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Forrester: "Age of the Customer" Defines Business for Next 20 Years

In the "Age of the Customer", only organizations that focus first and foremost on winning, serving, and retaining customers will survive, according to Forrester. This era will define the next 20 years of business, with the marketing department gaining increased power over the overall success of a company.

But what happens to IT? As marketing takes greater ownership and responsibility for tech investments, its confidence in the technology management organization drops: Nearly one-third of marketers believe the technology management group actually hinders the business, according to new studies by Forrester.

Moreover, out of all business units, marketing is the most aggressive in planning to spend money on technology, increasing its "private" technology spending two to three times faster than IT overall.

Forrester VP and Research Director David Cooperstein says: "Executives who lead customer-obsessed enterprises must pull budget dollars from areas that traditionally created dominance — brand advertising, distribution lockup, mergers for scale, and supplier relationships."

According to the new research, they need to invest in four priority areas:

- Real-time actionable data sharing

- Contextualized customer experiences across touchpoints

- Sales efforts tied to buyers' processes

- Content-led marketing and customer interactions

Of equal importance is the role technology management groups play in retaining and serving customers. It is Forrester's contention that technology management splinters off into two vital agendas for the CIO.

"We believe that tech management must embrace two agendas: IT and BT," says Forrester CEO George F. Colony. "The CIO and team must continue to manage and improve IT (infrastructure) — the supply chains, financial systems, HR systems, and production systems that operate the corporation. But in addition, the team must take on the business technology (BT) agenda — building technologies, systems, and processes to win, retain, and serve customers. The CIO and team are best qualified to manage the complexity of emerging BT systems. As an example, systems of operation that contain critical customer data must be transformed to become agile systems of engagement capable of serving mobile customers with the right content, in the appropriate context, with the highest possible convenience."

According to the new research, BT investments must include key capabilities for four key imperatives:

- Engaging customers undergoing a mobile mind shift

- Providing superior customer experience in all customer interactions

- Understanding customers through big data and analytics

- Adapting to — and ideally driving — digital disruption

Can the CIO and CMO work hand in glove in the age of the customer? If they can't, it may well mean the death of well-established brands and companies we are all familiar with.

Related Links:

Forrester Report: Competitive Strategy In The Age Of The Customer

Forrester Report: Technology Management In The Age Of The Customer

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Forrester: "Age of the Customer" Defines Business for Next 20 Years

In the "Age of the Customer", only organizations that focus first and foremost on winning, serving, and retaining customers will survive, according to Forrester. This era will define the next 20 years of business, with the marketing department gaining increased power over the overall success of a company.

But what happens to IT? As marketing takes greater ownership and responsibility for tech investments, its confidence in the technology management organization drops: Nearly one-third of marketers believe the technology management group actually hinders the business, according to new studies by Forrester.

Moreover, out of all business units, marketing is the most aggressive in planning to spend money on technology, increasing its "private" technology spending two to three times faster than IT overall.

Forrester VP and Research Director David Cooperstein says: "Executives who lead customer-obsessed enterprises must pull budget dollars from areas that traditionally created dominance — brand advertising, distribution lockup, mergers for scale, and supplier relationships."

According to the new research, they need to invest in four priority areas:

- Real-time actionable data sharing

- Contextualized customer experiences across touchpoints

- Sales efforts tied to buyers' processes

- Content-led marketing and customer interactions

Of equal importance is the role technology management groups play in retaining and serving customers. It is Forrester's contention that technology management splinters off into two vital agendas for the CIO.

"We believe that tech management must embrace two agendas: IT and BT," says Forrester CEO George F. Colony. "The CIO and team must continue to manage and improve IT (infrastructure) — the supply chains, financial systems, HR systems, and production systems that operate the corporation. But in addition, the team must take on the business technology (BT) agenda — building technologies, systems, and processes to win, retain, and serve customers. The CIO and team are best qualified to manage the complexity of emerging BT systems. As an example, systems of operation that contain critical customer data must be transformed to become agile systems of engagement capable of serving mobile customers with the right content, in the appropriate context, with the highest possible convenience."

According to the new research, BT investments must include key capabilities for four key imperatives:

- Engaging customers undergoing a mobile mind shift

- Providing superior customer experience in all customer interactions

- Understanding customers through big data and analytics

- Adapting to — and ideally driving — digital disruption

Can the CIO and CMO work hand in glove in the age of the customer? If they can't, it may well mean the death of well-established brands and companies we are all familiar with.

Related Links:

Forrester Report: Competitive Strategy In The Age Of The Customer

Forrester Report: Technology Management In The Age Of The Customer

Hot Topics

The Latest

According to Auvik's 2025 IT Trends Report, 60% of IT professionals feel at least moderately burned out on the job, with 43% stating that their workload is contributing to work stress. At the same time, many IT professionals are naming AI and machine learning as key areas they'd most like to upskill ...

Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

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Cloudbrink's Personal SASE services provide last-mile acceleration and reduction in latency

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 13, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses hybrid multi-cloud networking strategy ... 

In high-traffic environments, the sheer volume and unpredictable nature of network incidents can quickly overwhelm even the most skilled teams, hindering their ability to react swiftly and effectively, potentially impacting service availability and overall business performance. This is where closed-loop remediation comes into the picture: an IT management concept designed to address the escalating complexity of modern networks ...

In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

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