Service management now and in 2022: moving nimbly with the market
- Blog
- Service management
- Collaboration
- Training
- ITIL
November 9, 2021 |
4 min read
- Blog
- Service management
- Collaboration
- Training
- ITIL
For most of us, this past year’s primary concerns were inwardly focused on our health, the health and wellbeing of our friends and families and the state of our jobs, teams and organizations.
However, it is precisely during these times that we also need to focus outwardly and check in on our customers: reaching out to see how they’re doing, understand how the world is changing for them so not to miss out on the critical shifts – and opportunities for innovation – that are happening around us.
It’s also meant having to improve operations in a lot of areas to better serve our teams, organizations and customers.
At Beyond20, the Covid-19 pandemic forced us to become very good at quickly onboarding employees virtually, using digitally-signed documents to create a better employee experience and centralize our records. We’ve also had to get very good at managing our asset inventory, shipping laptops and streamlining processes; removing wasteful activities and cleaning up how the flow of work happens.
What began as an exercise in reactive innovation has developed into a new way of working that new employees have called the best onboarding experience in their careers; one where they are seamlessly provided with everything they need on day one. Furthermore, the improvements we’ve made in onboarding have prompted us to look for other areas where we can innovate.
From accidental to intentional innovation
Having to pivot strategy very quickly has, in several ways, been a good thing and has led to greater innovation coming out of a crisis. The best organizations have recognized the need to move on from the accidental, reactive innovation caused by the Covid-19 pandemic to a more intentional, proactive approach.
Now it’s about harnessing this ability so it’s something we enthusiastically and regularly do rather than being forced to.
Personally, the experience of 2021 has made our organization more focused on what’s most important to customers; learning from them to get a better sense of who we are as a company and who we want to be. For example, when market needs around training dramatically changed, it compelled us to reallocate and strengthen our internal resources. In our case, that involved providing extensive relationship management training for the entire company; enabling us to uncover customers’ challenges, find solutions and be more disciplined about reimagining, designing and communicating our offerings.
Forward
In 2022 and beyond, the key to survival and lasting success will be in deepening trusted relationships with customers and identifying ways to help them solve new problems as their environment and needs change. One of the ways individuals and teams can achieve continued success is by improving their relationship management skills, a key practice in the ITIL® 4 framework.
Specifically around training, we’ve seen customer needs change towards more virtual, interactive, and blended formats – a trend that will continue over the long-term. We’ve worked hard to replicate the experience of our in-person courses with hands-on activities with virtual whiteboards, sticky notes and collaboration in small teams through the use of breakout rooms. This shift has also driven us to innovate and experiment with a variety of cutting-edge tools and techniques to fit a variety of formats including virtual, self-paced, hybrid and in person courses.
The coming year will also see a higher demand for soft skills training to help individuals, teams, and entire organizations become more nimble.
With such skills, organizations will be better able to change and adapt and put in the practice needed to continually evolve, improve and more easily handle the next pandemic or crisis.
Now is the time to change how we approach innovation and improvement or run the risk of facing an equally difficult struggle the next time the market moves or the unexpected happens.