BIZTECH: How has this change in expectations shifted how IT leaders need to approach their work, and approach innovation?
SOOD: It means that we need to be taking a user-centric approach to IT, and really start treating employees as if they are customers and consumers. Systems need to be easy to use. Employees are going to expect to be able to do it on their phone while they're on the go, whether they’re in a home office or a corporate one. They're going to expect performance no matter where they are in the country.
The user-centric design piece is going to be critical. IT is no longer building tools and capabilities, we’re building experiences. We have a lot to learn from those consumer businesses that obsess about their customers and users. They’re constantly asking how they can get customers engaged, and that needs to be a similar focus for the corporate world. Back-office IT professionals need to ask themselves how they can engage employees.
This includes working to prioritize the usability and the beauty of the interfaces that we create. There's a whole set of research about emotional design that indicates that building things that are visually appealing, with nice fonts and colors, puts people in a positive head space and creates user delight. Their mood becomes better, which makes them better able to learn and to adopt those systems. It all contributes to engaging the employee, influencing behaviors and enhancing their productivity.
BIZTECH: What are the key technologies that can help businesses meet these internal expectations from their staff?
SOOD: There's certainly tactical things, such as cloud migration, that businesses need to buy into. The cloud can ensure that employees can be mobile, delivering resilience at better cost. They need to have the right infrastructure to support this way of working, and they need to have the devices to give their employees the flexibility they’ve grown accustomed to.