Zero Distance: How T-Systems Works With Clients on Business Innovationby Mette Ahorlu, Mike Cansfield, 19 September, 2013 | feedback

Top Line: T-Systems is aiming to take a lead in using IT to change how companies do business with individuals, consumers, and corporate employees

Zero distance is T-Systems' new marketing term for its service offering helping clients to innovate their interactions with their clients using technology to create customer proximity. While not as intuitive and catching a term as eBusiness we believe the initiatives that are covered are hugely interesting and reach far beyond T-Systems.

All companies need to innovate to develop their businesses, and eBusiness as we know it is only the first step. T-Systems shows in its campaign a host of examples in banking, auto retailing, clothes retailing, insurance, utilities, and transport that the zero distance is here now. One example is the German MyTaxi app in which individuals wanting a taxi in Germany use the app to summon a cab when they need one. Apparently, 25% of all taxi journeys in Germany are booked now this way. This is not just T-Systems idea; other providers are thinking along the same lines. What differentiates T-Systems is that it has been able to conceptualize the approach, can engage in these business innovation conversations, and has the underlying technologies available.

T-Systems believes business clients can innovate more easily and quickly by focusing on their IT infrastructure. The underlying technologies, which T-Systems is using to make this happen are cloud, big data and mobility

Bottom Line for ICT Buyers:

1. 3rd platform technologies of mobile, cloud, big data and social create unprecedented opportunities for innovation - especially when combined. But the technologies are only enablers; it is the business thinking that will drive the innovation. Although innovation is risky and some get it wrong, in the end, it is the innovators that will survive and thrive. Have a look at what others have done - you can find the examples on the internet, go to conferences, try out what they say on the TV-adds, and talk to non-IT people about how they would like to interact with you. In short, get inspired on how to think differently. The innovation starts in the business, not in IT, but it takes IT to make the vision real.

2. Cloud and big data/analytics are the short answer to how new client interaction models can be created. Cloud can create the capability, while big data is the commodity from which analytics draws understanding and creates the value. Delivering this requires a close proximity between the end-user, the company, its suppliers/partners, and the infrastructure required to deliver it. A company needs to transform its ICT so it is automated, integrated, and rationalized in a way that facilitates innovation (unlike legacy that tends to act as a barrier). IDC believes that companies will need to have the dialogue about customer interaction internally and with its ICT partners in the coming years as apps come increasingly to the fore.

3. Focusing on innovation is different from focusing on optimization and modernization of your existing ICT estate. The two don't exclude each other, and modernizing your existing IT will potentially make it easier and faster for the company to innovate. Having flexible ICT can enable your company to adopt new initiatives faster. But it is not a prerequisite for technology enabled business innovation. You have to do both in parallel - what you need to make sure is that the activities are aligned towards the same goal