Achieving Digital Transformation

Transcription

1 Achieving Digital Transformation IT departments require a transformation platform to help them elevate user experiences and business outcomes. By Nicholas Brigman, Vice President, Technology Strategy The IT life cycle has changed dramatically. End users demand a consumer-like IT experience. The business requires IT to be predictive and agile. And IT support needs to become more automated. The solution is a digital transformation platform that positions organizations to achieve their strategic goals through measurable improvement in user experiences. 1

2 The Power of CompuCom ASCEND TM What if you could implement a single platform to help automate IT support? What if you could resolve IT issues based on business and end-user needs? What if you could focus on new initiatives rather than routine tasks? What if you could execute all IT transactions at the best price point? What if you could procure the technologies that most effectively drive business growth? The contract between the IT department and the end user, between the IT department and the business, and even between the IT department and technology itself has changed dramatically. In particular, the traditional approach to IT support no longer reflects today s business environment. There are three sources of this disconnect. First, end users have become accustomed to the speed, ease of use and accessibility of the technology they use at home. They now demand an empowering and enriching consumer experience from the technology they consume at the office. They aren t satisfied with existing IT support, and their satisfaction and productivity suffer as a result. As Gartner puts it, we are at the dawn of a new era of IT deployment styles, one that we call the era of consumer-led IT. 1 Second, business needs IT to become more predictive, more agile and more costeffective in support of digital business agendas. Across every industry, organizations are pursuing digital transformation. IDC defines digital transformation as leveraging digital competencies to innovate new business models, products and services that seamlessly blend digital and physical. 2 The status quo of traditional IT services and support is no longer fast enough, flexible enough or engaging enough to respond to the digital imperative. The traditional approach to IT support no longer reflects today s business environment. Finally, rising technical complexity and device diversity require both broader and deeper skills across the IT life cycle. As CompTIA notes, industries across the U.S. economy have ramped up their investment in internal software development, IT support, cybersecurity, data analytics and related skills. 3 But investment in manual processes won t be enough. The proliferation of devices and applications alone makes it extremely challenging for technicians to deliver the right level of support without the help of automation. The digital platform positions organizations to achieve their strategic goals through measurable improvement in end-user experiences. By design, is designed for action that action being to directly address IT s role in digital enablement. The Drive Toward Artificial Intelligence (AI) IT has tinkered with the precursors of automation for 20 years with scripts, scheduling and runbooks to ease complexity and speed. Now, three factors are driving IT toward more automated and intelligent operations. 1 Elevate the Employee Experience With Consumer-Oriented IT Service Delivery, Gartner, April IDC Forecasts Worldwide Spending on Digital Transformation Technologies Will Surpass $2 Trillion in 2019, IDC, January IT Industry Outlook 2016, CompTIA, January

3 First is what Gartner calls the Nexus of Forces. 4 This convergence of mobile, cloud, social media and big data feeds the digital craze to create new business opportunities. Second is the Experience Economy, which taught us that every touch with a customer drives the brand and that each experience can be designed and managed. And third is Digital Business, which is leading the C-suite to demand digital services that drive agility, new channels, cost savings and growth. These advances and expectations are driving automation across four interdependent paths: 1. In business process automation, we re progressing from trigger-based, to rules-based, to natural language processing, where intent is expressed in prose and diagram, not just code. 2. In IT best practices, we re advancing from ITIL, to DevOps, to modern services management, where process standards and libraries move from isolated tools to digital services inside a service-oriented architecture (SOA). 3. In technology management, we re moving from orchestration, to process automation, to cognitive computing, where automation can articulate why it did something. 4. In data and analytics, we re transitioning from structured data, to unstructured data, to self-defining data structures that move from warehouses to massive data lakes and exploration ponds. Each IT organization has made some level of progress in one or more of these areas based on its unique business challenges. Still, there remains a wide gulf between where IT exists today and where it needs to be to serve the organization going forward. (See Figure 1.) Figure 1: The Four Dimensions of Reimagined IT Support Technology-centric, slow, manual process becomes HUMAN CENTRIC, EXPEDIENT, PREDICTIVE PROCESSES. Rigid, one-size-fits-all support becomes HIGHLY PERSONALIZED, EMPOWERING USER EXPERIENCES. DIGITAL PARADIGM Inflexible, unresponsive support becomes GREATER AGILITY TO ADAPT TO BUSINESS REQUIREMENTS. Reactive, costly support becomes AUTOMATED, PROACTIVE SUPPORT AT A FRACTION OF THE COST. IT must transform from a technology-centric approach based on slow, manual processes to human-centered designs built on rapid, automated processes. IT also needs to replace rigid, one-size-fits-all support with highly personalized end-user experiences that drive greater satisfaction and productivity. In addition, IT must move away from inflexible, unresponsive support processes toward greater agility in adapting to changing business requirements. And finally, IT must replace reactive, expensive support processes with increasingly automated, proactive support experiences which you should be able to deliver at a much lower long-term cost than your existing support. In response to these needs, many IT service providers have been talking about a shift-left approach to IT support. The idea is to use automation to make IT more efficient and to lower IT costs. But this is a purely IT-centric approach. It doesn t improve end-user experiences, optimize end-user productivity and support strategic goals for digital business. 4 Gartner 2016 Hype Cycles Reveal Four Megatrends, Gartner, September

4 Addressing Every User s Needs and Expectations If we want to improve experiences, we need to recognize what makes people happy and productive. While many models exist to measure experience, CompuCom has developed a simple mnemonic to reflect key factors most often expressed by participants in IT service delivery. (See Figure 2.) The Five Es to measure Digital Transformation are: 1. Empowerment Involves engaging each person and delivering the technology solutions they require without multiple touches and transfers, and doing so while complying with corporate policy. 2. Enrichment Anticipates and supplies guidance in the form of choices and insights enabling and even inspiring employees to do their best work and drive business results. 3. Expedience Reduces the total time to complete the ask and supply what s chosen or resolve what needs fixing. 4. Efficiency Focuses on reducing overall cost and effort being mindful to look at the mix of skills needed and preferred choices. 5. Effectiveness Increases successful outcomes and process consistency based on the situation and expectations communicated to the user. measures progress in these five aspects of the user experiences for IT service delivery. The result is data-driven insight into every engagement. Figure 2: The Five Es of Elevated Experiences & Outcomes EMPOWERMENT Reduce the number of touches, redirects & resupplies of information. ENRICHMENT Anticipate & supply guidance for next steps & actions to success. EXPEDIENCE Reduce the time to get what is wanted or required. USER SATISFACTION EFFICIENCY Reduce the total cost of operations or ownership. EFFECTIVENESS Increase successful outcomes & process consistency. 4

5 drives digital transformation based on technologies, data and best practices. Paths to AI drives digital transformation based on technologies, data and best practices some of which you may already have in place. The platform reflects seven essential paths of innovation to AI. (See Figure 3.) All paths work together to accomplish the Five Es and integrate with existing systems and tools. 1. Services and data integration Changes the way you connect services and data to leverage the best technology, services and partners. It starts with master data management, includes API-SOA connectors, and establishes a federated configuration management database (CMDB) that respects the system of record. Data moves from relational to graph and NoSQL databases. 2. Personas and relationships Establishes profiles and tracking of relationships between users, devices, things and apps. To automate IT support, every end user, device and thing needs to have an identity. It moves from traditional access management to relationship management, as policy needs to specify permissions between entities. Short-term benefits include advantages such as self-service password reset and other persona-based efficiencies expressed in portals and apps. 3. Actionable analytics and knowledge Changes the way we understand human and system behavior to make better choices and uncover opportunities. It begins with persona and IT service management (ITSM) analytics and insights. It includes self-service knowledge automation, which changes the dynamics around content management and curation, exposing it to users with natural language search interfaces. Figure 3: The Seven Paths of Innovation to AI HOW USERS EXPERIENCE ASCEND PERSONAS & RELATIONSHIPS SERVICES & DATA INTEGRATION HOW ASCEND BECOMES SMARTER ACTIONABLE ANALYTICS & KNOWLEDGE TECH & USER MOBILE APPS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE ENDPOINT & SERVICE ORCHESTRATION SERVICE-OWNER PORTALS PROBLEM-SOLVING AUTOMATION 5

6 From ASCEND to Outcomes The purpose of isn t simply to revamp IT support, but to achieve business results: Better agility automates support to give IT greater flexibility and speed to adapt to changing business requirements. Better experiences delivers a more personalized and responsive engagement to improve end-user experiences and satisfaction. Better productivity allows end users to get back to work faster and to use IT more effectively to do their jobs better. 4. Endpoint and service orchestration Simplifies the management of all technology, from endpoints to services. A common orchestration system enables a standard interface for users, technicians and problem-solving AI platforms. Short-term benefits include better device management, efficient infrastructure management and improved security. 5. Tech and user mobile apps Leverages mobility to empower users, technicians and other stakeholders across ecosystems. Users experience a common mobile interface to conduct self-service, chat with the service desk or schedule appointments at walk-up IT service centers. 6. Problem-solving automation Resolves issues, fulfills requests, routes work and articulates progress as powerful AI platforms diagnose, remediate and validate fixes and process service requests. It can extend across infrastructure services, desktops and the service desk. 7. Service-owner portals Enables service owners to visualize their operations and manage outcomes in new ways. It changes the way users interact through a portal and improves the experience for technology buyers. It extends to a nextgeneration portal influenced by a persona and that person s role in the IT ecosystem. transforms how organizations anticipate, create and deliver services across the IT life cycle. Elevating User Experiences and Outcomes In pursuing digital transformation, some organizations will want to establish a custom road map that fits their appetite for risk and investment in legacy tools. Our Innovation Delivery Framework (IDF ) helps with the sequence and focus of IT projects to achieve digital transformation. It aligns IT with business needs to support strategic objectives and drives project execution from validation to reporting and analysis. Ultimately, empowers organizations to migrate their traditional support infrastructure to modern service delivery. The innovative platform transforms how organizations anticipate, create and deliver services across the IT life cycle elevating user experiences and business outcomes. 6

7 ABOUT COMPUCOM CompuCom Systems, Inc., a global company headquartered in the U.S., provides IT managed services, infrastructure solutions, consulting and products to Fortune 1000 companies committed to enhancing their end users experience. Founded in 1987, privately held CompuCom employs approximately 11,500 associates. For more information, visit CompuCom Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. CompuCom is a registered trademark, and CompuCom ASCEND, ASCEND, Innovation Delivery Framework and IDF are trademarks, of CompuCom Systems, Inc. All other trademarks and product names mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners in the United States, Canada and/or other countries and are used with permission. All articles and studies quoted herein are the property of the author and are used with permission. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. CompTIA is a registered trademark of The Computing Technology Industry Association, Inc. Gartner is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. IDC is a registered trademark of International Data Group, Inc. ITIL is a registered trademark of AXELOS. 7