Services
The service sector is going through a series of discreet yet powerful changes, including the advent of hybrid working, new and evolving customer and pay expectations, and a search for balance between technology and human purpose. Slowly but surely, these developments are reshaping the landscape, forcing companies to focus on what matters and take the right action. It all starts with observing, understanding, and laying the foundations for a new approach one that goes beyond merely addressing market imperatives.
When everything seems to be mired in complexity, the path to clarity doesn’t lie in turnkey solutions. Rather, it lies in digging deeper, questioning, and taking action where others merely follow. It’s about shunning gimmicky tools and fleeting trends, and taking tangible, strategic action to reshape the operational landscape and stake out a position where others dare not tread.
That’s where we come in. With our combined expertise in Salesforce integration and strategy and technology support, we build custom solutions tailored to your priorities. We approach every project with an open ear, an adaptable mindset, and a determination to build trust, taking a pragmatic approach that aligns with your realities on the ground.
Modernizing the fundamentals: People, spaces, and technology in uncertain times
Transforming workspaces: Beyond the office
The advent of remote working has transformed offices into spaces for strategy-setting and collaboration, lending new value to face-to-face conversations. Meanwhile, when staff work remotely, digital tools take over the reins. But this new, hybrid model poses its own set of challenges. How do you uphold team spirit and unity when people aren’t physically together? How do you keep data secure in a fragmented work environment while maintaining seamless communication and keeping priorities aligned? In fact, these questions aren’t obstacles. They’re an opportunity to devise a new way of working one that achieves a sustainable balance between people and technology.
Companies can keep pace with these changes by:
- Adopting collaborative platforms to keep communication seamless and priorities aligned while fostering human connection across a dispersed workforce.
- Deploying cloud-based ERP and CRM systems to collate information centrally and keep it secure, enabling rapid, confident decision-making.
- Integrating AI tools for intuitive, lighting-fast search capabilities.
Labor market changes: Recruitment and retention
The Covid-19 pandemic triggered a period of rapid change in the labor market, moving issues such as flexibility, recognition, and work-life balance to the top of the list of employees’ priorities. However, “quiet quitting” and increasing staff turnover reflect a hushed rejection of conventional employment practices. What’s more, it’s increasingly difficult to maintain team spirit and unity in hybrid working environments, where people interact less frequently and where needs can sometimes go unnoticed. At a time when every employee experience counts, these changes call for a rethink of existing approaches and tools with a view to better understanding, supporting, and engaging talent.
Solutions include:
- Digitizing HR processes to pull employee data together in one place and track KPIs such as turnover and satisfaction.
- Automating HR workflows, such as administrative requests and performance appraisals, to reduce friction and streamline processes.
- Integrating collaborative tools to support interaction, streamline project management, and build unity among dispersed teams.
- Proactively analyzing HR data to better understand needs, prevent staff from disengaging, and identify development opportunities.
Diversifying services in a saturated market
As demand grows and the supply of services expands rapidly to keep pace, the sector is heading toward a critical threshold, where the abundance of market participants makes differentiation increasingly difficult. Competition is intensifying with the arrival of new players with disruptive, low-cost models such as B2B marketplaces, SaaS platforms, super-apps, and “as-a-service” subscriptions. Innovation cycles are getting shorter, forcing companies to push the boundaries of boldness and creativity to stay visible. Meanwhile, customer expectations are becoming increasingly complex, as consumers seek personalization, diversity, and simplicity, and as trends converge toward demand for precision and a seamless experience. Meeting these demands while maintaining consistency is no easy task. Because diversifying services without a clear strategy can undermine a company’s identity or introduce inconsistency into the customer experience. That’s why it’s more important than ever to strike the right balance between innovation and operational performance. Companies’ existence—and, for that matter, their relevance—depend on it.
Here are some ways to navigate this environment:
- Managing customer data centrally and analyzing this information to understand customers’ expectations and adjust services accordingly.
- Adopting agile approaches to quickly test and fine-tune ideas before launch.
- Leveraging artificial intelligence to reveal hidden opportunities and generate new ideas from existing data assets.
- Developing integrated platforms that bring together complementary services and offer a consistent user experience.
Servitization: An emerging business model
Servitization a major trend in manufacturing involves packaging traditional products with high-value-added services. This change is forcing companies to shift the focus of their business models away from simple market transactions and toward relationships and results. Customers expect ongoing support,a long-term partnership, and concrete commitments in terms of performance. For businesses, this means rethinking their approaches, moving away from merely selling products and instead offering subscription or pay-per-use services. In this new landscape, companies need advanced management systems to track customer satisfaction indicators and honor contractual commitments (SLAs). The key to success also lies in an organization’s ability to personalize its services while maintaining high standards of operational performance.
How to successfully navigate the transition to servitization:
- Roll out CRM and ERP systems to manage customer interactions centrally and identify new service opportunities.
- Integrate applications to manage subscriptions, recurring payments, and pay-per-use models.
- Deploy real-time tools to monitor contractual commitments, SLAs, and satisfaction indicators.
- Automate maintenance, customer follow-up, and renewals for improved performance.
- Develop collaborative platforms, connected to customer tools (APIs, IoT, cloud), for a seamless, personalized experience.
Managing big data: A looming crisis of interpretation
Today, the sheer volume of data being generated poses a challenge when it comes to both processing and interpretation. While digital technology allows for almost unlimited data collection, many organizations are struggling to extract actionable insights from this mass of information. Consolidating and analyzing this data is further complicated by the diversity of formats and sources (CRM systems, IoT technologies, apps, social media, etc.). Poorly structured, incomplete, or obsolete data distorts analyzes and makes decisions unreliable. And that’s not all, because many organizations lack the governance structures and skills they need to oversee their data use. Without clear rules for collecting, cleaning up, and verifying data, companies risk making biased decisions—or no decisions at all. Last but not least, data can lose its strategic value if it’s not aligned with business goals and objectives.
To avoid a crisis of interpretation, companies can:
- Establish data governance systems and processes to determine what data needs to be collected and why, and to keep data updated and of adequate quality.
- Use appropriate tools to manage data centrally for uniform access for all employees.
- Leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning to identify correlations and trends that are invisible to the human eye.
- Set up interactive dashboards to visualize data in a clear and comprehensible way.
- Foster close collaboration between business and technical experts to ensure that analyzes and insights are aligned with strategic objectives.
Quiet revolutions, bold responses:
Embedding change is what we do
These transformations are altering the service sector in lasting although not always spectacular ways. They stem from changing habits and practices, organizational challenges, and new demands for tailor-made services firmly rooted in reality. It’s at these pivotal moments that the key factors come into play: a well-thought-out strategy, the right tools, and an ability to plan ahead and act accordingly.
Detecting change is only part of the equation. Making sense of change, and embedding it in your day-to-day operations, is what we do. At Cloudity, we leverage Salesforce to streamline and enrich your customer relationships. At Digital Services, we combine consulting and technology expertise to align your infrastructure and practices with your ambitions.
Guided by our values trust, openness, commitment, and cooperation we work with you to ground each project in your reality. Our goal? To enact tangible, purposeful, lasting change.
