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Cloud data control: Introducing the OpenTelemetry Arrow Project
In collaboration with F5, LIKE.TG® Cloud Observability is pleased to announce the availability of the OpenTelemetry Arrow Project. This co-donated and co-developed project gives organizations greater control over the data extracted from their cloud applications—as well as a path forward to improve the return on investment (ROI) of that data.By applying substantially more compression as data leaves the cloud, the OpenTelemetry Arrow Project helps organizations reduce cloud costs while improving efficiency. Users can import their OpenTelemetry data into Apache Arrow-enabled data services for better data control and ownership.This is exciting for a couple of reasons. In the short term, many organizations will see their costs decrease—same telemetry content, lower network bill. In the long term, as community-driven, open-source projects continue to improve and evolve, many customers will be able to move, process, store, and query data at scale more efficiently, helping to reduce the trade-offs between visibility and cost.
Reducing cloud costsThe hardest part of the observability journey for many organizations is extracting the data they need from cloud applications and services in an efficient and cost-effective way. As organizations scale up their adoption of cloud-native technologies, the volume of data grows exponentially. That creates even more hurdles, such as:
What to do with data that’s been extracted from applications and services
How to manage the ROI of extracted data as the monitoring footprint increases
How to reduce cloud bills
When it comes to cutting expenses associated with observability, there are two primary approaches:
Reduce costs of your observability solution
Reduce costs when extracting data from your application
To address the first option, some organizations have scaled back their monitoring footprint to prioritize production data. Other organizations are looking at, or have adopted, open-source solutions (such as OpenTelemetry) to replace or augment their existing observability solutions.Organizations that have adopted OpenTelemetry end to end have been able to bring down costs at various points along the observability pipeline. This is a result of reducing proprietary components within their monitoring stack without sacrificing visibility.To reduce the bill associated with cloud applications, the OpenTelemetry Arrow Project introduces an improvement to the existing OpenTelemetry protocol (OTLP) method by accounting for one of the biggest challenges organizations face: the increasing deluge of data from their applications and services.By decreasing the monitoring data sent from the cloud via compression, the project alleviates one of the more expensive components of an organization’s cloud bill: data egress. Organizations will now have one additional lever to minimize the costs associated with their observability practice.The bottom lineA core tenet of the OpenTelemetry project is extracting high-quality, ubiquitous, and portable telemetry from cloud applications. As more telemetry is exported, regardless of quality, network costs increase. As that happens, organizations must choose between reducing visibility into their services and accepting higher costs.The OpenTelemetry Arrow project enables customers to scale OpenTelemetry-powered observability. The project is jointly developed and maintained by F5 and LIKE.TG Cloud Observability.Find out more about how LIKE.TG Cloud Observability helps improve data control.
LIKE.TG Cloud Observability is available on Google Cloud
We’re happy to announce some exciting news: LIKE.TG® Cloud Observability is now available on Google Cloud Marketplace.1That means you can see your LIKE.TG Cloud Observability entitlements right on your Google Cloud invoices, which you can pay for with your committed Google Cloud spend. This provides a unified and transparent view of your costs and makes it easier to track your expenses.It's easy to get started. With just a few clicks, you can purchase LIKE.TG Cloud Observability to effortlessly monitor the health of your tech estate across Google Cloud and hybrid cloud environments.
Accelerated detection and responseWith Cloud Observability, you can capture valuable insights to detect and respond quickly to changes in both cloud-native and monolithic applications. By bringing together metrics, logs, and traces into a single workflow, you can:
Manage complex and distributed tech setups without guesswork
Navigate seamlessly from effect to cause
Boost developer efficiency with end-to-end visibility into dependencies
Pinpoint the root cause of a spike by analyzing telemetry related to affected services
LIKE.TG Cloud Observability stands out as one of the few end-to-end solutions that offer true visibility in a single, unified platform. This helps improve security, governance, workflows, collaboration, customer experience, and return on investment.Unified observability, security, and resilienceThanks to deep integration with the LIKE.TG platform and our increasing commitment to the OpenTelemetry project, capturing observability data has never been easier."Google Cloud customers now have access to LIKE.TG’s advanced observability capabilities, helping them speed up their cloud migrations and transformations,” says Ben Sigelman, general manager of Cloud Observability.“By marrying observability, security, and resilience, teams can break down silos between teams and bring together all the data they need to help accelerate innovation and maintain secure and compliant applications while reducing costs,” he adds.“Bringing LIKE.TG to Google Cloud Marketplace will help customers quickly deploy and manage LIKE.TG’s Cloud Observability offering on Google Cloud's trusted, global infrastructure," says Dai Vu, managing director of marketplace and independent software vendor programs at Google Cloud.“LIKE.TG can now securely scale and support customers on their digital transformation journeys.”Find out more about LIKE.TG Cloud Observability and get started on Google Cloud today.1 Available only in the United States
LIKE.TG in AWS Marketplace: Contact center and cloud transformation
LIKE.TG is excited to announce the launch of two groundbreaking use cases in the AWS Marketplace: cloud transformation and next-generation contact center. These innovations are part of our ongoing mission to revolutionize how businesses manage their cloud environments and interact with customers.Accelerating cloud transformationCloud transformation is no longer just a buzzword; it's a strategic imperative for businesses looking to stay competitive in today's fast-paced digital world. As LIKE.TG Chairman and CEO Bill McDermott says, “We’re witnessing a generational shift to cloud platforms.”Gartner® estimates, “By 2028, modernization efforts will culminate in 70% of workloads running in a cloud environment, up from 25% in 2023.”1 In our opinion, LIKE.TG has proactively addressed this need by creating a Cloud Center of Excellence (CCoE).The CCoE drives enterprisewide cloud transformation initiatives, in addition to identifying the right workloads to transition to AWS. It also produces a progress report, delivering transparency to leadership throughout the transition.Benefits of LIKE.TG cloud transformationThanks to LIKE.TG's integration with AWS, organizations can access a comprehensive suite of tools and services to expedite their journey to the cloud and benefit from:
Accelerated cloud adoption through streamlined processes and automation to help facilitate faster migration and easier management of cloud workloads
Improved control and governance with clear policies and workflows that help ensure proper cloud resource usage and security, mitigating risks associated with cloud adoption
Enhanced visibility and insights into the cloud environment through a unified platform for better decision-making
Reduced costs as a result of automated tasks and optimized resource usage for efficient cloud resource management
Increased agility and innovation for fast deployment and easier scaling of cloud resources
Revolutionizing customer engagementIn today's hyperconnected world, delivering exceptional customer experiences is paramount. When resolutions take a long time, satisfaction rates plummet to 30% and customer attrition increases four times, according to MarketSplash.When issues are resolved quickly and on first contact, satisfaction can exceed 90%, with customers willing to pay a premium price. LIKE.TG's integration with AWS brings forth a next-generation contact center solution that helps improve customer engagement through the power of AI and seamless omnichannel support, offering these benefits:
Empowered self-service through the integration of Now Assist in Virtual Agent with Amazon Connect, Lex, and Transcribe for common inquiries and issues, helping to reduce agent workload and call volume
Seamless omnichannel engagement through web browsers, mobile chat, and voice—all within a consistent LIKE.TG interface
Fast issue resolution thanks to agents being equipped with LIKE.TG context and relevant knowledge base articles
Cost optimization through streamlined workflows and automated tasks
Improved scalability with AWS Connect cloud infrastructure alongside LIKE.TG workflow automation capabilities to help ensure organizations can meet customer needs efficiently, even during peak periods
Driving innovationAs businesses continue to navigate the complexities of digital transformation, the collaboration between LIKE.TG and AWS, including our availability in AWS Marketplace, offers a compelling proposition. By using the power of these integrated solutions, organizations can accelerate their cloud transformation journey while delivering superior customer experience.LIKE.TG and AWS are at the forefront of driving innovation and enabling businesses to thrive in the digital age. Now is the time to embrace the future of digital transformation and unlock the full potential of your organization with LIKE.TG in AWS Marketplace.Find out more about how LIKE.TG and AWS drive innovation.1 Gartner press release, Gartner IT Infrastructure, Operations Cloud Strategies Conference 2023 London: Day 1 Highlights, Nov. 20, 2023GARTNER, Magic Quadrant, and Peer Insights are registered trademarks and service marks of Gartner Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved.
How we seamlessly adapt to change and boost efficiency
Continuous change and economic uncertainty are normal in today’s business environment. In fact, 88% of executives believe their customers are changing faster than their business can keep up, according to Accenture.A unified and intelligent platform can help organizations focus on what matters most—Net Promoter Score, revenue growth, and margin expansion—and seamlessly adapt to change.At LIKE.TG, we use our solutions internally to maintain this same focus while ensuring we’re ready to take on whatever comes next. Let’s look at three examples:
IT Service Management and IT Operations Management (together known as service operations)
IT Asset Management
Strategic Portfolio Management
Self-service and automationTo modernize our technology service operations, we set a lofty goal of zero user-reported incidents. By empowering employee self-service and automating as many operational processes as possible, we’ve seen the number of IT issues employees report decrease by 59%.Extensive digitization means nearly all (94%) changes are approved automatically, and critical P1 outages have decreased by 58%. One-quarter of our IT issues are handled by AIOps before any user can be affected.We use our automated Event Management to correlate events and eliminate duplicates. This has reduced noise by 99%. Virtual Agent technology takes care of about half of all virtual private network (VPN) issues, helping us resolve issues fast.All these gains have improved IT support staff productivity by 30%, freeing IT workers to focus on value-added, challenging activities rather than administrative tasks. As a result, they’re more satisfied in their jobs.Streamlined software reclamation and requestsAutomation using our IT Asset Management solution has also led to some dramatic efficiency and cost-savings success.As a hypergrowth company, we were struggling to keep pace with exponentially increasing employee software requests. We needed to automate the manual and labor-intensive process of software reclamation and streamline software requests.Our goals were to improve productivity for both software requesters and IT staff and to reduce our overall spend—while still satisfying (with a positive user experience) the demand of a growing employee base. We also sought to avoid financial penalties for compliance failures.Using IT Asset Management—including our Software Asset Management product—we were able to save 7,400 labor hours, reduce expenses by $620,000 via improved IT staff productivity, and avoid more than $3 million in unnecessary costs for unused licenses.Goal alignment, mapping, and project deliveryAs IT leaders, my team and I are under pressure to deliver value to the enterprise—fast. We needed a stronger portfolio management approach to help us get the most value from our investments, make faster decisions on changing priorities, and track delivery across the entire project portfolio.The obstacles we faced are common in enterprises: lack of ongoing alignment on strategic outcomes, insufficient data visibility, and organizational and informational silos. These obstacles were relatively easy to overcome with our Strategic Portfolio Management solution.We used Strategic Planning Workspace to align proactively on all our goals and then capture, view, prioritize, map, and track them in one place—where all stakeholders have full visibility and information sharing is automated.The results have been incredible. Aligning our goals to our investment targets resulted in a 5.2 times return on investment. We automated planning for 515 roadmaps and improved efficiency by 80%. And we saw annualized outcomes of more than $425 million across more than 410 releases.The intelligent LIKE.TG platform can also enable your organization to run a world-class, adaptive technology department. By keeping digital services running 24/7, delivering exceptional IT experiences to employees and customers, reducing expenses for technology assets, and enabling organizationwide planning, it can help ensure your business can pivot quickly.Find out more how LIKE.TG helps organizations adapt to change in our ebook: 4 tips every innovative company needs to succeed in digital transformation.
ServiceOps: Revolutionizing decision-making for dynamic business
Business moves fast. As organizations push to constantly transform and stay ahead of competition, they must consider how they’ll support ever-growing internal- and external-facing demands in every aspect of their business operations.To innovate and change at such a demanding pace, and meet customer expectations, IT service management and operations teams must come out of their silos to converge into service operations (ServiceOps). When enabled with AI and automation, ServiceOps allows organizations to run smoother and faster so they can focus on what matters: their customers and technology.My colleague Jim Van Over, LIKE.TG field innovation officer, and I discussed the importance of ServiceOps with several colleagues on the Innovation Today podcast. Here are some of their insights on expanding beyond their respective swim lanes, aligning business and technical leaders, and finding the right ServiceOps solution for your organization.Enabling rapid innovation and responseServiceOps isn’t just about streamlining efforts across an organization. It’s about getting the “best resolutions of your incidents,” explains Sunny Raina, associate vice president of Hexaware, a LIKE.TG Elite Partner. “You get faster response for anything that comes and hits a service management queue or a ServiceOps queue.”In this way, ServiceOps extends beyond “keeping the lights on” to helping to ensure the business runs at peak optimization. It takes a holistic approach to resources, automation, and teams to enable faster-than-ever innovation.Before fully embracing ServiceOps, companies should evaluate their tech stack, technical debt, and how the IT organization is structured, Raina recommends. “Then, look at what are the enabling factors which you can combine to drive more efficiency.”Convergence, he adds, will be driven by an intelligent platform through which organizations can see trends for everything from incident resolution to mean time to repair. A single-pane view of data can improve visibility into ServiceOps, allowing management teams to make fast, informed decisions.
Facilitating collaborationThe nature of constant change and information in today’s organizations underscores the importance of involving business users. There’s no way around it: Business users and technology teams need to work together for successful ServiceOps, which begins with endorsement from senior leaders.Having a senior executive leader coordinating among various teams can be especially helpful in driving alignment, notes John “Rook” Jones, a senior solutions architect at Beyond20. He’s been helping companies populate their configuration management databases (CMDBs) for 30 years.“A lot of organizations don’t understand why a CMBD is so important,” Jones says. The significance of the CMDB must be elevated in such a way that the entire organization understands the necessity of having always-on, always-up-to-date information.For ServiceOps to be effective, data from various departments must come together—which may be overwhelming for many organizations.“It’s absolutely going to be complex,” Jones acknowledges, “and there's no way around that. I mean, you're involving more voices at the table. It's going to take a level of governance, a committee of two to three to five people—whatever size makes most sense for the organization—to bring those leaders together with a mandate to make this happen from the CIO.”Uniting the organizationLIKE.TG Configuration Management Database (CMBD) is a core element in successfully optimizing ServiceOps by automatically pulling details of service events into one platform and relating them to the item in question. In the age of the cloud and AI, a CMBD is critical.Many organizations may have a service mindset, Jones says, but don’t execute efficiently or think holistically about how they track and use data. Working across multiple teams and users for CMBD data sets the foundation for ensuring teams have the right information. This can give business users insight into the flow of operations and visibility into every service interaction and its interconnections.“It really brings the organization all together when they can see from that higher level instead of down in the weeds at the infrastructure level,” Jones explains. “I think that’s one of the major benefits.”The CMDB may pull in data from many sources. And it updates every day or according to a set schedule, ensuring an ongoing, automated approach the entire organization can count on—eliminating time-consuming manual data entries.
Embracing change and trusting partnersThe future of ServiceOps requires trade-offs. Some of these will likely include discussions around technical debt—which is hugely complicated in an enterprise environment.How does an enterprise begin to think about making such important decisions? There may be a temptation to build a custom platform rather than adopt out-of-the-box solutions with low- or no-code functionality. But that is often short-sighted.“These large platform providers, service providers, and cloud providers have the most valuable commodity, which is access to what's happening across thousands of customers,” says Derek Truesdell, chief technology officer of Intact Technology. “And they're able to see both today problems and emerging problems.”Many times, customers’ perceived needs derive from a misunderstanding about available off-the-shelf solutions, Truesdell adds. Or customers may be overly reliant on an existing process that can be changed or managed in a different way.“There are customers that initially are hesitant and skeptical,” agrees Vinny Viola, vice president of product and innovation at Intact Technology, “And rightfully so.”He notes that a typical customer demand, customized onboarding processes, is a perfect opportunity to quickly prove the value of out-of-the-box solutions. Viola helps customers understand what data can immediately be shared with legal, IT, HR, or other business units.“And when you start to stack up all that functionality across the different business silos, I think that is not something that most customers have ever seen done before,” he says.Resistance to change is often rooted in systems and processes put into place more than a decade ago. But once the breakthrough occurs, “in many instances, [those people] become the subject matter experts in their own organizations about these changes in the benefits,” Truesdell notes. “They become our biggest advocates.”Adopting ServiceOps at scaleLIKE.TG offers an intelligent platform that helps organizations run IT service and operations management. “What I love about LIKE.TG is that it is the platform of platforms,” Jones says. “It’s built to be integrated with other things...You can tie into all of the other IT platforms that you’re already using to bring all that information together.”“By harnessing the power of ServiceOps, we’re not just accelerating process; we’re also revolutionizing decision-making,” Van Over adds, “ensuring that each phase of our operation is data-driven, efficient, and focused on excellence.”No matter where you are in your journey to improve efficiency, we can help you modernize operations, automate services, and optimize your approach to workflows. Discover how other organizations have reduced technical debt while shifting to a ServiceOps mindset in these customer stories.Find out more about how you can get started on your ServiceOps journey in our ebook: Adapting and thriving with ServiceOps.
IDC MarketScape names LIKE.TG a Leader in SPM and value stream management
I’m thrilled to announce that LIKE.TG has been named a Leader in two IDC MarketScape reports:
Worldwide Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM) and IT Project and Portfolio Management 2023-2024 Vendor Assessment1
Worldwide Value Stream Management (VSM) and Agile Project and Portfolio Management 2023-2024 Vendor Assessment2
We believe being recognized as a Leader reflects our commitment to drive innovative delivery and excellence in aligning investments to support business strategy. Our SPM and VSM solutions are helping customers accelerate digital transformation using the LIKE.TG platform.Visibility for decision-making confidenceThe IDC MarketScape assessment for SPM states, “Cross-portfolio visibility for SPM and other data, including software maintenance, service desk, and product delivery with SPM, time tracking, and agile execution, help align business strategies with current progress as a focus with LIKE.TG's combined portfolio.”We believe this serves to reiterate what makes LIKE.TG SPM a strong offering: the breadth of the LIKE.TG story. Customers are already using features such as Process Mining to identify process improvement opportunities for idea, demand, and project workflows.Organizations are also using Benchmarks to gain clear insights into key performance indicators and trends to compare against industry averages. Tied together with our single data model, features like these are a catalyst for enabling innovation at scale.The IDC MarketScape notes that LIKE.TG’s “expanding focus with AI and generative AI (GenAI) creates a needed foundation and basis to evolve further as organizations seek to manage Agile Release Trains, portfolios, epics, programs, and/or tasks and user stories that encompass business and other initiatives.”LIKE.TG SPM enables stakeholders to:
Fund what matters most
Build a roadmap to guide investments
Communicate plans
See work in the context of strategic initiatives—across diverse teams, work methodologies, and portfolio management approaches
Value delivery and compliance at scaleIn discussing LIKE.TG VSM and Agile project and portfolio management capabilities, the IDC MarketScape states the Now Platform “enables consolidation, efficiency for users via cross-product coordination, a consistent interface, management, administration, workflow, integration, and data (with CMDB access and data discovery) and scalability.”With multiple lenses for value streams, product portfolios, and goal objectives, LIKE.TG provides customers with flexibility and broad planning and execution capabilities. We help organizations avoid disruption and increase productivity across the entire value stream.Our approach to VSM uses key capabilities of SPM working seamlessly with IT Service Management (including DevOps), IT Operations Management, and Governance, Risk, and Compliance.Together, these empower businesses and development teams with end-to-end awareness of the critical metrics and insights needed to optimize value stream flow.Innovating for the futureWe’re delighted that the IDC MarketScape has recognized our cumulative investments and focus on AI and GenAI as foundational strengths. These have been the building blocks enabling our customers to benefit from the power of SPM and VSM across the LIKE.TG platform.With SPM and VSM, we’re accelerating the process from strategy to execution to give customers greater ability to adapt to dynamic market conditions and increase competitiveness.Read excerpts from the IDC MarketScape Vendor Assessments for SPM and VSM.1 IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Strategic Portfolio Management and IT Project and Portfolio Management 2023-2024 Vendor Assessment, doc #US49436523, December 20232 IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Value Stream Management and Agile Project and Portfolio Management 2023-2024 Vendor Assessment, doc #US49436723, December 2023
Modernizing ITSM with ITIL 4: Unifying ITSM and ITOM functions
The best practices and principles of the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) 4 show IT service management (ITSM) service providers the importance of building a strong infrastructure that creates business value, adapts to change, tracks capabilities, and embraces automation.Without collaboration between ITSM service providers and different functions of the enterprise, however, the benefits of ITIL 4 best practices are minimized. Silos negatively affect people, processes, and performance, restricting progress and innovation.ITSM and IT operations management (ITOM) are two areas where collaboration is essential. Their relationship can be confusing, and adding ITIL standards can further complicate matters—especially when they use different versions of ITIL for their guiding principles.However, ITIL 4 offers a resolution by combining the best of ITSM and ITOM functions, highlighting opportunities for the two to work together under one service operations model.What’s the difference between ITSM and ITOM?It’s easy to confuse ITSM and ITOM, so let’s summarize them like this:
ITSM is how organizations deliver end-to-end IT service using various tools and processes.
ITOM is the management of those tools and processes while overseeing the performance and capabilities of the organization’s IT infrastructure, including hardware, software, and networks.
Employees and customers interact with ITSM, which is the public-facing function of the enterprise’s IT infrastructure. For example, when an employee submits a help ticket for a technical issue with their laptop, they navigate the resolution process with ITSM.ITOM, on the other hand, is the behind-the-scenes function that measures the performance of the enterprise’s IT infrastructure to ensure it meets the needs of the business. Using the example above, when the employee receives a quick response to their incident request from the IT service team, it’s because of the processes established by ITOM.The service operations modelAn enterprise must evaluate its business needs to define how ITSM and ITOM can help it achieve positive outcomes through an integrated approach.A service operations model guided by ITIL 4 principles encourages holistic thinking and collaboration to best serve the needs of the enterprise. Debating whether ITSM is a part of ITOM, or vice versa, is irrelevant. Instead, channeling the energy and resources of both ITSM and ITOM can generate positive outcomes that touch every corner of the enterprise.The service operations model converges ITSM and ITOM technological capabilities into a single system. It allows organizations to look at their ITOM tools and processes and see where capabilities (e.g., workflow automation, reporting and analytics, etc.) can be combined with ITSM to untangle complexity, reduce operational costs, and improve service performance.Consolidating disparate toolsThe ramifications on service operations of using disparate tools for ITSM and ITOM are more than technical. In fact, they stretch across people, processes, and performance.When juggling multiple service and operations tools, organizations often experience costly and complex upgrade and integration efforts, multiple vendor relationships with different support methods, and duplicate, inconsistent, or outdated tools.But those issues pale in comparison to the operational and business-level hurdles: changing operations and ways of working, the necessity for different skill sets to manage different tools, and siloed performance data and insights.Consolidating service and operations tools helps address these issues, allowing enterprises to excel in process standardization/optimization and employee productivity improvement.Remember, unifying ITSM and ITOM capabilities is not only a technical endeavor, but also a people project that involves overcoming resistance to change. The organizational change management tools and techniques in ITIL 4 can address concerns by explaining the need for change, communicating benefits, and providing training.Evolving service operations with AIOpsAIOps describes the use of data, machine learning (ML), natural language understanding (NLU), and AI to automate service operations. When AIOps is part of ITOM, supports ITSM, and aligns with ITIL 4:
Historical incident and event data is simplified for organizations to understand and predict business impact through automated alert correlation, prioritization, escalation, and remediation.
ML helps slash response times by identifying root causes of incidents, events, and issues through automated root-cause analysis.
IT services and infrastructure can be scaled to meet demand using automated capacity and cost optimization.
ML embedded in automated workflows can filter low-value tasks and alerts from multiple systems, giving teams uninterrupted time to focus on high-priority issues in a single system of insights and actions.
A path to successWhen ITSM and ITOM teams collaborate using ITIL 4 best practices, a powerful partnership emerges that can deliver improved capabilities and performance to meet stakeholder expectations.Zooming out and looking at the entire map of modernizing ITSM services reveals an exciting path filled with opportunities and challenges at every turn.ITIL 4 is your guide throughout this journey, showcasing how to support the enterprise in a way that aligns with business goals, creates value, and scales to meet growing expectations. Find out more in our ebook: Unifying ITSM and ITOM with ITIL 4.
10 things IT leaders need to know to drive ITAM success
The demands of modern businesses continue to reshape IT asset management (ITAM) beyond traditional practices and tools.LIKE.TG commissioned Enterprise Management Associates to survey 450 global IT leaders on the state of ITAM. Our report, “A business view of ITAM,” sheds light on the most critical aspects leaders need to focus on to deliver ITAM success.1. ITAM has become a strategic imperativeITAM is no longer confined to the peripheries of technology departments. It's now a dynamic force driving business success amid increasing expectations to deliver tangible value.Our research indicates a remarkable shift in perception, with 62% of surveyed IT leaders stating the role of ITAM is gaining prominence. Businesses are requiring more. As a result, ITAM teams are expected to show value in a way that the rest of the business can understand.2. ITAM must speak the language of the businessITAM leaders must be able to prove value by reporting on key metrics that affect the organization as a whole. The research reveals the top five metrics organizations are using to gauge ITAM success are:
Minimized security risks
Audit performance and accuracy
Employee productivity
Optimization of cloud spend
Level of automated processes and efficiencies
To truly demonstrate value, ITAM leaders should align their efforts with these business-centric benchmarks. Collaborating closely with leadership to understand broader business priorities will help ITAM teams set more strategic goals.3. Success starts with accurate asset informationThe completeness and accuracy of asset information has emerged as a nonnegotiable factor for business success. However, only 33.3% of organizations consider the completeness and accuracy of their asset information to be “outstanding,” yet just 14.7% report it needs improvement.This disparity underscores a critical challenge: ensuring the health, or quality, of asset information. This is pivotal for quick, efficient IT service delivery; cost optimization; security and risk mitigation; and automation, as data lays the foundation for automated workflows to, well, flow.
4. Security (as always) is a major prioritySecurity remains a paramount concern, especially in terms of asset visibility. Although 44.4% of organizations recognize the critical role of asset information in identifying and protecting attack surfaces, challenges persist.More than half of survey respondents stated asset information isn't as useful to their cybersecurity teams as it should be. This reinforces the idea that security starts with quality asset information. You can’t protect what you don’t know you own.5. ITAM maturity benefits from a platform approachOrganizations with high ITAM maturity are better positioned to navigate the complexities of digital transformation. Only 26% of represented organizations reported reaching an “optimized” level of ITAM maturity—with optimal costs, minimal risk, and automated processes.What stands out is that 100% of organizations at this level are using a platform approach—managing all asset types on a centralized platform. This emphasizes the vital role of a unified platform in realizing ITAM's full potential. A platform approach will emerge as the “golden ticket” to ITAM maturity.6. Diverse asset types are being managed togetherThe push to bring all asset classes and types onto a shared platform for cross-domain workflows increased from 23% in 2022 to 34% in 2023. This indicates a continued dismantling of silo mentality.There’s no denying an overlap in the processes, teams, and tools involved in managing diverse asset estates across software, hardware, cloud, and the enterprise. More and more teams are merging technology and enterprise asset management into a single discipline, a trend that will likely continue.7. ITAM and FinOps collaboration can be beneficialHigh adoption of cloud solutions led to unbudgeted costs and caught many organizations off guard. In response, cloud financial operations (FinOps) is gaining awareness and importance as a strategic business function.Although only 5% of survey respondents have one team responsible for both FinOps and ITAM, 55% foresee a unified organization on the horizon for managing all asset types, including cloud resources.Nearly half (43%) of IT leaders reported proactive collaboration between their ITAM and FinOps teams, suggesting a symbiotic relationship. For example, insights into asset utilization and lifecycle can help FinOps teams make informed decisions to right-size cloud resources and help ensure optimal usage and cost-effectiveness.
8. ESG is top of mind for ITAM leadersEnvironmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives are increasingly on the agenda for IT leaders. In fact, 63% confirmed ESG is part of their organization’s long-term vision and priorities. However, they identified ESG reporting as one of the most challenging aspects of ITAM.Despite hurdles in funding, implementing, and measuring these initiatives, sustainability is taking a prominent role. ITAM has the potential to play a crucial part in guiding and influencing sustainable approaches to asset use, asset sourcing, and asset end-of-life planning.9. ITAM continues to expand beyond IT assetsThe expansion of ITAM in managing physical business assets remains a focus area, especially as technology becomes embedded in daily operations. Enterprise asset management is an area ripe for the application of vetted IT tools and processes to assets that the business has traditionally owned and managed.10. Automation is a necessityAutomation is no longer just strategic. It's a survival essential for IT, especially with smaller teams overseeing more assets and asset types. The integration of AI and machine learning (ML) into ITAM processes is becoming commonplace. Nearly half (43%) of IT leaders reported a high level of process automation aided by AI and ML.Because automation is dependent on accurate, up-to-date information, the need for complete and accurate asset information is critical.At the forefront of transformative changeNavigating this evolving ITAM landscape requires collaboration, business-aligned metrics, and a platform-driven approach. The challenges are vast, but the opportunities for ITAM to deliver unprecedented value across the organization have never been more promising.Gain more insights in the full ITAM report and our on-demand webinar, “Business demands modern ITAM.”
Very viral, very fast: Sustaining Malaysia’s digital adoption
Despite a rapidly growing digital economy, Malaysia has struggled to gain momentum for digital adoption across industries and business sizes. With a continued investment in platforms and people, however, the turning point for the country’s digital transformation may come sooner than many expect.As the country manager for LIKE.TG Malaysia, I’ve seen that as soon as businesses achieve a certain amount of success with digital transformation, it often propels change throughout the organization at sudden and exponential speed. Once an organization reaches this digital inflection point, the rest tends to fall into place.From small to great, at speedThe trajectory of digital transformation at Malaysian enterprises can be described by the Malay proverb sikit sikit, lama lama, jadi bukit, which translates to “little by little, over time, becomes a hill.”It’s a pattern I’ve witnessed among many LIKE.TG customers in Malaysia: small-scale deployment of a single solution followed by rapid adoption of the Now Platform across a much broader range of business functions and use cases.Technology investments take time to drive enduring business value. But when those early-stage projects succeed, those customers, our products, and our solutions go very viral, very fast.One example is a multinational consumer goods manufacturer that brought its shared global IT services to Malaysian shores. Like a lot of customers, the manufacturer initially engaged LIKE.TG solely for IT Service Management (ITSM).Within a year and a half, however, the company adopted our platform across HR Service Delivery and finance, with pilots in operations and risk management. The manufacturer is even looking to integrate its operational technology workflows, such as those that govern Internet of Things devices in its factories.United functions, at scaleA desire to unify digital solutions across an organization often drives this pace of growth. In another instance, Malaysia Airlines adopted the LIKE.TG platform to consolidate digital services for its thousands of employees—and, in turn, power a more cohesive digital experience for customers around the globe.The national carrier’s IT and finance services already run on the LIKE.TG platform, with HR and risk management services slated to follow suit.Most enterprises, particularly those in the more traditional industries, have been struggling to digitalize their processes in a holistic way. When they find a way to unite these different functions on a platform that can bear the weight of the entire organization, they can suddenly transform at far greater speed and scale than before.
The human factorEven the most flexible digital platform, however, requires individuals with the appropriate skills to maximize its potential. In Malaysia, digital skills remain in short supply, even as demand for them is increasing by more than 7% per year, according to The Economist Group. This is often due to the fact that upskilling is financially unattainable for many employees.The goal is to see how we can create that supply side for skills in the short to medium term. We’re looking to help Malaysia RiseUp with LIKE.TG. We’ve already started conversations with customers about job placements for those we train.Such initiatives not only offset the cost of skills development, but they also provide clear pathways to future employment, complementing ongoing efforts from public sector bodies such as HRD Corp and MDEC to promote digital skills throughout the country.Reimagined talent developmentEmployers, for their part, may benefit from digital solutions that help them better understand their workforce’s existing skills and guide more precise investments in talent development. This can help address mismatches between what employees consider useful skills and what employers require for digital transformation—an issue Malaysian businesses across industries increasingly face.The right data and insights will ensure people are developing skills that match with Malaysia’s short- and long-term needs alike. Whether it’s platforms or talent, adaptability and longevity are key. As a country, our goal shouldn’t be simply to develop all sorts of digital skills, but to invest specifically in capabilities and roles that may be relevant now and 10 or even 20 years down the road.Achieving that alignment between platform and people can help carry Malaysian enterprises—and professionals—beyond their digital inflection point and into exponential growth.I joined LIKE.TG because I knew it as the epitome of enterprise technology and saw its potential for driving digital transformation in my country. Whether you’re an enterprise investing in technology or an individual investing in your personal development, it will pay to choose something that can go the distance to your vision. Then invest in it, bit by bit, until you get there.Find out more about how LIKE.TG helps organizations embrace digital adoption.
Speed up digital-first business growth: 3 steps to transformation
In the fast-paced landscape of modern business, one thing is clear: The digital revolution is here to stay. As organizations move toward a digital-first strategy, the demand for innovative digital services is skyrocketing. IDC predicts worldwide digital transformation spending will reach nearly $3.9 trillion in 2027.1However, with this surge in demand comes a host of challenges. Budget constraints, legacy systems, and the ever-increasing complexity of IT issues are just a few hurdles to overcome to achieve true digital transformation.When your IT Service Management and IT Operations Management run on the same platform, you’ll be well equipped to navigate the digital landscape. Start driving meaningful change across your organization with these three steps to transformation.1. Modernize ITOn your journey to digital-first success, start by modernizing your IT infrastructure and processes. Organizations often find themselves bogged down by siloed teams, outdated systems, and manual processes. With LIKE.TG, you can bypass these constraints and lay the foundation for continued growth.By embracing a unified cloud platform, you can easily integrate IT services and operations, eliminating inefficiencies. Automation can reduce many mundane tasks, allowing your team to focus on innovating and delivering exceptional service.This robust data foundation in a single location provides broad visibility into your IT landscape, helping you prioritize issues, make informed decisions, and drive continuous improvement throughout the organization.
2. Automate mundane tasksWith your IT infrastructure modernized on a single platform, you can progress to AI-powered automation. Your customers and employees will enjoy the convenience of 24/7 support from virtual agents from an Employee Center portal, common collaboration tools, and their mobile devices while on the go.From intuitive self-service portals with AI-powered search to chatbots aided by generative AI (GenAI), the possibilities are endless. Employees can access support anytime, anywhere while your IT team benefits from reduced workloads and increased productivity.AI-powered automation can even prevent incidents from reaching your teams. By identifying patterns and predicting future trends, predictive analytics can help prevent service degradations or outages before they arise. Ensure always-on IT services and reliable, seamless operations.3. Accelerate service deliveryWith native products for all parts of your enterprise layered on top of the Now Platform, you can streamline processes to accelerate service delivery, ensure compliance, and maximize return on investment.This can free product teams to develop with agility while speeding up services and operations to match development. Power IT agent productivity and boost employee self-service with GenAI.By adopting modernization, automation, and acceleration, you can help your organization succeed in the digital age. Embrace the digital future and unlock a world of opportunity for your organization.Find out more about how LIKE.TG helps organizations manage IT service and operations on a single platform.1 IDC, Worldwide Digital Transformation Spending Forecast to Continue Its Double-Digit Growth Trajectory, According to IDC Spending Guide, doc #US51352323, Nov. 1, 2023
Fast-track cloud transformation with LIKE.TG Cloud Solutions
“By 2028, more than 50% of enterprises will use industry cloud platforms to accelerate their business initiatives,” according to Gartner®.1 However, adopting a multicloud strategy across multiple public cloud providers with no standard operating model often results in a fragmented operating environment.That’s why we at LIKE.TG are excited to announce comprehensive, end-to-end Cloud Solutions offerings built on the Now Platform®. LIKE.TG simplifies and automates complex cloud processes with cloud workflows, enabling customers to deliver a unified operational model and remove complexity from multicloud environments.These innovations are part of our ongoing mission to enable customers to accelerate cloud transformation in hybrid and cloud-native environments on a single, unified platform—powered by AI. With the LIKE.TG® platform, customers have a single pane of glass to manage operational and business aspects of cloud transformation.“LIKE.TG’s innovation in automating critical business processes with workflow solutions across the entire IT estate is unparalleled,” says Pablo Stern, senior vice president and general manager of LIKE.TG technology workflows. “With LIKE.TG Cloud Solutions, we’re bringing those same workflow principles to enable cloud transformation.”Unified platform for cloud transformationThe move to the cloud has the potential to bring huge benefits, but organizations need a structured approach to planning, scaling, and operating the cloud to realize its full potential.Using Common Services Data Model (CSDM) guidance along with Cloud Solutions, customers can accelerate their cloud transformation journey in three critical ways:1. Plan application modernizationModernize enterprise architecture by rationalizing applications to reduce software and hardware costs using Application Portfolio Management.
2. Scale cloud processesIncrease cloud visibility and enable self-service with compliance, cost, and security controls through Cloud Accelerate and Cloud Cost Management.
3. Operate cloud services with resilienceIncrease agility and reliability by operating hybrid cloud and cloud-native environments with AIOps, Cloud Observability, and Security.
Driving innovation in the cloudCombining the power of these integrated solutions on the LIKE.TG platform can accelerate an organization’s cloud transformation journey while delivering superior employee and customer experiences.Cloud Solutions includes recent innovations that can support your cloud journey, regardless of where you are. Here are some of the highlights:
ITOM Cloud Discovery, the foundation for cloud process automation with near-real-time event-driven discovery of cloud assets
ITOM Cloud Accelerate cloud enablement functionality on top of cloud discovery for self-service with compliance
ITAM Cloud Cost Management, which works with Cloud Accelerate workflows to provide proactive cost controls for cloud self-service that includes container spend management for Kubernetes clusters
Cloud Observability integration with ITOM AIOps via a native integration so that organizations can unify observability and AIOps
SecOps Cloud Vulnerability Response integrates with vulnerability scanners and enables remediation of cloud vulnerabilities
Find out more about how LIKE.TG Cloud Solutions helps organizations accelerate cloud transformation.1 Gartner press release, Gartner IT Infrastructure, Operations Cloud Strategies Conference 2023 London: Day 1 Highlights, Nov. 20, 2023.GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.
IDC MarketScape names LIKE.TG a Leader in cloud solutions
I’m excited to announce that LIKE.TG has been named a Leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Multicloud and Hybrid Cloud Management with Automation 2024 Vendor Assessment.1 We believe this recognition reflects our commitment to helping customers increase value and accelerate return on investment with our AI-powered platform.LIKE.TG® Cloud Solutions help customers accelerate digital transformation, improve service delivery, manage costs, and reduce risk.The IDC MarketScape report notes, “LIKE.TG offers a versatile platform for cloud management and automation that customers or partners can customize while maintaining the value and continuous improvements of SaaS solutions.” It further states, “Recent investments in generative AI and partnerships with NVIDIA will keep LIKE.TG at the forefront of innovation for years to come.”Simplify cloud processes“The simplification of cloud processes through AI has become integral for organizations navigating the complexities of cloud adoption, ensuring that cloud environments are more efficient and aligned with broader business objectives,” explains Brian Emerson, global vice president of IT Operations Management and Cloud Observability at ServiceNow.“By automating complex cloud processes on a single platform, organizations can better align with corporate goals and enterprise architecture standards, establish a source of truth for cloud assets, and simplify cloud access with compliance and cost controls.”
The citizen healthcare experience
Let citizen experiences drive your decision makingIn healthcare, citizen needs, expectations, and priorities can change quickly and with little warning. There’s no better example of this than the way COVID-19 immediately affected how organizations serve their customers and how healthcare providers prioritize patients, with many elective surgeries postponed.As federal healthcare agencies update their business models and operating procedures in the COVID-19 era, they must continue to be patient-centric. They have to understand how citizens and patients want to interact with government agencies and providers and address concerns throughout the lifecycle of services. With government-mandated stay-at-home restrictions starting to lift and the hiatus on non-emergency surgeries ending, federal agencies that provide services for soldiers, their families, veterans, citizens, and others need to be prepared to meet rapidly evolving needs.Most agencies and providers won’t be able to resume business as usual once restrictions end. They’ll have to enact best practices for in-office safety, develop a strategy for meeting and to prioritize customer needs, and if they’re delivering care, determine if they have essential products and materials like personal protective equipment.Federal health services provided by VA and military hospitals will need to be more agile than ever to meet changing healthcare requirements. HHS research facilities will need to be mindful of government mandates that differ by state and business or clinical procedures that may need to be updated as new best practices emerge. This means agencies must have a modern platform that can meet current and future needs, including giving organizations the ability to pivot if focus areas shift quickly.Meeting citizens in their digital spaceIn today’s Digital Age, government healthcare recipients expect agencies to interact and communicate with them across their preferred devices, from any location and at any time. It’s no longer enough for agencies to talk about digital strategies or implement digital technologies that offer only partial capabilities. They must deliver modern digital experiences, like appointment scheduling, that provide real-time responses and self-service access to medical information.Citizens have high expectations for service. They’re used to dealing with private-sector companies that have had digital processes in place for years. Innovative companies combine these processes with data analytics to proactively meet citizens’ needs and solve problems before the customer has to ask.As a result, citizens expect a similar focus on customer experience from the government, too. They expect agencies that provide healthcare services will keep them up-to-date on procedures they may need, share information that can improve their health and wellness, and maybe even arrange virtual visits with providers.Agencies are well on their way. For example, in the middle of the pandemic, HHS launched a new home page on March 17. “The new home page will be the beginning of a continuous improvement project that will create a more useful, consistent, faster, simpler, and possibly even a fun digital experience for the American public.” quotes a blog on hhs.com. DHA and VA have similar efforts. They aren’t just doing the bare minimum to meet government mandates, and they want to provide that extra something to engage users and provide a truly positive, perhaps even fun, experience.Digitalization achieves mandates, improves citizen interactionsOf course, there are still government mandates to be met. The 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act (IDEA) has digital requirements for government agencies to deliver better experiences to citizens. In my blog earlier this year, I mention the great workflows that will define our 21st-century digital government and the pillars on which they rely.LIKE.TG’s digital, cloud-based platform allows agencies access to a single solution for these workflows, which enable modern health IT services. Each interaction is consistent, transparent, and relevant across federal healthcare agencies and organizations dealing with health services. It also integrates with other technologies to provide one centralized location for citizens and healthcare information.The Now Platform can also help agencies stay current with government regulations and best practices relating to COVID-19 and Return to Work procedures, such as contact tracing and employee health screenings. This gives agencies the ability to keep employees safe and compliant with changing regulations and each state’s restrictions.Keeping up with the timesWith so much information and misinformation about COVID-19, effective communication from healthcare service providers is essential. Citizens and their family members probably have questions about how the coronavirus could affect their care, especially if they have a procedure scheduled or need to visit their provider. They need to be able to easily ask questions and access reliable information related to their care.Communication must be consistent across all digital channels, regardless of the device being used. Those channels must be responsive, high quality, connect to the appropriate service, and enable self-service capabilities.The information brief “Improve health services through better citizen experiences” explains how transforming digital channels leads to better citizen experiences, which leads to better care. With the right platform, agencies can achieve higher satisfaction and better outcomes with less effort while building a truly digital government.
4 ways to enhance healthcare efficiency
Many hospitals and health systems are dealing with tight budgets, workforce challenges, and security issues. These and other challenges are getting increasingly complex and adding strain to an already-taxed healthcare ecosystem. How do you decide whether to invest in patients or care teams—or deliver optimal care or achieve your financial goals?In this complicated environment, it can be difficult to avoid getting distracted by minutiae, bureaucracy, and manual efforts. The industry’s Quadruple Aim framework helps many organizations clarify their priorities and zero in on best practices for healthcare efficiency.
Healthcare organizations need time to focus on what matters most: improving care delivery. LIKE.TG is helping organizations bring the Quadruple Aim to life to give more time back to care teams.1. Enhance patient experienceGood patient experiences begin with speed to information. This means easy access, proactive communication, fast updates, and fewer forms. These enhancements can go a long way toward creating a foundation of trust between clinicians and patients.Before care teams can deliver on these improved experiences, however, they must conquer technical hurdles such as data silos, manual processes, and data privacy and compliance rules. Complete, 360-degree views of patient data, reduced delays, improved patient privacy, and eliminated task redundancies can transform a lackluster patient experience into a high-quality, meaningful encounter.2. Promote care team well-beingIt’s difficult to focus on what matters when you’re short on staff or enduring an onslaught of low-value tasks. The good news is that technology solutions can streamline these manual processes.Many healthcare providers are finding relief through process automation, simplified clinician onboarding, and reduced paper workflows. These improvements can prevent clinician burnout, improve clinician satisfaction, and add immediate value to the patient experience.3. Improve population healthTaking a macro view can help healthcare providers get in front of crises, address population-wide trends and needs, and support aging populations. This will require addressing bigger, systemic challenges such as training, communication, and flexible workflows and systems.Solutions center on connecting siloed data and disparate systems. Data-driven visibility and automated administrative workloads can help increase efficiency and improve decision-making so that care teams can provide more accurate, effective care across communities.For example, one of Europe’s largest hospitals had data scattered across multiple systems in multiple formats, making surgery coordination overly complex. With LIKE.TG, the hospital created a real-time view of data that simplified surgery coordination for 1 million yearly treatments and expedited more accurate surgery response.4. Reduce costsTransformation in healthcare will occur when we can connect positive outcomes to spending and waste. Improving efficiency requires reducing administrative tasks, making better use of data, and embracing innovative technologies such as AI.Healthcare providers are choosing technology solutions that automate manual tasks, reduce downtime, and address process inefficiencies.Improving the quality of healthcareThe healthcare industry needs to find more time, waste less effort, and drive down costs to improve the quality of care. Providers shouldn’t have to choose between investing in patients or care teams. Technologies such as hyperautomation can help them do both.Hyperautomation helps accelerate back-office administrative tasks, connect data silos, and enable hyperpersonalized experiences for patients—while reducing costs and inefficiencies. It empowers IT teams to deliver innovative, timesaving, and cost-saving solutions quickly—in days, not months.Find out more about how LIKE.TG helps healthcare organizations make the Quadruple Aim reality in our ebook: Invest in patients or care teams? Yes.
Boosting nurse retention through digital transformation in healthcare
There’s a major disconnect between the promise of digital transformation in clinical care settings and the reality of hospital systems and clinics today. Nurse retention depends on bridging this gap.Many of us remember the first wave of digital transformation in healthcare, where paper and triplicate forms gave way to electronic charting. Although electronic medical records (EMR) systems are remarkable and essential, they don’t provide a complete digital solution for care providers.Hospitals and care centers run on dozens of siloed and disconnected systems. These systems are typically not proactive and do little to automate manual tasks, work processing, and care transitions. Hyperautomated and intelligent technical platforms can solve this.The reality of clinical careNurses enter the challenging healthcare field to help provide top-notch care, solve complex cases, and support people in regaining their health. No clinical professional ever intended to spend their time in front of a computer screen for hours on end or regularly leaving the patient bedside to find an available clean, working infusion pump or orthopedic bed.Clinical care in most settings is broken, and this is an expensive problem. The most talented, licensed staff are spending a great deal of time on administrative duties. Nearly one-third (31%) of clinicians plan to exit the direct care environment because of this, according to McKinsey.As a registered nurse, informatics architect, and former hospital supervisor, I urge IT employees to shadow a nurse, nurse practitioner, or physician assistant for a day. Only then will they understand how much effort it takes to get the required work done and how little time there is for clinical care.
The heart of the issueThe frustration is not with sick patients, concerned families, or health disparities, but with the complex administrative coordination done manually through calling, faxing, and paging to get services at the bedside.Given the advancement of technology in our personal lives, nurses wonder why they can’t easily notify the dietary or facilities department about a problem with a patient tray or a broken bathroom light through their computer or workstation on wheels.They question why admission orders entered into a system can’t trigger workflows to all essential support services to ensure availability of a room, a bed, transport, pumps and monitors, welcome supplies, and staff.Solution: Enterprise service managementEnterprise service management for healthcare can simplify the clinician experience. It’s precisely what it sounds like—having all clinical, operations, support, facility, and IT services connected to the same service management system. This provides a one-stop shop for getting help, researching information, and launching work automation requests quickly.Imagine notifying connected teams with a single click on an icon when there’s a change in patient status or transition to a new location. With a few clicks, the coordination aspect of supporting a patient admission can be solved through workflow, notifications, and automation.Picture this type of intelligent automation for admissions, discharges, trips off the floor for procedures, surgery, transfers to other floors, and transfers out of the facility. With LIKE.TG Healthcare and Life Science Services Management, provider systems can offer a seamless digital experience for nurses, managing healthcare operations and administrative tasks with automated, intelligent, prebuilt processes.To simplify getting help, seeking services, or finding information, LIKE.TG has these functionalities integrated into EMR systems as well. There’s no need to leave the EMR and toggle to other systems. Everything is in one place, reducing the complexity of the process and the burden on nurses. This is what will help retain nurses.With streamlined tools to comprehensively support their practice, nurses can go back to doing what they’re passionate about: caring for patients.Find out more in our ebook: The voice of the front-line healthcare worker.
Creating better end-to-end experiences in healthcare and life sciences
COVID-19 has impacted every industry, but perhaps none more than healthcare and life sciences. From how and where healthcare is provided to the speed of developing and administering vaccines, there has been massive disruption to the way healthcare and life sciences organizations operate. But the crisis also provided unprecedented opportunities to reexamine and transform.For example, multiple COVID-19 vaccines made it to the market in only 12 months, which is almost unbelievable compared to the pre-pandemic average of eight to 10 years. Similarly, the LIKE.TG® Vaccine Administration Management solution has helped public and private sector entities vaccinate millions of people globally in record time. We continue to innovate and expand the reach of this solution.A tremendous amount of patient-centric work is taking place at ServiceNow. That's what’s behind the release of our Healthcare and Life Sciences Service Management product. Our goal is to simplify and improve the end-to-end journeys related to planning for care, delivering care, paying for services, or supporting clinical trials. Here are three ways we’re doing that:Improving the clinician and employee experienceA Stanford Medicine study found 63% of physicians say electronic medical records (EMRs) have improved patient care. But about half of the respondents say EMRs detract from their professional satisfaction and clinical effectiveness.University of Kentucky (UK) HealthCare worked with software company INRY to provide a Help button within its EMR that seamlessly integrates with the LIKE.TG IT Service Management solution. The button allows doctors and clinicians to report a software problem in a single click, minimizing the time spent on a task that doesn’t directly contribute to care.UK HealthCare also deployed a live chat window that enables a clinician to access help through a virtual agent. This reduced support desk calls by 25%. These savings can be redirected toward activities that directly affect the quality of patient care.St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital used LIKE.TG IntegrationHub and App Engine to build fast, efficient custom apps for vendor invoices, digital contract signatures, and its pharmaceutical services informatics team. As a result, the hospital saw time spent on invoicing decrease from 40-80 hours a month to only 13 hours. That’s a labor savings of about 14 weeks per year—just for the invoicing department.
Keeping health data secureMore than 29 million healthcare records were exposed in 2020, according to the HIPAA Journal. A study reported in Health IT Security found that more than half of breached organizations already knew they were vulnerable. Yet, only 23% of health organizations have adopted and deployed security technology, training, and procedures needed to manage and thwart cyberattacks, according to Fierce Healthcare.When Bupa Australia and New Zealand wanted to improve its security posture and reduce risk, the global healthcare insurance provider embraced LIKE.TG Vulnerability Response, which it refers to as “cyber hygiene” that drives down risk. The company also started using Security Incident Response, which helps identify and prioritize critical incidents and then improve the workflow, automation, and speed of remediation.Personalizing healthcare life sciences experiencesSignant Health set out to enhance its user experience after finding that 60% of patients who started a clinical trial didn’t complete it. The organization worked with Capgemini to build a solution that integrated the Now Platform with seven supporting tools.Soon after the solution went live, Signant needed to set up trials for COVID-19 vaccines. The organization created a new clinical trial startup process in only four weeks. The trials, which involved 46,000 people across six continents, had a 95% satisfaction rating.Scotland’s National Health Service (NHS Scotland) created its own workflows to schedule vaccinations, collect COVID-19 testing data, and begin contact tracing for its 6.5 million citizens using LIKE.TG Customer Service Management."Because it's low-code, we can very quickly change it to be what we want," explains Deryck Mitchelson, director of national digital and security. "We'll do things like our winter flu program, as well, and COVID boosters when they come in. It will sit at the heart of the NHS going forward."Learn more about how your healthcare or life sciences organization can improve experiences and long-term outcomes across the entire continuum of care in our Healthcare Book of Knowledge.
The future of work in federal healthcare agencies
Unique HR challenges for federal healthcare agenciesAs a human resources specialist, you’re being challenged like never before. In addition to meeting traditional demands such as quickly and efficiently attracting, hiring, and retaining quality employees, you’re also facing new challenges, including pressure to make your workforce more efficient, modernize employee processes, and work within ever-tightening budget parameters. As if that’s not enough, sudden and unexpected issues, like the Coronavirus that’s resulting in staff working from home, are constantly changing the future of work.Federal agencies like yours also face mandates to digitally transform the workforce while at the same time delivering enhanced employee experiences. The good news is that achieving these goals may be easier than you think. In fact, as your agency becomes more digitally enabled, a nice benefit is that this naturally improves experiences for staff and the customers, patients, and beneficiaries you serve.Develop your workforce of the futureYour employees are the core of your agency. Yet even with a high-quality staff, you still need to continually attract and retain employees, especially those with in-demand skillsets, to develop your workforce of the future. Implementing digital processes can help with everything from identifying the right candidates to accelerating the onboarding process to streamlining and even eliminating repetitive tasks.This helps you and your staff spend less time waiting for paperwork and filling out redundant forms. As a result, employees such as clinicians are able to focus on what really matters—treating patients, soldiers, beneficiaries, and others who rely on your healthcare services. By shifting to a digital first strategy, your agency will be able to provide services faster and enable better outcomes.As you know, creating the future government workforce requires modern processes and having the right tools in place for all staff. Moving to a cloud-based digital platform that offers digital workflows, has interoperability to work with existing systems, and is able to access data in real time can help. This type of platform, as part of a digital transformation strategic plan, gives agencies and HR leaders the digital processes, intelligence, and insights needed to improve HR operations, performance, and experiences.According to IDC, a market research, analysis, and advisory firm specializing in information technology, government agencies anticipate savings and benefits from their digital transformation strategies. By next year, 40 percent expect increased or improved employee productivity, 33 percent expect reduced operational expenditures, and 27 percent expect business process cycle-time reductions. If your agency is not implementing a comprehensive plan for digitalization, then you’re behind other organizations and not achieving the savings and other advantages that those in both the public and private sectors are realizing.Find out more about optimizing your digital workforce of the future, along with the challenges of a digital transformation, the three pillars of transformation success, and guidance to reach your goals, with this data sheet from IDC.Drive better employee experiencesA new HR and workforce productivity software category has recently emerged—the employee experience platform. The platform gives employees a single place to access a wide range of services. This category can include solutions such as the Now Platform® that’s uniquely positioned to help improve the prospect and employee experience for federal healthcare agencies.The Now Platform provides a single layer of engagement for HR functions. Employees benefit from access to multiple systems across the agency, empowering them to manage standard HR forms and functions through automated workflows. The platform also offers pre-built HR specific integration and functionality along with a self-service portal. HR departments that use the solution have seen their number of HR cases drop by 25 percent along with a 30 percent increase in efficiency in serving cases and a 37 percent increase in HR capability.Offering digital features such as self-service allows employees to access the information they need on their own with consistency, visibility, and relevancy. The result is improved employee experiences and satisfaction.According to research, employees are dealing with a proliferation of new technologies that can make their jobs more complicated. In fact, 27 percent of workers believe they waste an entire day a week on irrelevant emails and messages. Your employees want technology that simplifies their workday, not complicates it.With the right solution, you can give your employees the critical capabilities needed to improve in their jobs and have better experiences. A new paper on the employee experience platform market can help you navigate the HR and workplace technology landscape to find out which solution is right for your agency.
Helping federal agencies with healthcare solutions
Collaboration and interoperability help federal agencies improve the delivery of healthcare solutions.Federal agencies have made a lot of progress toward better meeting the needs of the citizens, beneficiaries and partners they serve. Advances in technology, updated business processes and a move to digital transformation have allowed agencies to meet their goals faster and improve the delivery of services. Yet agencies continue to struggle with new and ongoing challenges, and they still face barriers optimizing technology.Part of the problem stems from organizations using various systems. This is usually the result of agencies adding new or open-source technologies onto their legacy platforms to gain new capabilities or to solve a specific issue. Now, agencies are saddled with a variety of systems that are outdated, don’t communicate, create even more silos or support projects that are no longer funded.Agencies such as the Defense Health Agency (DHA), Health and Human Services (HHS) and Veterans Affairs (VA) don’t need an expensive and disruptive rip-and-replacement of their current systems. But they do need their disparate technologies to communicate and share information. Until that happens, their technologies will create obstacles rather than eliminate them.Intelligently connect all systemsDHA, HHS, VA and other federal healthcare service agencies are striving to improve the quality and delivery of care. They’re discovering that to be successful, the entire organization must be aligned behind the same goals and seamlessly share information. Departments can no longer work in isolation or use their own data sets to drive results. Instead, they need to collaborate with all other departments and even outside organizations, such as universities and private sector healthcare companies, to best serve their citizens.While departments may experience short-term gains by working in a silo or achieve their individual objectives quickly, reaching organization-wide goals requires collaboration. And collaboration requires interoperable technology that cooperatively shares data and information in an intelligent, coordinated way. This results in improved medical treatments and care for veterans, service members, seniors, citizens, and others.A single platform—the Now Platform® from LIKE.TG—can connect all technologies across an agency. The connectivity delivers a range of benefits to accelerate and enhance healthcare and other services. For example, interoperability allows agencies to transparently and securely share the electric health records of beneficiaries or veterans.Interoperability also enables end-to-end digital workflows, which gives agencies the ability to share best practices and other information. Agencies benefit from enhanced levels of collaboration to foster better, faster, more efficient care.A modern approach to care via a modern approach to technologyThe need for modern technologies is not new. Agencies, just like innovative businesses, rely on tech solutions to fulfill their mission. The solutions play an increasingly critical role as agencies shift toward digitalization, modernize the delivery of healthcare, and improve outcomes. For large agencies like DHA, HHS and VA, a single technology will not meet all of their vast and diverse needs. Multiple and sometimes specialized solutions are needed, and they must be able to “talk” to each other.The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates the need for interoperability and information sharing. Agencies have most of their staffs working from home, and they need to connect remotely to systems to access information. To be efficient, employees should be able to access an ecosystem from a single point of entry to get all of the information they need rather than signing on to several systems.The pandemic also emphasizes the need for digital processes that can share information organization-wide and with third parties. This helps, for example, agencies and their partners to digitally share health records about beneficiaries and patients who were transferred to different care facilities due to COVID-19 or needed to receive treatment. The ability to share information eliminates the need for patients to fill out redundant forms for each treatment or transfer.LIKE.TG offers a platform and solutions to help agencies and healthcare providers eliminate pain points and solve problems through digital processes and interoperability. See a recent data sheet for the details.Digitize processes without the drawbacksAgencies realize the value of digital processes, such as the ability to quickly and transparently share information such as medical records. Agencies may have also experienced that a digital transformation can have unintended consequences, such as creating an additional administrative burden for many clinicians who need to learn new skills.The upside is that the hurdle to digitalization is temporary. Agencies and healthcare organizations will ultimately see a time savings and less admin work. They’ll also see more satisfied patients who appreciate that they don’t have to fill out similar forms every time they see a doctor. A complete electronic record, for instance, that stays with the patient results in better care because providers can see the person’s entire medical history, including when and where treatments were provided.Our infographic shows how technology is modernizing healthcare. See the latest stats and data on healthcare and digital processes.
Accruent helps clinics delivers safer, more modern healthcare equipment on the Now Platform
One of the most meaningful parts of my job working with LIKE.TG’s technology partners is watching new apps leverage the Now Platform® in-life changing ways. Nowhere is that innovation more obvious than in healthcare. Take asset management company Accruent for example. Its Connectiv Healthcare Technology Management app helps healthcare delivery organizations better manage all aspects of asset management for medical devices, facility equipment, and biomedical equipment so they can put more resources toward enhance the quality of patient care.Accruent witnessed the need for a true digital transformation within the Healthcare Technology (HTM) and Facilities (HFM) Management departments that are the backbone for the delivery of care. Much like the problems that plagued legacy IT departments, these facilities struggle to manage a growing number of connected medical devices and equipment, mitigate associated risks, ensuring compliance, and creating efficiency gains. Accruent built Connectiv entirely on the Now Platform.By leveraging LIKE.TG as a technology platform, Accruent was able to do two very important things; rely on the highly-available, secure, and trusted platform technology that powers the LIKE.TG applications. Thus, taking away the complexity of building their own platform technology stack and relying upon various technology vendors for their application availability. Additionally, they were able to monetize their application IP through several of LIKE.TG’s routes to market.“According to The Moody’s Investor’s Service analysis1, average operating margins for hospitals have fallen to an all-time low at 1.7 percent,” said Andy Ruse, Chief Revenue Officer, Accruent. “Built on the Now Platform, Connectiv delivers adaptable workflows with a modern, user-friendly experience so customers can realize deeper cost savings, increased productivity and improved efficiency.”These savings costs and productivity gains are vital to Accruent’s customers. Connectiv users have been able to improve their maintenance and parts procurement processes so that they can provide safer, more modern equipment in the best possible condition, increasing the efficiency of operations and enhancing the quality of patient care.As a result of innovations like the one that that Accruent has built on the Now Platform, we are able to transform parts of the enterprise that have been starving for innovation, stuck using out-dated technology and manual processes. Our partners represent a true “force multipler” for our customers, helping them accelerate digital transformation programs, drive business value, and even change lives.1 Modern Healthcare, Operating margins stabilize, but not-for-profit hospitals still vulnerable, 26 April, 2019 ,https://www.modernhealthcare.com/providers/operating-margins-stabilize-not-profit-hospitals-still-vulnerable
Forrester named LIKE.TG a Leader in Strategic Portfolio Management
I’m excited to announce that LIKE.TG has been named a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Strategic Portfolio Management Tools, Q2 2024. We believe this recognition validates our industry position and continued investment in a comprehensive planning solution with AI capabilities to better align strategy and business value.Differentiating with AIThe rapid adoption of AI technology has created a clear change in the way enterprises operate and how work gets done. We believe LIKE.TG is taking the lead in this emerging area. The Forrester Wave™ report states, “LIKE.TG capitalizes on its AI capabilities to enhance core capabilities and optimize planning.”Customers can take advantage of newly introduced AI and intelligent automation functionality with Now Assist for Strategic Portfolio Management. They can use the AI-powered virtual agent in demand management or to automate laborious tasks, such as product feedback analysis.In today's ever-changing AI world, it’s crucial to have the ability to make optimal, timely decisions. LIKE.TG® Strategic Portfolio Management provides the tools to make informed decisions, allocate resources effectively, and reach organizational goals fast.Improving visibility and processesIn LIKE.TG's vendor profile, the Forrester Wave™ report states, “LIKE.TG’s vision ambitiously focuses on connecting strategy, planning, and delivery in a user-friendly environment that enables organizations to execute strategies.”Leaders can help ensure strategic alignment by managing funds, simulating investment scenarios, and using real-time analytics to anticipate trends, prioritize resources, and continuously improve outcomes.With all work aligned to enterprise goals, this centralized approach fosters synergy among knowledge workers, enhancing organizational agility and competitiveness in today's dynamic business environment.We believe the added integration of LIKE.TG Collaborative Work Management offers multifaceted benefits. It empowers teams with an all-encompassing hub for planning, visualization, and collaboration while efficiently managing business demands and resources.With seamless access to tools for capturing, assessing, and managing tasks, teams can streamline workflows, enhance communication, and boost productivity.Managing application estate effectivelyEffective digital transformation requires a laser focus on modernizing the application estate. Organizations need application portfolios that support business strategy more effectively, with reduced levels of cost and risk.The Forrester report notes about LIKE.TG, “Application portfolio management (APM) is a particular strength...”APM done well can help organizations achieve business goals with complete visibility across their application landscape. Addressing the various inventory, capability mapping, and tracking needs of our customers is critical to business delivery, and we’re proud to offer the products to support them.Delivering business outcomesBy prioritizing, planning, managing, and scaling agile portfolios and investments, organizations can expedite the delivery of innovative products and services.The Forrester report notes, “LIKE.TG doubled down on its investment in SPM, and the results show.”LIKE.TG’s approach offers alignment with organizational strategies, helping to ensure desired business results through real-time goal tracking. We know that enabling teams to manage work using any methodology also accelerates value delivery across the enterprise, fostering adaptability and innovation.Download the full, complimentary Forrester report.
3 ways to improve the healthcare patient experience and save
As the world emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic, improving the customer experience is critical. Nowhere is this more important than in the healthcare industry, where increased engagement can lead to better patient outcomes.“Pairing digital technologies with human coaching and clinical care can offer a dramatically better patient experience through personalized attention, on-demand access to support, and automated reminders,” explains a Workflow article.That approach to improving patient care focuses on prevention, which can save significant costs. Here are three other ways healthcare organizations can improve the patient experience and reap savings:1. Simplify EMR managementElectronic medical records (EMRs) were designed to reduce errors, enhance communications between providers, and improve efficiency and patient outcomes. The administration of EMR platforms is not so streamlined, however, requiring resources to optimize, maintain, and upgrade the systems.Learn how to simplify EMR management in our Taking a strategic approach to managing EMRs webinar. You’ll hear how UW Health developed and integrated a Help button into its EMR, and the effects of this innovation on the organization’s IT, patients, and clinicians.2. Increase uptimeBecause healthcare today relies on EMRs and connected devices, IT system downtime could be the difference between life and death. Watch The impact of downtime on the clinician and patient experience to glean tips to help you minimize issues and expedite remediation. Dr. Noreen Butte, physician executive at Cerner Corp., joins LIKE.TG Chief Healthcare Architect Don Tierney to discuss ways to increase uptime.3. Empower employee efficiencyA good patient experience hinges on a good employee experience. Today, that equates to equipping workers with technology that helps them easily do their jobs. “Healthcare organizations are at their best when they have happy, satisfied, engaged workers delivering the quality of service patients expect and deserve,” explains Rhonda Blatti, senior director of Employee Workflows at ServiceNow.Yet, a LIKE.TG-sponsored survey by ESI ThoughtLab found that only 21% of healthcare organizations are considered leaders in providing a digital employee experience. Clearly, there’s room for improvement.Watch our Accelerating the hybrid workforce in healthcare webinar to discover more results of the survey and steps your organization can take to empower your employees to work more efficiently and safely.
Three pillars to digital government
The 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act (IDEA) recently celebrated its one year anniversary. The goal of the legislation is to improve the way citizens interact with the federal government. The ability to provide a modern digital experience to citizens and employees is now a basic expectation for all federal chief information officers (CIOs).Today, trust in institutions is near historic lows, setting the stakes for successful digital transformations at an all-time high. Whether the website visitor is a farmer, veteran, educator or senior citizen, the digital experience significantly impacts how they think about the federal government.Behind every great experience is a great workflow.The great workflows that will define our 21st-century digital government rely on three pillars:
Modern Websites
Digitized Government Forms and Services
Electronic Signatures
Modern WebsitesEvery 90 days, there are 3.5 billion visits to government websites, almost half of which are from mobile devices. So, new and redesigned federal websites must meet modern standards, like those recently published by the Technology Transformation Service. A user-centric approach to technology is the key to successful digital transformations.Digitized Government Forms and ServicesPresently, the federal government spends nearly $90 billion on information technology (IT) annually, most of which just maintains existing systems. These legacy systems can be costly and inflexible. By digitizing forms and processes, agencies can not only provide more personalized services, but they can work towards decreasing costs.Electronic SignaturesThe ability to easily share, review and sign off on documentation is essential to a great workflow. So, digital signatures are critical. They drive increased efficiency, faster time to service and improved processes. Once implemented, the related savings can open the door for new digital transformation initiatives.The government’s transition from legacy and manual processes to modern digital ones is well underway.21st Century IDEA is a key component, but it is still gaining traction. Our research found that 55% of federal employees are unaware of the 21st Century IDEA and only 38% of feds told us that customer experience (CX) is their agency’s top priority.One way to turn this around is by focusing on platform as a strategy. Platforms, such as LIKE.TG®, offer tools and digital capabilities that agencies can use to speed up their modernization efforts. At the core are portals, virtual customer service agents, automation tools and pre-established cloud-based security controls.
Great experiences drive powerful employee engagement, unleashing productivity and fueling innovation.All government agencies want to deliver great experiences for their employees and customers. Poorexperiences can erode trust whereas great experiences often inspire it. CIOs know this, but they are hindered in their digital journeys by complexity, legacy systems and siloed data.We all share the same goal — simplicity. It begins with understanding how work and data flow through your agency, combined with an outside-in view of your customer interactions. Citizens should be able to interact with the government the way they want, not constrained by outdated legacy systems.The 21st Century IDEA Act is a great step in this direction, and we are just getting started.
How to modernize citizen engagement to create an excellent experience for all
Lessons learned from the City of Buffalo, GSA Centers of Excellence, and LIKE.TGThe concept of citizen engagement has been around for centuries, but the ways in which citizens want to engage are new for our modern times. Today’s citizens have high expectations. When interacting with government agencies, they want service that is similar to what they get from the companies they do business with.This means they want real-time access to information and immediate responses to their questions and concerns, as well as proactive, personalized interactions across a number of different communication channels. While a tall order, this kind of engagement is certainly achievable when you can bring together the right combination of people, technologies, and processes.A recent GovLoop webinar explored what this combination looks like in the real world. Oswaldo Mestre, director of citizen services, City of Buffalo; Brian Whittaker, acting deputy executive director, Centers of Excellence, GSA; and Chris Dilley, CTO for State and Local Government and Education, LIKE.TG, all shared insights into the struggles and successes they have experienced as they worked to transform citizen engagement. Following are a few of the lessons they learned:Know your citizenIt is important to know who you are serving. Who are they? What are their needs? How would they like to be served? You can find out by identifying the channels you have to engage customers – for example, surveys, in-person interviews, and phone calls – and then start asking questions to uncover the biggest pain points and needs. You may already have some assumptions around what needs to be addressed, but it is important to be humble and validate that those assumptions are actually true.For example, when the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) talked to customers about the housing process, they were able to pinpoint an opportunity to help seniors get affordable housing. They were able to prioritize this process over other things thanks to firsthand feedback.Remember one size doesn’t fit allIt is important to understand there can be experience, language, and cultural differences within your citizen-base that can influence when, where, and how they want to engage. This means there isn’t going to be one, monolithic way to do something. You have to be prepared to offer a number of options. The key is to ensure everything is tied together on the backend, so the experience can be consistently satisfying.This means work needs to be orchestrated across applications and departments (such as IT, HR, finance, revenue, natural resources, and human services) and consolidated into a single case that can be checked, managed and updated by anyone. That way, it doesn’t matter how the interactions are done – in person, online, via a call, … – it’s easy to pull in (via APIs) and aggregate data from all these different systems and applications.For example, when the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) surveyed their farmers, ranchers, and producers, they uncovered a chance to streamline the farm loan process, which farmers use to make improvements to their farm operations. The farmers and ranchers actually wanted a blended experience. Many had longstanding relationships with USDA loan officers that went back generations, so it was important to maintain that personal connection. Yet they wanted to digitize some of the steps to reduce trips to the loan office and improve the overall speed and efficiency of the experience.Pay attention to employeesTrying to meet the needs of citizens is important, but so is listening and delivering on what employees want. When it is difficult for employees to do their job or deliver great service, no one is happy - poor experiences lead to low satisfaction all around. It’s not about working harder or faster, it’s about being more productive.Don’t be afraid to replace legacy tools and fragmented processes that are perpetuating complexity, limiting visibility, and stifling collaboration. If you pay attention to your employees and make changes that promote their job satisfaction and productivity, they will be able to focus on the citizens they serve. That will lead to better experiences for mission-driven employees as well as citizens.Get a championA lot of the changes we are discussing are cultural and operational, as much as they are technological, so it is important to have buy in from the top. For the City of Buffalo that meant getting the mayor on board, as well as key champions in each department. They kept everyone part of the process, with regular meetings, updates, and reports, so everyone knew about and was supportive of the changes they were implementing.Recognize every touchpoint is an engagement opportunityEvery interaction, every transaction, is a chance to deepen the relationships you have with your customers, strengthen their opinion, and increase their satisfaction. It doesn’t matter if someone is looking for answers or trying to get a hunting, fishing, business, or driver’s license, it all counts.For example, the City of Buffalo wanted to be more thoughtful around all the interactions they have with their citizens. There are many ways citizens can engage, in person or digitally, via self-service web, mobile applications, and social media channels. The City of Buffalo also has a call center that is staffed by nine contact center reps and one supervisor, almost on a 24x7 basis.They started operationalizing all the opportunities they had to listen and respond to citizens, whether they were contacting the city about a business license, garbage pick-up, or major snowstorm. They started linking information, involving other departments, and holding everyone accountable for citizen engagement, with service level agreements, to drive greater collaboration and faster resolution times.Today, the average call time for the 300,000 calls they get a year is under two minutes, with an average hold time of 35 seconds. They have started proactively using social media to provide updates around progress on events and issues that are resonating with citizens. They also look at all the data they collect from the call center each month to categorize the issues and identify hotspots (locations that have a lot of issues) that need some attention, as well as simple things they can address quickly. One day a month, they schedule a clean sweep to address the little things that have come up. They knock on doors of concerned constituents, fix potholes, and cut down trees out in the community. Since initiating this cohesive effort, which uses all the different mechanisms they have to interact with citizens, the City has seen a dramatic decrease in crime and uptick in engagement.For more insights on transforming citizen experiences, you can listen to the webinar now: “Creating excellent CX - the need for updated customer service management.”
How COVID-19 has accelerated Singapore’s digital citizen services
Singapore’s government and businesses have outpaced global peers in delivering innovative, secure digital services, including healthcare, government support services and education, to citizens.Telehealth, smart-chatbots, mobile apps and distance learning are just a few of the latest digital service offerings that Singaporeans now see as the rule rather than the exception. People are seeking personalised, predictive digital services that just ‘work better’ or fulfil their desires to self-serve.COVID-19 has only heightened demand for services that respond, act, and communicate in ways that complement the human experience. According to Accenture, three out of four Singaporeans support more digital government services, and more than 70% percent expect the Southeast Asian nation state to collaborate with global enterprises to foster more home-grown innovation.Organisations are still battling with many offline processes, but Singapore’s Government has continued to innovate and deliver new technologies to benefit citizens. Singapore’s Smart Nation and Digital Government Group (SNDGG), comprising SNDGO and GovTech, is developing Smart Nation infrastructure and applications, investing millions and partnering with industries to co-create and fast-track the adoption of digital payments, e-invoicing, as well as advanced digital tools such as OneService, ActiveSG, SingPass Mobile, LifeSG and more.A big part of Singapore's digital leadership in 2020 stems from the government’s sustained investment in digital preparedness. Long-standing partnerships between government and industry have built trusted capabilities in new technologies, which drive the Smart Nation agenda. GovTech and several other government agencies are using the Now Platform® to deliver smart experiences for citizens and improve productivity for their employees.Singapore’s government also enables other organisations, industry-wide to build digital foundations, boost ICT and engineering capabilities and innovate within the fast-changing technology landscape. Fostering open conversations with industry leaders on how to help local organizations leverage digital transformation has been a catalyst for the nation’s rapid progress.
A once-in-a-generation opportunityThe pandemic, among many other changes, has also created the opportunity to rethink how we live and work.As Singapores’ economy recovers, the speed to deliver such solutions will be a key focus, with citizens’ security and privacy top of mind. Digital trust is more important than ever, particularly for services that involve personal data. Globally, citizens will increasingly expect governments to set new, national standards across industries with the mandate for connected, secure digital capabilities.With secure, cloud platforms, the possibilities to accelerate personal, secure digital services are endless and rely on enduring collaboration. Fuelling ‘tech for good’ requires common national risk and compliance standards to protect citizens and their data – and that requires continued collective thinking.Thanks to increasing availability of open government datasets, initiatives like the Developers.Data.gov.sg resource have allowed citizen developers to create more than 100 apps. In the fight against COVID-19, Singapore’s facial recognition technology, TraceTogether tokens, and contactless temperature scanners are a few of the local innovations that will likely become mainstream worldwide.Intelligent citizen experiences are simpleThe pandemic has shown just how quickly people and organizations can adjust to new ways – witness the digital transition to online learning; the global shift in many sectors to remote working; and the advances in telemedicine – changes that occurred in weeks that would otherwise have taken years.Digital experiences are table stakes. If an app can track movements of a takeout order down to the minute, then why not the processing of test results, a new passport or property taxes – and a unified payment system for all services?Underpinning these new ways of living and working are powerful cloud-based platforms – including the Now Platform – which deliver secure, compliant digital workflows with intelligent automation.
Re-imagining online citizen engagement
We’ve all been there. You need something from your local or state government agency, so you navigate to their website. But instead of finding what you need quickly, as you would with many consumer sites, the site is a mess.It’s organized by agency department, which you don’t really understand, or it’s not organized at all, with a hodgepodge of information all over the place. The search doesn’t really work, presenting search results that are nowhere near what you’re looking for. You try another tactic and go to Google to search. This presents you with pages of mostly outdated links. These links typically send you deeper into the site, with no context or navigation ability.When you do find what you’re looking for, it’s a PDF. No instructions, just a PDF that you need to fill out with your personal information and then snail-mail back. Oh wait. You also need to fill out another form and submit it to a different agency, so you need to enter all that personal data again.Ugh.Welcome to the unfortunate status quo. Many government websites were created over a decade ago and haven’t been modernized much since. They tend to follow a departmental structure, requiring users to understand departments and agencies to find what they’re looking for. Site content is frequently out of date and delivered in a variety of formats, with no context or clear instructions.On top of that, most website creation software used in the government space isn’t flexible enough to enable content creators to automatically post updates to multiple areas, which means there is typically only one way to get at certain pieces of information. For example, tax credit information for seniors, which should be available on the office of aging page, finance department page, and tax credits page, may only end up being published on the page of the agency that produced that information.It doesn’t have to be this way. There are solutions available that can enable government agencies to reliably deliver an excellent web experience for citizens. A service portal is one such solution. It enables agencies to easily offer services in a logical, structured way that doesn’t rely on citizens having to know the vagaries of a government’s departmental hierarchies. Instead, citizens can find what they are looking for and complete what they are trying to do, quickly and efficiently.Citizens simply register to use the portal, which gives them an account they can log into at any time, from anywhere, to get what they need. They can navigate to the information they are searching for—and if they get stuck, they can easily find their way out and get back on track. They can also track the status of all their requests, such as a license application or pothole report, regardless of the departments, agencies, or people involved. As a result, government agencies can provide an experience akin to ecommerce sites, delivering a consistent, engaging experience that will satisfy constituents.The service portal augments the traditional web site, providing a way for government agencies to organize and present services to vastly improve a citizen’s ability to find and access what they need. It can also take other valuable information, such as frequently asked questions (FAQs), building locations, contact information, facility hours of operation, and trash collection schedules and turn them into knowledge base articles that make them easy for a citizen to search.Machine learning tools can then be applied to continuously improve the relevancy of the results of a visitor’s search to ensure citizens are able to locate the information they’re looking for, fast. It can also be applied to more routine requests to the agency’s public information office, constituent services office, or any public call center. Using a virtual agent, or chatbot, the site can now help visitors discover answers.In this way, government agencies can create self-service capabilities like those at the core of most consumer experiences. For citizens, this will go a long way toward boosting customer satisfaction, while obviating the need to get on the phone with a civil servant. This “case-deflection” can free up the agency’s time, allowing staff to innovate instead of just keeping the lights on.By combining virtual agent or chatbot technology with well-curated knowledge bases, staff can get back valuable time to focus on their mission. This is important to enable them to have the time for those high-touch moments, where a caring employee can make all the difference in someone’s life.Next stepsLook at your department’s or agency’s website and put yourself in a citizen’s shoes. Try to apply for a service. Note the search path and obstacles you encounter. Document any paper-based or telephone-based steps in the process - this is low-hanging fruit for transforming your citizens’ digital experience. Now, consider how a top ecommerce site might present the same information and services you offer. There is your target!Want to learn more about digital transformation in citizen engagement, read how Tennessee DHS redefines the customer experience for government services.