How to make conversation between CIO and CFO better about the investmnet on Employee Experience?

[Ken Adachi]

Firstly, I would like to apologize if this request is not appropriate or if it has been misdirected.

I'm currently facing a challenge with a client where there is a lack of consensus between the CIO and CFO regarding investment in UX. We have been advocating to the CIF from the Impact Team that by using ServiceNow, both the requesters and fulfillers can improve their UX, which in turn can lead to increased productivity and talent retention. However, the CFO is insisting that the CIO simulate exactly which line items in the Profit/Loss statement will be improved.

I'm seeking insights and advice to convincingly explain the necessity of investing in Employee Experience to the CFO.

Best regards,

[Csilla]

Hi Ken,
You are facing a tough challenge when there are no common consensus why UX is important.
Not knowing what your client specialized for, if it's a customer facing portal or not I'd give a generic answer which may not be applicable in the situation you are facing.
Obviously a positive user experience leads to higher engagement and loyalty: when users find it easy to navigate a website, understand an application, or engage with the interface, it means it can reduce time on getting the support they need. Also if the users are comfortable with the portal, it can reduce in a long term the costs associated with the end user support - a well design portal, it can eliminate emails, calls to the Service Desk/customer support or even the Service Desk/customer support completely (if there are well defined processes, catalog forms,  knowledge articles in place, the most crucial and repeating questions can be addressed via the portal).
Calculating the time required to raise tickets vs accelerating the self-service solution and getting immediate support, the cost of the support personal, expected ticket reduction can be  calculated.
To make a real impact, OCM will be as important as good UX design and obviously the leadership support is always key for a successful implementation projects.

[Tim Engstrom]

Hi Ken,

I agree with Csilla. You can help guide the conversation, but it could also be political (a bit of head butting between the CIO and CFO). 
I did a webinar about year ago about the ROI of UX, and put together some equations for calculating the ROI for specific scenarios. This may be what the CIO needs.
https://youtu.be/ChNWymFjm4I?feature=shared

[Arnold Yoon]

Hi Ken, happy to share some experience as well. I agree w/ Csilla that OCM is a challenge that def needs to be addressed.

In addition to the course that Tim linked to, this one may help as well, on The Value of UX.

Obviously, this conversation is easy to coach from the sidelines, and much tougher when you're in the room, and there are politics, ego and personalities at play.  Here are some conversational points that I've used in similar situations that you might find helpful.

• Investing in UX is for the employees/everyday users who are in the product day in/day out - NOT for the CIO/CFO.  We NEED to talk to them and understand the details of THEIR workflows and where we can improve them. 
• User Experience is a holistic consideration.  Doing a line-by-line (point) analysis will never deliver the whole picture; it's almost impossible (in this complex world) to look at a slice of the picture and do a root-cause analysis or make decisions about complex workflows. 
• Operational improvements and efficiencies in op mechs come from holistic investigation about how processes, software, and people work together.  This is the whole point of, and huge value that ServiceNow can provide. "Lift and shift" onto the Now Platform from legacy environment is rarely the optimal approach.
• CFOs like data, right?  UX practices in an implementation are what can provide that data (to drive towards successful outcomes), instead of making decisions on assumptions.
• Investing in UX significantly helps to reduce PPPPP (Poor Planning results in Piss Poor Performance).  Know before you act.  When we're rolling out 6-8 figure implementations, investing in UX will significantly (positively) affect metrics/KPIs like ESAT, adoption, TTV, and error rates and rework risk. 

Hit me up if you want to chat!