New arena for IT - based Consulting

Most of the IT compnies offer solutions that essentially target improvement and optimization of their client’s operational efficiencies. But they can look further by developing solutions which can help their clients to increase their repeat customers by analyzing, measuring and building customers' loyalty. Following model can be proposed for the same :-

Expectation is built through advertisements and various promotional campaigns. In other words, it is developed before the sales. Experience is built during the sales process and after-sales service. For the analysis of Customer Loyalty, experiences as well as expectations need to be analyzed because when combined, they together determine the loyalty of the customer. The business model architecture is depicted in the diagram below:

The architecture shown above consists of various levels. The data layer is at the bottom level which consists of sources like existing customer database, results of any surveys conducted by the firm, data collected through internet tools or portals, data in the form of market research reports released by research firms, market channel’s partner’s data (distributors and retailers) and other secondary sources acts as an input to the next level. The data is consolidated to arrive at a meaningful representation of customer loyalty status.

Customer Loyalty Analyzer, which is the next layer in the architecture, acts as the backbone of the entire system. The data at the lowest level is meaningless until it can be used to quantify Customer Loyalty as a measurable output. The Customer Loyalty Analyzer utilizes this data to calculate the Customer Loyalty Index. The Customer Loyalty Analyzer will use the data to perform the Cost versus Value Analysis.The Expectation and Experiential indices can be obtained based on the client’s requirements based on geography, demographics or products. The Experiential and Expectation indices are then combined to arrive at the Customer Loyalty index.

The Customer Loyalty Index is then passed on to the next level which is the Gap Identifier. The function of this level is to interpret the Customer Loyalty Index value obtained in the previous level. The value of Customer Loyalty is compared against industry benchmarks and identifying the gap areas with respect to Cost and Value perceived by the customers. The benchmarks would be different for each industry. The Gap analysis can be done to generate wise reports i.e. Location wise, Demographics wise, Product wise etc depending on the needs and requirements of the customer.

The results of Gap Analysis are customized for each client according to their needs. The results can also be obtained for different geographies or across industries. This customized output for each client can be viewed through Customized Output Generator.

Once the consultants from Cognizant have analyzed the gaps, the final layer in the model architecture is to provide Strategic Consulting to our clients based on the results of Gap Analysis. This would encompass various activities like appraising our clients about the key performance areas where they need to improve with respect to perceived cost and perceived value of their products and services to the customer. The consulting services would improve the client’s understanding of their customers through the use of our analytical model, which in turn will enable the customers to achieve long-term sustainable business growth. Based on the valuable outputs of the engagement, the client can build strategies to narrow down or plug the gaps in service quality and achieve an organic, customer-led growth.

The model depicted above or the modified version of the same can be utilized by the IT companies to get into next area of doing business.