Productivity Using Technology & Co-Creation

By Rupinder Goel, CIO, Tata communications

Rupinder Goel, CIO, Tata communications

By the year 2020, an entire generation will have grown up in a primarily digital world. Computers, the Internet, mobile phones, texting, social networking, all will be second nature to them. And their familiarity with technology, reliance on mobile communications, and desire to remain in contact with large networks of family members, friends, business contacts, and others will transform how we work and how we consume. Year 2020 will witness more than half of employees at bigger corporations will work on virtual project groups.

“Technology used to be all about automation and making existing work more efficient. Now, the opportunity for technology is to transform the work itself”

The arrival of universal mobility, cloud computing and mobile broadband, the three main catalysts of the Networked Society is radically changing the market landscape for telecommunications operators. Supporting the demands of an always-connected, instantaneous, online lifestyle for individuals and organizations creates a whole new level of challenge for operators. Innovation is imperative to enable new business models, increased emphasis on user experience, and new levels of operating efficiency.

Pace of technology change has reached break neck speed and enterprises need to move out of their moulds and completely transform itself using digital technologies. This re-enterprisation of IT will build a momentum to lead the way towards transforming the very way in which work is accomplished thereby introducing ‘new ways of working’.

This new way of working is all about improving employee productivity to work remotely, manage time effectively, collaborate and eventually delve into a newer way of working. Workforce can now work from anywhere, anytime – home, office and even when on the move.

This has a direct impact on overall employee productivity which translates into direct and indirect business benefits. The underlying technology enablers in this case being productivity tools, connectivity (network, 3G,4G, Wifi etc.) and smart devices. Coupled with consumerization, this becomes a very potent force and a winning combination for enterprises to adopt in order to provision flexibility for their employees. Some examples:

1. Collaboration Solutions– if we look at the leading collaboration suites used across large enterprises, the viewpoint is straightforward: employees now believe that their remote co-workers are just as productive, or more productive, than they are. These technologies enable workers to collaborate in realtime so that they can solve problems and finish projects at a more rapid pace than ever before. In a nutshell, geographical and time boundaries are slashed and productivity enabled.

2. Task Management and Work Prioritization Solutions – work completion is all about having a set of tasks and completing them in shortest span of time. However, what technology of today solves is the biggest aspect of transparency of tasks along with dependencies and owners. Tools employed in today’s time enable leaders and managers to track these tasks in realtime and this is what enables a natural productive flow

3. Mobility– realtime, anytime, anywhere connectivity enabled using mobility helps organizations run faster. This happens across the value chain right from expediting procurement to processing workflows to approvals to customer connect both in B2B as well as B2C enterprises

4. Cloud– has reduced the infra availability and provisioning time from weeks to minutes. This adds straight to bottom-line of many enterprises (especially new enterprises, nextgen organizations etc.). Even for remaining organizations, it speeds up execution and improves the overall time to market for services or decision making. Either way, the results are dramatic improvement in productivity

Now looking at a completely different dimension of what does it take to make such technologies a success. This is where the most critical enabler for today’s technology centric business comes in- “Co-Creation”.

Co Creation is an approach to design and realization for products and services that an enterprises offer. This is all the more crucial for newer ways of working leveraging digital technologies because stakeholders are able to bring in multiple perspectives and cocreate to recreate unique experiences for customers. Co-Creation when applied to product and services development results in benefits such as: • Speed and agility • Customer experience • Improved adoption potential Co-Creation is the key which helps unlock genuine value from technology leverage. Each enterprise setup is unique in some way or the other. If business and IT teams work collaboratively to the level of co-creating value then this dimension remains fully intact and technology becomes a true enabler. Traditionally, enterprises are focused on regenerating experiences for end customers through innovative products and services. However, most enterprises end up neglecting aspects around internal customers that directly or indirectly shape customer experiences.