Episode 1 of the SXSW: Empathy in IT series.
Bridget Collins is the Chief Information Officer at Cerence Inc, the world’s leading provider of automotive assistants, creating intelligent, flexible and intuitive in-car experiences for the world’s leading automakers.
In this episode Bridget shares how she and her team significantly improved the IT experience for end-users across the globe as the company spun off from its parent Nuance, and benefited significantly from deploying Voxxify’s sentiment analysis platform.
Topics discussed include:
- 00:32: CIO Role at Cerence Inc. - overview of the range of functions falling under the responsibility of CIO.
- 01:10: The changing role of IT in enterprise: how best in class IT departments are evolving into business enablers, aligning with wider business goals and providing better business value
- 02:16: How IT at Cerence is responding to different user needs: through detailed persona analysis and extensive engagement different groups are provided with the specific technology they need, from highly mobile sales representatives to more technical R&D teams.
- 03:45: Two key best practices to understand and respond to user needs: One: start with learning and listening - understanding the user through ‘spending a day in their shoes’, running regular surveys (using platforms like Voxxify!), and follow through; and Two: ensure IT is supporting the business in the role of a trusted advisor - understand the problem user groups are trying to solve, before finding the best technical solution.
- 05:52: Empathy in IT - why it matters and how to achieve it: empathy is critical, and to work at scale it needs to be embedded into the culture. How Cerence is managing by ‘OKRs’ (Objectives & Key Results) to achieve challenging and ambitious goals for the business overall and each individual group. IT focuses on delivering ‘world-class customer service’, achieved through measuring multiple metrics and ongoing deep engagement with end users.
- 07:44: Using Voxxify to understand the IT end user experience: how Cerence ‘disentangled’ from the parent company, and using Voxxify they quickly learned about what was working well, and what wasn’t, across the globe. Critically the insights helped prioritise where to target investment.
- 11:02: The importance of listening to end users no matter what is happening in the business
See the full series at voxxify.com/videos
[Credits to video production company 528 Creative 528creativeco.com/]
