Posts Tagged: ‘Digital Transformation’

Accelerate Domino App Modernization with Volt MX Go v2.0

25. Juli 2023 Posted by Richard Jefts

I’m thrilled to introduce Volt MX Go v2.0, an innovative solution that will transform your Domino apps in half the time, risk, and cost of a total rewrite.

We recognize the enduring power of the Domino platform. In fact, 40% of the Fortune 500 companies remain loyal Domino customers, and its v14 release in December 2023 demonstrates its continued relevance and HCL’s commitment to its customers and innovation.

In v12.0.2, we provided multiple ways to modernize apps, such as through Restyle, Domino REST APIs, and Nomad. Volt MX Go serves as a complementary approach containing the best of Domino and Volt MX, our industry-leading low-code platform. You can now do even more with your Domino apps, such as extending them with multiexperience capabilities, from mobile to wearables, and incorporating cutting-edge technology such as AI chatbots – all without the fear of disruption. Read our official statement here.

With Volt MX Go, we’re also offering customers on Domino v9.0.x and v10.0.x (going out of support in June 2024) another pathway for their modernization projects.

Transforming your apps with Volt MX Go v2.0
Check out my short video explaining the benefits of Volt MX Go.

 

What’s special about Volt MX Go

What sets Volt MX Go apart is our experience and expertise in both the Domino and Volt MX platforms. The proprietary technology available only with Volt MX Go incorporates a powerful translation engine that automates up to 60% of the labor required to extend Domino apps. With Volt MX Go, developers can reuse your existing app’s data and business logic — so no time-consuming rewrites.

Furthermore, our solution allows you to both reuse your app’s existing Domino application logic and to code in modern scripting languages like JavaScript, expanding your access to available developer resources and capabilities.

A person holding a phone and a computer Description automatically generated

Notable features in the latest release

This release of Volt MX Go brings you a host of exciting features designed to streamline your app transformation process. Key highlights include the Domino Adapter, First Touch Experience, Design Import, and VoltFormula. Get more details about the features in this knowledge article.

Get started with Volt MX Go. Today.

If you’re ready to unlock the full potential of your Domino apps, you can purchase Volt MX Go today. Please contact our team to discuss your needs and how we can help you on your app modernization journey. We also offer comprehensive lab services, such as app assessments to identify Volt MX Go candidate apps, and installation.

Additionally, you can explore new app development possibilities by signing up for a free account to experience Volt MX firsthand.

With Volt MX Go, we are committed to your investment in the apps that run your business and providing new ways to build differentiating experiences to grow your business.

Hyperautomation and Rapid Application Development: Moving the Needle on Digital Transformation

20. Juli 2023 Posted by Dan Allen

Enterprise technology and application development are accelerating at record-setting speed, directly impacting your digital transformation strategies. Explore the capability and value of Domino’s rapid application development tools to support hyperautomation — and accelerate your business growth.

As the past few years have demonstrated, the entire business landscape can undergo sudden, transformative shifts that force the rapid-fire development of comprehensive solutions that address real business needs– like workflow improvements and business automation.

Organizations are coming to the realization that hyperautomation is essential to a digital transformation journey. But what’s the secret to enabling hyperautomation and becoming an industry leader? Rapid Application Development (RAD).

Hyperautomation as a means of survival

Hyperautomation is an approach to automating business and IT processes organization-wide to streamline and accelerate workflow.

Despite the established prevalence of business automation, too many companies are still hampered by siloed applications and inefficient workflows even though workflow efficiency is considered an organizational priority. The move toward hyperautomation is a natural progression for companies looking to speed up digital transformation and have more impact on reducing costs, increasing customer engagement, and optimizing business processes. In some cases, it is a means remaining competitive.

“Hyperautomation has shifted from an option to a condition of survival,” said Fabrizio Biscotti, research vice president at Gartner. “Organizations will require more IT and business process automation as they are forced to accelerate digital transformation plans in a […] digital-first world.”

In fact, a recent Gartner survey found that 85% of respondents are planning to increase or sustain their hyperautomation investment strategies, and over half of these said their companies had several hyperautomation projects underway.

Harnessing the power of hyperautomation – through Rapid Application Development

Overall, hyperautomation is about integrating people, processes, and technology and that’s why RAD is central to digital transformation. Using a rapid application development platform, like Domino, makes it easy to empower your workforce, accelerate innovation and streamline work. For the past thirty years Domino has been a has been a favorite of developers and IT organizations who value usable software that works. The primary success of RAD is based on providing developers with a repository of reusable code, easy database access, quick app design, and a focus on a simplified approach.

Key benefits of rapid application development

  1. Faster delivery of process improvements and applications – RAD ensures faster delivery with preset components and ready-made adapters.
  2. Lower development costs – while skilled developers are necessary, a shortened development cycle can more than offset those costs.
  3. Fewer coding errors – preset components can help eliminate repetitive errors thus improving software quality.
  4. Shorter cycle time for updates – easier modifications through compartmentation of components.
  5. Comprehensive integration toolset – ready-made adapters, APIs and components enable quick integration and access to data.

Domino helps makes hyperautomation your reality

Whether you’re a 50,000-employee banking company providing onsite and online financial services or a manufacturer that relies on tight cost control and schedule adherence, Domino lets you target and solve your own unique challenges.

Rapid application development can transform businesses and help companies bring value to the market faster, whether businesses have an overreliance on outdated processes, difficulty in reporting, a need to increase customer engagement, or deliver workflow improvements.

Domino, with Nomad capability, can also swiftly extend your business apps to a mobile device or web browser. This enables access to your business apps from virtually anywhere. Additionally, you can continue to work on your apps even if there is no data connection and sync your work later when reconnected.

A rapid application development platform such as HCL Domino includes all the tools you need without worrying about integrations, back end, or security. A RAD platform, like Domino, is an important tool to enable hyperautomation for a business of any size to support your digital transformation journey.

To take advantage of all Domino has to offer, upgrade to Domino v12 and experience the hundreds of new features that can help your company drive innovation and rapid application development.

How legacy systems are damaging your energy and utilities customer experiences

1. Juni 2023 Posted by Darrell Mcdonald

How legacy systems are damaging your energy and utilities customer experiences

Energy and Utility companies have used the same legacy systems for decades to store vital company information and manage large amounts of data. But with modern advancements to tech providing the efficiency and agility it takes for businesses to grow without putting unnecessary strain on IT, those same legacy systems have become more of a liability than an asset.

Today’s customers expect more from their energy and utility companies, especially in terms of digital experiences without having to worry about their data. But at a time when the industry should be looking ahead as the way we consume energy evolves along with technology and consumer demands, they’re falling behind other industries–and it’s impeding their ability to provide critical services and satisfy customers.

According to the J.D. Power 2022 U.S. Utility Digital Experience Study, energy utilities fall behind other industries when it comes to digital experiences like apps and mobile-friendly websites.

These outdated computer systems are difficult and expensive to maintain and upgrade, and they can have a significant impact on the customer experience of energy companies in several ways.

Limited Functionality
For those who have been relying on legacy systems for decades, they may seem reliable and affordable. Companies may also be hesitant to switch to more modern tech because of potential costs, complexity, and disruption to their business. But legacy systems often come with a clunky functionality that can cause consistent delays and frustration for customers trying to access their accounts or make changes to their services. Between long wait times on the phone or confusing website navigation, companies wind up delivering a poor customer experience that slows business growth.

Outdated Technology
Legacy systems can hold companies back from investing in digital innovation. They’re not always designed to be compatible with newer technology or mobile devices, which limits an organization’s ability to address critical business needs on top of preventing customers from using the latest tools and apps to manage their energy usage. They’re also expensive to maintain, especially given the shortage of professionals skilled in legacy languages like COBOL. Without a comprehensive digital strategy and modernized system in place, it becomes as difficult to consistently meet customers’ evolving demands as it is to train new employees.

Unreliable Data
When you’re working with a patchwork of different systems, you’re sacrificing your data flow. Minor discrepancies in how customer information is entered in each system can lead to duplicate and ultimately inaccurate data. Even if teams work overtime to fill these gaps, delayed data analysis means companies can’t provide customers with accurate real-time data on their energy usage and billing information. This can cause customers to lose trust in the energy company and feel frustrated with their overall experience.

Security Threats
Finally, legacy systems can pose serious security risks. Some legacy systems haven’t been patched or updated since they’re no longer supported by their manufacturers, meaning they may no longer be compliant with the latest security protocols or protected against the latest malware. This leads to valuable customer data being exposed to security breaches that can not only impact the trust customers have in their services, but also your company’s reputation and revenue.

It’s Time to Modernize
Overall, legacy systems hurt the customer experience by causing delays, reducing convenience, and compromising data security. It’s crucial for energy companies to be proactive, invest in digital transformation and modernize their systems to provide a seamless and personalized experience for their customers and ensure long-term business growth.

This is where HCLSoftware’s UCX platform comes in. The UCX Platform empowers energy and utility companies to transform their customer experience through digital innovation. By creating immersive and seamless digital experiences, these companies can boost customer satisfaction, retention rates, and ultimately, their bottom line. With the UCX Platform, energy and utility companies can stand out in a crowded market and stay ahead of their competition.

Employee Experience Is Key to Digital Transformation Success

27. April 2023 Posted by Demetrios Nerris

Employee Experience Is Key to Digital Transformation Success

While just about every company today has a digital transformation strategy, most struggle to generate successful outcomes. The Harvard Business Review estimates that 87.5% of digital transformations “fail to meet their original objectives.”

Reasons for such a low success rate vary, but one area that merits significantly more attention from enterprise decision-makers is employee experience. After all, companies have a lot riding on how well their employees can do their jobs.

Employees that enjoy great experiences at work help their companies reach new performance heights. Research shows that companies providing great experiences outperform S&P enterprises by 122%. This means organizations not only create a better working environment for their workforce, but also help themselves in a measurable way.

Wasted Time
Currently, too many organizations are falling short when it comes to employee experience. A recent survey found employees spend 25% of their time searching for information because they have to navigate multiple applications for a single business process. It’s wasted time that can never be recovered and ultimately hurts the bottom line.

It’s frustrating for employees, cutting into their productivity and eroding the gratification they should get from a job well done. If employees are spending that much time just looking for information, it is clear that the organization needs to make changes.

With that in mind, companies should make employee experience a priority for their digital transformations. They should be enabling agile methods for task completion. And that means investing in intelligent tools such as a digital experience platform (DXP) that centralizes systems, data and content and learns user habits to continually improve the employee experience.

Workers shouldn’t have to spend 10 minutes trying to find a link to HR policies or an application they need for a specific task. And they won’t have to if they can leverage AI automation and self-service portals providing quick access to relevant content.

The need for these capabilities is urgent. Over the past three years, the average number of applications an employee uses to execute their work rose 68%. Employees on average come across 72 applications in their day-to-day experience. Juggling that much software is time-consuming, and it explains how a fifth of the workday can be lost to the simple task of searching for the correct application.

Changing Expectations
The need for great employee experiences is also urgent for another reason – expectations have dramatically changed. Employees want easy access to digital assets that provide meaningful content relevant to their jobs. They want tools that enable collaboration with other workers in other teams and to make important contributions to the organization’s mission. Having the ability to do so helps get them noticed, boosting their chances of success in their jobs and enhancing career advancement prospects.

In a recent Microsoft poll, 59% of respondents said the collaboration tools they use are misaligned with their teams’ work preferences. Furthermore, 64% said the tools don’t integrate with company processes such as marketing, finance and sales. And 72% said they would like collaboration tools that are compatible with one another because, otherwise, it’s difficult to work with other teams.

All these wishes can be fulfilled with the right DXP — one that centralizes access to everything, from HR policies to business applications to web-based resources. The right DXP delivers personalized experiences so that when an employee logs in, the person is recognized. This eliminates the frustration of getting notifications to sign up for services a person already has. Or wasting valuable time trying to remember how to access a particular application.

DXP software enables collaboration and links employees across corporate groups to share information, learn from each other, and complete tasks together. Advanced DXP solutions have built-in intelligence to personalize experiences. So, each time a user logs in, the platform learns a little more about the individual to make content more relevant and targeted each time.

As organizations undergo digital transformation, they stand to benefit significantly from enhancing the employee experience. Doing so increases the chances of success for the transformation overall so that organizations can better compete in the digital economy.

Ready to empower, educate, and engage your employees? Learn how the HCL DX platform can help you create a more connected workforce.

LEARN MORE

Worried about adopting yet another tool? Schedule a demo of HCL DX today and see our powerful, fast, and easy-to-use employee experience platform in action.

REQUEST DEMO

Enterprise Leaders Deliver Value in the Digital+ Economy by Transforming Experiences

24. Februar 2023 Posted by Richard Jefts

Enterprise Leaders Deliver Value in the Digital

Digital Transformation isn’t just making sure your business, your apps, or your CX are available online. It means creating technology and processes for customers, partners, and employees that embody their potential, enable their vision, meet their needs, and achieve their goals. Digital transformation is the process of using digital technologies to transform business processes and customer experiences to meet the evolving needs and opportunities of the digital age. Beyond the obvious efficiencies introduced by digitizing data, interactions, and business processes, digital transformation offers the prospect of reimagining and reinventing business at a fundamental level — from sales and marketing paradigms to success metrics, from business models to customer engagement. As a result, we are seeing a huge shift of companies becoming “digital first” and taking a “digital first” approach.

In fact, digital transformation begins and ends with customers and employees. Customer experience (CX) and employee experience (EX) are at the heart of this transformation — whether those users are consumers or other clients external to the business, employees working in a hybrid model, or other internal stakeholders. To a great extent, this focus on CX and EX is driven by our changing expectations. Users of technology today expect personalized, intuitive, seamless experiences across all touchpoints — and companies that fail to deliver on these expectations risk losing out to competitors. Customer-centricity is therefore an indispensable consideration as companies embark on their digital transformation journey and think about how they can improve the engagement, enablement and empowerment of their employees to be connected and more effective than ever.

For all these reasons, digital transformation has become a top priority for businesses of all types and sizes — and companies are investing heavily in digital solutions to improve efficiency, enhance the customer experience, and gain a competitive edge. This elevation of digital transformation among business decision makers, in turn, has brought greater attention to specific solutions and opportunities to enhance business outcomes, leverage data and analytics, incorporate emerging technologies, and systematically and seamlessly address the always-evolving global security and compliance requirements.

Composable solutions that combine app development and automation, CX, secure collaboration, digital solutions, and emerging tech can enable businesses to develop holistic, customer-centric solutions that meet their needs and drive growth and allow them to differentiate themselves from their competitors. By focusing on the user, leveraging low-code platforms where appropriate, and prioritizing these key factors, enterprise leaders can deliver value to their customers in the digital age and achieve success in digital transformation.

Low-code platforms empower businesses to accelerate the development and deployment of new solutions while reducing costs and minimizing the need for specialized coding skills. By leveraging pre-built components and templates, businesses can streamline development and focus on delivering value to their customers faster than ever.

How HCLSoftware is powering digital transformation

In the past year, we touched over 5,000 companies with our e-commerce and CX solutions and helped their businesses grow more than US$200 billion in annual sales transactions. Our marketing automation platform reaches one-third of the earth’s population, and we power over 1 billion user experiences — daily. Our application development platforms provide more than 10 million applications to enterprises globally to keep their businesses running.

To succeed in the digital age, enterprise leaders must embrace a holistic approach to digital transformation. This means starting with a clear understanding of their customers’ needs and priorities, developing solutions that prioritize CX and leverage low-code platforms where appropriate, and continuously iterating and improving their solutions based on customer feedback and changing market conditions.

It also means investing in the right talent, processes, and technologies to drive innovation and growth. This may include hiring data scientists and analysts to help make sense of customer data, adopting emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate and optimize processes, and partnering with trusted vendors like HCLSoftware to ensure the security and compliance of digital solutions.

Digital transformation is not just a buzzword – indeed, the pandemic brought home to us all how critical it is for businesses of all sizes and in all industries. By focusing on your customers, employees and other users — while leveraging low-code platforms where appropriate, and prioritizing business outcomes, data and analytics, emerging technologies, and security and compliance — enterprise leaders can drive growth and innovation in their organizations and deliver value to their customers in the digital age.

LEARN MORE

HCL Digital Experience and the future of WebSphere Application Server

8. April 2020 Posted by David Strachan

What we are doing with WAS?

HCL is bringing renewed energy to Digital Experience, as we add new capabilities and move to a much more aggressive release schedule. Customers often ask what we are going to do with IBM® WebSphere® Application Server (WAS) and the purpose of this post is to explain what we intend to do.

Customers around the world have entrusted HCL Digital Experience with their business critical workloads for 20 years. WAS clustering provides a rock-solid foundation for that, and as a result unplanned outages are very rare and performance is consistently excellent. We are not going to treat that lightly or recklessly.

What is rock solid, but flexible?

That said, our customers are also asking us for a less monolithic approach to HCL Digital Experience (DX). Many of them are investing in Kubernetes as the runtime environment of the next decade. We are responding to that demand with the support for Kubernetes that we released in HCL DX v9.5 and enhanced subsequently.  HCL’s strategy is to provide a gradual approach, in order to minimize disruption for our customers, while enabling new runtime architectures as quickly as possible.

When we released HCL Digital Experience 9.5 in September 2019, we announced that it would be supported for at least another five years. This means customers can continue to run their WAS clustered environments during this time, and we will continue to enhance it.  In this release, we added a supported option to run the product in a Kubernetes environment, such as Red Hat’s OpenShift or Amazon EKS. More Kubernetes platforms will follow, driven by customer demand. Existing applications will run on this platform, and most customers should be able simply to redeploy their applications using the staging-to-production workflow.  Existing portlets and themes will also still run in Kubernetes deployments of HCL DX 9.5.

In parallel, our future direction is clearly towards the Kubernetes architecture. We are creating new services, such as our Digital Asset Manager, Content Composer or Experience API, all of which are based on technologies other than WAS. These new services provide exciting new capabilities for our customers, which we hope will make it easier for our customers to justify moving to our Kubernetes architecture.

For clarity, we will not have a singular migration event in which we re-platform HCL Digital Experience to another application server, because that would introduce risk and uncertainty to our customers. We are focusing on adding new features that add value to our customers, and ensuring that existing customers can adopt those.

We hope this statement of direction is clear and helpful. We would love to hear from you if you have comments or questions about this. We would also love to discuss how you can get the most out of your HCL Digital Experience  deployment and help ensure your are on an up to date version. Please get in touch with your HCL representative to discuss this further, or you can reach out to Kirsten.Kelley@hcl.com if you need additional information.

 

The post HCL Digital Experience and the future of WebSphere Application Server appeared first on HCL SW Blogs.

What’s the real cost of better digital experiences today?

5. Februar 2020 Posted by Kirsten Kelley

Ever wish you could go back to a simpler time? People who had businesses back before the internet were interested in providing a great customer experience, but it was all pretty straightforward. The customer had only a few touch points with the business — face to face, phone or mail – and the successful businesses put their organization’s best foot forward to create a great impression.

The cost to create multi-channel digital experiences

Now, it’s tricky. If you do business online, you need to worry about the full range of your visitors’ digital customer experiences.  Every digital touch point – you need to be awesome! This includes all web and mobile interactions, but also kiosks, IoT devices, wearables as well as the many other points of communication still in development.

And tricky can also mean costly. With so many channels it becomes harder and harder to create memorable, consistent impressions on each one. Supporting personalized content on so many channels can often sap internal resources. And if you don’t get it right everywhere, users may find themselves looking elsewhere.

What if you could create, manage and deliver engaging and personalized multi-channel experiences with a single digital experience platform? And what if that digital experience platform could not only integrate your efforts to provide customer-centric experiences, but also set your organization on the road to greater productivity?  Well, we have some facts to help illustrate the potential upside!

The research results from IDC

The International Data Corporation (IDC), a premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology markets, interviewed organizations that use the HCL Digital Experience platform to create and manage their digital experiences. “Study participants told IDC that they have realized significant business benefits from their use of HCL DX, especially in increased revenue and employee productivity. The ability to deliver more engaging, relevant content, tailored to personas and channels, has been key to their success.”

HCL customers say that HCL Digital Experience solutions help them:

  • Generate more revenue, by providing customers and partners personalized real-time information about products, services, and prices
  • Enable faster and easier development of public-facing websites, intranets/portals, extranets, and other engaging content experiences
  • Drive higher employee productivity for those who create, deliver, and use digital experiences in marketing, creative services, application development, IT operations, sales, customer support, and other areas

“We are able to deliver a more personalized experience with HCL DX…This means better customer service, and everyone is happier. And that means as much as 10% more revenue.”

 

Consider some of the benefits that users have reported using the HCL Digital Experience platform:

  • 661% five-year ROI
  • 33% improvement in customer satisfaction
  • $41.7 million in new revenue

And if you’re concerned about upfront costs, consider this statistic: HCL Digital Experience customers reported that it took them only 16 months, on average, after investing in the platform to break even.

So it may not be the 90’s anymore, but with the right tools it can still be simple –- and cost-effective — for your organization to provide great customer experiences.

View the Infographic

 

The post What’s the real cost of better digital experiences today? appeared first on HCL SW Blogs.

[DE] Studie: 6 von 10 Firmen wollen mit Social Collaboration Unternehmenskultur verbessern

13. April 2017 Posted by StefanP.

Mal wieder ein interessanter Beitrag in Michael Kroker’s Look @ IT. Er zitiert die zentralen Ergebnisse der Deutschen Social Collaboration Studie 2017, die das Fachgebiet Wirtschaftsinformatik der Technischen Universität Darmstadt und die Unternehmensberatung Campana & Schott:

Auf dem zweiten Platz der wichtigsten Ziele rangiert für mehr als die Hälfte aller Unternehmen das Streben nach höherer Innovativität der Mitarbeiter. Social Collaboration, also die Nutzung moderner Collaboration-Tools für neue Formen der innerbetrieblichen Zusammenarbeit, ist für viele Unternehmen ein wichtiger Wegbereiter zur digitalen Transformation.

Source: 6 von 10 Firmen wollen mit Social Collaboration Unternehmenskultur verbessern

Infografik-Social-Collaboration_intern_800px

Meine Meinung aus der Praxis: Ich verzweifele oft in der täglichen Arbeit daran, wie immer noch gearbeitet wird und die Möglichkeiten moderner Kommunikationswerkzeuge nicht genutzt werden. Einerseits liegt das an den lieben Gewohnheiten, die man nicht gerne ändert: Ich habe schon immer Dateien per E-Mail verschickt. Warum soll ich es jetzt anders machen?

Daneben kämpfen wir aber vor allem mit zwei großen Herausforderungen: Die Social Collaboration-Tools sind noch nicht einfach genug zu bedienen. Wir bieten oft zu viele Optionen in den Tools an, statt Anwendern nur einen Weg zu bieten. Warum gibt es nicht das Werkzeug oder das E-Mail-Programm, das Dateianhänge automatisch in der Dokumentenablage des Collaboration-Tools speichert (und Anhänge gar nicht mehr erlaubt)? Müssen wir die Anwender vielleicht manchmal gar zu ihrem Glück zwingen

Und auf der anderen Seite trainieren wir unsere Anwender bei weitem nicht gut genug, wie sie was am effizientesten in dem jeweiligen Werkzeug tun. Wann blogge ich, wann nutze ich den Wiki oder das Forum. Das muss gelernt und beigebracht werden. Und einfacher wird es nicht, denn die Anzahl der Tools nimmt zu: E-Mail, Chat-Progamm zur Echtzeitkommunikation, Enterprise Social Network wie IBM Connections, nun Whats App für Unternehmen, Conversational Tools wie Slack, Microsoft Teams oder Watson Workspace.

An den genannten Stellschrauben muss dringend weiter gearbeitet werden, sonst erreichen wir nicht die Adaption, die sich viele Unternehmen bei der Einführung erwartet haben. Und dann bleiben doch viele Mitarbeiter weiter in Ihrer E-Mail verhaftet, speichern dort Informationen und versenden weiter fröhlich Dateianhänge, statt Dateien zu teilen und zusammen zu arbeiten während andere Mitarbeiter – vielleicht abhängig von der Generation, zu der sie gehören – Ihre Heimat im sozialen Unternehmensnetzwerk oder im Konversationswerkzeug finden. Doch die E-Mail-Generation, die Facebook- und WhatsApp-Generation müssen am digitalen Arbeitsplatz miteinander reden und sich austauschen. Und hierbei geht es ganz sicher nicht nur um technische Schnittstellen, die den Austausch ermöglichen. Hier geht es um Kultur und Leading by example des Managements.

(Stefan Pfeiffer)


Einsortiert unter:Deutsch Tagged: Collaboration, Digital Transformation, Digital Workplace, featured

[EN] Digital Transformation and Senior Leaders – And a different Approach to the Digital Workplace needed?

12. April 2017 Posted by StefanP.

Interesting statements:

You know how the story goes: a wave of digital disruption is hitting our organizations, with the potential to change how we work. We know what changes are required, but oblivious senior leaders stand in the way of our success. …

Senior leaders will never directly carry out digital transformation and the digital workplace, and it’s unrealistic to expect them to formulate a concrete plan.

The strategy, planning and execution must fall on teams lower in the structure, such as the digital workplace, intranet, comms or IT teams.

But senior leader engagement, backing and funding is still vital for digital workplace initiatives.

Source: Do Senior Leaders Really Stand in the Way of Digital Disruption?

Anyway we need buy-in and support from Senior Management. Our Digital Workplace is still much to complex. People don’t get the breadth of functionality and options. Take File Management or sending attachments by email. Do we need to make this much easier even considering to take away options and functionality and force the way how to manage stuff? Attachments are automatically stored in a file sync repository? No other option. Force simplicity and get rid off pain points in the real modern Digital Workplace.


Einsortiert unter:English Tagged: Digital Transformation, Digital Workplace, Workplace-of-the-Future

[EN] The Digital Workplace: It is about People, Places, Platform, Culture and Adoption

16. Februar 2017 Posted by StefanP.

Very interesting thoughts on the different aspects of productivity at the workplace:

In short, while we have long championed tools to improve enterprise productivity, the greatest gains may be in re-working the physical, not technological, architecture.

Source: Why the workplace doesn’t work | Intranetizen

It is not only about technology, it is about the physical workplace, too.

The same study [DEGW consulting (now Aecom)] suggested that there were very few differences in such distractions across office designs of varying degrees of ‘openness’ with the exception of mobile (or home) offices which incurred the fewest lost productive minutes. Working from home wins on that count it seems. …

Source: Why the workplace doesn’t work | Intranetizen

So, people are beng distracted in offices, loose time and are less productive and are looking for places to be productive:

„Home, travel, coffee shops, somewhere quiet.“

Source: Why the workplace doesn’t work | Intranetizen

I believe it is a bit to easy. While distraction is a challenge in the Office, it is not going away automatically in the Home Office. Distraction is not only being generated in the office. Phone, chat, email, family, my cats maybe distracting me in my home office, too. It is about a mixture of personal behaviour or discipline and physical workspace.

Why do companies rent spaces at locations like Design Offices? Because these places provide the environment for co-creation, innovation and project work. The provide workbays as quiet zones or as place for 1:1’s, co-working spaces with white boards for creative sessions, the well known coffee kitchen or water cooler and modern workspaces taking into consideration, flexible to stand or sit.

Technology is the enabler but it’s still people who lead the work in most offices. To make a workplace really work, there needs to be a holistic appreciation of people, places and platforms and the interchange between them. We need to be more ambitious for digital workplace technologies and help employees be more productive wherever they choose their workplace to be — bed, coffee shop or office.

Source: Why the workplace doesn’t work | Intranetizen

Keep in mind, how important collaboration is for innovation. So we need to provide the right spaces, online with tools for communication and collaboration and the physical workspaces, to booster productivity and innovation. And even this is by far not enough. It is more than People, Places and Platforms. Let us add leadership and culture. Old command and control structures are the natural enimies of digital transformation and an agile, responsive organisation. Without leaders willing to break down silos and hierarchies change is not going to happen.

And another aspect is very often forgotten: Adoption and training. Your people are not going to accept and drive digital transformation, if you don’t convince, train and re-train them.  And this is a continous journey, not a one-off effort. You need to train people on the methods and the tools. Tool training may even be the easier part of it. Explain your people how to use your Enterprise Social Networking-tool, your „WhatsApp for the Enterprise“ or your file sharing software and where the benefits for the individual in his or her work are. Beyond technology and tools we may add concepts like agile, Scrum, working out loud. If you want these methods to be successful. And this is the easier part …

The more difficult part is to convince your people on the why … A majority of workers are still holding backing information, to protect their job or for whatever reason. How do you get your people back into the boat, not working against change? How do you motivate them again? The numbers from Gallup are disillisioning. And still a lot of managers and don’t care …

The Digital Workplace driving the digital transformation is very likely not a quick win: It is about People, Places, Platform, Culture and Adoption.


Einsortiert unter:English Tagged: Change Management, Digital Transformation, featured, Innovation, Workplace-of-the-Future

[EN] Lesson for Managers: „We should embrace Transparency because we cannot avoid it.“

7. Oktober 2016 Posted by StefanP.

The very nature of digital and the web leads to transparency. Digital makes it hard to keep secrets, makes it hard to hide. We should embrace transparency because we cannot avoid it. …

We have a choice. To be transparent. Or to be made transparent. …

Throughout history, the powerful elite have controlled the flow of information. The powerful are still powerful but with the advent of the web and smartphones, they have lost control of the flow of information. Consequently, they have lost the ability to control the message as much as they were used to. …

And yet management is in total denial, living a grand delusion, wondering occasionally why people are so disloyal. … Management lives within a deep cultural mind-set of hierarchy, subservience and control. If digital transformation does not address this corrosive and truly out-of-date culture, then nothing of worth will be transformed.

Source: The Age of Disloyalty and Transparency

Couldn’t agree more. Thank you, Gerry.


Einsortiert unter:English Tagged: Communication, Digital Transformation, Management

[EN] Dion Hinchcliffe and 4 Principles of today’s digital workplace | ZDNet

12. September 2016 Posted by StefanP.

organizingprinciplesofthedigitalsocialworkplace

While there are numerous ways of thinking about how to organize the digital workplace, in practice there seem to be three widely used models, with a fourth newer one that seems to be developing quickly, often in a very informal fashion.

Four Common Models for Organizing the Digital Workplace

What’s interesting about this list is that each model emphasizes one principle, activity, or type of artifact over all others. Examples include workforce collaboration, digital conversations, documents, the sourcing and management of workplace apps, or even just the desire to make a workable whole out of many, varied constituent parts that meets the most needs. These models are:

  1. Community and social business. The second newest model on this list has been with us for some years, but it was not until very recently that it became a widespread one, with 65% of organizations at least having the requisite platforms in place this year (their usage and effectiveness is still emerging however.) This model puts people and their communication/collaboration in the very center of the digital workplace. Apps and their data certainly still have a place in this model, but in support of high value knowledge work within a situated context of open and participative shared value creation. There have been numerous measures of the effectiveness of this model, with McKinsey most famously claiming there is at least $1.3 trillion in untapped economic value to be had by moving to this model of working. Successfully realizing this type of new digital workplace generally requires updated digital skills in the workforce that inherently take advantage of its strengths.

  2. The document and content-centric workplace. Many knowledge-based firms produce most of their value by capturing their ideas and results on what we used to call paper. Now this output has become almost entirely digital, and so these workplaces invest an inordinate amount in managing the vast digital document flows from their workforce using document and content management systems, such as SharePoint and Documentum. While the hey-day of document management and content management systems is largely behind us, it’s still one of the dominant models for the workplace, …

  3. Vendor-centric model. After years of trying to avoid lock-out, I’m seeing a decided return to single-vendor dominance in the digital workplace in certain sectors. Major changes and improvements in the digital workplace offerings of dominant industry player Microsoft has a lot to do with this shift, and I’m seeing — especially with very large enterprises — an interest in getting an entirely ready-to-go, integrated, and supported set of digital workplace tools for communication, collaboration, documents, and productivity. …

  4. A hybrid digital workplace co-created by IT, lines of business, and workers. The fourth model is the newest but fast emerging, but does now indeed appear to be one nearly inevitable outcome of current trends in tech adoption and IT. The proliferation of apps in the cloud and mobile devices has made IT extremely easy to acquire and nearly disposable for many uses. In fact, the best solutions can be quickly found and used by nearly anyone like never before, without permission or help from IT. This is creating an environment where the business, at the division, departmental, and even personal level selects technology with little to no formal involvement or ownership by IT. …

Source: What’s the organizing principle of today’s digital workplace? | ZDNet

Very interesting and thoughtful posting with a lot of correct observations. But how will the rise of Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive solutions impact the different scenarios. And I am talking about real AI solutions for business, not just rule-based chatbots.

(And I still believe, that a vendor centric approach is not going to succeed in the area of BYOD and BYOA and the younger generation moving away from a document centric approach.)


Einsortiert unter:English Tagged: Digital Transformation, SchlauerArbeiten, Workplace-of-the-Future

[DE] Digitale Transformation: Keine blauäugige Adaption, sondern Transformation mit Hirn und Verantwortung

18. Juni 2016 Posted by StefanP.

Ein interessanter Disput zwischen Peter Diekmann (@derPeder) und Ole Wintermann (@OleWin) zum Thema digitale Transformation. Und beide treffen in ihren Beiträgen interessante Aussagen. In der Diskussion geht es um die Konfrontation zwischen denen, die digital vorangehen wollen und denen, die verweigern und bremsen.

Meine 2 Cents vorweg, bevor ich einige Kernaussagen der beiden Protagonisten zitiere und kommentiere: Wir werden die digitale Transformation genauso wenig aufhalten können wie wir die industrielle Revolution aufhalten konnten. Verweigerungshaltung wird nicht helfen, eher schaden. Stattdessen müssen wir gerade in Deutschland, wo selbstredend die Verweigerer und Skeptiker besonders häufig sind, die digitale Transformation viel offensiver aufgreifen und aktiv gestalten. Dabei darf es nicht um blauäugige Adaption, sondern um Transformation mit Hirn und humaner Verantwortung gehen.

@derPeder stellt die zwei Welten schön plakativ gegenüber:

Den einen fehlt Geduld, es geht ihnen zu langsam bis andere endlich neue Techniken und Prozesse verstehen und so schotten sie sich ab und verstärken sich gegenseitig in Unzufriedenheit in ihrer Filter-Blase. Den anderen geht das alles viel zu schnell, sie wollen erst überzeugt sein, dass dieses ganze Social und Digital Zeug eine sinnvolle Sache ist. Viele dieser Offliner sind mit Sicherheitsdenken und Freigabeworkflows sozialisiert worden und stoßen nun auf eine Kommunikationskultur, die ihnen so fremd ist wie das Radio im Vor-Industrialisierungszeitalter.

Source: Digitale Kurzatmigkeit — hundert eins — Medium

Ja, der Wille neue Technologien und Arbeitsweisen ist nicht besonders ausgeprägt. Lasst es mich mal auf ein sehr einfaches Level aus dem täglichen Büroleben bringen: Wenn ich unternehmensintern immer noch riesige Dateianhänge per E-Mail bekomme, obwohl einfache Lösungen zum Teilen von Dateien gibt, dann ist das sehr frustrierend. Ja, lieber @derPeder, es mag teilweise sein, dass wir ‚Nerds‘ viele nicht mitnehmen. Das liegt aber mindestens genauso oft am Unwillen, seine gewohnte, vermeintlich bequeme Arbeitsweise nicht ändern zu wollen.

Aber es kommt aus meiner Sicht noch ein weiterer wichtiger Aspekt hinzu: Fehlende Führung und fehlendes Vorleben digitaler Arbeitstechniken. Dem mittleren Management kommt auch eine essentielle Rolle in der digitalen Transformation zu. Wenn der Vorgesetzte, neue Arbeits- und Verhaltensweisen nicht vorleben oder vielleicht gar nicht wollen, wird es umso schwieriger. Und genau dort sehe ich ein gerütteltes Maß an Uneinsichtigkeit, Verweigerung und Fokussierung auf ganz andere Aspekte ihres Berufslebens. Statt Leading by example in der Adaption moderner Arbeitsweisen und der damit einhergehenden digitalen Transformation scheint es oft doch eher um Besitzstandswahrung, das Funktionieren in der Hierarchie und die eigene Karriere zu gehen.

Dies war gerade nur ein triviales Beispiel des Büroalltags, es zeigt aber auch die generelle Problematik gerade in unserem Lande. Das ist – und da bin ich bei @OleWin – schon ein gerütteltes Maß an Verweigerungshaltung. Wir können uns eine solche Haltung gerade in unserem Land nicht leisten. Was ist nötig? Ja, es ist ein Change Management-Projekt:

Dabei geht es ebenso um Technik und Plattformen als auch um Arbeits- und Verhaltensweisen, um Belohnungs- und Bewertungssysteme, und schließlich um komplette Strategien und Zielanpassungen. Dieser lange Weg von #Nowland nach #Nextland kann je nach Organisation lange dauern und ist ein ständiges Change-Management-Projekt. Digitaler Wandel ohne Change-Management, ohne Verständnisentwicklung der Mitarbeiter für neue Arbeitsplatzmodelle und den Kulturwandel wird keine nachhaltigen Erfolge haben.

Source: Digitale Kurzatmigkeit — hundert eins — Medium

Gegessen. Aber Wandel kann in verschiedenen Geschwindigkeiten vonstatten gehen. Nur Ignoranz aufgrund der eigenen Karriere und Schneckentempo sind sicher nicht angesagt. Heben wir es mal mit @OleWin vom trivialen E-Mail-Anhang und dem Mitarbeiter über das Verhalten und die Prioritäten des Middle Mangements auf die vermeintlich strategischere Führungsebene hochbezahlter Manager und Vorstände:

Diese Verweigerungshaltung von bisher relevanten Akteuren in Wirtschaft und Politik gegenüber der digitalen Welt hat bereits volkswirtschaftlichen Schaden angerichtet (Stichwort z.B. Störerhaftung). … Die Verweigerungshaltung auf betrieblicher Ebene hat zu krisenhaften Zuständen in der deutschen Autoindustrie geführt, die plötzlich als altbacken im Vergleich zu Tesla und Co. erscheinen. Wenn hochbezahlte Manager und Vorstände immer noch nicht – und das trotz des Vorliegens etlicher Studien – begriffen haben, dass die Digitalisierung ein Thema für sie sein könnte, sind sie fehl am Platze.

Source: Digitale Kurzatmigkeit oder analoge Kurzsichtigkeit – Eine Replik – Netzpiloten Magazin

Und @OleWin fordert dann aus meiner Sicht korrekterweise die Offenheit und – ich füge hinzu – den Willen ein, sich der digitalen Transformation zu stellen, sie anzunehmen und zu gestalten. Und das gilt übrigens für Mitarbeiter und Manager aller Hierarchiestufen:

Es muss jedoch auch die Bereitschaft zur Offenheit, zum Eingestehen des eigenen Beginner-Status im digitalen Bereich und zum Anpassen an veränderte Arbeitsweisen vorhanden sein. Diese Offenheit erlebe ich aber gerade bei politischen und wirtschaftlichen Entscheidern in den seltensten Fällen.

Source: Digitale Kurzatmigkeit oder analoge Kurzsichtigkeit – Eine Replik – Netzpiloten Magazin

Randnotiz: Lesens- und ansehenswert die von @derPeder zitierten auf Cachelin beruhenden 16 Typen typischer Offliner mit ihren Motiven, Menschen von digitalen Welten fernhalten:

16 Typen von Offlinern im Überblick, Bild von www.wissensfabrik.ch/offliner-buch/


Einsortiert unter:Deutsch Tagged: Arbeiten 4.0, Deutschland, Digital Transformation, featured, SchlauerArbeiten

[DE] Von wegen Social Business ist out: Soziale Werkzeuge und Arbeitsweisen in Prozesse integrieren

6. Juni 2016 Posted by StefanP.

Interessant, die Ergebnisse der aktuellen Studie von McKinsey. Vielleicht ist der Hype rund um den Begriff Social Business vorbei. Viel wichtiger ist aber, dass soziale Werkzeuge für das Unternehmen und die damit verbundenen Arbeitsweisen bleiben und weiter ein riesiges Potential gerade auch in der anstehenden digitalen Transformation haben. Und zwar dann, wenn soziale Tools in die Geschäftsprozesse integriert werden, etwas, was wir seit Jahren postulieren und bei Kunden realisieren. Wenn man dann bedenkt, das Marktbegleiter davon meilenweit weg sind und noch immer in Dateien denken.

What’s more, some executives report greater benefits—decreased costs and increased productivity, for example—if they digitize and use social tools in a given process.

Source: How social tools can reshape the organization | McKinsey & Company

Lobenswert, dass McKinsey herausarbeitet, in welchen Prozessen soziale Arbeitsweisen – sowohl in internen wie auch externen Workflows – eine disruptive Rolle spielen kann.

How_social_tools_can_reshape_the_organization___McKinsey___Company_-_Mozilla_Firefox__IBM_EditionWird nun endlich das Ende von E-Mail eingeläutet.

Because they create searchable content as a by-product of collaboration, the new-generation tools could even begin to replace email as the default channel of written communication.

Source: How social tools can reshape the organization | McKinsey & Company

Na ja, darüber haben wir schon öfters gesprochen. Ich denke, es geht vielmehr darum die Kommunikationskanäle der Generation E-Mail, Facebook und WhatsApp so zusammenzuführen, dass die Anwender es verstehen und akzeptieren, und so Orientierung zu geben.


Einsortiert unter:Deutsch Tagged: Digital Transformation, featured, Social Business

[EN] Next Generation Digital Workplace: Get By With a Little Help From My (Intelligent) Friends

6. Mai 2016 Posted by StefanP.

Another take on artificial intelligence and robots entering the workplace. And another author stressing, that it is on us to create the even more human digital workplace of the future instead of simply denying technological progress and paint Hollywood horror scenarios. It is on us to shape the future instead of trying to stop something which can’t be stopped.

… all the major technology vendors … are working in a world that they know will be saturated with artificial intelligence, marking the next stage of the digital workplace.

Human beings must adjust and understand how to work with what … robot. That catch all term applies for every digitally intelligent assistant, device and piece of software that we use in our daily work. … And while sadly we human beings are not getting smarter, the „robot“ is building its intelligence by the day.

Hollywood scenarios may create narratives where AI grows and then crushes us like ants but what will happen in my view is far more nuanced, as we develop skills and patterns that allow us all to work alongside (and in collaboration with) ever smarter technologies.

The industrial revolution turned us into efficient machines as we carried out tasks for the industrial world. The digital revolution has the potential to turn us back into human beings, working in collaboration with hyper intelligent systems. It is up to each of us and the organizations where we work, to seize this opportunity to create ever more human and ever smarter worlds of work.

Source: Next Generation Digital Workplace: Where Human Meets Robot


Einsortiert unter:English Tagged: Artificial Intelligence, Digital Transformation, Workplace-of-the-Future