automation and template-based development. ITP shaves off the time it takes to apply and monitor branding guidelines in correspondence documents.
 
Pursuit of Acronyms
In 2010, customers will continue to urgently need solutions that integrate with their existing CRM, ECM, SOA and SaaS initiatives. We laid the groundwork for that in 2009 with Customer Correspondence Management. Other ways we can add value are by continuing to pursue partner opportunities, both vertical and horizontal. Customers benefit when two partners combine their competencies to build a better solution. And that’s our ultimate goal, whether it’s 2009 or 2010, to ensure customers have the best tools they need to create the most effective communications.

* Download a free copy of the TEI study at http://www.aia-itp.com/en/news/analyst-information/request-form-tei.html.

Geoffrey Boisvert is General Manager of Aia Software’s North American operations. Contact him at G.Boisvert@aia-itp.com or visit http://www.aia-itp.com.