The overseas ICT industry shows a range of development, as each country is on the same journey to automation. Despite each country’s different point of ICT development, there is a common trend amongst them: they are focusing more on core competencies. There is also a focus on an external access point to the business environment for clients, whether that is a web portal or visiting the business premises.
e-Commerce Web Portal
The e-commerce web portal is going to become the main driver in this environment, but not in the traditional e-commerce way, but rather offering a more customisable and personalised experience. These portals will be of the nature that you can create your own output and place the order via this portal. The web portals are going to be more customer-centric to enhance the client journey and provide an efficient and easy method of purchasing or ordering products or services.
Business Environment Interface
The second prominent trend is that employees are also interfacing into the business environment with a portal of some nature to accommodate remote working. This allows employees accessibility to the business’s central environment via technology wherever they are in the world.
Business and Service Provider Interface
The third trend is an interface between businesses and service providers. The flow of information between the two companies will be via a web portal. Each company will have their own environments where they manage their own services and interface with companies to provide services to them. The nature of the interface allows the service provider to share costs across multiple customers, making the price point more affordable for the customer and more profitable for the service provider.
Automation Migration
The process from the traditional platform to the new interface portal involves a process of migration. It is not a simple swap of environments, but rather involves the introduction of new technology and portals over time. What we see is that there will always be an interface between the old and new technology. This presents the challenge of making the shift from the old to new technology as quickly as possible, because of the overheads attached to managing both environments.
Software and Infrastructure as a Service
There is also a trend in the market to acquire software or infrastructure as a service, where you subscribe in order to use this product. This provides the option for the consumer to use the application whenever they need it. The hosting, databases, software and platform are provided to manage your environment.
So how does the company manage this environment themselves? Within their environment, they put tools and processes in place which can be deemed as the ecosystem management process. This manages everything from the supplier to production.
Identification Management
Another trend prevalent in the ICT industry from a corporate competency point of view is identification management. This is a management system that identifies what is and what is not relevant within the business drivers and manages that process. This system is meant to streamline business processes and identify what issues need to be addressed to manage the environment successfully.
Cybersecurity
We have seen a significant focus on security in the ICT environment. Because of the new interface type of environments being introduced, the security of these portals are vital. The business needs to be protected from an IP and competitor point of view. Everything within the company’s environment needs to be secured, as well as the user process. The security of these platforms doesn’t only focus on who can access the environment, but also ensures that the environment complies with all legal and regulatory requirements globally. The flow of information needs to be managed effectively with minimal risks, especially since automation is becoming a major driver in the industry.
Service Delivery Measurement
The last part that is going to become vital in an automated environment, is that you need to measure your service delivery and customer experience according to your web portal experience. There should be specific focus on the capacity of services that are viable to be delivered to support a good customer experience.
Voice is Dying Out
Another trend we have been seeing is that people are communicating less verbally and more by means of technology. Voice mechanisms are becoming less popular. About 70% of revenue that Telcos generate is voice driven, which is pushing telcos to relook at how they conduct their business.
Self-help Processes
Self-help is also going to become a big driver within the industry. Customers prefer the option to do things themselves, such as acquire or customise products or services. This does not only include an automated ordering component, but there is a focus point put on how to make the consumer process easier and to streamline the provisioning process. This begs the question of ‘How do I rectify issues within these self-help processes when things go wrong’? The resolution of issues within the consumer process often take longer to resolve because of human capital. Because of this, automation is going to become a major driver for two very important reasons:
- Skilled and knowledgeable workers are dying out.
- Cost of human capital and processes is getting more expensive.
The automation of business core processes is necessary because of its cost-effectiveness, easy accessibility and efficiency. It eradicates human error and provides a stable and efficient environment for the business’s core processes.
Outsourcing
The last major driver in the industry is the outsourcing of services and software. Not only are functions moved out of the business’s core environment, but there is also automation of the outsourcing.
We maintain extension research on the ICT environment to ensure that our products remain at the top of the market. These are the trends you can expect to see overseas. How have these trends redefined the ICT industry? Continue reading our series by clicking the button below to find out.
