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For research institutions, a solid IT foundation can prove to be the difference in delivering meaningful results for scientific endeavors — and thereby in securing valuable funding for further research.

To that end, University of California, Riverside has launched an ambitious cloud transformation to shift from a small on-premises data center to an advanced research platform powered by Google Cloud Platform and its various service offerings.

As part of a three-year partnership with Google Public Sector, which kicked off in January, UC Riverside aims to empower its researchers in computer science, materials and quantum engineering, genomics, and precision agriculture to fully exploit Google’s location-agnostic application modernization platform, as well as its scalable compute and high performance computing (HPC) capabilities, says Matthew Gunkel, CIO of IT solutions at UCR.

Gunkel enlisted Google Public Sector professional services specifically as part of a strategy to quickly evolve UC Riverside’s small data center into an advanced cloud hub with robust research computing capabilities that would enable researchers to better compete for grants and funding opportunities.

“We identified Google as being well aligned with us strategically,” says Gunkel. “They have an agile infrastructure. They have the ability to facilitate industry-leading service concepts in additional clouds through a service they run called Anthos.”

Google’s Anthos is a hybrid cloud container platform for managing Kubernetes workloads across on-prem and public cloud environments. Gunkel also cited Google’s Looker and Big Query BI data analysis tools and its Chronicle security operations suite as important for enabling the university to operate a wide variety of applications and research on the cloud.

A partnership and cloud training model

With roughly 180 staff members, UC Riverside IT is relatively small, with largely traditional on-premises IT skills. As such, migrating to the cloud alone was not part of Gunkel’s plan.

Google’s assistance in developing a more efficient cloud architecture and training UCR’s IT staff in cloud technologies has been an immeasurably valuable service, he says, adding that Google is in a support role and is not running the show. UCR’s cloud architecture, for example, has been designed to be location-agnostic so the university is not locked into any one vendor and can adopt a multicloud platform over the long term.

“The services engagement is consulting and training to assist us in moving initial cloud workloads and to assist in our architecture to align to GCP services,” Gunkel says. “This is a ‘teach us to fish’ model. It’s all our work.”

UC Riverside IT is well on its way to migrating its core data to the cloud, developing its research platform, and shifting a range of applications to support the needs of its user base, which ranges from quantum engineering researchers to administrators, faculty, and students.

To date, UCR has moved the “vast majority of our data stores to Google,” Gunkel says, noting that his staff is currently refining the architecture and ETL processes for management and organization of the data long term.

In addition, UC Riverside IT is aligning its data to be accessed from Looker, Google’s enterprise BI and analytics platform, though which UCR will be deploying its Oracle Finance application for scaled reporting. UC Riverside is also rewriting a number of legacy applications to be cloud-native while revamping others for the cloud — there will be no ‘lift and shift’ of any applications, Gunkel says.

To that end, Google helped UC Riverside re-architect and migrate certain legacy services, including an LDAP configuration on a Solaris Unix server, as part of a process of identifying increased efficiencies for the deployment and operation of those services, which has been “an educational experience for a lot of my staff,” Gunkel says, noting that the overall transformation has required “cultural change management.”

Empowering research in the cloud

But the university’s evolving research hub is the crown jewel of the cloud migration.

“We have been working with a number of researchers on a platform that we are calling ‘Ursa Major’ where we committed to a number of compute instances and storage and RAM and GPUs that would be available to our researchers over a three-year time period,” Gunkel says.

Jim Kennedy, CTO of UC Riverside, says Google is helping architect the research hub and is also helping the IT chiefs make connections with researchers beyond UCR to help train UCR’s research faculty on Ursa Major, which will expand and grow beyond the three-year agreement with Google.

“Google connects us to experts in various research fields, and have conversations with our faculty directly, such as our genomics researcher on campus. There are experts on Google’s side, too,” Kennedy says.

Google also helped the Gunkel and Kennedy extend the university’s subscription-based compute and storage services to researchers in a multitude of disciplines. In the past, if a materials engineering researcher wanted to run workloads on several thousand processors, they would often have to write proposals to gain access to external supercomputer clusters.

With HPC requiring vast computing power, Gunkel also notes the benefit for efficiency and sustainability of shifting those workloads to the cloud. “We’re in a fairly constrained region against mountains and our ability to bring power into the university is something we’re constantly battling,” Gunkel says. “One of the things our researchers were very concerned about was [building] a sustainable, more eco-friendly solution. It’s something UCR values heavily but it’s also a challenge for us locally.”

Still, the migration, still in its early days, is being designed to accommodate a wide range of computing constituencies. For instance, UCR is also using Salesforce and MuleSoft as well as Google’s API layer to provide the “connective tissue” that is required across the university’s many enterprise platforms.

“The best way to think of the university is really as a collection or community of small businesses,” Gunkel says. “A lot of what we try to provide on the service stack side are tools that empower all of them in their different endeavors.”

Cloud Computing, Education Industry, High-Performance Computing

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After years of compounded digital transformation, the downsides of the cloud are starting to reveal themselves. As cloud investments increase, benefits remain elusive without also investing in optimization efforts targeted at reducing cloud waste and lowering costs, that’s according to a new study published by CIO.com.

Research reveals that while most companies are investing more in the cloud, 80% of decision makers report cost savings as the biggest issue with existing cloud deployments. In fact, the vast majority (55%) of those respondents say costs are “extremely” challenging.

This key takeaway is being labeled the “cloud cost quandary,” the predicament companies face when they need to invest more in the cloud yet struggle to recognize value on the investments they have already made. But why is capitalizing on the cloud difficult? The research also provides answers.

Data explains why cloud cost savings are problematic

The research report unpacks root causes behind the issues of cost and achieving cost savings in the cloud. The bottom line: it’s hard to follow where the money goes, seeing how, when, and where resources are used and then allocating costs across the organization.

It’s hard to follow the cloud money trail

70% say it’s challenging to account for cloud spending and usage66% of the C-suite cite tracing spend and chargebacks of particular concern

Here’s where the cloud can spur spending surprises that are difficult to chase down.

Cloud infrastructure services generally charge a fee every time data is accessed, as well as when data limits are surpassed during storage and backup. You are also charged by the second for however long a service instance runs. Thus, understanding cloud usage at a very granular level has become a key focal point in putting boundaries around spending.

Tagging capabilities enable granular tracking of service usage, but it’s not always easy to maintain accuracy, spot IaaS instances that are little used or mis-tagged or get a clear view into usage spikes and the reasons for them. Managing tags is essential yet time-consuming when performed manually. Default dashboards from cloud providers don’t offer the speed and data-crunching benefits of advanced analytics nor the cost-cutting insights of cloud expense management platforms.

Deciphering cloud costs on the backend is equally daunting, as invoices can be highly complex in part because of the number of line items for each fee or instance. However, with more investments in cloud, IT finance managers want to ensure resources are used effectively to keep costs to a minimum. Chargebacks and allocating costs are also critical moves for leaders trying to hold departments and lines of business fiscally responsible for digital innovation and the cloud services they use.  

And it’s not just cloud infrastructure fogging the view. The study shows a large majority (70%) of respondents reported Shadow IT as their top challenge with cloud applications. That’s understood after fast-moving changes from the past three years. Most companies today find they have an eye-opening number of unsanctioned tools, multiple redundant SaaS subscriptions, and a significant amount of unused application licenses that need to be identified and reassigned to new owners.

The bottom line: Making time to oversee the cloud—gaining visibility into expansive datasets for deeper investigation and managing accounting details—is an added burden on IT and finance teams.

Cloud waste offers evidence of the difficulties of cloud management.

Waste proves companies are mismanaging cloud resources

When it’s challenging to account for cloud usage and spending, it’s that much harder to optimize cloud resources and reap the benefits of cost savings. Another key takeaway from the study is how many digital transformation dollars are getting washed away in the form of cloud waste. The study shows 29% of cloud resources are wasted with 12% of cloud licenses going entirely unused. 

Those numbers should have any cloud innovator sitting up straight in their chair—not because they should fear exposing how much of the cloud gets squandered, but because they can now see exactly how much a cloud cost optimization program is worth—29% in savings. This is the type of program that could generate meaningful resource reallocations, ROI improvements, departmental recognition, or even personal promotion.

In diving deeper, the research shows the larger the company the larger the problem. This is particularly the case when it comes to cost savings. Roughly 68% of companies with more than $5 billion in revenue faced significant difficulty achieving cost savings with cloud, compared to 36% of smaller companies.

Capitalizing on the cloud: 3 capabilities simplify governance

Few organizations have yet to update their operational processes to handle the cloud effectively. But in the wake of compressed innovation, governance is now necessary in order to fully capitalize on the cloud. Being a good steward of cloud investments requires three cornerstone competencies, which the study respondents prioritized as the top critical capabilities for cloud management:

Cloud optimization and right-sizingMeasuring and tracking total cloud spendMeasuring cloud utilization

These are the most significant factors in maximizing ROI on cloud innovation.

To learn more about cloud expense management services, visit us here.  

Multi Cloud

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The demand for ongoing transformation and innovation is going to continue to drive IT budgets into 2023. As a solution to the challenges of inflation, recession, geopolitical instability, and the broader economy, IT is seen as the way forward.

Research shows that more than half – 52 per cent – of organisations are expecting to increase spending in IT. Among those that have already commenced the transformation journey, that number rises to 67 per cent.

Transformation is broad, however, and what IT leaders will see as a priority for investment will be technologies that bring human-centricity to the experience of interacting with technology. What this comes down to is two priorities – helping staff work at maximum productivity and efficiency, and ensuring that they’re happy in their jobs.

As Forrester put it: recession fears and talent constraints make paying attention to existing employees more important than ever – deep within the “Great Resignation” and facing an unemployment rate of just 3.4 per cent, every member of the executive team is being tasked with grappling with the challenge of talent.

By deploying IT spending correctly, the CIO is in the best position to solve this issue. Lenovo research shows that 75 per cent of employees seek purpose-driven work, and that transformation spend can be most effectively deployed in delivering solutions that engage workers, free up focus time, and improve business outcomes by helping everyone to do their best work.

Priorities for human centricity

The first priority for CIOs is to understand that remote work is here to stay, and the focus needs to be on turning that into a strategic opportunity. The Forrester research suggests that four in ten hybrid-working companies will try and roll back that policy and doing so will backfire on them.

In contrast, Lenovo’s research reveals that investing in remote work offers advantages. Employees are more productive, and 78 per cent of employees report that having better collaboration technology has unlocked the opportunity to recruit a more diverse workforce. This has unlocked the opportunity to access broader skillsets. In this context, it’s no small wonder that 44 per cent of IT leaders plan on making investments in hybrid collaboration tools to improve remote communication.

Elsewhere, employees also want to believe in the work they’re doing, and this means being a good corporate citizen and investing in sustainable solutions. This needs to be a multi-faceted approach, including the use of renewable energy, leveraging technology that is energy efficient, and reducing waste by ensuring that technology is reparable and has a long life. Hybrid work has a role to play here, too, by helping to eliminate the energy-inefficient commute to work.

However, human centricity also means understanding how people work. This is because, in a hybrid work environment, there will be times where employees want to come into the office. There, they need both a seamless and superior experience. This means they need to be able to continue working as they had been at home, while also enjoying a superior working experience in the office. Communication between onsite and offsite employees also needs to be seamless, and for CIOs, this need to modernise the in-office experience will result in some IT projects. For example, Lenovo research shows that 32 per cent of companies have subscriptions to workplace collaboration tools that help manage IT-related tasks. CIOs might need to invest in further solutions to continue to strengthen the “work anywhere” experience.

Delivering human centricity needs holistic solutions

As the popular saying goes, too many cooks spoil the broth. The more individual pieces of technology and services that a company uses, the more likely it is to compromise the employee experience, as solutions don’t work seamlessly together. Vendor consolidation is expected to be a key theme for CIOs going into 2023.

For Lenovo, being able to provide an end-to-end solution to CIOs has been a key priority. By choosing a trusted partner to help streamline solutions, Lenovo promotes a superior human-centric experience in three ways:

Lead with a purpose-driven vision – Lenovo solutions equip employees with durable, repairable, energy-efficient technology, from individual devices right up to the datacentre solutions in the office.Super-charge collaboration – Lenovo solutions leverage AR devices, as well as smart platforms to allow for complex, rich real-time collaboration, screen, and device sharing.Support a trusted end-to-end technology partner – Lenovo solutions make Device-as-a-Service, Infrastructure-as-a-Service and custom cloud solutions from a single partner possible, allowing the organisation to consolidate their touchpoints and vendors.

A full 82 per cent of IT leaders want to work with technology that delivers on the value of the transformed workforce. This means technology that allows for human centricity, and, in 2023, it will mean the difference in hybrid work being a point of competitive advantage for the organisation.

Remote Work

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There’s an old saying when something you value changes and no longer brings you the joy the way it used to, “it’s not like it used to be.” For those who remember the good old days, great service was an essential part of the customer experience. Nowadays, customer service is not what it used to be. For decades now, customer service has become a necessary cost center. The emphasis on scale, automation, speed, and margins have also come at the cost of customer experience. However, new research now shows that the role of service is shifting back to “service,” to unify the customer’s experience.  

Since the dawn of the contact center in the 1960s, customer service evolved into a transactional entity. Over the years, executives learned to think of service as a numbers game, cycling customers on and off the phone and closing-out tickets as fast as possible, regardless of whether or not customers had a positive impression of the company in each interaction. That mindset would serve as models for deploying next-gen technologies, including IVRs, knowledge centers, chatbots, automation/RPA, text/messaging, with each designed to scale transactional engagement vs. delivering the level of service customers hope to receive. 

Customer experience reflects all customer engagements; Service can no longer serve as the weakest link 

The customer experience — the sum of all engagements, beyond customer service, a customer has with a business — is core to business success today. A related study of customers and B2B buyers published by Salesforce, the “State of the Connected Customer,” showed that nearly nine-in-ten respondents consider experience to be as critical as the product, itself, in deciding whether or not to buy from a company. This means that the experience you deliver is also a product.  

Nearly all respondents to that survey said a positive service experience makes them more likely to make a repeat purchase (94%). The same study also found that 71% of customers had switched brands in the last year with 48% switching companies for better customer service. These are critical insights especially in the current economic environment, when budgets are tightening, and loyalty becomes more important to the bottom line.  

Every facet of that experience must contribute to the great whole of the brand experience you promise. If customer service is viewed as a cost center and metrics prioritize speed over quality and transactions over relationship, it will always take away from the customer’s experience instead of enhancing it.  

There’s good news to report for service professionals. In its fifth edition of the “State of Service,” Salesforce found that companies are increasing investments in employees and technology budgets to match case volume and customer expectations. Over half of service organizations (55%) report increased budgets — up from 32% in 2020. And 51% report increased headcount — up from 19% in 2020. 

Mindset: The value of service shines when it’s meant to enhance the customer experience 

As customers become increasingly connected and empowered, their expectations soar. Service as a cost center is no longer a viable strategy to stand out against competitors where everything either takes away from or adds to the experience. It comes down to a shift in mindset, from a cost center mentality to a revenue generator. When executives invest in customer services that enhances their experience, customers are more likely to make repeat purchases and stay loyal.  

That truth is increasingly penetrating the hallowed walls of C-Suites and the boardroom.  

More than 50% of respondents in Salesforce’s survey of customer service professionals say their management now views their department as a revenue generator, rather than the cost center it may have perceived to be. That’s a significant tipping point that makes service performance all the more important not just for companies as a whole, but for the people in charge of delivering customer service. 

If you need more proof of this phenomenon, consider that over one-third of customer service leaders are now in the C-level — an unprecedented level of representation at the highest reaches of business structures.  

The fact that these are sourced from customer service ranks speaks volumes. And there’s appetite for this trend to continue. Nearly nine-in-ten of customer service respondents who don’t have C-level representation see its value. 

With the rise of roles such as chief customer officers and chief experience officers, service becomes one, albeit critical, part of the overall customer experience. It no longer has to represent the weakest link in the customer journey. 

Connection is the heart of service 

Driving customer success starts with connection to engage customers to meet and eventually exceed customer expectations. 

Think about the myriad of touchpoints that proliferate the path to purchase — and repurchase and loyalty — today. We often talk about this in terms of striving for omnichannel engagement. But beyond business buzzwords, a customer would never use the word omnichannel, it’s important to humanize the customer experience by considering the different, disconnected, departments that touch the customer journey. For example… 

Are service agents aware of marketing campaigns a given customer has received when they make contact? Do they have an informed sense of how a customer has navigated the company’s e-commerce touchpoints? Is the customer’s historical experience, preferences, previous purchases, available to service agents and all frontline executives responsible for customer engagement through their journey? Is integrated data and insights available to power AI in ways that present next best actions and experiences at a personal level, whether that’s an agent, chatbot, or self-guided path? If in a B2B company, are they aware of salesperson interactions?  

This is all critical context that service reps need to meet elevated customer expectations for efficient, tailored engagement. 

So, have companies met those customer expectations for connected engagement? According to the “State of the Connected Customer” survey, they have not.  

Three-in-five respondents say they generally feel like they are interacting with different departments rather than one company. And unfortunately, two-thirds say they often need to repeat information to different agents. When nearly all customers say a positive service experience makes them more likely to make a repeat purchase, is this status quo serving service’s elevated business mandate? 

This attests to a cost-center vs. growth mindset. In each case, the outcomes are very different. 

Compare high-performing service teams — those with the highest customer satisfaction levels — and their underperforming peers. The top teams are empowered to treat unique customers with unique engagement, think freedom from restrictive policies that don’t put all customer situations into a single category of service. Top teams are also more empowered with contextual information that details a customer’s entire journey, whether with service, or another team.  

In these cases, over three-fifths of service teams now share the same CRM software with their colleagues in other departments like ecommerce, sales, and marketing.  

Context matters in a digital-first world 

Let’s talk about the other critical element of meeting elevated customer expectations: digital channels and, more importantly, customer context. 

Even though the world is opening up, the use of digital channels, such as social media and customer portals, have not backtracked. In fact, customers say they are likely to spend more time online than before 2020. This is leading to the adoption of more digital-first touchpoints. Nearly three-in-five customers now prefer to engage through digital channels.  

Before you ask, yes, that preference skews higher among younger demographics. But still, channels such as phone and email are dropping, and digital-first touchpoints are rising across the board.  

Responses to this trend are represented in the increasing adoption among service organizations of channels like mobile apps, forums, and especially video. But a wholesale shift to digital channels ignores critical nuance…context. 

Key objectives are shifting to reflect a focus on efficiency, cost savings, and doing more with less 

Customers veer towards different channels depending on the circumstances. For instance, 59% of customers prefer self-service tools for simple issues while 81% of service professionals say the phone is a preferred channel for complex issues — up from 76% in 2020.  

Wherever they go, customers want their interaction to be easy, seamless, and fast. Let’s focus for a moment on the preference for self-service for simple issues. This is a great example of where customer and company priorities meet — in this case, in the pursuit of efficiency. 

Customer success excellence in today’s environment isn’t easy. Salesforce research found that 83% of customers expect to interact with someone immediately, and 83% expect to resolve complex problems through one person.  

Service professionals are feeling the pressure too, with 60% recognizing the increase in customer expectations since before the pandemic. 

Shifting KPIs reflect a focus on efficiency 

The preference for self-service for simple matters coincides with a heightened focus on efficiency for companies facing uncertain economic conditions. 

Organizations are being asked to do more with less and reduce costs. This is reflected in the rise of efficiency-related service KPIs, such as case deflection, customer effort, and first contact resolution.  

While self-service is a great foray into this pursuit, it can only go so far. How else can service organizations maximize customer satisfaction while using resources most efficiently? 

The answer lies at least in part in technology. Specifically, nearly three-fifths of service organizations now use at least one form of workflow or process automation — freeing up agents to focus on the higher value, more complex work that customers with more pressing or unique needs demand in exchange for repeat purchases.  

Users of automation reported significant benefits, such as time savings, better customer focus, and fewer errors in addressing customer needs. 

Three takeaways to transform service into a growth (and customer relationship) engine  

Service plays an important role in delivering a connected, efficient, and product customer experience. More importantly, service itself is shifting from a necessary cost center to a strategic growth engine. 

Service organizations are now at the forefront of strategic shifts across industries. Leaders are investing in continued momentum as well as future disruptions as customer expectations only continue to increase. 

1) Shift from a service mindset to an experience mindset 

Customers don’t see a “service department” — they see one company. As elevated, connected experiences become more commonplace, any instance of a disconnected, siloed experience across sales, service, marketing, and beyond will stand out and prompt customers to seek out better alternatives. Connecting service people, processes, and technology with their cross-functional counterparts helps mitigate this risk and elevate the overall customer experience. 

2) Empower employees as much as customers 

Scaling digital engagement offerings for customers has its merits, but we need to also think about what capabilities employees need to engage across these channels and provide the tailored, empathetic, and contextualized service customers deserve. Technology is a big part of this equation. But all the technology in the world won’t make much of a difference without the evolved policies and processes that transformation requires. 

3) Audit metrics for efficiency, scale, and experience 

Tried-and-true service metrics aren’t going anywhere, but a narrow focus on closing out as many tickets with as few agents as possible is a recipe for CX and service failure. Think about how KPIs can help identify areas of improvement as you scale across new channels, for instance. As resources get scarcer among economic uncertainty, look for ways to do more with less, without compromising the experiences customers have and take away from each engagement. 

Business Services