Recent customer visits always both remind and amaze me how fast news travels and how hard sustained competitive advantage must be to create and deliver.

In the span of four days, three customers mentioned to me a specific undertaking they were going to launch in order to create a winning play within a certain industry vertical. The personnel from any of the three companies could have swapped places, and the conversation still would have gone the same—they were essentially pursuing the same strategy and contact center technology choices. This speaks to the idea that execution, or in other words, "getting things done," ultimately leads to success and real results. Then there’s Nicholas Carr's "Does IT Matter," which stirred quite a provocative debate. IT can be a kind of "invisible engine" that creates platforms which differentiated services can be built upon.

Perhaps all of this leads to the notion that common processes and technologies between companies still leave opportunities for innovation. Customer contact is certainly a solution area where such innovation can thrive. It’s also where competitive advantage can be created and maintained by combining platforms, excellent execution, and disruptive technologies delivered from the Web 2.0 domain.