Time to get 'Hyper'

“Ma, when are you helping me with my college project?”

“Ammi, did will you please make me understand this theory?”

“Mama, please hold my hand, I hate the sound of thunder!”

“Mother, where’s my uniform?”

It may be months till Mother’s Day but today let raise a toast to our mothers, our guardians, our biggest caretakers. It’s just amazing how a person can be the pivot around which our lives revolve- having a direct impact on everything and the way we exist. No pre-conditions, no preconceived notions and unconditional care- In most cases, problem solving even before the problem has begun. Be it home or work.

Let’s shift gear and Talk IT; the fast evolving IT service space too needs its ‘Mother’ now known as a Hyper Skill Service provider!

Now how does it all begin? Historically organizations housed multiple skills, but they were not been able to deliver efficiently as each skill area was treated as a separate domain and worked in Silos. Thus paving the path for an outsourced vendor or a service provider.

Theoretically a service provider is an entity that delivers a reactive response for a service request. Now add to that, experience, add problem solving, add efficiency and what do you get? A pro-active service provider- one who is problem-solving alongside the regular process to prevent any downtime. In both cases, however, the response is based on an incident. In case of reactive services, the customer comes to know first and in case of proactive services, the service provider comes to know first about the incident or event. It’s an incident that has occurred and what follows is a response to that incident.

Conventional service providers specialize generally in one or two skill sets. Customers are thus often coordinating with multiple vendors involving multiple skills to address a multi-layered issue. The end result fairly often in case of a discrepancy or inefficiency- A blame game between service providers and customers.

Fast-forward a couple of years and we have a third dimension to the service delivery, i.e. “Hyper Active Services”. The new generation of the ‘Hyper Skill Service provider’ is a multi-dependent and interlinked skill set which becomes a one-stop shop for compete service dependency! Hyper Active Services ensure prevention of incident from occurring, thereby ensuring high availability. Not reactive but intuitive and preventive. You could equate it to a preventive medical vaccine vis-a-via a medicine, getting a Flu vaccine instead of an anti-biotics course after getting an infection.

The role of a Hyper Skill Service provider is critical in the ever growing dependency of business on IT and the new threats emerging every day. The Service provider will have to play the role of a solution partner and not just a service partner. There needs to be complete understanding the following parameters while providing service:

* End user landscape

* Enterprise Infra landscape

* Process Maturity

* Culture at customer place

* Security requirements

* Industry specific IT

And above all, understanding the criticality and dependency on IT for sustenance of business, the key for Hyper skilled service providers to deliver. AI and automation has helped streamline processes and in many cases helps avoid road-blocks.

However, every partnership in nature is two-sided. For a Hyper Skill Service provider to be efficient, the customer too must beprovide a congenial environment for this partnership to be effective.This means:

* Clear Scope of Work

* Key stakeholder participation

* Financial Commitment

* Efficient decision-making

* Quick Response Time

* Long-term Road map and expectation

* Transparency

Since we Indians are cricket obsessed, there could be no better analogy than this; A player who can deliver with both bat and ball is perceived to be a good all-rounder and in IT that would be a ‘pro-active’ service provider. Add dimensions of fielding and wicket keeping, the player are now a hyper active all-rounder. And what would make the IT partner even more indispensable- innovation!

So if that’s what your business needs, time to get in your own ‘Hyper Skill Service provider’! And if you already have one, make sure your communication lines are open and effective.

Arush Sogani
Director, Sysnet Global Technologies