Guest Speaker:
Transcripts
Welcome to a brand new episode of Tech Lyceum. I'm your host, Neerja, and today we have a very special guest, Harshad, AVP, head of digital experience practice, Birlasoft. We are going to be talking about why customer experience is an integrated and orchestrated ecosystem. First up, let me say welcome. Thank you so much for joining us, Harshad.
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Speaker – Harshad - 00:31
Thanks Neerja for inviting me. It's a pleasure to be part of this podcast. Look forward
Thanks Neerja for inviting me. It's a pleasure to be part of this podcast. Look forward
Speaker – Neerja - 00:37
Now, before we dive into the questions, I do want to share a little bit of an introduction to who Harshad is. Harshad has over 25 years of rich experience in managing business portfolios that deliver enhanced customer experience business value across industry verticals, driving business growth through adoption of digital themes such as CX business apps, modern workplace and Intelligent Automation with select enterprise hyper scalers such as Microsoft as go to market focus. So Harshad, I think we should dive straight into the conversation.
Q: And my first question to you is on integrated and orchestrated ecosystem this term, could you start by explaining what it is in the context of customer experience.
Now, before we dive into the questions, I do want to share a little bit of an introduction to who Harshad is. Harshad has over 25 years of rich experience in managing business portfolios that deliver enhanced customer experience business value across industry verticals, driving business growth through adoption of digital themes such as CX business apps, modern workplace and Intelligent Automation with select enterprise hyper scalers such as Microsoft as go to market focus. So Harshad, I think we should dive straight into the conversation.
Q: And my first question to you is on integrated and orchestrated ecosystem this term, could you start by explaining what it is in the context of customer experience.
Speaker – Harshad - 01:24
Sure, I think to begin with, I think creating a seamless customer experience ecosystem is an imperative for most of the businesses today. It's not a choice. Having said that, the question to be really answered is, how do organization achieve this. How do they go about executing this plan? Right? And that's where having a strong, integrated CX ecosystem in place becomes extremely important for businesses to succeed today. So there are essentially two parts to it, right? We can look at it from a which are the core components and the enabling components, so to speak, right? The core components obviously are more visible,they are at the center stage. The enabling components are more of the support engine, so to speak, you know, and both have to work hand in hand to deliver the outcome. So with that as a context, you know, let me deep dive into the first part of it, which is the core components of building an integrated CX ecosystem. And when we talk about the core, the customer comes at a center stage, right up front, right that's extremely important when you begin your CX journey, offering seamless interactions across all the customer engagement touch points is obviously one of the common business goals across industry verticals, the enhanced customer experience is delivered through consistent, personalized and intelligent solution approach being applied to the core business operations. And since we are touching the subject as CX, these business operations are primarily your sales, e commerce, your customer service, field service, and this varies from industry to industry, but essentially, these are the building blocks of any CX ecosystem in in the industry. Now this has to be, you know, independent of, obviously, it has to be independent of the channel of engagement that we are dealing with, be it an online business through web, mobile. Be there, be social platform interactions with your customers. Be there, be a Customer Care Center, the traditional way of reaching to your customer care back office, be the IVR channel of engagement, or, for that matter, brick and mortar, physical interactions in person, be it a store or an on field interaction and so on and so forth. Irrespective of a channel of engagement, the seamless interaction or the customer engagement has to be looked at.
Now let's look at how do you know how to go about getting this core component built right? So while there are many tenants to it, the first that comes to my mind is having a design thinking or a customer journey mapping approach or technique applied to begin with, because that helps organizations to understand the different user personas, not just internal users, but also their external users, right the customers and the end customers of customers, and this sort of gives a right start to your CX journey. It helps customers build that foundation, which we are calling as the core components. Now, once that core component is in place, that enables the organization to then build further on it, because this is your foundation. So your scale up of your CX vision, your CX adoption across the enterprise, be it in your marketing, be it in your sales or service, wherever you are, bringing in CX transformation. This sort of builds upon that core foundation, obviously the end result to the organizations. It's a significantly improved customer engagement. The by product is obviously. You have improved, you know, efficiencies, effectiveness in your overall sales and service business operations and processes. So I think that's the first pillar, which is the core component part of your CX strategy, I would say.
Moving on to the enabling part of it, right? The enabling components which are not so much visible in the front, but they are equally important. And as I mentioned earlier, the core and the enabling components have to work hand in hand. So which are these enabling components to build an integrated CX ecosystem? Right? First and foremost, it's to have the organization, CX vision and strategy in place. And this has to be not only defined, but it has to be driven top down, because having that top leadership calling it out and saying that this is business priority and it will have a tangible business outcome goes a long way. So that's the first and foremost. Second is to have a well thought through data strategy in place, right in today's context, data is the key. So if you have missed the data strategy element of it, then that needs to be fixed. And again, this part of your enabling components, and third part of the enabling component would be, obviously, to have your right set of technology interventions and the supporting capabilities in place so that when you embark on this journey, you are able to execute your strategy and your plan and not just get stuck because you don't have those right technology interventions and capabilities in place. So this is a nutshell, you know, response to your question on what is an integrated and orchestrated CX ecosystem for organizations today.
Sure, I think to begin with, I think creating a seamless customer experience ecosystem is an imperative for most of the businesses today. It's not a choice. Having said that, the question to be really answered is, how do organization achieve this. How do they go about executing this plan? Right? And that's where having a strong, integrated CX ecosystem in place becomes extremely important for businesses to succeed today. So there are essentially two parts to it, right? We can look at it from a which are the core components and the enabling components, so to speak, right? The core components obviously are more visible,they are at the center stage. The enabling components are more of the support engine, so to speak, you know, and both have to work hand in hand to deliver the outcome. So with that as a context, you know, let me deep dive into the first part of it, which is the core components of building an integrated CX ecosystem. And when we talk about the core, the customer comes at a center stage, right up front, right that's extremely important when you begin your CX journey, offering seamless interactions across all the customer engagement touch points is obviously one of the common business goals across industry verticals, the enhanced customer experience is delivered through consistent, personalized and intelligent solution approach being applied to the core business operations. And since we are touching the subject as CX, these business operations are primarily your sales, e commerce, your customer service, field service, and this varies from industry to industry, but essentially, these are the building blocks of any CX ecosystem in in the industry. Now this has to be, you know, independent of, obviously, it has to be independent of the channel of engagement that we are dealing with, be it an online business through web, mobile. Be there, be social platform interactions with your customers. Be there, be a Customer Care Center, the traditional way of reaching to your customer care back office, be the IVR channel of engagement, or, for that matter, brick and mortar, physical interactions in person, be it a store or an on field interaction and so on and so forth. Irrespective of a channel of engagement, the seamless interaction or the customer engagement has to be looked at.
Now let's look at how do you know how to go about getting this core component built right? So while there are many tenants to it, the first that comes to my mind is having a design thinking or a customer journey mapping approach or technique applied to begin with, because that helps organizations to understand the different user personas, not just internal users, but also their external users, right the customers and the end customers of customers, and this sort of gives a right start to your CX journey. It helps customers build that foundation, which we are calling as the core components. Now, once that core component is in place, that enables the organization to then build further on it, because this is your foundation. So your scale up of your CX vision, your CX adoption across the enterprise, be it in your marketing, be it in your sales or service, wherever you are, bringing in CX transformation. This sort of builds upon that core foundation, obviously the end result to the organizations. It's a significantly improved customer engagement. The by product is obviously. You have improved, you know, efficiencies, effectiveness in your overall sales and service business operations and processes. So I think that's the first pillar, which is the core component part of your CX strategy, I would say.
Moving on to the enabling part of it, right? The enabling components which are not so much visible in the front, but they are equally important. And as I mentioned earlier, the core and the enabling components have to work hand in hand. So which are these enabling components to build an integrated CX ecosystem? Right? First and foremost, it's to have the organization, CX vision and strategy in place. And this has to be not only defined, but it has to be driven top down, because having that top leadership calling it out and saying that this is business priority and it will have a tangible business outcome goes a long way. So that's the first and foremost. Second is to have a well thought through data strategy in place, right in today's context, data is the key. So if you have missed the data strategy element of it, then that needs to be fixed. And again, this part of your enabling components, and third part of the enabling component would be, obviously, to have your right set of technology interventions and the supporting capabilities in place so that when you embark on this journey, you are able to execute your strategy and your plan and not just get stuck because you don't have those right technology interventions and capabilities in place. So this is a nutshell, you know, response to your question on what is an integrated and orchestrated CX ecosystem for organizations today.
Speaker – Neerja - 06:44
Thanks. Harshad, I think you know that was really helpful for us to understand.
Q: And I think if you could also dig a little deeper and help us understand with some examples of how companies have successfully implemented these ecosystems to enhance their customer experience, that would be great.
Thanks. Harshad, I think you know that was really helpful for us to understand.
Q: And I think if you could also dig a little deeper and help us understand with some examples of how companies have successfully implemented these ecosystems to enhance their customer experience, that would be great.
Speaker – Harshad - 07:00
Sure Neerja, obviously, Birlasoft has partnered with many of his customers, existing as well as new across industry verticals, be it high tech manufacturing, be it healthcare services and so on and so forth. I'll maybe talk about couple of success stories where we have seen significant CX benefits being delivered. The first one is for one of our marquee customers that's a provider of equipment and components that are used in the oil and gas business. Right? They had embarked on what they called as a one CX vision to orchestrate their end to end customer experience processes across sales, across service. And given their business landscape, their customers are primarily B to B customers, right? The dealers, distributors and the partner ecosystem. So Birlasoft helped them build this one CX platform, realizing their visions and goals, which enabled all these personas, the of the CX ecosystem to work seamlessly throughout the sales and service process life cycle. So whether it is the dealers and distributors, the partners, the internal sales service, all of these personas had a single CX platform to work on, and from a system perspective, this one CX platform essentially tightly integrated the core enabling systems from a technology standpoint, be it the CRM, be it the core ERP system of records, be it the CPQ, be the E commerce customer portal and any document management system that is residing out there, all of these were integrated and brought together in that one CX platform vision, and obviously the customer realized some tangible benefits as part of this program. To begin with, the improved customer experience, both for their external users, which are the dealers and partners, as well as internal users, which is sales, field service, customer service. From a business financial standpoint, this initiative had a direct impact on their aftermarket business, where the parts and the servicing of those parts was essential to their business offering, obviously, from a process standpoint, they were all order cycle process, the accuracy of the court generation and the court process improved. DSO improved. These were some of the tangible business matrices which we were able to measure and improve upon. Overall, the customer 360 degree view improved, such that the sales and service workforce was able to do an upselling and cross selling as required. And overall, this platform that we built for them essentially helped this customer to scale up to other regions. This being a global MNC, they had business operations across the globe, so this vision had to be essentially rolled out globally. So this platform that we build had the scaleability aspect such that it can be scaled up, be taken to other regions and business units as part of an ongoing journey for this program.
Sure Neerja, obviously, Birlasoft has partnered with many of his customers, existing as well as new across industry verticals, be it high tech manufacturing, be it healthcare services and so on and so forth. I'll maybe talk about couple of success stories where we have seen significant CX benefits being delivered. The first one is for one of our marquee customers that's a provider of equipment and components that are used in the oil and gas business. Right? They had embarked on what they called as a one CX vision to orchestrate their end to end customer experience processes across sales, across service. And given their business landscape, their customers are primarily B to B customers, right? The dealers, distributors and the partner ecosystem. So Birlasoft helped them build this one CX platform, realizing their visions and goals, which enabled all these personas, the of the CX ecosystem to work seamlessly throughout the sales and service process life cycle. So whether it is the dealers and distributors, the partners, the internal sales service, all of these personas had a single CX platform to work on, and from a system perspective, this one CX platform essentially tightly integrated the core enabling systems from a technology standpoint, be it the CRM, be it the core ERP system of records, be it the CPQ, be the E commerce customer portal and any document management system that is residing out there, all of these were integrated and brought together in that one CX platform vision, and obviously the customer realized some tangible benefits as part of this program. To begin with, the improved customer experience, both for their external users, which are the dealers and partners, as well as internal users, which is sales, field service, customer service. From a business financial standpoint, this initiative had a direct impact on their aftermarket business, where the parts and the servicing of those parts was essential to their business offering, obviously, from a process standpoint, they were all order cycle process, the accuracy of the court generation and the court process improved. DSO improved. These were some of the tangible business matrices which we were able to measure and improve upon. Overall, the customer 360 degree view improved, such that the sales and service workforce was able to do an upselling and cross selling as required. And overall, this platform that we built for them essentially helped this customer to scale up to other regions. This being a global MNC, they had business operations across the globe, so this vision had to be essentially rolled out globally. So this platform that we build had the scaleability aspect such that it can be scaled up, be taken to other regions and business units as part of an ongoing journey for this program.
Speaker – Neerja - 10:07
Thanks Harshad. You know, there's so many aspects to this, and it's natural that one might face hurdles right in the process. So if I were to ask you,
Q: What are some of the challenges organizations might face when trying to build an integrated and orchestrated customer experience ecosystem, and how can they overcome these challenges? What would your response to that be sure?
Thanks Harshad. You know, there's so many aspects to this, and it's natural that one might face hurdles right in the process. So if I were to ask you,
Q: What are some of the challenges organizations might face when trying to build an integrated and orchestrated customer experience ecosystem, and how can they overcome these challenges? What would your response to that be sure?
Speaker – Harshad - 10:32
Sure Neerja, I believe see any transformation engagement brings a lot of risk and challenges with it. So any CX transformation would all obviously not be different, but obviously the nature of challenges and their mitigation would be different. The key is upfront, calling it out and putting across a mitigation strategy and plan into place. And while there are numerous challenges to be discussed, I will just talk about maybe couple of them. One is in the area of the process, business process, and the other is more in the area of the change management aspect. So talking about the first area, which is on the business process side of it, most common issues faced by customers when they embark on such CX Transformation Initiative is they have disparate systems, but they also have a lot of variations in their processes. So net, net, neither their business layer is standardized, neither their IT systems are integrated. So in that situation, it's extremely difficult to build any integrated CX ecosystem which has a value to add. So while this is, this is a, you know, high risk and challenge for any organization to embark on integrated CX initiative, there are mitigation strategies and plans to address it on the process challenge. Part of it, one has to apply a business process centric approach, rather than just looking at this as a technology initiative, which means you'll have to challenge the way the business is running today, questioning that and then bringing about the necessary transformation or redesign of the process with a lens of not just standardization, but also process optimization. And when you do this, you'll have to bring in dimensions, like, is it covering your multiple business lines, products and service lines, the different geos and locations where the business is operating right, such that when you scale it up, the same process template, the design of the business is applicable to at least 80% and the rest is localized or customized to the specific business need. So I think that's how the process challenge can be addressed. The IT side of the challenge right where it is mostly not integrated disparate systems in silos and so on and so forth. When you talk about in the context of CX transformation, the systems are typically your core CRM systems, e commerce, your CPQ, depending on the industry vertical CPQ may become very relevant, and of course, your middleware layer, which ties all this together. So standardizing these core platforms, these systems, including your back end system of records, which is ERP is a must. Of course, ERP is a prerequisite before embarking on the CX transformation. However, all of these have to be well thought through and standardized, so that you're not dealing with a heterogeneous landscape, and then it has its own problems. So that's one. Now, assuming you have brought in that standardization, you will still have problems of, are these systems talking to each other, right? Which is where the problems relate to data inaccuracy, and the impact of that being on the business side of it is very high. So can you mitigate this, is you have a robust, seamless integration architecture also thought through keeping in mind your core business entities. And when talk about CX as a subject, these core entities are primarily your customer accounts, your items and products services that you're offering the related price, the quotes that are being exchanged as at an inquiry stage, and once those quotations are confirmed, then your sales orders, and when you're dealing with the service side of it, your service orders and work orders and so on. So keeping all these key entities in mind, are you building a robust integration architecture? This is another, you know, mitigation strategy for handling some of the IT challenges. So I think that covers the first part of the biggest challenge, which is the process and the it, side of it. The second key challenge I would call out is more a soft aspect, but very critical to such initiative, because we are talking about CX being brought into the center stage, at a transformational level, at enterprise level, and so on. So this particular challenge is everything to do with user adoption, and this is one of the most common challenges being faced in any Enterprise Initiative. It's a change management issue, but it impacts how successful these business initiatives are. So I think the issues for most of the part gets addressed once you bring in the leadership into this right? If leadership is driving these initiatives and they mandate the rest of the organization with a top down approach, this goes a long way. It helps get the user buying, right. Defining the CX goals, the CX objectives, the business matrices, which will improve what is in it for the business users to participate in this change, the transformation and the change both side of it, right, what is in it for them that being called out by the leadership goes a long way, and then automatically you have the buy in. So basically, you're trying to get alignment between the people, processes and systems who achieve the CX, integrated CX business outcome as a objective.
Sure Neerja, I believe see any transformation engagement brings a lot of risk and challenges with it. So any CX transformation would all obviously not be different, but obviously the nature of challenges and their mitigation would be different. The key is upfront, calling it out and putting across a mitigation strategy and plan into place. And while there are numerous challenges to be discussed, I will just talk about maybe couple of them. One is in the area of the process, business process, and the other is more in the area of the change management aspect. So talking about the first area, which is on the business process side of it, most common issues faced by customers when they embark on such CX Transformation Initiative is they have disparate systems, but they also have a lot of variations in their processes. So net, net, neither their business layer is standardized, neither their IT systems are integrated. So in that situation, it's extremely difficult to build any integrated CX ecosystem which has a value to add. So while this is, this is a, you know, high risk and challenge for any organization to embark on integrated CX initiative, there are mitigation strategies and plans to address it on the process challenge. Part of it, one has to apply a business process centric approach, rather than just looking at this as a technology initiative, which means you'll have to challenge the way the business is running today, questioning that and then bringing about the necessary transformation or redesign of the process with a lens of not just standardization, but also process optimization. And when you do this, you'll have to bring in dimensions, like, is it covering your multiple business lines, products and service lines, the different geos and locations where the business is operating right, such that when you scale it up, the same process template, the design of the business is applicable to at least 80% and the rest is localized or customized to the specific business need. So I think that's how the process challenge can be addressed. The IT side of the challenge right where it is mostly not integrated disparate systems in silos and so on and so forth. When you talk about in the context of CX transformation, the systems are typically your core CRM systems, e commerce, your CPQ, depending on the industry vertical CPQ may become very relevant, and of course, your middleware layer, which ties all this together. So standardizing these core platforms, these systems, including your back end system of records, which is ERP is a must. Of course, ERP is a prerequisite before embarking on the CX transformation. However, all of these have to be well thought through and standardized, so that you're not dealing with a heterogeneous landscape, and then it has its own problems. So that's one. Now, assuming you have brought in that standardization, you will still have problems of, are these systems talking to each other, right? Which is where the problems relate to data inaccuracy, and the impact of that being on the business side of it is very high. So can you mitigate this, is you have a robust, seamless integration architecture also thought through keeping in mind your core business entities. And when talk about CX as a subject, these core entities are primarily your customer accounts, your items and products services that you're offering the related price, the quotes that are being exchanged as at an inquiry stage, and once those quotations are confirmed, then your sales orders, and when you're dealing with the service side of it, your service orders and work orders and so on. So keeping all these key entities in mind, are you building a robust integration architecture? This is another, you know, mitigation strategy for handling some of the IT challenges. So I think that covers the first part of the biggest challenge, which is the process and the it, side of it. The second key challenge I would call out is more a soft aspect, but very critical to such initiative, because we are talking about CX being brought into the center stage, at a transformational level, at enterprise level, and so on. So this particular challenge is everything to do with user adoption, and this is one of the most common challenges being faced in any Enterprise Initiative. It's a change management issue, but it impacts how successful these business initiatives are. So I think the issues for most of the part gets addressed once you bring in the leadership into this right? If leadership is driving these initiatives and they mandate the rest of the organization with a top down approach, this goes a long way. It helps get the user buying, right. Defining the CX goals, the CX objectives, the business matrices, which will improve what is in it for the business users to participate in this change, the transformation and the change both side of it, right, what is in it for them that being called out by the leadership goes a long way, and then automatically you have the buy in. So basically, you're trying to get alignment between the people, processes and systems who achieve the CX, integrated CX business outcome as a objective.
Speaker – Neerja - 16:14
My final question to you is,
Q: Which are the specific industry verticals where integrated and orchestrated ecosystems for customer experience are gaining traction.
My final question to you is,
Q: Which are the specific industry verticals where integrated and orchestrated ecosystems for customer experience are gaining traction.
Speaker – Harshad - 16:26
Sure, Neerja. I think there are quite a few which are gaining center stage, and there's a momentum being built up over the last four to five years, especially through the digital intervention being the primary way to bring about business transformation. But I think calling out few of the top ones, I would say field service operations in the context of energy and utilities industry would be one. Sales and Service transformation in the mid tech, devices industry ecosystem is another. When you talk about high tech industry vertical, I would say e commerce and customer service areas being touched upon and transformed is another. And last but not the least, in the BFSI industry vertical, customer acquisition, servicing the customer and customer retention continues to be the top priority, and CX is gaining center stage for all of these business use cases.
Sure, Neerja. I think there are quite a few which are gaining center stage, and there's a momentum being built up over the last four to five years, especially through the digital intervention being the primary way to bring about business transformation. But I think calling out few of the top ones, I would say field service operations in the context of energy and utilities industry would be one. Sales and Service transformation in the mid tech, devices industry ecosystem is another. When you talk about high tech industry vertical, I would say e commerce and customer service areas being touched upon and transformed is another. And last but not the least, in the BFSI industry vertical, customer acquisition, servicing the customer and customer retention continues to be the top priority, and CX is gaining center stage for all of these business use cases.
Speaker – Neerja - 17:29
Yeah. Well, thank you so much Harshad for sharing your expertise with us today. It's been a pleasure having you on the show.
Yeah. Well, thank you so much Harshad for sharing your expertise with us today. It's been a pleasure having you on the show.
Speaker – Harshad - 17:38
Thanks, Neerja. Appreciate and look forward to more of these sessions going forward.
Thanks, Neerja. Appreciate and look forward to more of these sessions going forward.
Speaker – Neerja - 17:43
Absolutely. And to our listeners, thank you for tuning in. We do have more episodes coming your way, so you can write in to us at digital@birlasoft.com, if you'd like to have a discussion about what you've heard today, or if you have suggestions for future topics, until next time it's me Neerja, signing off, bye, bye.
Absolutely. And to our listeners, thank you for tuning in. We do have more episodes coming your way, so you can write in to us at digital@birlasoft.com, if you'd like to have a discussion about what you've heard today, or if you have suggestions for future topics, until next time it's me Neerja, signing off, bye, bye.
You were listening to Tech Lyceum, a podcast from Birlasoft.
