New research which examined how organisations are evolving from a traditional office environment to a digital workplace reveals that gaining competitive advantage and improving business processes are among the top goals of their digital transformation strategy. This is according to 40% of 800 organisations in 15 countries on five continents, including South Africa, that were interviewed for Dimension Data\u2019s ‘Digital Workplace Report: Transforming Your Business’.<\/p>\n
Another insight in the report is that digital transformation is not just about adopting the technologies of the past: 62% of research participants expect to have technology such as virtual advisers in their organisations within the next two years. In addition, 58% expect to start actively investing in technology that powers virtual advisers in the next two years.<\/p>\n
Today, the digital workplace is no longer just made up of managers and those who are managed; co-workers collaborating with one another to complete projects; and employees interacting with customers and partners. It\u2019s increasingly populated by \u2018virtual employees\u2019 who do not exist in a physical sense, but nonetheless play an important role in the organisation.<\/p>\n
While artificial intelligence (AI) technology is still in its infancy, it is sufficiently advanced to be working its way into companies in the form of virtual assistants, and, in certain industries such as banking, virtual tellers and virtual advisors. Manifested as bots embedded into specific applications, virtual assistants draw on AI engines and machine learning technology to respond to basic queries.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s no longer enough to simply implement these technologies,\u201d says Krista Brown, Dimension Data\u2019s Group End User Computing SVP. \u201cOrganisations have grown their use of analytics to understand how these technologies impact their business performance: 64% use analytics to improve their customer services, and 58% use analytics to benchmark their workplace technologies.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, around 30% of organisations said they\u2019re far along in their digital transformation initiatives and are already reaping the benefits, while others are still in the early stages of developing a plan.<\/p>\n
Brown says one reason that could be holding companies back from implementing a digital workplace is their corporate culture. Often, technology and corporate culture inhibit \u2013 rather than encourage \u2013 workstyle change. However, the number one barrier to successful adoption of new workstyles was IT issues, and research participants cited organisational issues as another.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe complexity of the existing IT infrastructure can present a major hurdle to implementing new collaboration and productivity tools to support flexible workstyles. Successful transformation implementations are achieved when IT works closely with line-of-business heads,\u201d says Brown, she adds that these transformations are supporting new ways of doing business or supporting clients.<\/p>\n
IT leaders were asked to rank which technologies were most important to their digital workplace strategies.<\/p>\n
Robert Allman, Group Senior Vice President, Customer Experience and Collaboration believes that mobility is pivotal to a digital workplace. \u201cBusiness leaders and CIOs are switched on to the importance of mobility in the digital workplace, with an even mix of companies supporting company-provided and employee-owned devices in the work environment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Enterprises are also turning to new workplace technologies to drive increased customer service, with 45% of respondents saying they\u2019ve improved customer satisfaction as a result of their use of digital workplace technology.<\/p>\n
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