Heading

My kids always like their Pancakes slathered in maple syrup with a topping of fresh banana and strawberry slices. They never ate it any other way. Never imagined it any other way. However, today morning there were no banana or fresh strawberry at home, and the only offer to them was a topping of sliced apples. Very reluctantly, they tried it – and to everyone’s surprise, they liked it! So much so – I can see a future where they might ask for pancakes with apple slices.

The current crisis forces us to ponder the new normal of the services and products we consume. The experience that we are collectively going through is forcing us to rethink and reflect. Many industries are experiencing the far-reaching consequence of this “pause” that is forced upon us. ( I do hope this “pause” is short, and with minimal pain for all of us. My hope is that human ingenuity, our resolve, and modern medical science will help us beat back the Virus).

One of the most significant impacts that organizations are going through is “work from home” and all the changes that it brings. We expect the following fundamental changes in this respect

• Rapid changes – Enterprises need the ability to respond to rapidly changing situations – and ensure that all employees have a “channel” to get the latest information about the changes. Emails get buried, and an intranet is typically a static medium.
  
  
• Additional need for simple help – Workplace collaboration is an often-used approach to find a solution to a problem. When you are sitting in an office, and are faced with a simple issue – you can always turn around and ask a co-worker. What happens when you and your trusty co-worker are separated by remote work? There is a need for a place to ask a simple question to minimize any productivity loss.
  
  
• Managing Peak demand of Help Desk – All help desks are designed to handle particular peak demand. However, what happens when peaks are unpredictable? You need a tool to “flatten the Help Desk curve,” so to speak.
  
  
• Employee engagement and simplicity – Employee engagement service model of prior decades is creaking. How people get help, learn, collaborate, and get engaged is changing. The new service model needs to be simple and intuitive ( no longer large forms and complex workflow).
  
  
• The drumbeat of Automation – Automation, especially AI-driven, will have to be part of the tool-kit of each Service desk or IT operations manager. The need is going to accelerate over the next year or so.
  
  
• Costs – Many organizations will soon ask – do I really need to spend SO MUCH on my ITSM ticketing system? Watch over the next 6 months as this question becomes a scortching hot topic among managers.
  
  

Given these imperatives, we predict that Enterprise Virtual assistants and other AI-based automation tools will increasingly become an essential solution – and part of a new normal. The current crisis will accelerate the need for a new service delivery model.