5 Questions with Stefan Wess
What impact does digital transformation have on your customers?
The digital transformation entails organisational, structural, and technological changes and signifies a paradigm shift for companies. In order to survive in global competition, they have to align their business with the so-called "Service 4.0" and focus even more on their customers. For higher customer loyalty, the focus will be on service as a separate product in the future, which offers additional added value.
What are the requirements for companies that want to digitise?
Those who want to continue to offer the best services in the future to differentiate themselves from the competition should drive forward the digital transfer of knowledge and continuously expand service databases. Digitised know-how can be made available "as-a-service" in various forms, for example for customers or partners in self-service portals. Especially the Corona pandemic has shown that customer service must also have a high professional quality in order to satisfy customers, due to the massive travel and access restrictions as well as an increased volume of service requests, maintenance operations and servicing, even remotely. Therefore, in the medium and long term, there is no way around AI-based and data-driven services.
What are the three biggest advantages a company receives with the implementation of a central information source?
The central and contextual provision of product & service knowledge with the help of artificial intelligence is the key to a successful service. That is why customer service needs holistic SaaS solutions for digitalisation and increased efficiency. A holistic solution provides information centrally and immediately to close service cases faster, reduce process costs and increase service quality. The immediate benefit is that service staff immediately have more time to concentrate on the essentials: delivering perfect customer service.
What are the key trends in data management?
The next big trend will be the combination of data-driven and knowledge-based AI, especially using knowledge graphs. These enable the intelligent and traceable networking of product and service information.
In the future, knowledge provision and data analysis will accompany and support the entire process of the value chain and product life cycle through all-in-one solutions. Starting with product design, through production, to installation and service.
What advice would you give to companies planning a Smart Information Management project?
In the short and medium term, the current work pressure in day-to-day operations is in the foreground on the way to digital customer service. This must be permanently reduced to have more room for manoeuvre. Long-term goals are higher customer loyalty and competitive differentiation to secure company growth. And of course, the service also wants to contribute to the overall corporate strategy.
To achieve all these goals, you have to establish the foundations today: the foundation is enormously important and, especially in service, lies in process efficiency. This requires knowledge and context, and that quickly and reliably. This is a clear service issue that no one else will take care of.