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LIKE.TG is No. 1 for AIOps, IT operations, and IT service management categories by market share
I’m excited to announce that LIKE.TG is ranked No. 1 in the Gartner® Market Share report for AIOps for the second year in a row. We’re also ranked No. 1 by market share in the IT operations and IT service management categories.1 We believe this confirms that LIKE.TG is delivering on its promise to keep digital services running around the clock while providing exceptional customer and employee experiences.LIKE.TG service operations brings together the market-leading IT Service Management and IT Operations Management capabilities on a single cloud platform. Automating and optimizing technology solutions in this way has helped thousands of customers return millions to their bottom line, improve self-service, and increase the amount and speed of innovation. With LIKE.TG service operations capabilities, a common data foundation, and Service Operations Workspace, employees and customers get an exceptional experience on a single platform.A proactive approach to IT operationsToday’s complex IT environments span on-premises data centers, multiple clouds, and containers. Traditional AIOps solutions aren’t much help in alerting IT operations teams about potential issues that could result in slow service or an outage. LIKE.TG® Predictive AIOps changes that.Predictive AIOps doesn’t have to be told in advance about any issues. It doesn’t have to have thresholds set or data scientists establishing patterns to look for. Instead, LIKE.TG Predictive AIOps can identify issues before they affect users or the business.We’ve been creating AI solutions for years and are committed to delivering safe, trusted, and governed generative AI. LIKE.TG IT Service Management Pro delivers an AI-powered self-service experience for employees to easily get help or request the technology services they need. It empowers employees to resolve issues and requests on their own from anywhere, on any device, without opening a ticket or speaking to a live agent.With LIKE.TG IT Service Management, IT Operations Management, and Predictive AIOps, we believe you can future-proof your technology across the enterprise on a single cloud platform.Find out more about how LIKE.TG service operations can help you deliver exceptional experiences and keep digital services running.1 Gartner, IT Operations Management Software, Worldwide, 2022, 16 May 2023GARTNER 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, and the objectivity disclaimer given above. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
4 ways a strategic portfolio management framework can streamline success
In today’s fast-paced business environment, determining how short-term projects fit into long-term organizational goals may seem daunting. A strategic portfolio management framework is critical for companies looking to align their projects, investments, and resources with their overall business strategy.LIKE.TG Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM) can help organizations consolidate their most pressing business priorities on a single platform. Let’s explore four ways SPM can help streamline your path to success.1. Execute a hybrid approach from top to bottomFor many organizations, hybrid and agile methods of project delivery are being implemented only at the execution level. Due to rapidly evolving customer needs, a flexible solution that supports multiple work delivery methods is paramount.To see the best outcomes, organizations should approach project delivery with a hybrid methodology throughout, incorporating both Waterfall and Agile. Watch our World of Work webinar to learn why a hybrid approach is key for high-performing organizations.2. Align with business objectivesAligning projects with business objectives can help ensure investments are in line with an organization’s long-term vision and priorities. SPM provides visibility into the relevance of each project, enabling organizations to make informed decisions about which projects to prioritize.A properly aligned organization increases the ability to bring together funds and people so that you can respond quickly and decisively when change is needed. Gain insights from Lloyds Banking Group, Verizon, GlaxoSmithKline, and others about their experiences in Strategic Portfolio Management Summit.3. Accelerate business valueA strategic portfolio management approach is key to managing your organization’s finances and investments. It can help you view spending, compare scenarios, plan your investments, and more. In turn, this can help you increase the amount of work delivered that’s aligned to strategy, improve business agility, drive digital transformation, and more fully engage value stream management.Strategic Portfolio Management—the framework for success explores how SPM can help you see and fund what matters most.4. Empower the workforceAt the forefront of any organization are its employees. To achieve the best business outcomes, all employees must be united and aligned to the same overarching goals.Using SPM in conjunction with Strategic Planning (formerly Alignment Planner Workspace) enables better connections between business priorities and the workforce, increasing the rate of success. Find out how companies are using these tools in our Align strategy to execution and optimize results webinar.
LIKE.TG is a Visionary in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Application Performance Monitoring and Observability
I’m thrilled to announce that LIKE.TG has been recognized as a Visionary in the 2023 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability.We believe this validates our strong vision and unique ability to help customers bring unified telemetry into their existing LIKE.TG® Event Management and Service Operations solutions, reduce mean time to resolution (MTTR), and accelerate innovation.Bridging legacy systems and modern operationsLIKE.TG Cloud Observability is one of the few end-to-end solution that unifies critical telemetry data in a single platform to improve security, governance, workflows, collaboration, customer experiences, and return on investment. We’ve been steadily revolutionizing how enterprise teams identify and solve issues fast and make their entire stack more reliable and resilient.Some of our recent innovations include:
Service Graph Connector for OpenTelemetry enables organizations to easily pull large volumes of data from cloud frameworks such as OpenTelemetry and Kubernetes directly into LIKE.TG without additional tooling. It also helps reduce the risk associated with third-party data integration, as it’s certified by LIKE.TG and designed, developed, and tested under the Service Graph Connectors Program.
Cloud-native logging offers a complete view of all digital user interactions and reduces nonessential data, saving time and resources for DevOps teams.
Unified Query Language (UQL) provides one language for teams to use observability-as-code and helps enable deep uniformity and extensibility across the entire observability experience.
Expanding visibility with unified telemetryThe integration of Cloud Observability builds on LIKE.TG IT Service Management and IT Operations Management solutions—the de facto standards in many enterprise organizations—giving customers a vetted and trusted partner to bridge legacy systems with modern operations.Cloud Observability completes the visibility picture across the enterprise by helping organizations easily identify issues, reduce MTTR, and break down silos to protect revenue and boost customer satisfaction.We believe observability should extend beyond DevOps and site reliability engineering (SRE) teams to provide greater value, transparency, and certainty to everyone involved in mission-critical, digital business applications. Since the acquisition of both Lightstep and Era Software, which power Cloud Observability, LIKE.TG has realized that end-to-end vision to help drive enterprisewide transformation and outcomes.Accelerating innovationBy democratizing telemetry pipelines and the data generated by applications, we've led the industry to embrace portable, always-on, and always-open observability. This is vital for true end-to-end visibility, time and cost savings, and the freedom to innovate at scale. Through our commitment to and advancements in the OpenTelemetry project, we’ve created a solid foundation for everyone to innovate even faster.To drive digital transformation and meet demand, organizations are shifting from fragmented point solutions to unified, integrated workflows. This is where LIKE.TG shines.By combining cloud observability, AIOps, governance, and security, customers can resolve cloud-native service issues fast, enhance cross-team collaboration, and harmonize SRE, DevOps, and IT ops practices. When harmony exists, teams can focus on what they do best: innovating and delivering exceptional products and experiences at scale.Thank you to our customers, partners, and team, who continuously reduce complexity and make the world work better for everyone.Read the complete Gartner Magic Quadrant for APM and Observability report.Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Application Performance Monitoring and Observability, 5 July 2023, Gregg Siegfried, et al.Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product, or service depicted in our research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.GARTNER and Magic Quadrant are registered trademarks and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved.
Modernizing ITSM with ITIL 4: CMDB & service configuration management
The shift of the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) 4 from process to value helps IT service management (ITSM) service providers demonstrate business value and adapt to change so they can meet business needs and customer expectations and thrive in an ever-changing technology landscape.However, in the face of an increasingly complex digital business environment, managing the diverse components of IT service operations can be challenging. With hardware, software, networks, and personnel evolving regularly, ITSM service providers need reliable infrastructure solutions to keep pace with these changes.To address this complexity, they often turn to a configuration management database (CMDB) as the cornerstone of their service configuration management (CM) strategy.The connection between CMDB and CMOriginally, CM focused on handling IT technology: hardware, software, and networks. Managing these was often a manual and tedious process, making ITSM providers susceptible to data errors and service deployment issues.CM has transformed into service CM, emphasizing precision, efficiency, and automation. This shift has introduced CMDB.A CMDB serves as a data repository containing information about an enterprise's ITSM service components and their relationships. These components—known as configuration items (CIs)—encompass hardware, software, networks, and personnel.When used effectively, a CMDB can become a potent tool for identifying and monitoring how the addition, removal, or modification of a CI can affect service performance across the entire enterprise.
Top 10 benefits of a CMDBA CMDB is more than a CI repository. It has the power to strengthen various aspects of an organization’s service operations. Let's explore 10 of them:
Event and incident impact assessment by identifying affected CIs and services, which is crucial for event and incident management
Availability analysis and planning to help ensure services are available when needed
Change impact analysis to assess the impact of proposed changes before implementing them
Architecture definition by providing insights into the IT infrastructure's design and components
Forecasting future resource requirements
Understanding asset relationships by helping organizations track and manage their assets effectively
Cause-and-effect analysis for root causes, enabling proactive solutions
Risk analysis by identifying potential risks associated with configuration changes
Cost allocation and budgeting
Contract management by providing insights into contractual relationships with vendors
Steps to accuracy and valueA CMDB and service CM can significantly improve service capabilities across an enterprise, but only if the right questions are asked—and answered.When considering the benefits of a CMDB and service CM, it’s important to:
Assess the need. Evaluate whether your organization would gain from accurate CI data and service CM. Identify the business stakeholders who need this data and why. This stakeholder-focused approach can help ensure your CMDB is outcome-driven and delivers business value.
Define the scope. Consider which areas you need to collect data from and how much data is required. Involve asset and service owners in data control, and evaluate the cost benefit of data collection.
Design your CMDB. Incorporate identified business needs and best practices from tool vendors. Ensure the design facilitates automated data capture and data availability for stakeholders.
A dynamic, out-of-the-box solutionUltimately, a CMDB offers visibility into infrastructure and services. However, tracking changes and maintaining accurate visibility can be difficult. Enterprises frequently introduce new CIs to their workflows.Older methods used to gather data may be incompatible with new data sources. Consequently, data originating from multiple sources of truth leads to needless complexity, uncertainty, and misalignment within the enterprise.LIKE.TG Configuration Management Database uses seamless integration and automation to make it a trusted single system of record; it consolidates multiple data sources into one for accurate, real-time visibility into infrastructure, CIs, and services.This enables ITSM service providers to accelerate time to value and make relevant, data-driven decisions that help them keep pace as the enterprise grows. Just ask our friends at Red Hat, who use LIKE.TG CMDB to provide enterprisewide visibility into IT resources.LIKE.TG CMDB is about unlocking business value:
See a comprehensive picture of complex IT infrastructure and service relationships through a unified interface that uses clear graphical visualizations, simple natural language queries, and customizable dashboards to show key CI details and context.
Establish performance consistency with the product’s single data model, which every LIKE.TG application uses, helping to ensure seamless compatibility with all LIKE.TG products.
Pair with LIKE.TG Service Mapping to map digital services to IT infrastructure, diagnosing issues faster and understanding the business impact of changes before they’re made.
Maximize your investmentA CMDB and service CM streamline service operations and deliver value-driven results. Achieving this requires stakeholder alignment, careful setup, and a platform designed to navigate the complexities of digital business.When these elements converge, your investment can yield substantial returns, including greater visibility, quicker decision-making, accurate data, simplified cost management, and first-rate service performance. ITIL 4 offers numerous avenues for ITSM service providers to maximize their return on investment.Find out more about how your organization can elevate service operations and generate business value in our ebook.
3 ways customer centricity can help technology service providers
IT service providers have historically thought in terms of “technology first,” but that’s changing. More and more of the top technology service providers in Asia-Pacific (APAC) are adopting a customer-centric and industry-oriented approach to how they devise, deliver, and diversify their solutions.That shift in thinking might seem unremarkable. After all, isn’t everyone talking about customer centricity these days? But it could radically reshape how technology service providers structure themselves and amplify the value they create.In a recent forum with some of APAC’s most influential technology service providers, I discovered three areas where applying a customer-centric approach can lead to substantial improvements in performance.1. Building for personas, not vendorsTechnology service providers are adopting a persona-based strategy. They’re drilling down on conversations with trusted customers and starting to restructure their solutions according to industries rather than vendors. That’s a significant change from the “build it and they will come” mindset, where providers create products and even entire business practices based on the vendors or technologies they work with.Take self-service as an example. Technology service providers often recommend self-service and automation as a cure-all for any help desk issue. Yet their conversations with customers reveal that substantial groups of users, such as field personnel, have far more urgent and complex needs than standard self-service portals can accommodate.These users inevitably resort to calling a supervisor or support line rather than using even the most sophisticated self-service app. They’re not getting value from the technical solution, and neither is the business.Based on situations like that, some service providers are introducing more proactive resolution capabilities (such as those offered on the LIKE.TG platform) that take the onus off field workers to find their own solutions.Other providers are continually refining how their self-service capabilities align to different personas’ needs. Tech service provider Mphasis, for example, more than halved its ticket volume with persona-based automation using the LIKE.TG platform.The same applies to developing industry-aligned solutions that account for different operating or marketplace conditions, such as more stringent compliance requirements faced by the banking sector. LIKE.TG has adopted this approach by applying vertical-specific overlays to our configuration management databases (CMDBs) that align with the specific industry’s protocols and customer lifecycle, based on constant feedback from industry players themselves.That in turn accelerates the time to value for these customers and saves them from the tech debt they’d otherwise incur building something similar on their own.Ultimately, persona-based (or industry-based) strategies acknowledge that if we better understand what customers need, we can solve for the right things much faster.2. Process mining with purposeThe customer-centric view should also inform how technology service providers refine their internal operations. More and more providers are aiming to do this through process mining: using real-time process data to better understand and improve their current state of operations. The first question they should ask, however, is: What’s the point?Any investment in data collection or analysis should seek to deliver clear value to customers. That can take all sorts of forms: accelerating time to market for new products, resolving service issues more productively, and so on. Only from there can providers identify the data they need to track and the systems required to track it.Providers should factor in how easily they can gather that data from their platforms and solutions. The LIKE.TG platform allows administrators to view any piece of data captured in the CMDB, meaning providers can quickly spot where workflow bottlenecks exist and derive the root causes.The platform’s built-in machine learning and AI can help by suggesting options to remove those bottlenecks and improve flow. But this depends on providers knowing what processes they want to improve and why—which only ongoing feedback from customers can uncover.Otherwise, they risk being overwhelmed by the sheer amount of data out there, or spending a huge amount of capital on a big data solution that doesn’t end up solving a specific problem.3. Exercising discernment with AI and beyondCustomer value should act as a lens or filter when considering investments in early-stage technology, such as generative AI. One participant in our forum put it best when they described the ideal position as “midway between realism and blue skies”—encouraging others to identify immediate customer use cases and opportunities to generate value rather than falling into the trap of “technology for technology’s sake.”Technology service providers would do well to gradually expand their adoption of new technologies, such as generative AI, into existing solutions based on ongoing customer feedback.That same approach has led to LIKE.TG’s introduction of generative AI on our platform: building integration with existing best-of-breed solutions and adding capability based firmly on what customers are asking for in the here and now. For technology service providers, that guarantees some return on investment while building capabilities in unpredictable yet significant fields of innovation.For many technology service providers, leading with customer value will require significant shifts in workflows and processes—not to mention the solutions offered to those same customers. Platforms that allow for both agile development and the strict requirements of certain industries will help providers make those shifts.A culture built around solving problems and listening to users will keep solutions relevant no matter how much, or how fast, technologies change.Find out how LIKE.TG helps ensure a customer-centric approach.
4 ways innovative companies can navigate digital transformation
From the tight global labor market to social and political volatility, macroeconomic headwinds continue to hamper business growth. Such a complex environment is anything but smooth. Your organization may be feeling pressure to deliver on initiatives to support talent, products and services, and business operations.Finding success in these areas requires digital transformation. Innovative companies are best positioned to prosper and thrive.Becoming an innovative companyWhat does an innovative company actually do? For one thing, it enables continuous change from anywhere, blurring the line between experimentation and expectation.It's also at the forefront of technological development, paving the way for others in the industry to follow. An innovative company is full of driven, pioneering people who uncover new opportunities behind every app, process, and experience. These leaders see failure as a trade-off for greater success.Even innovative companies are burdened with the realities of tough times: unengaged and unempowered employees, fragmented data, and limited time and resources.The way forward is to make your organization change-capable every day through continuous transformation. That means investing in digital innovations that connect your people, processes, and systems. And that starts with a platform strategy that can help:
Reduce operating costs
Increase productivity
Minimize risk
Deliver full value from previous investments
Here are four technology imperatives for innovative companies:1. Eliminate silosTo keep your enterprise productive and ahead of the competition, you can’t afford inefficiency, reactive fire drills, or high operational costs in delivering technology services.You must eliminate silos between IT service and operations teams so they can quickly address IT issues and prevent outages. To achieve this, you need to modernize, automate, and optimize the workflows between these teams. That means connecting data they can both access on a single platform—so they can get visibility and collaborate to deliver great outcomes every day.A unified technology service operations approach does more than delight employees and enable constant IT service availability. It also frees your teams—and anyone in the organization—to devote more of their time and talents to business-building change. A satisfying work environment that empowers anyone to innovate leads to higher employee engagement and retention.2. Get the greatest value from ITTechnology leaders need to translate strategy into outcomes that drive business value to keep their seats at the table. Strategic portfolio management enables organizations to prioritize and fund what matters most, build a roadmap to strategize past and new investments, communicate plans, and track progress.It also lets teams plan and deliver work using any methodology: traditional (waterfall), Agile, or hybrid. With LIKE.TG Strategic Portfolio Management, enterprises can reduce nonproductive investment spending by more than $10 million and achieve a 365% return on investment over a three-year period.3. Cut costs with connected IT asset managementManaging any IT asset (software, hardware, cloud, apps), whether it’s stored on premises or in a hybrid cloud, requires total visibility. With comprehensive IT asset management, you can plan, operate, service, secure, and retire IT—managing everything from the same place.By connecting multiple departments on a single platform and automating the end-to-end IT asset lifecycle, you can rein in your IT budget and meet compliance obligations.With a modern IT asset management solution, an enterprise can save up to 67% on the cost of software license true-ups and reduce noncompliance incidents by up to 70%.4. Accelerate cloud adoptionIt’s a struggle to scale cloud initiatives with the same security, cost, resilience, and risk management you would use for on-premises infrastructure. Process challenges, business misalignment, limited software planning, lack of IT visibility, and inadequate governance models can impede your journey to a cloud-first operating model and its benefits.With a unified IT platform, you can maximize interoperability, visibility, and agility to speed adoption, modernize architecture, and reduce costs. To get rapid return on investment in your cloud initiatives, you’ll want to:
Prioritize applications based on business impact, cost savings, or technology risk.
Use self-service automation for request, incident, and change management processes.
Operate cloud services resiliently with AIOps, even when the mix of on-premises and cloud is constantly changing.
You can get through the ups and downs with a strong technology partner by your side.At LIKE.TG, we’re curious and hungry to know what's next. That’s why we’re constantly evolving to meet the needs of our customers, with a platform that can adapt quickly as market conditions change. Together, we’ll innovate and adapt—even through uncertain times—to help you achieve digital transformation and be ready for tomorrow.Get more tips in our ebook: 4 ways to get your digital transformation back on track.
Modernizing ITSM with ITIL 4: Service value system
Svetlana Zenkin, senior product marketing manager for IT Service Management at LIKE.TG, contributed to this blog.Demonstrating value is crucial to the success of any business. That's why it’s an important topic for IT service management (ITSM) service providers to consider when evaluating their service operations.How do IT service operations align with business outcomes and customer needs? How do operational metrics correlate to business value that stakeholders want to see?Answering these questions can be difficult. The latest release of the Information Technology Infrastructure Library—ITIL 4—puts ITSM service providers one step closer to answers by introducing the service value system. It can bring game-changing value to their services.A history of processWhen the ITIL was established in the 1980s by the Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency, it introduced a standardized approach to ITSM that emphasized efficient and predictable IT services using a set of best practices.Versions 1 (1989) through 3 (2013) focused on ITSM processes such as incident management, problem management, and change management.Today, technology fuels every function of an enterprise, not just IT services. Digital trends emerge daily, customer and user expectations evolve on a global scale, and agility is paramount.The processes that worked yesterday may not work today, demanding swift and efficient adaptations from enterprises of all sizes.From process-centric to value-drivenThe ITIL’s original framework of process over value left ITSM service providers vulnerable to misalignment with real-world business outcomes and customer experiences. This rigid and siloed structure clashed with today's agile, collaborative, and value-driven business environment.With its ability to adapt to the business world of today, ITIL 4 (2019) emerged as a transformative update to the framework.Designed to address modern challenges, ITIL 4 champions collaboration, flexibility, and integration with contemporary business practices. Most notably, ITIL 4 looks at ITSM services from a business value perspective—encompassing people, processes, partners, and technology.What is the service value system?ITIL 4 includes several changes that empower ITSM service providers to deliver significant business value. Among the most effective is the service value system (SVS). It’s a comprehensive framework for creating, delivering, and continually improving services that yield value for customers and organizations.
The SVS provides a new way for ITSM—and any organization for that matter—to enhance service quality and align with business outcomes. Let’s take a high-level look at the SVS and its seven components:1. Opportunity/demand – This serves as a catalyst for the SVS. Demand stems from customers' specific needs, such as assistance with an issue or information to complete a task. Opportunity is broader, such as an idea for a service improvement or a new product.2. Guiding principles – ITIL 4 has seven guiding principles that help service managers rethink how they provide consistent, effective, and measurable services:a. Focus on valueb. Start where you arec. Progress iteratively with feedbackd. Collaborate and promote visibilitye. Think and work holisticallyf. Keep it simple and practicalg. Optimize and automate3. Governance – Establishing clear policies, roles, and processes and aligning actions with strategy and objectives help ensure oversight and accountability.4. Service value chain – This is a set of actions, or a value stream, for a product or service delivery that converts a customer’s opportunities/demands into value. Stages include plan, improve, engage, design and transition, obtain/build, and deliver and support.5. Practices – Organizational resources and capabilities are used to achieve objectives, categorized into dimensions such as organizations and people, information and technology, partners and suppliers, and value streams and processes.6. Continual improvement – This emphasizes ongoing enhancement of services, processes, and practices, fostering a culture of learning and adaptation to evolving needs.7. Value – This SVS output highlights value-based metrics. It depends on business stakeholders' perceptions of value, whether those are increased profits or decreased risks. Although the SVS doesn’t pinpoint specific metrics, it guides ITSM service providers and stakeholders to co-create value.Activating the service value systemUnderstanding the SVS is only one step in an organization’s pursuit of an idyllic IT service operation. Selecting the right platform is a significant decision, as it needs to enable your team to implement with ITIL 4 SVS and evolve alongside it.Look again at the seven components of the SVS, and you’ll notice words like value, collaboration, and adaptation repeated. We built the LIKE.TG IT Service Management solution with those words in mind—plus a few more.Terms like predictive intelligence and generative AI accelerate the service value chain by equipping teams with AI-supported tools for faster and smarter incident resolution.Digital Portfolio Management consolidates service data from all of an organization’s applications to help reduce costs and boost performance. And Continual Improvement Management breaks down silos by aligning individuals, data, and business objectives across the enterprise, using a well-structured framework that can be scaled to fit any organization's needs.Reinvent your IT service managementAs the digital landscape continues to evolve, ITIL 4 and the SVS emerge as powerful tools to help organizations overcome the challenges of increased service demand, incidents, and system complexity.Whether your ITSM organization is new or established, applying the SVS to your services can give you versatility to navigate these challenges, adapt to demands, and identify what business stakeholders value the most.Reinvention doesn’t stop with the SVS. Find out more about the transformative power of ITIL 4 in our ebook: Creating customer value with ITIL 4.
How to minimize business disruption in your move to SAP S/4HANA
SAP customers must move to SAP S/4HANA by 2027 to stay compliant, but many are hesitant to do so. Although 78% of organizations in North America are planning an S/4HANA move, only 31% have started using it, according to a CIO article. The UK Ireland SAP User Group (UKISUG) reports 89% and 25%, respectively.Moving to S/4HANA can take three to four years, according to Roland Berger, and requires a high investment at a time when companies are tightening their belts. Additionally, the shock of the pandemic made it abundantly clear that business agility is not a luxury. Being able to reconfigure a supply chain or respond to changing demand patterns on short notice can make or break a business.Let’s look at how chief information officers can accelerate the move to S/4HANA and minimize disruption while simultaneously delivering cost savings and business agility.Save costs immediately by automating nowTo gain breathing space while you continue to deliver on business priorities, automating on top of SAP ERP Central Component (ECC) with LIKE.TG is a viable option that will not create technical debt.LIKE.TG can help deliver immediate efficiencies in your supply chain, for example, by digitizing supplier interactions and streamlining Source-to-Pay Operations. Prebuilt workflows and integrations work out of the box for SAP ECC, SAP Ariba, Coupa, and Oracle E-Business Suite. They also work with SAP S/4HANA and can be easily ported over later.Organizations that have already moved to S/4HANA are also using LIKE.TG to streamline processes. Accenture, for example, uses LIKE.TG on top of SAP S/4HANA to speed up its invoicing process. As a result, Accenture has reduced invoice production time from three days to less than 10 minutes and decreased the time needed for support by 90%.Automate at scaleThe biggest benefit, however, comes from using LIKE.TG across different functional areas.A leading agrochemical manufacturing company, for example, built more than 100 apps on top of SAP ECC using our low-code offering. These apps support the manufacturer’s Source-to-Pay, Order-to-Cash, Logistics, Exports/Imports, Record-to-Report, and Hire-to-Retire processes, bridging its SAP instance with systems such as Elixia Inc., Icegate, and Ivalua.The apps helped the company achieve business agility and immediate cost savings, decreasing:
Order fulfillment from three hours to 30 minutes
Export process time from one week to one day
Dispute settlement process time by 50%
The company is keeping the same unified LIKE.TG engagement layer as it moves country by country to SAP S/4HANA. Parts of the business are still running on SAP ECC, while others have already moved to S/4HANA, keeping costs down and the business agile.Enable agility by decoupling custom codeTo enable business agility and help ensure a smooth transition to SAP S/4HANA, decouple custom code.Nearly three-quarters (72%) of UKISUG members fear customizations will be a roadblock to moving to S/4HANA, according to ERP Today. And 92% worry a lack of available skills will slow their migration efforts.Over the years, SAP customers have accumulated a vast amount of process-, tech-, and performance-focused custom code. Many want to “keep the core clean” and considerably reduce the custom code they’ll use in SAP S/4HANA. Some custom code will remain, however. Transferring it to LIKE.TG can help maintain business as usual during the move and reduce cutover time from ECC to S/4HANA.Moving critical custom code to the LIKE.TG platform is relatively straightforward. Using LIKE.TG, you can scan your SAP ECC system and identify which custom code to retire and which to keep. Respective SAP models, tables, and data can then be surfaced in ServiceNow.This allows low-code/no-code developers to rapidly rebuild required custom code or build new apps on top of SAP with limited or no SAP knowledge. Scarce SAP talent can be focused on work where in-depth SAP knowledge is required. Any code built on standard ECC models will also work with S/4HANA.Find out more about how LIKE.TG can help with a move to SAP S/4 HANA.
Modernizing ITSM with ITIL 4: Intelligent automation
Generative AI has the world thinking about automation now more than ever before. The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) has prioritized it from the start.ITIL has advocated for automation as a transformative tool for organizations to deliver business value, accelerate change, and reinvent service configuration management. By handling mundane tasks, automation can empower people to do more innovative and effective work.Despite that, we’re in an era where machine learning (ML) and natural language understanding (NLU) are challenging IT service management (ITSM). ITSM service providers are thinking about how to extend separate process automations end to end, powered by smart, AI-based technologies. Intelligent automation is key.Fortunately, ITIL 4 can help ITSM service providers amplify processes through automation, AI, ML, and NLU. Using ITIL 4 guidance, organizations can create a complete service operation built on speed, efficiency, productivity, reliability, and adaptability.Different processes for different workflowsMany organizations rely on ITIL best practices and ITSM tools to automate their workflows and solutions. However, not all tools and processes share the same purpose. ITIL process automation encompasses various approaches, including:
Traditional in-process automation following predefined workflows and rules
Service orchestration and robotic process automation potentially involving third-party automation capabilities
Intelligent automation using ML and NLU to improve operations and accelerate effective service delivery
Historically, ITSM tools have offered in-process or workflow automation. This often falls short of comprehensive, end-to-end automation for IT service delivery and support. For example, automation can notify an IT service desk agent and provide relevant knowledge about an issue, but manual intervention is often required to apply solutions.This limited in-process automation, although helpful in saving time and reducing errors, represents just one of the potential benefits achievable through end-to-end automation and AI integration.
Unlocking potential with ITIL 4ITIL 4’s approach to process automation offers several key advantages, including:
Enhanced and intuitive user experiences
Fast, efficient services
Reduced operating costs
24/7 availability
Increased staff productivity
Improved reliability and accuracy
Flexible change management
AI magnifies these benefits by organizing unstructured data through ML and predictive analytics. However, for these benefits to fully transform ITSM (and the entire enterprise for that matter), they need an intelligent platform that can unite workflow automation and AI.That’s why ITSM service providers turn to the Now Platform. It can amplify intelligence across workflows using the power of automation and AI to deliver personalized experiences, immediate resolutions, and smart decisions through a unified system.What does the pairing of the Now Platform and ITIL 4’s best practices look like for automating ITSM service operations?
Intelligent automation greatly aids service-request fulfillment throughout the incident lifecycle. AI and ML can flag similar issues across the enterprise to quickly identify critical incidents, suggest relevant tasks and content, and classify tasks and cases based on historical data. Accenture used LIKE.TG Predictive Intelligence and ML to auto-assign 2,000 incidents with 80% accuracy.
Virtual Agent uses NLU and ML algorithms alongside prebuilt, code-free conversational AI to automate interactions, generate content, initiate workflows, and resolve issues in context. This means users are having conversations with chatbots that talk like real people, taking the chat from conversation to resolution without human intervention. It’s not science fiction—Dutch tech company ASML achieved a user satisfaction score of greater than 80% within weeks of launching its virtual agent.
Intelligent optimization and Performance Analytics give ITSM providers the confidence to make fast decisions about their service operations with trusted, secure, and real-time data. AI and ML can automate the entire change management lifecycle by anticipating trends, identifying bottlenecks, prioritizing tasks, and tracking the business value of process improvements. Becton Dickinson uses Performance Analytics dashboards to compare similar processes and workflows across regions, evaluating mean time to resolution and modeling hypothetical changes based on the data collected.
Replace complexity with simplicityITIL 4 describes automation’s role in ITSM as “a means to avoid wasting people resources on tasks that technology can tackle instead.” Automation should introduce simplicity, not complexity, to service operations.AI, ML, and NLU are automation’s accelerants, creating an end-to-end approach that can improve service efficiency and minimize disruptions for users and IT service operations.Discover how your organization can use ITIL 4 to transform service operations and help create a simpler, faster, and smarter way for teams to work.
Deliver value through GBS experiences
What began with siloed shared services models—which consolidated a single business function’s scattered processes into one cohesive structure—has evolved over the past decade into integrated global business services (GBS) that seek to transform internal and external operations at scale.The GBS model remains a work in progress, according to GBS experts in a LIKE.TG-commissioned white paper by Deborah Kops. Although GBS has focused primarily on driving efficiencies and reducing costs, integrated, end-to-end process orchestration and the delivery of simple, unified GBS experiences pose a significant opportunity.The need for enhanced experiencesWith SSON Research and Analytics expecting “to see continued and significant adoption and expansion of the [GBS] model,”1 it’s time to evolve and enhance GBS customer experiences, global leaders say. Customers want fast, frictionless, and around-the-clock service that parallels their experience with e-commerce platforms.In the past, delivering consumer-grade service would have required immense overhead in the form of dedicated resources and manual effort. But with technology and AI as critical enablers, delivering consumer-grade service is possible. It’s the next frontier for GBS.“Buying something online, it's so easy and efficient,” explains Paul Dottle, vice president of GBS and operations for General Mills. “But if I’m ordering something inside my company, it's antiquated and kluge.”Historically, optimizing the user experience has been a low priority due to the lack of a direct return on investment. But global functions such as HR and IT have shown the benefits of improving customer experiences through deflection and reduced cycle times.As a result, it’s becoming easier to make the business case for extending a consistent experience across the global services model. Here are some ways to do that.
Use business context as a hookIt’s no secret that the pandemic altered the relationship between employees and employers. Hybrid work has established new means of communicating and new expectations around digital transformation. Consumer experiences have changed expectations on the job. Global workforces are proving the benefits of unifying interactions across all services.At the same time, GBS organizations have already wrung out substantial savings through standardization, consolidation, and digitization. The next round of savings will come from expanding self-service capabilities, sharing the workload with users, and aligning processes across departments. Designing with frictionless experiences in mind will be critical to this transition.Leaders who harness broad business and industry dynamics and momentum and establish a link between cost control and enhanced experiences will more readily advance GBS transformation initiatives.Define a vision the business can get behindGBS leaders say creating an unassailable North Star establishes GBS experience as an operation’s “brand”—the essence of its value proposition.Rich Dobbs, vice president of GBS for Kimberly-Clark, looks to experience to change the way GBS interacts across the organization, redefining its ecosystem.“The GBS brand is equal to experience,” he says. “Experience changes communication from random to structured. Experience creates the impression that GBS is the enabler of the business.”GBS experience pioneers say a clear vision forms the basis for a powerful rallying cry. By identifying pain points, waste, and benefits across the organization, GBS can attract new advocates who can bear witness to its contributions.Sell it inEnterprises that already have a culture of selling an experience, as opposed to a product, are more likely to invest in advancing experience-led transformation. Barring that, however, GBS organizations can harness process dysfunctions to sell the need for change.Global services leaders should show how inefficient processes interfere with other corporate objectives (employee productivity, cash flow, vendor onboarding, etc.), highlighting expected return on investment.Of course, there’s no one-size-fits-all strategy to garnering support for GBS experience transformation, so it’s important to start with high-impact, achievable use cases and carefully manage stakeholders’ expectations.
Learn from leadersGBS leaders stress the importance of being realistic about the extent of change required. New tech by itself is not a silver bullet. Instead, behaviors must change.Collaboration with stakeholders across the enterprise is key. As with any other transformation program, all players must share a deep understanding of the problem statement and North Star. That means quantifying the current state of waste and focusing on rewiring experience and process, supported by unifying technology solutions.The finance department will be both your greatest skeptic and your best friend. Soft benefits from improved experiences may be hard for number crunchers to accept. Leaders advise making a bottom-line argument from the start—including the cost of doing nothing. They encourage focusing on use cases that alleviate pain points with easily quantifiable cost savings.Assembling the right team to support the vision is imperative. Ensure that roles, responsibilities, and decision rights are clear across the board. This is an evolution, not a one-and-done proposition. Business conditions as well as GBS scope and scale shift over time, so maintain structured reviews and frameworks that can help prioritize use cases as demand grows.In the end, the GBS experience changes expectations and fosters new ways of working, creating a new paradigm for GBS value.Get more insights in the white paper: Service experience: The next value driver for global business services.1 SSON, The State of the Shared Services Outsourcing Industry Global Market Report 2023
Modernizing ITSM with ITIL 4: Change enablement
The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a customer-centric framework that promotes governance, collaboration, and continuous improvement. At a time when IT service management (ITSM) is changing with new technology, shifting regulatory requirements, and decentralized teams, this is vital.We explored how the ITIL 4 service value system helps ITSM service providers generate business value through the creation, delivery, and continuous improvement of services. Now let’s look at ITIL 4 guidance on change enablement.Swift change demands an agile responseITSM leaders encounter intense pressure during times of change. They must swiftly adapt to business demands while maintaining exceptional service standards to minimize disruptions, cut operational costs, and improve employee experiences.Change waits for no one. Whether correcting, preventing, maintaining, or enhancing services, ITSM service providers must regularly evaluate how they’ll respond to both the expected and the unexpected.Organizations ill-equipped for change expose themselves to critical errors that can disrupt their service operations. From service outages and outdated governance to sluggish adoption and dissatisfied employees, the risks are many—and can be overwhelming.Evaluating a change management strategy is more than deconstructing processes or identifying risks. ITIL 4 challenges organizations to reconceptualize change management, beginning with acknowledging its past shortcomings.Transformation of change managementChange management has been a focal point within ITIL since the beginning. However, previous versions placed emphasis on established processes, making the change management approach overly bureaucratic and inflexible.One suggestion was for organizations to establish a change advisory board—a designated group of people responsible for providing guidance on changes to IT service operations. In the past, change advisory boards often became approval bodies for organizations, resulting in misaligned priorities, delays, and backlogged requests.This rigid and unwieldy framework contrasts with today’s agile and efficiency-driven business landscape, which favors cross-functional collaboration, business value transparency, and streamlined strategies.To align with modern business standards, ITIL 4 did more than offer a superficial makeover of change management. It fundamentally reconstructed the underpinnings of the system—starting with a name change.
Change enablement: From process to guidanceChange enablement adheres to ITIL 4's overarching shift from strict processes to adaptable best practices to deliver exceptional organizational outcomes.The Change Enablement ITIL 4 Practice Guide defines change enablement as the means “to maximize the number of successful service and product changes by ensuring that risks have been properly assessed, authorizing changes to proceed, and managing the schedule change.”When deployed correctly, change enablement:
Uses technology and automation to analyze risks and accelerate deployment speed
Implements an all-encompassing communication strategy that underscores benefits and cultivates high adoption rates
Empowers all personnel to champion change initiatives
ITIL and DevOps together for changeITIL's change enablement system acknowledges its valuable relationship with DevOps by prioritizing customer value, fostering collaboration, promoting continual improvement, and incorporating Agile and lean methodologies. They’re the perfect pair.ITIL 4 places special emphasis on key DevOps principles that expedite the change lifecycle:
Continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) methods as an effective and efficient change-delivery model
Safe-to-fail testing to create an environment in which innovation and failure are accepted
Feedback loops to catch quality issues early and often
Agile-inspired change authority roles and delegated authority, enabling a team to act as both the change manager and implementer
Automation serves as the binding force for ITIL and DevOps, optimizing change enablement across the organization.Changing at the speed of automation and AIAutomation streamlines laborious tasks throughout the change lifecycle. This allows teams to concentrate on value-adding activities during the change assessment and approval processes.Four pivotal automation principles from DevOps are integrated into the ITIL 4 best-practice guidance:
CI/CD: Automation-driven software changes encompass building, testing, and deployment, yielding frequent, rapid, and reliable releases.
Observability: Code changes that could disrupt deployments are identified, enhancing service reliability. Post-deployment issues trigger alerts to a consolidated solution, facilitating root-cause analysis for faster problem resolution.
Infrastructure as code: IT infrastructure mirrors the configuration management database (CMDB), driving change. Automation rectifies differences, boosting speed, consistency, and error reduction.
Issue monitoring and remediation: Log data and metrics fuel automatic issue detection and resolution across applications and infrastructure.
When used effectively, automation can simultaneously simplify and revolutionize processes. Hitachi Energy, for example, created a consolidated IT environment for its 42,000 employees using the Now Platform to automate workflows and transition to a single employee service center model.The rise of generative AI accentuates the power of automation within change management. The Now Platform Vancouver release introduced Now Assist, which optimizes workflows and improves team productivity.The innovation uses generative AI and large language models (LLMs) trained on an organization’s data to analyze incidents for similarities, summarize Virtual Agent discussions, and automate resolution notes that adhere to best practices.Change the way you think about ITSMAs ITSM service providers navigate the rolling terrain of global businesses, embracing modern change enablement practices can put them on a path to success. ITIL 4's evolution from process-centricity to adaptable guidance and alignment with DevOps principles empowers organizations to respond nimbly to change, using automation as the linchpin for seamless adaptation.Whether you’re fielding increasing customer demands, implementing new technology, or reducing costs, discover how ITIL 4 can help your organization thrive when it matters most.
3 ways to enhance digital experiences and productivity
Digital transformation is critical to enabling organizational change. In fact, 85% of CEOs recognize that digital capabilities are a strategic business differentiator and vital for accelerating revenue growth, according to IDC.IT leaders play a central role in business strategy. They’re asked to deliver digital capabilities to enhance organizational speed, agility, and innovation that leads to change and growth. While doing that, they must also maintain IT efficiency, governance, and resilience.The best way to pull this off is by embracing technology that helps organizations plan for change, expedite decisions, boost productivity, improve technology experiences, and save money. Let's look at three ways to enhance digital experiences using a single platform.1. Plan wisely and proactivelyCreating customer value fast requires a rock-solid strategy and effective execution. With automated portfolio management, organizations can align their entire business to deliver optimal investment decisions at speed and scale.At the same time, they can gain the agility needed to pivot quickly when unanticipated changes arise. This streamlines stakeholder needs assessment, digital strategy creation, and investment scenario evaluation—ultimately resulting in high-impact business outcomes.2. Provide responsive, always-on servicesOnce you deploy a digital service, it needs to work flawlessly. Mediocre service quality leads to poor adoption by dissatisfied employees whose productivity suffers. When it comes to customer-facing services, outages and system performance issues can be a reputational and financial disaster.Avoid these risks by unifying your IT service and operations teams. Breaking down silos between these teams empowers them with shared visibility to deliver responsive, always-on technology experiences. Making this work requires a single platform and data model for IT solutions. This can equip IT teams to collaborate in real time to rapidly resolve service issues—or even predict and prevent them.
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.