In the good old days before technology stormed the world,
interactions were always in person; people met each other and remembered faces,
names, salient points about professional and personal lives. Conversations were
the way to engage, communicate, serve and ask for services. This was typically
followed up with some paperwork to record the intent and agreement between the
interested parties. Business was all about people connecting with people,
building relationships and sustaining them over a lifetime.
Initially technology was all about automation, to create
faster processes reducing execution time. It was followed by reengineered
process automation with workflows to reduce paper movement between involved
stakeholders and approvers. The internet revolution offered remote working
capabilities extending the reach of technology enabled workloads; mobile data and
smartphones broke the last barrier creating a mobile workforce that could work
on the go anytime, anywhere, as long as they were connected.
First few deployments were selective with the devices being
seen as status symbols to be proudly flouted when in meetings or with friends; as
the price points dropped exception became the rule and almost every employee
and manager was equipped with a device or connectivity. Expectations rose with
every audible or vibrating message alert wanting to be attended to immediately
intruding into life, breaking relationships, pushing the limits, creating
compulsive disorders and medical conditions unknown thus far.
Technology continued to evolve, get better and smarter
creating new possibilities; every manager now expected to know adequately every
function that impacts their working. Start with Attendance, Leave and Travel,
Vouchers, Expenses and Reimbursement, Delegation of Authorities and approvals,
Budgeting and Expenses, Revenue and Profitability, Resource Planning, Manpower
allocation, Hiring to Attrition Management, Outsourcing to Contractor
Management, everything has converged in the new Digital World.
It was a matter of time that self-service became the norm,
the default way of working; the rising bar continued to push the limits of
workloads that could be transferred to the staff and reducing the “overhead”
costs at Branch, Region and Head offices. The App world completes the
delegation of work with no option; quicker, faster, cheaper being the mantra,
the inflection point reached rather quickly with every new proposition adding
to the checklist of the busy executive, manager and 24X7 worker, no option, no
choices.
Cost cutting and optimization continues to challenge
enterprises and their constituents pushing the proverbial envelope
continuously; enterprise solutions were never designed for self-service,
functionality that was added with evolution and time. After the initial set of
training conducted with operationalization of the system, people were left to
their own devices to understand and use the systems. As time taken for self-service
tasks kept increasing, exceptions too rose simultaneously casting shadows on
efficiency and effectiveness.
Managers having the option reverted to paper and delegated
the chore to their Assistants creating a gap in the process and eliminating
benefits that could have been accrued with solutions deployed. Organizations
continue to push the change agenda in the endeavor to keep elevating
operational efficiency. With limited connect to ground realities, the seeping
inefficiencies go unnoticed until a new wave is created to review why the
business growth or profitability is challenged in a growing industry or market.
Industry is witness to the fact that today customers are
being cajoled into self-service of all types; drop boxes, machines and kiosks,
websites, portals, and mobile apps. Did they embrace it willingly and thanked
the providers ? Probably yes in a few cases considering the people based
services were minimalistic and did not create customer delight; for the rest it
was initial euphoria of owning your destiny and controlling the way you are
served which later turned into frustrated experiences with unresponsive unaligned
backend resources.
Today technology providers are building systems that obviate
the need for technical resources to build and deploy solutions. Business
self-service is the new mantra where functional users are being egged to drop
their dependence on IT resources and implement business friendly solutions. History
again appears to be repeating itself with most Business Users enthusiastically
wanting to take up the offer, again based on past unsatisfactory experiences
from IT and technology vendors; shadow IT is being touted as a good thing !
Attending the launch of a new disruptive solution, the pitch
was all about self-service by anyone who wanted to use it; their journey next
time…
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