Differences between Rapid STP (802.1w) and the legacy STP(802.1d)

The following table outlines the main differences between Rapid STP (802.1w) and the legacy STP(802.1d):

STP (802.1d)	Rapid STP (802.1w)
In stable topology only the root sends BPDU and relayed by others.	In stable topology all bridges generate BPDU every Hello (2 sec) : used as “keepalives” mechanism.
Port states
DisabledBlockingListeningLearningForwarding	Discarding (replaces disabled, blocking and listening) LearningForwarding
To avoid flapping, it takes 3 seconds for a port to migrate from one protocol to another (STP / RSTP) in a mixed segment.
Port roles
Root (Forwarding) Designated (Forwarding) Non-Designated (Blocking)	Root (Forwarding) Designated (Forwarding) Alternate(Discarding)Backup (Discarding)
Additional configuration to make an end node port a port fast (in case a BPDU is received).	- An edge port (end node port) is an integrated Link type which depends on the duplex : Point-to-point for full duplex & shared for half duplex).
Topology changes and convergence
Use timers for convergence (advertised by the root): Hello(2 sec) Max Age(20 sec = 10 missed hellos) Forward delay timer (15 sec)	- Introduce proposal and agreement process for synchronization (< 1 sec).- Hello, Max Age and Forward delay timer used only for backward compatibility with standard STP
	Only RSTP port receiving STP (802.1d) messages will behaves as standard STP.
Slow transition (50sec): Blocking (20s) =>Listening (15s) =>Learning (15s) =>Forwarding	Faster transition on point-to-point and edge ports only:Less states – No learning state, doesn’t wait to be informed by others, instead, actively looks for possible failure by RLQ (Request Link Query) a feedback mechanism.
Use only 2 bits from the flag octet:Bit 7 : Topology Change Acknowledgment.Bit 0 : Topology Change	Use other 6 bits of the flag octet (BPDU type 2/version 2): Bit 1 : ProposalBit 2, 3 : Port roleBit 4 : LearningBit 5 : ForwardingBit 6 : AgreementBit 0, 7 : TCA & TCN for backward compatibility
The bridge that discover a change in the network inform the root, that in turns informs all others by sending BPDU with TCA bit set and instruct them to clear their DB entries after “short timer” (~Forward delay) expire.	TC is flooded through the network, every bridge generate TC (Topology change) and inform its neighbors when it is aware of a topology change and immediately delete old DB entries.
If a non-root bridge doesn’t receive Hello for 10*Hello (advertised from the root), start claiming the root role by generating its own Hello.	Wait for 3*Hello on a root port (advertised from the root) before deciding to act.
Wait until TC reach the root + short timer (~Forward delay) expires, then flash all root DB entries	Delete immediately local DB except MAC of the port receiving the topology changes (proposal)

 

ICMP Ping Request World Map & Hilbert map

World map showing the 460 Million IP addresses that responded to ICMP ping requests or port scans from June and October 2012. World map of 24 hour relative average utilization of IPv4 addresses observed using ICMP ping requests.

Hilbert Map

Hilbert map of 24 hour relative average utilization of IPv4 addresses observed using ICMP ping requests.

 

Contrail: The Juniper SDN controller for virtual overlay network

Juniper Networks will launch a portfolio of software-defined networking products later this year under the brand name JunosV Contrail. The first Juniper SDN product -- available in the third quarter -- will be the Contrail Controller, which will initially provide centralized control for a virtual overlay network.

The Juniper SDN controller is based on technology Juniper acquired last year when it bought startup Contrail Systems. Today, JunosV Contrail Controller is an overlay network solution comparable to VMware NSX, Midokura MidoNet and Nuage Networks. The controller interacts with virtual switches on hypervisor hosts using Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) as its control plane protocol. Contrail Controller also uses Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) for control plane scaling across LANs and WANs.

"XMPP offers lower overhead and higher performance," said Joe Skorupa, vice president and distinguished analyst at Stamford, Conn.-based Gartner Inc. "And they use BGP for federation across controllers."

The Contrail Controller doesn't support OpenFlow or any other protocols for direct control of network hardware, but Juniper didn't rule out future support. For now, Juniper is focusing on delivering a virtual overlay network.

"Most of the infrastructure that is out there today either doesn't have OpenFlow capabilities on it or will require some upgrade to get it, which means rip and replace," said Brad Brooks, Juniper vice president of marketing and strategy. "The protocols we're using with Contrail mean you can overlay software right on top of existing infrastructure and get benefits right away. It's not to say we won't support OpenFlow [in our controller]. If it becomes a de facto standard for how to communicate with the underlying physical network, then we can put that in support for the controller. But we're really looking at and focusing on standard protocols that already exist in physical networks today."

Juniper SDN eyes carriers and enterprises with scale, open APIs

Juniper Networks Inc. is angling JunosV Contrail at both carriers and enterprises, said Jennifer Lin, senior director of product management for Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Juniper. Both are looking for "ways to drive better operational efficiency and ensure that the network is exposed as a service or set of services, and not just a siloed part of the infrastructure," she said.

To that end, Juniper is exposing a RESTful application programming interface (API), instantiating its own OpenStack Quantum plug-in, and announcing several partnerships geared toward integrating its SDN technology with leading cloud orchestration systems. It's partnering with Citrix on CloudStack integration and with Cloudscaling and Mirantis on OpenStack integration.

Contrail's scale-out control plane based on BGP will appeal to carriers, enterprises and cloud providers looking to federate controllers across the WAN.

"We're focused on how to get a scale-out control plane. … In this case, we're extending mature protocols like BGP, which run today's Internet, and linking together autonomous systems across IP networks," Lin said.

Juniper SDN will integrate overlay and underlay for diagnostics and analytics

Like other vendors who are enabling an SDN-like virtual overlay network, Juniper requires basic Layer 3 connectivity on the underlying physical network. Juniper hopes to differentiate itself from VMware and others by connecting the physical and virtual networks together.

"One difference between Juniper and VMware is that Juniper will link management of virtual and physical to enable debugging problems," Skorupa said. "Otherwise, figuring out if the [network] problem is in the overlay or the physical IP network is extremely difficult at best."

Juniper is working on bridging protocols like BGP and MPLS into its overlay network so JunosV Contrail can interact with Juniper's switches and routers to extract diagnostics and analytics from the physical network and combine it with the software overlay, Lin said. "We're able to correlate if something goes wrong in your pod," she said. "You have both the diagnostics of the virtual infrastructure as well as the physical underlay."

Integrating physical and overlay networks will be essential, according to Bob Laliberte, senior analyst with Milford, Mass.-based Enterprise Strategy Group.

"Just like you can't keep on provisioning virtual machines in physical servers without an understanding of what is going on (memory and CPU usage, etc.), these overlay networks need to understand what is going on in the physical infrastructure or underlay," he said.
 

After Taking Aim At The Server Industry, Facebook Targets Cisco

Facebook has made serious progress in its plans to revolutionize the $55 billion server industry and now wants to do the same for the network industry.

The two-year-old Facebook-led consortium called the Open Compute Project has announced plans to create an "open source" network switch.

This could disrupt the $22-billion-a-year Ethernet switch market that mostly belongs to Cisco. Cisco owns over 60% of it, according to IDC.

Najam Ahmad, who runs the network engineering team at Facebook, will lead this new OCP project.

A switch is a piece of hardware that connects different parts of a network and is a central piece of equipment for every enterprise network. OCP plans to make a new kind of switch designed from the get-go for "software-defined networking" (SDN) technology.

SDN is a new way to build networks. Instead of buying expensive hardware routers and switches with a lot of fancy features from companies like Cisco or Juniper, those fancy features are put into software. Companies can then use simpler, cheaper network hardware, and less of it.

A bunch of vendors have already signed on to support the new OCP switch. These include Big Switch Networks, Broadcom, Cumulus Networks, Intel, Netronome, and VMware.

The project also has support from two organizations working on the open source SDN software: the Open Networking
Foundation and the Linux foundation project known as OpenDaylight. Cisco is part of the OpenDaylight project.
The overall goal of the Open Compute Project is to build faster, cheaper hardware for big data centers. Its hardware designs are free for anyone to use and modify.

Eventually, OCP wants to completely change how all enterprise hardware is built the same way that Linux and open source software changed the way software is created.

 

Difference between T-MPLS & MPLS-TP

 

Understanding Mobile Router/Mobile Network

What does mobile IP do? It allows a mobile router to keep the same IP address while traveling from one network to another and provides IP connectivity to the IP hosts connecting through the mobile router. The hosts behind the mobile router are unaware of this mobility.

Mobile IP has three components:

1. Home agent (HA) - An HA is a router on the home network that maintains an association between the home IP address of the MR and the current care-of address of the MR on the foreign network. HA redirects packets by tunneling them to the MR while it is away from home (in the foreign network).

2. Foreign agent (FA) - An FA is a router on a foreign network that provides a care-of address to the MR. It also detunnels and delivers packets to the MR that were tunneled by the HA.

3. Mobile router (MR) - A mobile router, moves from one network or subnet to another, "hides" the IP roaming from the IP hosts connecting through this mobile router so that the local hosts appear to be directly attached to the home network.

Let's go through a quick example:

 

The HA R1 is advertising (“redistribute mobile”) reachability to the mobile network 140.80.1.0/24 (on the MR R3) to the internet, thereby attracting packets that are destined for this subnet. MR R3 will keep the same IP address 150.1.1.1 while roaming between its home network 150.1.1.0/24 and foreign networks 200.2.2.0/24, 200.6.6.0/24. So When MR R3 is in foreign network 200.2.2.0/24, it will acquire a care-of address 2.2.2.2 from the FA R2. After receiving the care-of address, the MR R3 will register this address with its HA R1. The HA R1 will create a mobility binding table that maps the home IP address 150.1.1.1 of the MR R3 to the current care-of address 2.2.2.2 of the MR R3.

Now when any device on the Internet, called a corresponding node (CN), sends a packet to the mobile network (more specifically to 140.80.1.1), the packet is routed to the HA R1. Then the HA R1 will double tunnel it (outer tunnel to FA R2 care-of address 2.2.2.2 and inner tunnel to MR R3 itself). The FA R2 removes the outer tunnel header and delivers the inner tunneled packet to the connected MR R3. MR R3 performs another decapsulation to deliver the packet to the destination node 140.80.1.1 on the mobile network.

However, packets sent from the mobile network 140.80.1.0/24 are routed directly to the CN unless a reverse tunnel is configured.

Let's check the configuration on those routers for IP mobility:

Rack1R1 (HA)

!
interface Loopback0
 description HA address
 ip address 1.1.1.1 255.255.255.0
!
interface FastEthernet0/0
 description home network
 ip address 150.1.1.254 255.255.255.0
!
interface FastEthernet0/1
 description connected to internet
 ip address 180.1.17.1 255.255.255.0
!
! Enables Mobile IP
router mobile
!
router ospf 1
! Redistributes the virtual network into the routing protocol
 redistribute mobile subnets
!
! Enables home agent service
ip mobile home-agent address 1.1.1.1
! Defines mobile router's home network as virtual network
ip mobile virtual-network 150.1.1.0 255.255.255.0
! Specifies mobile router on the virtual network
ip mobile host 150.1.1.1 virtual-network 150.1.1.0 255.255.255.0
! Specifies all the networks behind mobile router
ip mobile mobile-networks 150.1.1.1
 description network behind the mobile router
 network 140.80.1.0 255.255.255.0
! Enables security association between HA and MR
ip mobile secure host 150.1.1.1 spi 100 key ascii CISCO algorithm md5 mode prefix-suffix

Rack1R2 (FA)

!
interface Loopback0
 description care-of-address
 ip address 2.2.2.2 255.255.255.0
!
interface FastEthernet0/0
 description foreign network
 ip address 200.2.2.254 255.255.255.0
! Enables foreign agent service on an interface
 ip mobile foreign-service
 ip mobile registration-lifetime 60
! Enables IRDP
 ip irdp
 ip irdp maxadvertinterval 4
 ip irdp minadvertinterval 3
!
interface FastEthernet0/1
 description connected to internet
 ip address 180.1.27.2 255.255.255.0
!
! Enables Mobile IP
router mobile
!
! Enables foreign agent service globally with the care-of-address
ip mobile foreign-agent care-of Loopback0

Rack1R3 (MR)

!
interface Loopback0
 description mobile network
 ip address 140.80.1.1 255.255.255.0
!
interface Ethernet0/0
 description the roaming interface
 ip address 150.1.1.1 255.255.255.0
! Enables roaming on an interface
 ip mobile router-service roam
!
! Enables Mobile IP
router mobile
!
! Enables security association between MR and HA
ip mobile secure home-agent 1.1.1.1 spi 100 key ascii CISCO algorithm md5 mode prefix-suffix
! Enables the mobile router 
ip mobile router
 address 150.1.1.1 255.255.255.0
 home-agent 1.1.1.1

We will do some testing and verification when mobile router R3 is in the foreign network 200.2.2.0/24 on R2.

Rack1R1#show ip route | inc ^M
M       140.80.1.0 [3/1] via 0.0.0.0, 00:15:18, Tunnel0
M       150.1.1.1/32 [3/1] via 2.2.2.2, 00:15:18, Tunnel1

Rack1R1#show ip mobile binding 
Mobility Binding List:
Total 1
150.1.1.1: 
    Care-of Addr 2.2.2.2, Src Addr 2.2.2.2
    Lifetime granted 00:01:00 (60), remaining 00:00:55
    Flags sbdmg-t-, Identification CE22A5D5.F4C99770
    Tunnel1 src 1.1.1.1 dest 2.2.2.2 reverse-allowed
    MR Tunnel0 src 1.1.1.1 dest 150.1.1.1 reverse-allowed
    Routing Options - 
    Mobile Networks: 140.80.1.0/255.255.255.0 (S)

Rack1R1#sh ip mobile tunnel
Mobile Tunnels:

Total mobile ip tunnels 0
Tunnel0:
    src 1.1.1.1, dest 2.2.2.2
    encap IP/IP, mode reverse-allowed, tunnel-users 1
    Input ACL users 0, Output ACL users 0
    IP MTU 1480 bytes
    Path MTU Discovery, mtu: 0, ager: 10 mins, expires: never
    outbound interface FastEthernet0/1
    HA created, fast switching enabled, ICMP unreachable enabled
    5 minute input rate 0 bits/sec, 0 packets/sec
    5 minute output rate 0 bits/sec, 0 packets/sec
    0 packets input, 0 bytes, 0 drops
    20 packets output, 23125 bytes
Tunnel1:
    src 1.1.1.1, dest 150.1.1.1
    encap IP/IP, mode reverse-allowed, tunnel-users 1
    Input ACL users 0, Output ACL users 0
    IP MTU 1460 bytes
    Path MTU Discovery, mtu: 0, ager: 10 mins, expires: never
    outbound interface Tunnel0
    HA created, fast switching enabled, ICMP unreachable enabled
Mobile Tunnels:

    5 minute input rate 0 bits/sec, 0 packets/sec
    5 minute output rate 0 bits/sec, 0 packets/sec
    0 packets input, 0 bytes, 0 drops
    20 packets output, 22725 bytes

Rack1R1#show ip mobile mobile-networks
Mobile Networks:
MR 150.1.1.1 [network behind the mobile router]:
    Configured: 140.80.1.0/255.255.255.0
    Registered:

Rack1R2#sh ip route | be Gateway
Gateway of last resort is not set

     1.0.0.0/24 is subnetted, 1 subnets
O       1.1.1.0 [110/3] via 180.1.27.7, 15:28:38, FastEthernet0/1
O    222.22.2.0/24 [110/2] via 180.1.27.7, 15:28:48, FastEthernet0/1
     2.0.0.0/24 is subnetted, 1 subnets
C       2.2.2.0 is directly connected, Loopback0
O    200.6.6.0/24 [110/3] via 180.1.27.7, 15:28:48, FastEthernet0/1
     140.80.0.0/24 is subnetted, 1 subnets
O E2    140.80.1.0 [110/20] via 180.1.27.7, 00:29:32, FastEthernet0/1
     6.0.0.0/24 is subnetted, 1 subnets
O       6.6.6.0 [110/3] via 180.1.27.7, 15:28:48, FastEthernet0/1
C    200.2.2.0/24 is directly connected, FastEthernet0/0
     180.1.0.0/24 is subnetted, 3 subnets
O       180.1.17.0 [110/2] via 180.1.27.7, 15:28:48, FastEthernet0/1
C       180.1.27.0 is directly connected, FastEthernet0/1
O       180.1.67.0 [110/2] via 180.1.27.7, 15:28:48, FastEthernet0/1
     150.1.0.0/16 is variably subnetted, 2 subnets, 2 masks
O       150.1.1.0/24 [110/3] via 180.1.27.7, 00:29:32, FastEthernet0/1
M       150.1.1.1/32 [3/1] via 150.1.1.1, 00:30:09, FastEthernet0/0
                     [3/1] via 150.1.1.1, 00:00:08, FastEthernet0/0

Rack1R2#sh ip mobile tunnel
Mobile Tunnels:

Total mobile ip tunnels 0
Tunnel0:
    src 2.2.2.2, dest 1.1.1.1
    encap IP/IP, mode reverse-allowed, tunnel-users 1
    Input ACL users 0, Output ACL users 0
    IP MTU 1480 bytes
    Path MTU Discovery, mtu: 0, ager: 10 mins, expires: never
    outbound interface FastEthernet0/1
    FA created, fast switching enabled, ICMP unreachable enabled
    5 minute input rate 0 bits/sec, 0 packets/sec
    5 minute output rate 0 bits/sec, 0 packets/sec
    20 packets input, 23125 bytes, 0 drops
    0 packets output, 0 bytes

Rack1R2#show ip mobile globals
IP Mobility global information:
Home Agent is not enabled

Foreign Agent

    Pending registrations expire after 7 secs
    Care-of addresses advertised
    Mobile network route injection disabled

        Loopback0 (2.2.2.2) - up

1 interface providing service
Encapsulations supported: IPIP and GRE
Tunnel fast switching enabled, cef switching enabled
Tunnel path MTU discovery aged out after 10 min
NAT UDP Tunneling support enabled
UDP Tunnel Keepalive 110
Forced UDP Tunneling disabled

Rack1R2#show ip mobile visitor 
Mobile Visitor List:
Total 1
150.1.1.1:
    Interface FastEthernet0/0, MAC addr 0006.533a.2581
    IP src 150.1.1.1, dest 200.2.2.254, UDP src port 434
    HA addr 1.1.1.1, Identification CE22AC48.A0CA5400
    Lifetime 00:01:00 (60) Remaining 00:00:32
    Tunnel0 src 2.2.2.2, dest 1.1.1.1, reverse-allowed
    Routing Options - 

Rack1R2#show ip mobile interface
IP Mobility interface information:
Interface FastEthernet0/0:
    IRDP (includes agent advertisement) enabled
    Prefix Length not advertised
    Lifetime is 60 seconds
    Foreign Agent service provided
    Foreign Agent challenge disabled
    Reverse tunnel not supported
    No registration required
    Not busy
    Home Agent access list:
    Registration revocation disabled
         Current number of visitors: 1

Rack1R3#sh ip route | be Gateway
Gateway of last resort is 200.2.2.254 to network 0.0.0.0

     1.0.0.0/32 is subnetted, 1 subnets
M       1.1.1.1 [3/1] via 200.2.2.254, 00:50:11, Ethernet0/0
     140.80.0.0/24 is subnetted, 1 subnets
C       140.80.1.0 is directly connected, Loopback0
     200.2.2.0/32 is subnetted, 1 subnets
M       200.2.2.254 [3/1] via 200.2.2.254, 00:50:11, Ethernet0/0
     150.1.0.0/24 is subnetted, 1 subnets
C       150.1.1.0 is directly connected, Ethernet0/0
M*   0.0.0.0/0 [3/1] via 200.2.2.254, 00:50:11, Ethernet0/0

Rack1R3#sh ip mobile tunnel
Mobile Tunnels:

Total mobile ip tunnels 1
Tunnel0:
    src 150.1.1.1, dest 1.1.1.1
    encap IP/IP, mode reverse-allowed, tunnel-users 1
    IP MTU 1480 bytes
    Path MTU Discovery, mtu: 0, ager: 10 mins, expires: never
    outbound interface Ethernet0/0
    MR created, fast switching enabled, ICMP unreachable enabled
    5 minute input rate 0 bits/sec, 0 packets/sec
    5 minute output rate 0 bits/sec, 0 packets/sec
    20 packets input, 22725 bytes, 0 drops
    0 packets output, 0 bytes

Rack1R3#show ip mobile router

Mobile Router
    Enabled 08/03/09 21:04:42
    Last redundancy state transition NEVER

Configuration:
    Home Address 150.1.1.1 Mask 255.255.255.0
    Home Agent 1.1.1.1 Priority 100 (best) (current)
    Registration lifetime 65534 sec
    Retransmit Init 1000, Max 5000 msec, Limit 3
    Extend Expire 120, Retry 3, Interval 10

Monitor:
    Status -Registered-
    Active foreign agent 200.2.2.254, Care-of 2.2.2.2
    On interface Ethernet0/0
    Tunnel0 mode IP/IP

Rack1R6#ping 140.80.1.1 size 1460 df-bit 

Type escape sequence to abort.
Sending 5, 1460-byte ICMP Echos to 140.80.1.1, timeout is 2 seconds:
Packet sent with the DF bit set
!!!!!
Success rate is 100 percent (5/5), round-trip min/avg/max = 8/8/8 ms

Rack1R6#ping 140.80.1.1 size 1461 df-bit 

Type escape sequence to abort.
Sending 5, 1461-byte ICMP Echos to 140.80.1.1, timeout is 2 seconds:
Packet sent with the DF bit set
M.M.M
Success rate is 0 percent (0/5)

Rack1R6#trace 140.80.1.1                 

Type escape sequence to abort.
Tracing the route to 140.80.1.1

  1 180.1.67.7 4 msec 4 msec 0 msec
  2 180.1.17.1 4 msec 0 msec 0 msec
  3 150.1.1.1 4 msec *  0 msec

 

Four Steps for Optimising Customer Service Operations

 

Customers want efficient, effortless service from the touchpoint and communication channel of their choice. They want to receive accurate, relevant, and complete answers to their questions upon first contact with a company.

 

Forrester data backs this up: Sixty-six percent of customers agree that valuing their time is the most important thing a company can do to provide good service. Forty-five percent of US online adults will abandon their online purchase if they can’t find a quick answer to their question. Why is it so important to deliver on customer expectations? Customer satisfaction correlates to customer loyalty, and loyalty has economic benefits.

 

Forrester calculates that a 10-percentage-point improvement in a company’s customer experience score can translate into more than $1 billion in revenue. Conversely, poor customer experiences are costly: Our data shows that 75% of consumers move to another channel when online service fails, which can incur a cost of many millions of dollars.

 

We also know that it is difficult to deliver customer service in line with customer expectations. Our customer service technology ecosystem is increasingly complex. Social technologies have disrupted traditional communications, and smartphones and tablets have made the delivery of consistent experiences across touchpoints more challenging. And the number of vendor mergers and acquisitions has complicated vendor selection.

 

So how do you do better? Forrester’s customer service playbook details a four-step prescription that can help you out:

 

Discover what matters for customer service. Understand customer-facing, agent-facing, and technology trends that are shaping the future of customer service-trends like changes in communication channel usage by demographic, mobility solutions for customer service, the value of tighter coupling of knowledge management to case management, BPM adoption, the rising importance of outsourcing, cloud-based technologies, and the evolving technology landscape.

 

Plan for improvements. Assess your current operations against best practices to understand your strengths and pinpoint areas of opportunity. This will help you build a concrete plan for improvements and lay out a technology adoption road map. It will help you answer questions such as

“Do I first fix my IVR navigation, launch web self-service, or update my case management solution?”

 

Act on your findings. With your planning in place, it’s time to choose whether to outsource customer service operations and/or technology, buy it from a vendor, or, in unique cases, build it yourself. This decision is very important, as the vendor landscape is broad, mature, and rife with mergers and acquisitions. Partnering with the right technology provider can make or break your operations.

 

Optimise. Customer service is no longer viewed as just a cost centre. Key success metrics have historically focused on productivity, efficiency, and regulatory compliance instead of customer satisfaction. However, forward-thinking organisations are gradually adopting a Balanced Scorecard of metrics that include not only cost and compliance, but also customer satisfaction, which is more suited to drive the right agent behaviour and deliver outcomes better aligned to customer expectations.

 

Customer Experience Is Greatest Untapped Source of Profits

Courtesy - Computer world


Analyst firm Forrester claims that customer experience is the greatest untapped source of profits in business today, and that projects commissioned to target this are putting pressure on technology departments.

Harley Manning, co-author of “Outside In: The Power of Putting your Customers at the Centre of your Business”, told Computerworld UK that companies need to rethink how they approach customer experience.

“If you look at customer experience from the perspective of what it can do to decrease your costs, what it can do to increase your revenue, and then look at the return on investment from doing those kind of projects, then the discussion of customer experience happens on a very different level and you realise that is probably the greatest untapped source of profits in business today,” said Manning.

“If you set out to be the best in the world at marketing you would struggle because it is a mature discipline and well understood. However, if you said you are going to focus on providing a better customer experience than your competitors, suddenly you are competing in a different arena.”

Manning said that it is hard to assess your systems internally to understand what impact they are having on the customer’s experience, and as a result the technology department should take an ‘outwards-in’ perspective, whereby it assesses every point at which the customer interacts with the business.

“Take each of those touches that the customer has with your company. Perhaps in a retail location, over the phone, on a website, on a mobile app—looking at whether the underlying people, processes, policies and technologies that contributed to the experience that the customer had at each of those points makes you quickly realise that you have an opportunity to do very specific things with technology to improve that experience,” he said.

Bill Band, principal analyst for Application Development & Delivery at Forrester, agreed with Manning and said that companies are beginning to waken up to the benefits of making customer experience a priority, which is placing pressure on IT departments.

“Improving customer experience is putting new demands on technology departments. In particular, one thing that I have noticed is that the projects that get backing tend to cluster around digital interactions with customers because in this day and age a lot of these revolve around mobile or web.

“As a result, a lot more technology-heavy projects are being commissioned around these customer experiences,” said Band.

“Also, the role of technology employees inside these organisations is changing as companies start to focus more on the customer experience. Technology employees have to become more strategic,” he added.

“There is more of a spotlight being placed on the IT organisation to help execute business strategy. So it’s no longer about maintenance and support, these people are now important strategic assets. A lot of them are moving out of pure IT roles into business technology roles and are moving closer to marketing/sales business units.”

The book will be published on 28 August and includes more than 80 case studies from across 15 industries in 16 countries, including examples from Boeing, E.ON Energy, FedEx, T-Mobile and Virgin Media.