Logistics and Supply Chain Technology Report 2021

中国电信（欧洲）有限公司 C h i n a T e l e c o m ( E u r o p e ) L t d .

Does your IT department engage directly with customers when developing or implementing customer-facing IT?

50%

100%

Yes - Continuously

43%

40%

Yes - At the start

17%

Our respondents were split in response to this question. Though the slim majority of IT departments engaged continuously with their customers during development (43%) and a further 16% interacted with the customer at the beginning of development, a large proportion of respondents skirted any form of direct communication with the customer whatsoever (40%). Though off-the-shelf services might consider initial consultation to provide enough information prior to development, our industry workshops have found that IT leaders should still be visible in the operation to both build trust and be clear point of feedback for customers. Building these relationships with the customer during implementation is crucial to creating an efficient feedback loop between development workflow and deployment outcomes. Crucially, open communication can facilitate faster action on teething issues during development, with incremental iterations avoiding the sudden appearance of large-scale problems with major updates.

How open are businesses to adopting new technologies in their supply chain or logistics operations?

50%

100%

Somewhat open

61%

Very open

37%

Not open