July 1, 2025 • 19 mins
In this episode, solo Tom welcomes Mike McGarvey, Global VP and Digital Workplace CTO at Atos. Mike shares insights into the creation and evolution of the Experience Operations Center (XOC)—a real-time, proactive extension of traditional IT operations built on Nexthink Infinity.
From Atos’ decade-long partnership with Nexthink to the shift toward DEX-driven business outcomes, Mike explains how the XOC is reshaping digital workplace strategy. Discover why now is the time for a new operational layer focused on employee experience, how the end of the IT incident is coming into view, and what the future holds for roles, skills, and workplace observability.
Book your tickets for Nexthink Experience (Boston or London) here: https://nexthink.com/experience
Learn more about the XOC here
Download Part 1, 'Transformation: Driving Adoption, Productivity, and Change in the AI Era', free of charge right here
Download Part 2, ‘The Experience Silo: HR, IT, and the Digital Workplace’ here
Get the latest edition of the Gartner Magic Quadrant here (https://nexthink.com/gartner-magic-quadrant-dex)
From Atos’ decade-long partnership with Nexthink to the shift toward DEX-driven business outcomes, Mike explains how the XOC is reshaping digital workplace strategy. Discover why now is the time for a new operational layer focused on employee experience, how the end of the IT incident is coming into view, and what the future holds for roles, skills, and workplace observability.
Book your tickets for Nexthink Experience (Boston or London) here: https://nexthink.com/experience
Learn more about the XOC here
Download Part 1, 'Transformation: Driving Adoption, Productivity, and Change in the AI Era', free of charge right here
Download Part 2, ‘The Experience Silo: HR, IT, and the Digital Workplace’ here
Get the latest edition of the Gartner Magic Quadrant here (https://nexthink.com/gartner-magic-quadrant-dex)
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome it, change makers to the Deck Show with Tim
Flower and Tom mcgra let's get into it.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Do you know, listeners, how you can tell where dex
is going to hit next? It's it's where Tim Flower
is landing everybody, and Tim Flower is currently roundabouts landing
nowhere other than the Great Nation of Japan. So I
think that tells us that the Great Dex Revolution is
about to hit Japanese shaws and Tim is out there
(00:31):
spreading the word as Decks evangelist in chief. So it's
a it's a solo it's a solid deck show again
from it's a solo deck show in terms of presenter
once again. But I have a great guest from a
great organization at US. We've had guests on the Deck
Show down the years now i'd say three, four, five times,
(00:52):
but Mike McGarvey is the first time, a first time
guest and he's the global VP and intertal work a
CTO at US. Great to see Mike, Thanks for coming on.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Absolutely gread to see you two.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
We always have a fantastic guests and topics topics of
conversation from athos Mike, I have to say of a
bunch of smart people over there.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Well, you know, we've been partnering with next Thing for
a decade now and we really believe in the digital
experience management revolution. It's part and parcel with everything we do.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Fantastic. And you just came from London. You said you
just bounced from London and that where are you based.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
I'm based in Pennsylvania, But it seems like I spent
about a week in Europe, at least a week a
month in Europe being dead a lot of our but
half our customers in the US, half our customers are
in Europe.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
What were you doing down here?
Speaker 3 (01:44):
We were meeting with the potential client, talking about how
we can bring digital experience management, including our Experience Operations Center,
to help change the outcomes that they're looking for.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Well, I hope it was worth your while, but by
all accounts, it was a bit of a a bit
of a hectic journey home, Mike, Right, so you're feeling
a little a little gray around the gills, a little
green around the gills.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
In fact, it's all good.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Aer a trooper, are a trooper, and we're going to
I know we're going to get stuck into something about
We're going to get stuck into discussing the Experience Operations
Center that I think we next think can ask us
and now it last year before we do, Mike, tell
us a little bit about yourself and your role there.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Yeah, no, happy to so interesting enough. Today marks the
twentieth year anniversary from when I joined the company and
I started as a server technician racking stacking servers, building
virtualsation clusters, but spent the last ten years focusing on
everything digital workplace and the biggest topic that I've been
focusing on in digital experience management. So my role with
(02:49):
an artist is that I oversee our strategy, where we're going,
what we're doing, what we build, our research and development,
our portfolio, and a great bit of that focuses on
how we can help our customers change the employee experiences
that they they experience every day. Mmmm.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
And we're going to discuss a little bit of the
Experience Operations Center. But it's a funny thing, Mike. You know,
I've been hearing the last few weeks, in particular a
lot of talk about dex shops, dex shops, deck stops.
Now just being kind of thinking that we really need
to do a show where we investigate and explore this,
I mean to what I said, would you say the
concept of DEX SOPs is really like the backdrop here
(03:29):
for this sort of more concrete suite of innovation that
we're going to be talking about.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Yeah, No, it definitely is. I mean, at the end
of the day, we think about digital experience management as
ways where we can improve the employee experience about how
they deal with every day to day. But at the
core of that, it's about making the overall infrastructure more stable,
taking out friction, eliminating issues, doing fleet management, and that
leads to a more efficient and less costly operations. So
(03:55):
it is a it is a double edged shore in
which we can both benefit the employees but also benefit
the bottom line for our customers.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Super And so let's get into the basics around the EOC. No,
it's actually it goes by XOC, doesn't it x O
C C. Yeah, getting my equinis right, it's for a start,
how does it How does it differ as a conceptually?
First of all, from a traditional surveys set up or
(04:23):
n OC is some kind of NC or something like that.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Yeah, So when we think about traditional DEX management, you know,
there is the management of the digital experience management tool,
of which is critical and there's tons of capabilities built
into the tool itself. But we think about this from
a different from a slightly wider perspective. Right, there is
other information which needs to be ingest and analyzed, and
so we adjust information from the service now from contact centers,
(04:46):
et cetera. And we've been doing this for years and
something we called the Proactive Experience Center, which is taking
a data driven approach to eliminate issues in the environment
deliver excelaids, et cetera. And this was amazing. It worked
out really well for us. Customers loved it. And then
we saw the move to next thing, Infinity. And in
the data we had before with the collectors and the
(05:07):
rolling up everything, it sometimes took hours or eight hours
or et cetera to get all the data on the
source we needed to. But now with Infinity, it's hitting
the collectors in seconds, and it's we said, what could
we do now that we're getting the data as it's
being collected. And so that's where the concept of the
EXOC came from. Right, So, I think a lot of
(05:28):
us are very familiar with the concept of a security
operation center, the concept of a network operation center, where
you know, we're monitoring all the infrastructure all the time
and when something goes down, everybody's jumping on it resolving
the issue. But the workplace equivalent has never really indicated
from a telemetry perspective. It's always been hey, we've got
an mi I or people are calling or people are complaining,
(05:49):
and the we're reacting to it on a reactive basis.
We wanted to change the script. When to flip the
script and take what we did with the Productive Experience
Center and make it real time. Thus was born the
experience operations that are powered by Next Thing Infinity.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Well let's let's uh, let's hone in on that little
detail eventually, since we're Next Thing sponsored podcast and everything.
You know, you've already mentioned that the speed, what are
the aspects of a partnership or next next thing tech
is being leveraged so effectively in this context, So I.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Think it's it's really around the data. It's around the
latency of it, but's also how we've been able to
kind of partner with next think on exactly how we
can gain access to the data what theys be presented,
but also be an innovation partner on even things like
next think autopilot, how the two can you can kind
of work together right on a proactive and preventative basis,
(06:46):
the XOC helps bring an operations team looking at the
data that's being analyzed and enhanced and correlated. We'll get
to that a little bit later. But also on the
other hand of how can we be more reactive, how
can we handle things that come up, but also handle
things proactively and preventively. So it's sort of a combination
of all the best things of next in confinity.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Amazing and you described I think very well how technology
is making is heightening the potential to make a difference. Right,
But in terms of the industry itself, why is now
the right time for, if you will, an experienced layer
to be kind of more firmly inserted about it operations.
(07:26):
What shifted do you think in the mindset of customers
over the last few years creating a greater need.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
Well, I think in my experience in talking with customers,
which I talk to them all the time, there was, there,
always has and there always to some extent will be
a conversation on return on investment. Right. They want to
see some level of return on the investment of things
they do, but there's a shifting conversation about return on
experience or return on employee. How can we get more
out of our most valuable assets, which are those employees.
(07:55):
How can we make them more productive? How can we
just less down time? And then also aligning what we
do from a from a dex perspective towards business outcomes, right,
So not just about it outcomes about you know, speeds, resolution,
things like that, but actually, can we take what we're
doing here with digital experience management and align it to
the business outline. So now we're talking about different stakeholders, right,
(08:17):
And I think that's where things are starting to change,
because it's now not just a conversation with the IT organization,
it's a conversation with other parts of the.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Organization speaking of those organizations. How has the idea landed
out very in the real world? Do we see much
traction around it as much successive?
Speaker 3 (08:35):
For Yeah, from an XOC perspective, we've seen a lot
of a lot of traction. We launched it in November
at Experience Everywhere, and since then we've got a bunch
of clients that were onboarding. As we speak to the XOC,
hoping to have a whole whole cohort of new clients
in Q three and Q four that are actually live
on our solutions. So we're very excited about that. The
(08:57):
expectations and the excitement is very palatable, and we've already
started talking about how we can extend this even further.
So it's definitely resonated with the industry. When we explain
the concept of the workplace operation center as it relates
to network operate center, just clicks. Everybody gets it. They
understand the concept. And when you explain that, they're like,
why hasn't this existed prior? Right?
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Yeah, And would you say were speeding towards the end
of the it incident per se? And in your view,
what does it look like in a post incident world?
Speaker 3 (09:30):
It's a great question. I think the problem with incident
is that incident means something has happened. You are, It's
an incident you have to react to, you have to
respond to, and I think it's about arbitrage and trying
to eliminate the creation of things. So when we think
about the value proposition for the XOC, we're talking about
fleet management, right, So when we take in data and
(09:52):
we enrich it with beta information about where it's come from,
and we're trying to draw correlation and search for incidents,
both things we've seen before and things we haven't seen before.
We are trying to deliver fleet management, and at fleet management,
if there are a thousand devices that match the same
criteria that we've seen a couple of failures on, if
we can get in there early and either stop the
(10:12):
reason for the cause or prevent the cause of the
rest of the environment, we can actually truly become predictive
and that we can predict where it's going to happen
in the future. Now, if we think about that, I
can see a dramatic reduction or elimination of incidents. Right,
So what does post it what does a post incident
work look like? Well, I think the roles change pretty dramatically.
(10:32):
It can go away from you know, from serving and
moving too a care model where the lower number of
people are higher skill set, and when they do engage
in it, it's more akin to like a concierge type conversation.
They're asking how to do things, things that aren't can't
be automated away with AI, things like that. So dramatic
(10:53):
reduction in the volumes and a dramatic upskilling in kind
of the talent you need to service the whatsever remaining.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Were you seeing that in the place's exocs are kind
of currently being rolled out. Are you seeing a sort
of changing nature of the roles that constitute those departments?
Speaker 3 (11:08):
You know, Yeah, we've been working towards sort of a
zero it concept, zero service desk concept for years, and
I think this helps accelerate towards that, and we kind
of want to have it. So the person who says
hello when you pick up the phone, when you do
phone you do actually call in is more of that
level two tech with high soft skills. We've been seeing
that from that traductionally for a very long time. So
(11:31):
we see the exoc is just accelerating on us there.
But by the way, so is general gener Ais is
a genic AI. So it's all of these things kind
of coalistening. It's a very exciting time in digital experience.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Management, same is, and you get a sense that there's
including all those other forces, something deeper, some deeper current
of change which is running through the workplace at the moment.
You know, you've got systems as you just describe building patterns,
solving issues before humans even notice. And you know, how
is this going to in time impact the way we
(12:04):
think as you know, broader sort of corporate entities about
things like productivity, experience, leadership. Where do you see this going?
Speaker 3 (12:13):
I think it's going to start to get into how
do we how do we think about the purpose of
it right and so how can we enhance different things?
And one of the greatest examples I can think of is,
you know, one of the biggest problems we have a
lot of organizations is they buy all of these expensive
products and the end users are never really able to
use them. We have a digital dexterity gap. And so
(12:35):
we think about let's say Microsoft is being one of
the biggest investments fast joy that people are still using
Outlook and Excel we're the most basic ways. But how
can we identify that? How can we use the data
to identify digital dexterity gaps and then take this new
IT organization and focus on improving those digital dexterity and
beking that's the next level of an XLA conversation about
(12:57):
improving digital dexterity as just one example in at an
IT organization. So looking at different ways you can enhancewer that,
whether it's through organizational change management, whether it's through other
forms of training. But to identify this need, come with
solutions to resolve it and then track the evolution of
it over time.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
And do you feel like somebody who feels like this
term workplace observability is kind of a provides quite quite
a kind of comprehensive, definitional, kind of potential term for
this wider space. And maybe somebody even captures more what
is ongoing at the moment better than DECKX. Perhaps, I mean,
we are seeing a shift in how we talk and
(13:36):
even conceive about these capabilities.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
I think so. I think workplace observability has some positive
connotations and some people have some negative connotations. A lot
of people see some people think of it as an
invasion in privacy, you don't. Other think of it as
an enhancement. So you got to walk that fine line.
But I do think that it is broadening the conversation.
Digital experience management has been around for a little while now,
(13:59):
and it has gone through a lot of evolution and
will continue to evolve on its core mission. But as
it starts to go into these ancillary conversations, these ancillary
topics I think in bronze and I think that the
impact that can be had by the organizations is going
to be five x ten X going down the road.
Right when you get around, you get away from just
the core technical reliability of the actual IT estate and
(14:22):
you start getting into human assets. Sky's limit.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
And this is an area I know you've seen an
impact in right. Employee experience often gets boxed into either
HR or IT. And do you feel that this whole
area of work is starting to connect the dots between
those two traditional silos, sort of fold one into the
other or create a kind of shared area of collaboration.
(14:49):
What are your thoughts and observations.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
I think it comes with maturity. I think that it's
true that as clients have matured their thinking, it is
moving away from IT tas including HR, but for the
most mature clients it's even going beyond that. We've had
some conversations with business line oerners the production of whoever
makes the widget or the service, asking about how could
you help me do my core function? And that's going
(15:12):
back to the conversation about aligning xlas that we can
deliver towards business outcomes. So if you have a large
sales force and you're hiring a lot of salespeople. The
time to productivity for those people is critical. How can
we get them up and running, How can we get
them picking up the phones and the emails. Getting them
productive so you can grow is something that we can
(15:32):
help with. We can track the time, we can track
the friction, and we can deliver on those type of things.
And that's just one example. But suffice is to say
it has been the core stakeholder for a while, HR
has been the secondary stakeholder for a little bit. That's
starting to go into the business now and I think
that's where things are going to really get exciting.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
MAI and roll everything up for us then Mike Immune.
We've spoken about so many things, but as this AI
power observability continues to grow beyond the next year or two, three, four,
five years, do we see it evolve into something closer
to what you might call behavioral science in the workplace
and understanding not just of systems, but of how people
(16:14):
are actually working on an individual level day to day,
being there on hand to assist them in whichever way
is required, often through technology.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
Yeah. No, I definitely think that it's exciting that next
think we were we were we were a partner with
app Learned before the acquisition. We're just so very bigger
partner with next Think with adopt. So we're excited about
using some of the data that's been collected there in
a very anonymous way because we don't want to pad privacy.
Can we help Can we use that to help us
(16:43):
go into the behavioral analytics? So how are people actually
using the applications? Are they using it correctly? Can we
can we aid in either the UX design improvements or
can we aid into the digital dexterity gap that we
talked about before. So I think absolutely we are saying
the changing of what what it is in going in
the future.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
So if somebody's interested in exploring the XOC, why should
they reach out and how should they reach out?
Speaker 3 (17:11):
So very exciting time. I think that you know, we
were first to market with this and we are bringing
our first clients on now. It's it's the promise is clear, right,
How can we keep an eye on what's going on?
How can react? And it's it's the reaction that so
if you observe it in real time, but you have
new ability to take corrective action, it actually gets more
(17:31):
frustrating because you're seeing the problem you can't do it.
So it's it's a combination of the two things. We
have this new platform and we have the met the
service around it to actually react and address those issues.
I think it's a change in how workplace that does operates.
Everything we talked about today. I think the XOC enables
that sort of model and in the direction we want
to go. Please visit our website at and we have
(17:55):
an XOC page and there's a contact page there, so
please reach out to us that way. Happy to have
a comations see if it's good for fore for your company.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Fantastic And you know you mentioned Mike launching the XSC
Experience in Boston last year, was it or London?
Speaker 3 (18:10):
Boston?
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Yeah, awesome. Well, you know our tickets are available now
for both Boston and London, the Boston and London events
in twenty twenty five. So please check the show notes
not only to give out us a website a visit
and they'll find out more about the EXOC, but also
to make sure you reserve your your seats for the
you know, the Digital Employee Experience event not just a
(18:32):
this year, but of every year isn't that right.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
Mac, exactly, and we'll be there as well.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
That'll be of course, bet To, they'll be bet To. Mike,
thank you so much. Always a pleasure and taker excellent.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
To make sure that you never miss an episode, subscribe
to the show in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite
podcast player, and if you're listening on Apple podcasts, make
sure to leave a rating of the show. Just have
the number of stars you think the podcast deserves. If
you like to learn more about how next Think can
help me improve your digital employee experience, head over to
next think dot com. Thank you so much for listening.
(19:07):
Until next time,
Welcome it, change makers to the Deck Show with Tim
Flower and Tom mcgra let's get into it.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Do you know, listeners, how you can tell where dex
is going to hit next? It's it's where Tim Flower
is landing everybody, and Tim Flower is currently roundabouts landing
nowhere other than the Great Nation of Japan. So I
think that tells us that the Great Dex Revolution is
about to hit Japanese shaws and Tim is out there
(00:31):
spreading the word as Decks evangelist in chief. So it's
a it's a solo it's a solid deck show again
from it's a solo deck show in terms of presenter
once again. But I have a great guest from a
great organization at US. We've had guests on the Deck
Show down the years now i'd say three, four, five times,
(00:52):
but Mike McGarvey is the first time, a first time
guest and he's the global VP and intertal work a
CTO at US. Great to see Mike, Thanks for coming on.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Absolutely gread to see you two.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
We always have a fantastic guests and topics topics of
conversation from athos Mike, I have to say of a
bunch of smart people over there.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Well, you know, we've been partnering with next Thing for
a decade now and we really believe in the digital
experience management revolution. It's part and parcel with everything we do.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Fantastic. And you just came from London. You said you
just bounced from London and that where are you based.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
I'm based in Pennsylvania, But it seems like I spent
about a week in Europe, at least a week a
month in Europe being dead a lot of our but
half our customers in the US, half our customers are
in Europe.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
What were you doing down here?
Speaker 3 (01:44):
We were meeting with the potential client, talking about how
we can bring digital experience management, including our Experience Operations Center,
to help change the outcomes that they're looking for.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Well, I hope it was worth your while, but by
all accounts, it was a bit of a a bit
of a hectic journey home, Mike, Right, so you're feeling
a little a little gray around the gills, a little
green around the gills.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
In fact, it's all good.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Aer a trooper, are a trooper, and we're going to
I know we're going to get stuck into something about
We're going to get stuck into discussing the Experience Operations
Center that I think we next think can ask us
and now it last year before we do, Mike, tell
us a little bit about yourself and your role there.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Yeah, no, happy to so interesting enough. Today marks the
twentieth year anniversary from when I joined the company and
I started as a server technician racking stacking servers, building
virtualsation clusters, but spent the last ten years focusing on
everything digital workplace and the biggest topic that I've been
focusing on in digital experience management. So my role with
(02:49):
an artist is that I oversee our strategy, where we're going,
what we're doing, what we build, our research and development,
our portfolio, and a great bit of that focuses on
how we can help our customers change the employee experiences
that they they experience every day. Mmmm.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
And we're going to discuss a little bit of the
Experience Operations Center. But it's a funny thing, Mike. You know,
I've been hearing the last few weeks, in particular a
lot of talk about dex shops, dex shops, deck stops.
Now just being kind of thinking that we really need
to do a show where we investigate and explore this,
I mean to what I said, would you say the
concept of DEX SOPs is really like the backdrop here
(03:29):
for this sort of more concrete suite of innovation that
we're going to be talking about.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Yeah, No, it definitely is. I mean, at the end
of the day, we think about digital experience management as
ways where we can improve the employee experience about how
they deal with every day to day. But at the
core of that, it's about making the overall infrastructure more stable,
taking out friction, eliminating issues, doing fleet management, and that
leads to a more efficient and less costly operations. So
(03:55):
it is a it is a double edged shore in
which we can both benefit the employees but also benefit
the bottom line for our customers.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Super And so let's get into the basics around the EOC. No,
it's actually it goes by XOC, doesn't it x O
C C. Yeah, getting my equinis right, it's for a start,
how does it How does it differ as a conceptually?
First of all, from a traditional surveys set up or
(04:23):
n OC is some kind of NC or something like that.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Yeah, So when we think about traditional DEX management, you know,
there is the management of the digital experience management tool,
of which is critical and there's tons of capabilities built
into the tool itself. But we think about this from
a different from a slightly wider perspective. Right, there is
other information which needs to be ingest and analyzed, and
so we adjust information from the service now from contact centers,
(04:46):
et cetera. And we've been doing this for years and
something we called the Proactive Experience Center, which is taking
a data driven approach to eliminate issues in the environment
deliver excelaids, et cetera. And this was amazing. It worked
out really well for us. Customers loved it. And then
we saw the move to next thing, Infinity. And in
the data we had before with the collectors and the
(05:07):
rolling up everything, it sometimes took hours or eight hours
or et cetera to get all the data on the
source we needed to. But now with Infinity, it's hitting
the collectors in seconds, and it's we said, what could
we do now that we're getting the data as it's
being collected. And so that's where the concept of the
EXOC came from. Right, So, I think a lot of
(05:28):
us are very familiar with the concept of a security
operation center, the concept of a network operation center, where
you know, we're monitoring all the infrastructure all the time
and when something goes down, everybody's jumping on it resolving
the issue. But the workplace equivalent has never really indicated
from a telemetry perspective. It's always been hey, we've got
an mi I or people are calling or people are complaining,
(05:49):
and the we're reacting to it on a reactive basis.
We wanted to change the script. When to flip the
script and take what we did with the Productive Experience
Center and make it real time. Thus was born the
experience operations that are powered by Next Thing Infinity.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Well let's let's uh, let's hone in on that little
detail eventually, since we're Next Thing sponsored podcast and everything.
You know, you've already mentioned that the speed, what are
the aspects of a partnership or next next thing tech
is being leveraged so effectively in this context, So I.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Think it's it's really around the data. It's around the
latency of it, but's also how we've been able to
kind of partner with next think on exactly how we
can gain access to the data what theys be presented,
but also be an innovation partner on even things like
next think autopilot, how the two can you can kind
of work together right on a proactive and preventative basis,
(06:46):
the XOC helps bring an operations team looking at the
data that's being analyzed and enhanced and correlated. We'll get
to that a little bit later. But also on the
other hand of how can we be more reactive, how
can we handle things that come up, but also handle
things proactively and preventively. So it's sort of a combination
of all the best things of next in confinity.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Amazing and you described I think very well how technology
is making is heightening the potential to make a difference. Right,
But in terms of the industry itself, why is now
the right time for, if you will, an experienced layer
to be kind of more firmly inserted about it operations.
(07:26):
What shifted do you think in the mindset of customers
over the last few years creating a greater need.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
Well, I think in my experience in talking with customers,
which I talk to them all the time, there was, there,
always has and there always to some extent will be
a conversation on return on investment. Right. They want to
see some level of return on the investment of things
they do, but there's a shifting conversation about return on
experience or return on employee. How can we get more
out of our most valuable assets, which are those employees.
(07:55):
How can we make them more productive? How can we
just less down time? And then also aligning what we
do from a from a dex perspective towards business outcomes, right,
So not just about it outcomes about you know, speeds, resolution,
things like that, but actually, can we take what we're
doing here with digital experience management and align it to
the business outline. So now we're talking about different stakeholders, right,
(08:17):
And I think that's where things are starting to change,
because it's now not just a conversation with the IT organization,
it's a conversation with other parts of the.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Organization speaking of those organizations. How has the idea landed
out very in the real world? Do we see much
traction around it as much successive?
Speaker 3 (08:35):
For Yeah, from an XOC perspective, we've seen a lot
of a lot of traction. We launched it in November
at Experience Everywhere, and since then we've got a bunch
of clients that were onboarding. As we speak to the XOC,
hoping to have a whole whole cohort of new clients
in Q three and Q four that are actually live
on our solutions. So we're very excited about that. The
(08:57):
expectations and the excitement is very palatable, and we've already
started talking about how we can extend this even further.
So it's definitely resonated with the industry. When we explain
the concept of the workplace operation center as it relates
to network operate center, just clicks. Everybody gets it. They
understand the concept. And when you explain that, they're like,
why hasn't this existed prior? Right?
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Yeah, And would you say were speeding towards the end
of the it incident per se? And in your view,
what does it look like in a post incident world?
Speaker 3 (09:30):
It's a great question. I think the problem with incident
is that incident means something has happened. You are, It's
an incident you have to react to, you have to
respond to, and I think it's about arbitrage and trying
to eliminate the creation of things. So when we think
about the value proposition for the XOC, we're talking about
fleet management, right, So when we take in data and
(09:52):
we enrich it with beta information about where it's come from,
and we're trying to draw correlation and search for incidents,
both things we've seen before and things we haven't seen before.
We are trying to deliver fleet management, and at fleet management,
if there are a thousand devices that match the same
criteria that we've seen a couple of failures on, if
we can get in there early and either stop the
(10:12):
reason for the cause or prevent the cause of the
rest of the environment, we can actually truly become predictive
and that we can predict where it's going to happen
in the future. Now, if we think about that, I
can see a dramatic reduction or elimination of incidents. Right,
So what does post it what does a post incident
work look like? Well, I think the roles change pretty dramatically.
(10:32):
It can go away from you know, from serving and
moving too a care model where the lower number of
people are higher skill set, and when they do engage
in it, it's more akin to like a concierge type conversation.
They're asking how to do things, things that aren't can't
be automated away with AI, things like that. So dramatic
(10:53):
reduction in the volumes and a dramatic upskilling in kind
of the talent you need to service the whatsever remaining.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Were you seeing that in the place's exocs are kind
of currently being rolled out. Are you seeing a sort
of changing nature of the roles that constitute those departments?
Speaker 3 (11:08):
You know, Yeah, we've been working towards sort of a
zero it concept, zero service desk concept for years, and
I think this helps accelerate towards that, and we kind
of want to have it. So the person who says
hello when you pick up the phone, when you do
phone you do actually call in is more of that
level two tech with high soft skills. We've been seeing
that from that traductionally for a very long time. So
(11:31):
we see the exoc is just accelerating on us there.
But by the way, so is general gener Ais is
a genic AI. So it's all of these things kind
of coalistening. It's a very exciting time in digital experience.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Management, same is, and you get a sense that there's
including all those other forces, something deeper, some deeper current
of change which is running through the workplace at the moment.
You know, you've got systems as you just describe building patterns,
solving issues before humans even notice. And you know, how
is this going to in time impact the way we
(12:04):
think as you know, broader sort of corporate entities about
things like productivity, experience, leadership. Where do you see this going?
Speaker 3 (12:13):
I think it's going to start to get into how
do we how do we think about the purpose of
it right and so how can we enhance different things?
And one of the greatest examples I can think of is,
you know, one of the biggest problems we have a
lot of organizations is they buy all of these expensive
products and the end users are never really able to
use them. We have a digital dexterity gap. And so
(12:35):
we think about let's say Microsoft is being one of
the biggest investments fast joy that people are still using
Outlook and Excel we're the most basic ways. But how
can we identify that? How can we use the data
to identify digital dexterity gaps and then take this new
IT organization and focus on improving those digital dexterity and
beking that's the next level of an XLA conversation about
(12:57):
improving digital dexterity as just one example in at an
IT organization. So looking at different ways you can enhancewer that,
whether it's through organizational change management, whether it's through other
forms of training. But to identify this need, come with
solutions to resolve it and then track the evolution of
it over time.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
And do you feel like somebody who feels like this
term workplace observability is kind of a provides quite quite
a kind of comprehensive, definitional, kind of potential term for
this wider space. And maybe somebody even captures more what
is ongoing at the moment better than DECKX. Perhaps, I mean,
we are seeing a shift in how we talk and
(13:36):
even conceive about these capabilities.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
I think so. I think workplace observability has some positive
connotations and some people have some negative connotations. A lot
of people see some people think of it as an
invasion in privacy, you don't. Other think of it as
an enhancement. So you got to walk that fine line.
But I do think that it is broadening the conversation.
Digital experience management has been around for a little while now,
(13:59):
and it has gone through a lot of evolution and
will continue to evolve on its core mission. But as
it starts to go into these ancillary conversations, these ancillary
topics I think in bronze and I think that the
impact that can be had by the organizations is going
to be five x ten X going down the road.
Right when you get around, you get away from just
the core technical reliability of the actual IT estate and
(14:22):
you start getting into human assets. Sky's limit.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
And this is an area I know you've seen an
impact in right. Employee experience often gets boxed into either
HR or IT. And do you feel that this whole
area of work is starting to connect the dots between
those two traditional silos, sort of fold one into the
other or create a kind of shared area of collaboration.
(14:49):
What are your thoughts and observations.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
I think it comes with maturity. I think that it's
true that as clients have matured their thinking, it is
moving away from IT tas including HR, but for the
most mature clients it's even going beyond that. We've had
some conversations with business line oerners the production of whoever
makes the widget or the service, asking about how could
you help me do my core function? And that's going
(15:12):
back to the conversation about aligning xlas that we can
deliver towards business outcomes. So if you have a large
sales force and you're hiring a lot of salespeople. The
time to productivity for those people is critical. How can
we get them up and running, How can we get
them picking up the phones and the emails. Getting them
productive so you can grow is something that we can
(15:32):
help with. We can track the time, we can track
the friction, and we can deliver on those type of things.
And that's just one example. But suffice is to say
it has been the core stakeholder for a while, HR
has been the secondary stakeholder for a little bit. That's
starting to go into the business now and I think
that's where things are going to really get exciting.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
MAI and roll everything up for us then Mike Immune.
We've spoken about so many things, but as this AI
power observability continues to grow beyond the next year or two, three, four,
five years, do we see it evolve into something closer
to what you might call behavioral science in the workplace
and understanding not just of systems, but of how people
(16:14):
are actually working on an individual level day to day,
being there on hand to assist them in whichever way
is required, often through technology.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
Yeah. No, I definitely think that it's exciting that next
think we were we were we were a partner with
app Learned before the acquisition. We're just so very bigger
partner with next Think with adopt. So we're excited about
using some of the data that's been collected there in
a very anonymous way because we don't want to pad privacy.
Can we help Can we use that to help us
(16:43):
go into the behavioral analytics? So how are people actually
using the applications? Are they using it correctly? Can we
can we aid in either the UX design improvements or
can we aid into the digital dexterity gap that we
talked about before. So I think absolutely we are saying
the changing of what what it is in going in
the future.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
So if somebody's interested in exploring the XOC, why should
they reach out and how should they reach out?
Speaker 3 (17:11):
So very exciting time. I think that you know, we
were first to market with this and we are bringing
our first clients on now. It's it's the promise is clear, right,
How can we keep an eye on what's going on?
How can react? And it's it's the reaction that so
if you observe it in real time, but you have
new ability to take corrective action, it actually gets more
(17:31):
frustrating because you're seeing the problem you can't do it.
So it's it's a combination of the two things. We
have this new platform and we have the met the
service around it to actually react and address those issues.
I think it's a change in how workplace that does operates.
Everything we talked about today. I think the XOC enables
that sort of model and in the direction we want
to go. Please visit our website at and we have
(17:55):
an XOC page and there's a contact page there, so
please reach out to us that way. Happy to have
a comations see if it's good for fore for your company.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Fantastic And you know you mentioned Mike launching the XSC
Experience in Boston last year, was it or London?
Speaker 3 (18:10):
Boston?
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Yeah, awesome. Well, you know our tickets are available now
for both Boston and London, the Boston and London events
in twenty twenty five. So please check the show notes
not only to give out us a website a visit
and they'll find out more about the EXOC, but also
to make sure you reserve your your seats for the
you know, the Digital Employee Experience event not just a
(18:32):
this year, but of every year isn't that right.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
Mac, exactly, and we'll be there as well.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
That'll be of course, bet To, they'll be bet To. Mike,
thank you so much. Always a pleasure and taker excellent.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
To make sure that you never miss an episode, subscribe
to the show in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite
podcast player, and if you're listening on Apple podcasts, make
sure to leave a rating of the show. Just have
the number of stars you think the podcast deserves. If
you like to learn more about how next Think can
help me improve your digital employee experience, head over to
next think dot com. Thank you so much for listening.
(19:07):
Until next time,
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