Glad to have you back for this week's IBM i Pulse! Each week we will be taking a deeper look into this week's IBM i news. This week we are looking at Improving Customer Integration, Budget Help, and more reasons to convert to RPG IV. But First...
John Ghrist from MC Press Online discusses the power of Watson on IBM i and the power of marketing through Watson.
Improving Customer Engagement on IBM i
by Alex Woodie
Customer engagement is a growing need for any business, and a recent survey shows a growing desire for IBM i shops to offer more customer engagement channels. This can become problematic for those shops due to cost and lack of technical understanding.
Many of the resources are limited in most organizations and the IT departments must choose wisely when and where these resources are to be deployed. Development of new channels and technology isn't always in the budget. With a long list of "wants" vs the short list of critical "needs," it can be challenging for any company to balance the two lists.
So which initiatives are most important for improving customer engagement?
- 91% say Offering greater choice of channels (e.g. web and mobile self-service)
- 62% say Using analytic to understand customer behavior and preferences
- 57% say Enabling seamless switching between channels
- 57% say Providing a single view of all customer communications
- 57% say Personalizing marketing and customer service
So what is preventing IBM i shops from expanding their customer engagement channels? Money. 54% of the IBM i shops said that cost was the biggest hurdle for creating new ways for customer engagement (lack of technical skills was 2nd).
This raw data shows a clear disconnect from IBM i shops and their customers, but the good news is, the more information you have, the better you can run your business.
Source: https://www.itjungle.com/2017/06/28/improving-customer-engagement-ibm/
If your budget is keeping you from creating new customer engagement channels then this might help:
IT Budgets Partly Sunny Thanks to the Cloud
by Dan Burger
Lowering costs is always something a business is looking to do, especially in the IT department. Good news for companies is that over the 5 years the percentage of capital budget spent on IT has decreased:
So how has this been accomplished? According to Computer Economics the use of the Cloud has been helping IT departments of all shapes and sizes reduce their costs, while getting more done. One of the biggest benefits of the Cloud is reducing the costs of purchasing computer hardware and software licenses. The reduction of these two factors has allowed IT departments to no longer be a financial burden on their companies.
“The cloud transition is far from over, and we’re already seeing more efficient IT departments, particularly on a cost-per-user basis, which is at a new low,” says David Wagner, vice president of research at Computer Economics. What does all this saving mean? More spending of course! IT Budgets are already increasing due to the cost saving from the Cloud, which will increase research and development, customer interaction and many other expansion projects that might have been out of reach before.
Connecting your IBM i system to the the Cloud is nearly impossible with a legacy green screen... but with Profound.js you can easily integrate your system with the Cloud, Watson, IoT and many other APIs to modernize your IBM i system.
Source: https://www.itjungle.com/2017/06/26/budgets-partly-sunny-thanks-cloud/
And Finally... Need Another Reason to Convert to RPG IV?
by Jon and Susan
If you are still running RPG/400, Jon and Susan at IBM Systems Magazine want to convince you to convert to RPG IV. They have a laundry list of reasons why you should convert over including:
- Great Outline View Features
- Seeing data type and size of variables while hovering over them
- Content Assist (Ctrl+Space) for all RPG programs
- New and improved RDi features
- IBM's CVTRPGSRC (it's free)
- Third Party Tools that weren't available with RPG/400
And more! Worth checking out.
One of our focuses for 2017 is the continued adoption of Node.js in IBM i shops. Click here to read our white paper on Why Node.js Is The Solution Your Company Needs.
Also, Profound.js 2.0 has been released! See how Profound.js 2.0 can help modernize your IBM i today!
And there, you're all caught up! Sounds like we have an interesting 2017!
