The drivers of digital service delivery in 2021

As 2020 drew to a close, we asked our network of digital service delivery professionals about their focuses and challenges going into 2021. Tackling everything from the main drivers of delivery to measurement and achieving end-to-end, the results paint a clear picture of the priorities for the next 12 months and beyond.

Time and cost savings are the main objective, but measurement is often missing

37% of the service delivery professionals surveyed told us that time and cost savings were the key reason for them digitalizing processes within their organization. While 31% prioritized enterprise agility instead, which is understandable given the unpredictability we’re all facing, quantifiable business outcomes came out on top. With remote work and employee engagement chosen by only 14% and 12% respectively, the majority are focused on the long-term big picture.

Only 4% told us they don’t have a strategy for digitalization. However, when asked about the biggest challenge they have with measuring the success of digital service delivery, 16% told us they don’t have measurement or metrics in place. With a similar number also having problems with measuring user experience, defining metrics for success and even using data to prove effectiveness.

In addition to the above, the remaining 30% of respondents selected having different analytics for every application as their biggest challenge. And with 47% and 43% of respondents going on to choose joining up the gaps across end-to-end processes and a consolidated view of application data as the analytics capability that would be most beneficial to their organization, the message is clear.

Many digital services professionals want a unified, simpler way to measure the success of their work, but what specific measurements do they most value? In our survey, user productivity outweighed task completion rates by 42% to 22%. This not only reflects time and cost savings being the key goal for many, but the growing focus on all-round employee experience.

Looking at all of the above, it’s apparent that being able to demonstrate meaningful business outcomes as a result of their work is a primary driver, but there are undeniable challenges with measurement across disparate software. To remedy this, service delivery teams should be looking at tools that can deliver a consolidated view of all their apps’ performance against these target metrics—like our Adopt platform.

Bots are yet to break through and end-to-end remains a distant goal

One of the most striking results from our survey came on the subject of bots. When asked whether they have a bot strategy in place, 61% said no. And of those that had a bot strategy, only 10% said they hadn’t experienced any challenges. But with a similar percentage saying they were having difficulties tracking effectiveness, integrating with knowledge bases or with simply having too many bots, there is untapped potential in this area however you look at it.

On the subject of moving to end-to-end, only 11% of those surveyed feel they have or are close to achieving it. 37% told us they are 2 or more years away from being truly end-to-end, with 27% saying this wasn’t their goal or they didn’t know how to get there. Only 26% felt they could reach end-to-end in the next 12 months, but we asked all our respondents about the biggest barriers to accomplishing this.

Only 5% feel this is because they don’t have the technology they need, but 26% said they had too many siloed applications. 41% identified their processes not being ready for automation or even standardized at all as the main blocker, with the remaining 23% selecting budget or leadership buy in.

Based on these responses, service delivery professionals need to do more to ensure their technology is joined up. This is the key to removing the barriers, including the lengthy timelines of reaching end-to-end, and realizing the desired time and cost savings in 2021 and beyond. Fortunately, this can be accomplished without upheaval using our Adopt platform.

Once embedded into your business applications, Adopt not only improves user productivity with consistent in-app support, but enables a single view for user insights across every app. If you’d like to know more about this and the time and cost savings it could bring to your business, request a demo today or learn how our platform supports service delivery.