As digitization has turned nearly every company into a technology company, IT finally has overcome its corporate designation as a “cost center.” Enterprises are now deeply vested in IT as a part of business strategy.
Since workplaces have become more digital and distributed, IT’s traditional role, managing a central data center and its corresponding infrastructure, has rapidly transformed into the daunting task of managing cloud and hybrid infrastructures that have frustrating blind spots and other headaches. All the while artificial intelligence (AI) is having a profound impact on the future of work, as Zack Kass, formerly of OpenAI, recently discussed in a conversation with me and others.
Empowering your IT team to manage new complexities
Since every company is trying to do more with less, it is crucial to check in on your IT team. Have you empowered them to manage these complexities while leveraging AI and delivering strategic outcomes?
How do you do that? In short, by giving them a better view of the IT estate. Think of the massive amounts of data each device in your organization can collect, and what today’s AI models can do with that data. With visibility, your IT teams can address the complexities of ever-changing IT environments. Nowhere is this more true than with managing IT endpoints. By that I mean the ecosystem of devices like laptops, desktops, mobile carts in healthcare, rugged handhelds in warehousing, point-of-sale devices in retail — anything end users need to do their jobs.
Indeed, IT has relinquished some control to deliver outstanding service to end users who expect consumer-like experiences with their workplace technology. And it’s hard to manage what you can’t see. Modern end user computing (EUC) has many different approaches, needs and moving components. Effectively managing EUC requires accurate visibility, coming from AI-enabled insights, into the entire system.
This broad visibility starts at the endpoint, which holds the key to an accurate pulse check on increasingly scattered IT environments. Much like the power contained within the “itty bitty living space” of Aladdin’s lamp, the endpoint is the often-overlooked source of breadth, depth and history of data — data that, informed by AI, can fuel business outcomes.
Today’s sophisticated large language models (LLMs) can consume vastly more data than humans and turn that into actionable results. Endpoint data, if collected, organized and analyzed correctly, can allow AI to become your best systems engineer.
Three business outcomes of complete IT visibility
By leveraging endpoint data, IT teams can gain the visibility needed to deliver three important outcomes:
1. Superior digital employee experience
With a holistic, real-time view, IT teams can determine which users might have a poor digital experience, use intelligent automations to deliver proactive fixes and identify areas to right-size the digital environment.
As one who remembers the days of centralized data centers, I am confounded by the fact that so much attention was focused on infrastructure (for fear of downtime) and essentially none on the end-user experience. This “you get what you get and don’t get upset” approach to one-size-fits-all workstations didn’t do anyone any favors. Finally, IT has evolved to understand that IT is, and always was, about the end user.
This long-overdue mind shift is critical. Why? Because end users expect frictionless experiences with their workplace devices, enabled by visibility. This priority is not just about individuals; it’s about talent retention. A recent Compucom survey found that “half of employed Americans have been so frustrated with their workplace tech that they’ve switched jobs — or are actively applying.” Complete IT visibility can help stave off this costly turnover.
2. Outstanding customer experiences
Think for a moment about your last interaction with a call center — after getting past the bot, that is. Chances are you heard, “This will take a moment; my computer is slow today.” Or perhaps you’ve been craving a Big Mac all morning only to discover that the kiosk meant to expedite long lunch lines is down.
As the retail expert Andrew Busby explains, “McKinsey has established a direct connection between retail performance and the customer experience delivered. Their research has shown that improving customer experience increases sales revenues by two to seven percent and profitability by one to two percent. In addition to this, overall shareholder return is increased by seven to ten percent.”
Customers now expect seamless, AI-driven approaches across industries. Look to your IT team as a powerful enabler of the tech necessary to produce outstanding customer experiences. Anywhere there’s a customer-facing endpoint, empower your IT team with the AI tools and visibility they need to keep it running.
3. Successful digital transformation projects
Digital transformation projects are daunting. Without visibility, even more so. For IT, visibility at every stage of a transformation project lets them track the project’s impact on the business.
Before launching any transformation, it’s important to set baselines to measure “before and after” indicators of the end-user experience — whether you’re rolling out Windows 11 across the organization, new digital carts throughout a hospital or upgraded hand-held devices across your warehousing facilities. And AI can help analyze these measurements, if you have the right data.
Informed by baselines, your IT team can set up a pilot to test rollouts on a smaller scale so real-time endpoint data can help predict success. If you detect any issues, adjust and provide additional training. Start with low-risk users before rolling out to high-risk users, such as traders in the financial sector. This approach allows teams to troubleshoot issues with less business or customer impact.
IT is business strategy
The dust has cleared from the frantic shift to remote workplaces, making room for emerging AI technologies to transform IT as we know it. Now let’s take time to give IT the visibility needed to knock the “complex” out of complex-ITy. This empowerment can happen when you unleash that itty-bitty treasure trove of insights from endpoints and let that data fuel AI solutions that make business sense.