Today, we are witnessing a world where disruption, mobility and digital are words dominating the workplace, requiring us to live and breathe the results of the technological revolution. And empowering the user with the right tools is vital!
Now more than ever, especially here in Asia with the plunge in currency, we will begin to see every type of business adopt technology practices that are furthering their offerings, to the benefits of themselves and their consumers. Organisations are increasingly on the lookout for solutions to reduce costs for their business.
Organisations should continue to be committed to enhancing the customer experience, giving the users the ultimate level of empowered connectivity.
But it’s not always about making things aesthetically pleasing; although visualisation does play a significant part in user satisfaction. It’s more about creating an organisational and technological framework that can be easily used and accessed by anyone at any given time.
Access to information can now be instantaneous across multiple devices, requiring an information depository system that is fluid and interoperable. Organisations must aim to adapt to this dynamic exchange – the giving and receiving of information – a platform that can handle Cloud and on-premise solutions to maximise customer experience.
Potential for heightened customer experience
In order to do so, there are some key drivers to customer experience that need to be considered to empower connectivity.
Firstly, it is vital to recognise that while Cloud remains to be a pivotal driver, we need to understand that the world remains hybrid. This suggests that businesses are connected traditionally via on-premise and the Cloud.
Ensuring a seamless integration between online and on-premise is critical to the success of hybrid connectivity. Organisations need to adopt a solution that provides users with agile business options and improved productivity while maintaining control of their critical information assets with either cloud or hybrid cloud options.
Organisations are favouring speed of solutions and how they can achieve this at at a cost effective level, this will be through Cloud. However, there is a maturity curve in local context for companies to place their assets into the cloud. The security, ease-of-use and cost-savings that comes with working in the Cloud should provide an easy choice for storage and access to information instantly for employees.
Secondly, no two organisations operate in the same way. Each run on different systems, they adhere to different timelines, manufacture different products or provided services and deploy technology specific to their needs. As a result of varying requirements, it has been increasingly difficult for off-the-shelf solutions to penetrate the work place.
In addition to this, there are certain functions within IT that will be adopted faster than others. CRM will continue to dominate the market, but Human Resources and Finance are good candidates for cloud adoption. To address different requirements, organisations are beginning to acknowledge the immediate need to build light-weight applications that are easy-to-use and fast to deploy in order to achieve small short sprints to achieve results. But more and more, we see the need for applications to work seamlessly alongside one another.
These interoperable or federated applications involve several databases that function as a single entity, whilst having the ability to operate separately, and completely self-sustained and functional. The ability for solutions to work as one entity gives the user the feeling of empowered connectivity.
Thirdly, as users are connected to more than one device, mobility is absolutely essential. However, we as a workforce, are well beyond mobility as a self-service. It’s about ensuring a compelling experience leveraged from the over-connected nature of todays technological landscape.
Usability across desktops, tablets and mobile provides the user with a fluid, enjoyable and seamless experience. A multi-platform interface fundamentally changes the nature of work, and the way we engage with our work; data and information is available at the hands of the user anytime, anywhere. Harnessing this potential will see it become a powerful asset when used well/effectively.
In addition to the points above, data will have a prominent role in enhancing customer experience. Analytics will continue to be the front and center of any conversation. Through analytics, organisations have insights, live to action and live to reports. All this data can be transformed into methods to increase customer experience and retention.
Lastly, we are looking at a very different workforce than that of 10-15 years ago. Certain organisations are seeing that more than 50% of the workforce are millennials and the presence of Generation Z is seeing an increase. That’s a huge number of young workers that seek out very specific working conditions.
This is not to say that a total re-shift is needed to pander to them in any way, but more to be aware of how they work effectively and efficiently for the better of your business. For example, the Gen Z and Millennials operate in an immediate fashion – “I want it now” type attitude. They think and work quite differently, but by leveraging this workforce you will see a huge difference.
Developing apps and environments that work for them will ultimately work for you too. They’ve grown up interacting with technology and as a result their demands may seem out of place, but in reality their demands are an indication of the direction organisations need to navigate towards.
Time to reflect
User experience in today’s fast-paced working world is absolutely vital. This includes mobility, Cloud and hybrid technology, easy-to-use and light-weight applications and a shifting workforce towards millennials and Generation Z.
Our future lies in the way we analyse and use the huge quantities of data we will inevitably have at our disposal. Getting a handle on how to use this information via multiple platforms, as well as ensuring the ultimate customer journey and experience, will provide businesses with the tools and knowledge it needs to exist in today’s fast-paced working economy.
Mao Gen Foo is the Vice President Asia at OpenText