We believe that to succeed in an ever increasingly complex society one needs to have a clear view of where one is headed. Communication is easier internally and externally if the steps are clear.
We build our vision on three things that are changing: customer life cycle, product complexity and the ways customers are reached. In the middle of the change is the service contract that makes a customer, the consent of the customer.
We offer solid solutions to answer the needs in the area of customer consent and authentication now and in the future.
Customer Life Cycle
In customer relationship management (CRM) the term “customer life cycle” describes the steps a customer goes through when considering, purchasing, using, maintaining and terminating a product or service. This approach is useful when considering long term customer relationships. However, Internet and new technologies have shortened the customer life cycle and therefore it must be started over and over again. We should rethink customer life cycles.
A new approach is a model that breaks the customer life cycle into five distinct steps: reach, acquisition, conversion, retention, and loyalty. In other words, getting the attention of potential customers, teaching them what you have to offer, turning them into a paying customers, and then keeping them as a loyal customers. The goal of CRM is to get the customer to move through the cycle again and again acquiring new products and services. Key factors are how to reach customers and how to keep them as paying customers.
Product Complexity
Products and services are getting more complex. If you rent or buy a car, purchase a flight ticket or use your bank account, you will have to commit to a variety of product contracts, financing applications, insurances, guarantee agreements, maintenance services etc. The rule of thumb is that sales costs will increase when complexity increases. Is it possible to have a simple sales process when the products are so complex? Companies try to manage the complexity by creating product bundles that can be sold with one contract and sales personnel will need to learn a lot of details to make the sale. How about creating a flexible service concept with partners and with the customer?
Reaching a Customer
The variety of user terminals and internet access technologies is increasing. Companies cannot concentrate only on existing channels. They also have to consider access to network independent services and different client devices. Handwritten signature, digital signature or any other agreement representation format must be handled in the same business process, and it must be possible to turn a potential customer to a paying customer in one minute.
Technology Trends
The last ten years have been very active in the technology area. Many companies have offered technologies to capture the customer consent, support customer authentication, make auditable contracts and integrate existing and new services with the new technologies. Of all these technologies we see two more important than the rest.
PKI has shown its robustness. It is the only adequate technology remaining that can be used in every business area and at the same time it is secure and easy to use. Thus we believe that current stable PKI standardization, existing and expanding PKI infrastructure as well as mobile PKI applications will be the future solution. The most important motivation for PKI is that it covers all customer life cycle security aspects.
XML is a globally used technology for simplifying communication. Common and simple content representation is required when managing complex products and processes between different organisations. Common representation will reduce system development costs, make systems interoperable and allow automated document interpretation.
The Methics Solution
Methics customer relationship applications i.e. authentication and authorization parts, consists of standard PKI applications and a migration roadmap from the current application to full PKI deployment. We believe that by reducing costs and fostering easier and more secure customer relationships, you can reach and keep your loyal customers and reduce costs together with your partners. We have divided these applications into four categories, which are Interfacing, Integration, Security and Availability and Logistics.
Customer relationship interfacing applications enable easy and secure interaction between customers and companies. These applications fit with all customer life cycle steps: 1) reaching by teaching, marketing and promoting. 2) Acquiring new customer contracts. 3) Conversion and retention by offering support and services. 4) Loyalty by termination of old contracts and making new ones as well as expanding value offering together with third parties.
Customer relationship process integration utilizes standard application and content representation models. The most important integration applications are XML based applications like RDF, XML-signature and XKML. The 3-tier architecture is the solution when CRM, billing, J2EE application environment and data storages are combined together. Legal processes require auditability of the customer contracts in all process levels. Old paper and electronic applications will still coexist.
Customer relationship security and service availability guarantees business critical customer relationship functionality. To achieve this we believe in standardized tools, like Common Criteria based security evaluation, and service performance and stability testing.
Customer relationship logistics establishes cost effective and secure customer relationship. When deploying the infrastructure, there is a need for processes like smart card initialization and delivery applications, registration applications or PKI validation service deployment.
Quote: The vision has been the same since the company was founded 2002 . There is no need to update this – The world is not yet ready.