Zhen Tao, CIO at Paycor

How do you stay abreast of what your competitors are doing in the IT space? 

“At Paycor, we are in the technology space. I would even differentiate it from the internal IT enabling. Our technology is how we make a living – it empowers our business and our business is completely surrounding that technology. So it is important for us to know what competitors have been doing, are doing and will be doing. It’s about listening to our customers and having constant curiosity in our learning. Appreciating why a prospective customer might still be using a competitors’ seemingly inferior product allows us to gain insight to some of the angles that we might otherwise not consider. When we work from a humbleness and willingness to learn; when we are willing to ask questions of our customers, to look at demos of competitors’ solutions, to compare ourselves – all of it helps us to be better informed.  If we are not the best, we want to know why and we want to get better.

Out of a recent pilot launch we did a year ago with an Affordable Care Act product, we got great feedback on how it was doing. So by the start of this year, I began testing it with a message declaring that we believe our Affordable Care Act product is the best in class. It took some courage to risk putting out that message, I’m usually very cautious, but the test was to invite emotional feedback. If I care to say that we’re the best, then I trust that anyone who disagrees with me will push back emotionally to make sure I know!  It was interesting to find that we got even more supporting evidence that our product was a success; people were echoing and resonating with that message. Not only did we learn and confirm that best-in-class message in a check-box sort of way, but clients were also telling us stories about how and why they felt competitors’ solutions fell short of the innovation, usability and thoughtful simplicity that our product delivered.

Our mission is to solve for our clients’ needs in the best way, so this is our purpose in staying abreast of what our competitors are doing. It means that we are looking at why we are doing what we are doing.  When we watched a demo of one competitor’s solution, a survey of 10 questions, we discovered that the software would insist that a client answer all ten questions, even if the answer to the first question eliminated the need for further questions. The competitor’s solution in effect didn’t care about the client’s answers, but insisted that the survey be completed. We realized that this wouldn’t happen in a normal conversation - you or I would walk away from someone who persisted in asking questions that didn’t make sense. So it was an Aha moment that allowed us to reflect on our own surveys and realize how we can build them better.”