Building an ‘anywhere operations’ mindset for uninterrupted IT

Given a choice, would you rather wait for a cab ride that’s 25 mins away or look for other options to reach your destination faster? Without a doubt, you would pick the latter, right? 

Today’s ‘want-it-now’ consumer mentality is driving most technology organizations to rethink how they interact with employees and customers. 

Employees have consumer-grade expectations for corporate applications, and IT requests at the workplace. There is a visible need for instant response and quick access among employees to stay fueled and motivated to do their jobs well. And as for customers, they demand a high quality of service right from the moment they land on your website or enter your storefront. 

So, what does this really tell us? IT needs to rechristen itself as an unstoppable force to power a business that is always on. 

Easier said than done, isn’t it? As with any new changes in the workplace, there lies an underlying challenge in getting the go-ahead from the C-suite to drive tech adoptions and implementations. Similarly, building an anywhere operations mindset is bound to encounter similar challenges to getting the executive buy-in. 

In a recently concluded session at Be Unstoppable, Andy Thurai from Constellation Research and Prasad Ramakrishnan from Freshworks discuss what it means to adopt the ‘Anywhere Operations’ strategy, the challenges organizations face in adopting such a strategy, and practical situations where they have been implemented. You can catch the on-demand version here.

Riding on the insights from the session, here are a few ways how building an anywhere operations mindset can help organizations deliver uninterrupted IT for unstoppable business.

Delightful employee experience

As discussed in the introduction, employees expect fast, easy, and seamless services from their business software. Chat and instant messaging solutions are the names of the game.  

Think about it, would an employee enjoy their first day at work running around like a headless chicken with no direction on where to get what, or a streamlined approach where they’re presented with all the necessary applications and tools to hit the ground running? 

Employees want what they want on the day they join. Streamlining their onboarding using SSO, creating role sets, and deploying smart integration will help create an excellent EX from day 1 of employee onboarding.

Employee empowerment = customer satisfaction

It’s not a great day in the office when a customer knocks on your DMs and tells you that a certain function in your website isn’t working anymore. And even worse is when the agent responding to the ticket doesn’t have the answer for the customer. 

To keep the systems up and running, IT agents should know what’s about to happen even before the incident occurs. While transitioning from legacy systems to the cloud, organizations need to help IT agents be relevant in the new paradigm. They need to enable them to reapply the legacy thought to adapt to the cloud environment. IT agents should have the transparency to see the changes happening in real-time to stay updated and respond to customer inquiries. This way, IT agents realize instant gratification when they have all the information to support the customers and get a sense of achievement and satisfaction.

Final thoughts

In 2022, businesses expect IT to not only deliver the scale and pace needed to achieve their aspirations but also promise a modern workplace experience for their employees. As ‘disruption’ becomes the new normal, IT leaders must make the leap from being “tech leaders” to being changemakers who deliver sustainable competitive advantage for their business.

To learn more about how CIOs can build a resilient modern system to support digital businesses and overcome challenges, click here to watch the on-demand session on “Anywhere Operations: An Operational Mindset to Remain Uninterrupted and be Unstoppable.”