Aligning Self-Service with Business Objectives: An NCR White Paper

Self-service has become accepted as an integral part of an overall customer service and sales and marketing strategy. Today, savvy organizations realize that self-service technology is a reliable means to elevate customer and employee service levels, optimize revenue capacity, and drive cost out of the business. With the maturity of self-service has come a focus on leveraging it to achieve tangible business objectives. “When we deploy a self-service system, we do so with discrete cost savings and revenue objectives in mind from the start,” said the director of store technology for a top-ten retail chain.

The pressure is mounting on organizations to optimize their self-service systems to meet these cost, revenue and performance objectives. Organizations are demanding increased value from their self-service IT investments and are attempting to bring self-service technology into closer alignment with their most critical business priorities. However, these efforts have historically fallen short of their goals. Why? Because when IT investments and efforts are not focused on achieving business goals, companies face the all-toofamiliar burden of cost overruns, missed revenue targets, project slippages, and sub-optimal performance. The purpose of this white paper is to introduce the Business/IT Self-Service Alignment Cycle, which is a simple framework organizations can adopt to successfully manage a broad range of self-service activities.