Hello and welcome to the latest episode of this podcast. In this episode,  we will talk about A perspective on transforming application support services. While a lot has already been said, written and discussed about Digital transformation, Application Transformation, today we shall spend some time to understand the role and the need for transformation in the very services that support these applications. 

 

 

Application maintenance and support is a constant need for any organization to keep them running in fine fettle. And these support services are driven and delivered by industry standards like ITIL. ITIL standards define support processes which cover all aspects of service delivery, and it also stresses on "Creation of value through service delivery”.

 

Now if we superimpose the transformational elements on these ITIL processes, we can quickly get a structured framework for transforming AMS services. In this Podcast let us look at three key ways to achieve it – one ticket resolution agents, second automation tools and the third service orientation.

 

In the ticket resolution space we are seeing rapid adoption of technologies like AI to build intelligent agents. Artificial cognition is now used in routing of the tickets, prioritization of the ticket and even predictions can also be made in the space of issue resolution,   in the space of determining the impact of tickets, and expected monthly/yearly ticket volumes as well . And then there are Conversational chatbots that are used as a 24/7 first contact experience, functionalities are further extended into deploying software, escalate support requests, and carry out changes to restore IT services.

 

What we are also seeing is improved knowledge curation abilities of these agents which encompass intelligent search, suggest potential solutions and also identifying more importantly knowledge gaps. Some of the latest offerings in these agents include further contextulisation based on the servicelines like Enterprise Apps, Infra Apps, cloud apps or so to say more application or service specific agents .

 

Coming to the business process automation tools, we can leverage them to automate the build and release management activities. For example, digital applications where we have faster releases, we can focus on a multi-threaded DevOps chain in helping streamline the build management and deployment activities. Automation can be used in the release to deploy process chain as well.. 

 

The third aspect of service orientation involves a shift of focus from issue to the user, problem situation to business situation and in the process we enhance overall user experience and quality of the services delivered. This focus would primarily help bringing in a culture that is service oriented.

 

Focusing on these transformational elements allows us to create a personalized AMS framework for our customers, enabling their transformation journey. Additional dimensions such as  engagement models and Customer competitive business scenarios need to be considered on a case-to-case basis to offer services that are compatible.

To conclude, a IT Service provider should primarily focus on what customer and business want, so that we create a sustainable value delivery chain for our customers. 

Thanks for listening to us, and stay tuned till our next podcast.