Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2020. Read them in this 12th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
By Dan Lahl, Vice President, Product Marketing, SAP
Customization and Integration of Business Processes Create Better Experiences
Every January when I get my eyes checked I have a positive
and personal experience with my eye doctor - even though my doctor is one of
thousands in the Kaiser network. She knows my prescription and my preferences. Looking
ahead to 2020, I expect it to be the year of "experience." Driven by the
enterprise need to strengthen and streamline both internal and external
processes, we will see an increased use in intelligent technologies that do
everything from creating a better digital workplace to delivering a better
customer experience.
Intelligent Business Process Management Integrates Across
Platforms
Process efficiency is a "must-have" in the enterprise environment
to create simplified workflows, increased productivity, and overall better experiences.
In 2020, we'll see businesses take advantage of technological advancements including
robotic process automation (RPA) and conversational artificial intelligence
(CAI). By reinvigorating Business Process Management (BPM) of the past to
become intelligent with these technologies, businesses will deliver improved
experiences and processes for employees, customers and partners. Demand for
Intelligent Business Process Management (iBMP - the combination and
integration of traditional BPM with Artificial Intelligence and Machine
Learning) will grow as organizations look to integrate across different
parts of the business and have visibility on the unified whole, empowering them
to reap the benefits of multi-functional enterprise platforms and experience
more success.
Flexible Data Management Enables Customizable Process Flow
As businesses increasingly integrate their processes, we'll also see
them simultaneously working to identify where they should house this process
data. Customization will continue to be key, with businesses seeking increased
opportunities to modify their environments depending on their preferred system
workflow.
With this, hybrid cloud is going to become even bigger as
organizations increasingly manage an on-prem and cloud world. More companies
will ask themselves "How can we survive and thrive by exploiting on-prem
systems, while at the same time embracing new cloud environments?" and will
look to solutions that help connect systems across cloud and on-prem. Within
their flexible hybrid environments, we'll see businesses embed intelligent
technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning across
applications.
In the past, we've seen the use of horizontal tools that allow
organizations to get only one task done at a time and don't create a common
workspace or allow for employee engagement and productivity. In 2020, we will
see businesses increasingly adopt engagement models and customizable platforms
that have capabilities tailored to business application needs to enhance the
digital workplace. The days of going from one platform to the next, are gone - we'll
see a shift to doing every task in one common place, bringing the customizable
experience economy to the workplace.
Business Processes & Customer Sentiment Converge for Better Experience
Management
Implementing intelligent technology in the workplace in 2020 will
not only be for added internal process efficiencies, but for customer experience
management: an area where organizations will either thrive or die.
As experience management grows even more critical in a crowded
landscape, we'll see a greater convergence of customer sentiment with business
processes to provide insights users can leverage to change workflows and
address problems in real-time. By bringing in backend data customers are
providing to show a full view, business users will be able to easily change
things as they go and improve customer experiences on demand.
Enhancing both the user and business process components in one
environment means organizations will enable common data views and a common user
experience. With this, they will strengthen their overall workflows internally
and create better external experiences.
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About the Author
Dan Lahl, Vice
President of Product Marketing at SAP, has been in high tech for over 30 years,
with extensive experience in data management, data warehousing and
analytics. While at SAP Dan has led emerging technology initiatives,
including Data Integration, Data Grid, In-Memory Database and Mobile
BI. Dan is currently focused on growing SAP Cloud Platform business for
SAP. Dan has degrees from the Haas School of Business at U.C. Berkeley and
Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Chicago.