Latest / The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers / Why Every CIO is Thinking About DEX w/ Christy Punch, Principal Analyst, Forrester

Transcript

Why Every CIO is Thinking About DEX w/ Christy Punch, Principal Analyst, Forrester · The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hi everybody, this is Tom. Very quick word from me
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: before we begin with today's very special show, where I
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: was able to sit down and talk to Christy Punch,
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Principal Analyst at Forrester, about the brand new Forrester Wave
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Digital Employee Experience Management Solutions Report for 2026. It's a
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: phenomenal read. Not only can you find a link in
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: the show notes to download your own copy of the
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: report free of charge, But in those same show notes,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: you can click through to our sister show, Soul of
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: the CIO, to watch the entire interview on YouTube. So
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: take your pick. You can stick with this one. You
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: can watch it live. It's up to you. Either way,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: we hope you enjoy it, and we'll see you soon.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: Bye-bye.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Hey, IT Changemakers, and welcome to The Deck Show with
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Tom McGraw.
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: Let's get into it.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Christy Punch, welcome to the first ever Soul of the
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: CIO Deck Show hybrid dual branded podcast interview. You're an
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: ideal guest for it. Welcome. It's lovely to see you.
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: Thank you. Thanks for having me.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Deck Show listeners are going to be more instinctively familiar
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: with your work, but then maybe Soul of the CIO
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: listeners a bit less and a bit less familiar with decks,
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: in fact. So maybe should we start by telling them
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: a bit about what you do and a bit about
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: what you cover for Forrester?
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So I am a principal analyst at Forrester. And
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: I cover digital workplace and digital employee experience, which is
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: a very broad topic. But I focus on the trends
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: and kind of what's important right now in those spaces.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: And that includes the DEX management solutions, which NextThink.
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: Is a part of. So I do research. I advise clients.
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: I advise vendors.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: And a big part of my job is doing an
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: evaluation of the DEX management market.
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: And we call that the WAVE report.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: We are certainly going to get to the wave shortly, Christy.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: It's a big deal. But to begin with, we actually,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: deck show listeners will remember, we were lucky enough to
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: be the first ever podcast you did once you became
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Forrester's new decks and digital workplace analyst. Tell us, is
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: it about a year ago now?
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's been about a year.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: Tell us about what that year's been like for you.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: And I guess as a sort of, to give shape
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: to it, how has your view of decks and the
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: space that you're covering changed and evolved in that time?
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: So I have been in the role, like we said,
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: just a little over a year, not new to the
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: digital workplace deck space, but new to being an analyst.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: So that's a different type of role for me. Prior
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: to Forrester, I spent 20-ish years as a practitioner leading
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: digital workplace strategy at big Fortune 500 companies. So I've
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: been a customer on the customer side in my past.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: So being an analyst, I think, has helped me really
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: get me closer to what other companies are doing and
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: what the challenges are in this space. I think one
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: of the values that I add in my role is
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: because I work with both the customers and the vendor,
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: I can kind of bridge that gap and help vendors
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: understand the reality of what CIOs and their companies are
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: experiencing in terms of implementing technology and working on employee adoption,
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera, budgets, all those fun things. I
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: can help translate that for vendors to understand so that
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: they can improve their products to help address some of
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: those challenges.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: And how is your understanding of that line of communication
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: between vendors and CIOs and technology leaders evolved during that time?
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: What needs bridging fundamentally in your view?
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: Something that's really important for me when it comes to
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: digital employee experience is the, the fact that it's about
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: the employee, right. And the employees at the center of that.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: And so with Dex management tools, you're managing, monitoring, improving
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: the digital.
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: Employee experience Dex.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: I think what I have found is that a lot
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: of the tooling in this space has really, um, kind
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: of focus on IT operational use cases, reduce support tickets
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: and improve MTTR and really focus on outcomes that are
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: really important for IT organizations, but maybe not so important
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: for the broader business or maybe for employees. And so
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: I'm a big advocate that DEX tools should be not
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: just for IT teams, they really should be scaled across
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: the business so that you have collaboration with IT, HR, security, finance,
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: all of the functions that play a role and have
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: an important role in those end-to-end employee experiences. So that's
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: a big, really important point for me that I try
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: to hone in on when I talk to vendors and
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: with customers.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: What are those DEX functionalities coming to the fore which
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: are getting that right, which are managing to translate that
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: potential into reality already?
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: So a big piece.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: Of it is connecting the operational metrics to business metrics
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: and business outcomes. So that's things like cost and cost
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: of delay, reducing risk. And what is reducing risk? How
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: does that improve the business? One kind of key piece
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: that I'm really interested in is how to connect some
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: of the frontline experience metrics to more of the business
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: metrics like throughput and customer service. Because frontline, you're there,
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: you're the face of the company and you're boots on
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: the ground, if you will, in some of those experiences.
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: And so I think it's really important to start to
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: connect the dots between experience improvements and then what does
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: that mean for the business?
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: The real ROI of.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: Dex management tools comes to play when you start to
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: look beyond those traditional kind of table stakes use cases
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: that most customers tend to sometimes get stuck in.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: And does that dovetail with sort of AI transformation in particular?
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: Do you think this is a technology which is naturally
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: escaping the IT department and the IT department's traditional sense
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: of ownership? And therefore, does DEX travel with AI into
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: other parts of the business? Do you see some sort
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: of relationship there?
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: I think that what we'll see over the next few
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: years is more AI or agentic AI that's part of
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: the operational workflows that's going to be part of employee journeys.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: And so you're going to see employees and agents operating
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: together and collaborating together to get work done. And so
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: that can be a great thing, but also that requires
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: more guardrails and governance that requires.
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: you know.
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: Making sure that the agents have the right access and
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: are operating in the right places, whether that's cloud or
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: native to the device, et cetera. And so in order
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: to manage all that, to see it, to monitor it,
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: to govern it, and to orchestrate it, you need visibility
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: into those things. And that's where I think DEX management
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: tools come to play. And going back to kind of
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: your original question of, you The use cases, I think absolutely,
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: because when you look at an end-to-end workflow, let's say
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: an easy one to use.
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: Is onboarding, employee onboarding.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: It's not just IT that plays a role in ensuring
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: that that's a successful experience. There's a lot of other
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: functions that come to the table. And so I think
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: that's where you're going to start to see more of
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: this broadening of how DEX management tools.
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: Could be used.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: One of the major factors in the evolution of DEX
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: in any given company is always determined by employee expectation
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: and executive expectation. Where do you see those expectations presently
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: in 2026 and what effect and impact are they having
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: on that relationship with work and technology that people bring
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: to their jobs?
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: From an employee standpoint, increasingly employees are expecting the technology
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: at work to work like their technology at home. So,
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: you know, we long time ago, back in my early
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: career days, your technology at work was much better than
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: the technology you had at home. And that was pretty cool.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: But now the technology that you have, your personal devices
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: tend to be much more modern, advanced and, you know,
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: provide you with more capabilities. But that's because, you know,
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: it's your personal preference. And so I think you'll see
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: employees bring that into the workplace where, If a computer
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: takes a long time to boot up or things are
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: lagging or they just can't, things are clunky and they
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: can't get things done, it's very frustrating. And it really
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: becomes challenging because they're not used to that with their
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: own personal technology.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: And there must be very specific implications to adoption trends
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: with AI specifically, right? How does AI complicate the picture when,
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: as you say, at home people are used to using whatever,
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: whatever the limit is. And then that has specific kind
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: of implications in the workplace, right?
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: So AI adoption is no longer the question or the
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: barrier at work. So Forrester's research shows that 78% of
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: employees are using AI every day at work. And I
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: think it's like 38% are using it four times or
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: more a day. So everybody's using it. So the question isn't, oh,
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: are they using it? And the question now becomes, are
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: they using it to create value? Are they using it
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: in the right ways? and so i think that that
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: you know again it it makes looking at understanding how
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: employees work and how employees are using the tools that
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: much more important.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: And how are cios in particular um you mentioned it
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: earlier moving from sort of um Measuring technical performance to
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: better understanding business impact, productivity, workplace sentiment, perhaps particularly with
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: regards to AI.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: With the kind of move to consumption-based pricing and token
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: pricing with AI tools, especially in enterprise technology, there's going
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: to be a much stricter lens on cost when it
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: comes to AI initiatives and AI tooling from the C-suite.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: And so I think what organizations are gonna have to
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: do is start to better understand where they need to
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: invest in AI for where the work is delivering more
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: value for the business or higher impact outcomes. And so
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: in order to do that, you're gonna have to start
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: understanding the cost of the usage and the cost of
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: adoption and who's using what tools.
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: How are they using it?
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: What's the outcomes from using those tools so that that
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: can then inform better investment decisions and start to get
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: into those terms that the CEOs really want to know about,
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: which is the dollars.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: Let's get to the wave, Christy. It came out very recently.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: Was it something you started working on almost your first
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: week or two in the job?
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: No, fortunately not.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: But it was a very long process, which is good.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: It is exhausting, but it is a good process because
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: we get really, as an analyst working on a wave,
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: we get really deep into the details and the nitty
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: gritty of the vendors in this space. It was several
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: months of really digging into detailed criteria, functionality, demos, et cetera,
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera, talking to customers and really looking
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: at where do vendors sit when it comes to what
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: they have to offer for their customers.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: Okay. How did the whole process surprise you? What did
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: you encounter in your responses and your research that you
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: didn't expect, first of all?
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: So we do the wave. evaluations every two years. And
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: so the past two years, since the prior wave evaluation
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: for this market, the tooling in this space has really matured.
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: And I think that is just a result of the
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: acceleration of AI technology is almost forced the hand of
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: many of the vendors. You have to accelerate the capabilities
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: you have in your platform. And so as a result,
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: a lot of the kind of what made vendors stand
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: out in the prior wave that was maybe more differentiated
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: then is no longer differentiating.
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: It's all table stakes. So it made it.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: Really tricky for me in looking at, you know, who
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: is on like the bleeding edge and who is really doing,
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: thinking about this space differently and really solving problems in
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: a compelling way that's going to help their customers improve
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: their experience.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: And what were those qualities that separated out those vendors
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: that you were looking at?
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: So tying back to kind of my ongoing rant about
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: scaling the use cases, that is definitely starting to emerge.
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: And a lot of that is being enabled by more
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: governance capabilities within the platform itself. So, you know, one
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: of the things that holds organizations back from adopting remediation,
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: like proactive remediation, is they're just, you know, they just
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: want that verification or that validation.
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: Before it takes action.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: And so having in like role-based access controls and approval
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: processes and some of those checks and balances to be
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: able to govern those remediations really helps kind of give
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: that ease of, okay, we have the ability to manage
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: this and have oversight over it. So we're more comfortable
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: implementing these automatic remediations.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: It makes me think of the topic of DexOps. And
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: we've got two audiences for this recording, right? So our
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: Dexia audience is going to know what DexOps is. Our
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: CIO audience might not so much. So maybe start with
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: a definition of DexOps and tell me a little bit
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: about where that fit into your research on the way specifically,
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: because what you're kind of describing is the importance of operationalization, right?
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: Exactly, exactly.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: And operationalizing around identifying, again, where is intervention going to
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: have the highest impact? How do you coordinate and orchestrate
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: this across teams and across agents in some cases?
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: With DexOps, it really is.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: About operationalizing Dex improvements continuously. And that also means improving
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: your operations in addition to improving the experiences. So for me,
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: DexOps played a really crucial role in the evaluation because
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: I was looking at a lot of the capabilities, not
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: just checking a box like, oh, you've got this capability check,
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: I was looking at it as, okay, you have this capability,
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: but how is it enabling the customer to operationalize DEX?
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: How is it helping them really accelerate and scale how
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: they improve their employees' digital experience?
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: So do you see the onus of that operationalization as
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: being on the customer or the vendors or like a
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: combination of both ideally?
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: I think it's a combination of both. And I think,
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: you know, having been in the trenches myself and working
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: for very large, complex organizations, it's really hard to operationalize cross-functionally.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: It's really hard to get alignment on priorities and what
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: the most important things are. And so I think that
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: it does play a role for the vendor in terms
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: of How can they help their customers internally sell the
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: DEX management solution to other functions in the business and
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: help illustrate the value? And so that might be not
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: just by giving them playbooks and training and resources, but
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: also giving them really compelling use cases and helping demonstrate
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: the value that that use case would provide for, say,
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: like an HR or a finance internal partner for these customers.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: And so I think that is a role that the
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: DEX vendors can play in kind of helping their customers
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: kind of build the muscle to be able to start
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: to kind of overcome those hurdles when it comes to
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: cross-functional collaborations. you know, this is going to become even
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: more critical as there, you know, becomes a tighter lens
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: on cost around AI consumption. Also as, you know, AI
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: starts to become more native to devices, not just your laptop,
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: but also wearables and more of the edge devices. The
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: ability to understand the experiences with those devices and how
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: they're being used and who's using them is going to
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: be really paramount in order to continue to govern, prioritize,
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: measure ROI for AI investments.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: Are we seeing the return almost of IoT in your view?
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: And is that the future of DEX to some degree?
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: So for me, my point of view is yes, in
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: a way. So again, I have kind of a passion
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: for frontline experiences. And I think they're so important and
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: it seems like with Dex management tools and with AI
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: and the acceleration of that technology, Dex professionals now have
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: access to better understand those experiences and to see what's
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: going on and see how employees on the frontline are,
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: you know, how they're using technology. I think also, you know,
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: in the past frontline employees maybe didn't have all the
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: latest and greatest technology, whereas now, Technology is everywhere. And,
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: you know, especially when it comes to operational technology on
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: the frontline, that technology is just getting more advanced, more automated.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: And so the ability to measure the experience and have
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: insights from that is really powerful.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: What do you think the different DEX platforms increasingly need
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: to do as organizations adopt AI and more complex technology
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: estates to keep delivering value?
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: So one thing that I would love to see is
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: more workflow and journey insights and correlation. So all the
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: data is there. There is a big opportunity and there's
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: some vendors that are starting to dabble in it. So
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: there are vendors that are looking into this, but it's
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: being able to connect the dots across the data points
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: into end-to-end journeys or experiences. So Today, we tend to
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: measure with index tools, we tend to measure things like
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: devices and device health and sentiment. And then we kind
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: of bring it together and have insights. Here's what this
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: likely means or here's what the root cause is. But
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: what if you had the ability to measure an end-to-end journey,
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: to track journeys across your digital ecosystem? Like I said,
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: the data's there, but I think what's missing is the contextualization. data,
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: the relationships across the data. So this is the age-old
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: people process technology. How do you start to connect the
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: dots across those things and surface insights that tell you
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: not just how the technology's doing or what employees are
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: experiencing with that technology, but actually understanding how employees are
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: working with the technology and where the technology fits within
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: these value streams across the business.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: I was always interested to ask you, Christy, about the
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: relationship between employees and human beings on the one hand
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: and AI and technology on the other, right? You're somebody
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: who in your presentations brings a lot of individuality to
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: the front of.
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: It, right?
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: And is there a danger there? that we see this
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: very powerful technology start to obscure individuality and the individual
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: at large in organizations and in the workplace. And what
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: is the counterbalance to that? What is the antidote to it?
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: There definitely has to be a balance. I think the
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: biggest concern, um, well, our research, uh, shows that employees
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: biggest concerns is, is bias and trust around AI. And so, um, Organizations,
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: as they start to bring in more automation and AI
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: agents that are going to work alongside employees, they really
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: need to make sure that they have the mechanisms and
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: the guardrails in place so that that trust can be
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: earned with employees so employees feel comfortable working with AI.
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: But I agree with you.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: I think also that culture plays a huge role in
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: the employee experience.
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: It's just you can't deny it.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: And so I think that organizations that have a really
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: good culture will thrive in this type of environment and
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: not necessarily lose that employee focus. But I do think
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: that if organizations aren't careful and aren't leaning into their cultures,
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: they could potentially kind of lose that value that they
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: get from their human employees and also, of course, employees themselves.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: employee trust can easily erode.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: How else are AI agents and automation changing that dynamic
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: between employees, IT, and maybe like the service desk in particular?
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: One thing that we have data on as well is
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: what we call silent sufferers. And I am one of them,
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: where you avoid the help desk and you just deal
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: with an issue until You finally just can't even work anymore.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: And then you finally give up and call the help desk.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: So there are, I think our data says like 48%
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: of employees avoid the help desk, which is a huge number.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: And so there are people out there suffering with technology
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: issues because they just don't have the time, don't want
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: to deal with calling the help desk, et cetera, et cetera.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: when it comes to AI and some of the more
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: self-service remediation opportunities that we see with like Next Think Spark,
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: what's interesting is that's like a great way to reach
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: those silent sufferers because it gives them a way to
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: resolve their own issues without having to get on the
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: phone or wait three days for a ticket or talk
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: to somebody and tell them a hundred times that they
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: have already rebooted their computer five times and it didn't
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: fix the problem. And so I think with those more
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: of those self-service tools, it's, it's an easy, the, the,
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: you know, the agent knows who you are, knows your
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: computer stats can sometimes tell you like what's causing your
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: problem and then give you the option to, Hey, I
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: can fix this.
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: You want me to fix it right now? Yes. And
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: then it's right then it's fixed. And so it doesn't
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: become this.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: Like task that you keep procrastinating when you don't, when
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: you want to avoid the help desk, you can just
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: open up this agentic support and be able to solve
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: your problem right there.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: So given that, what's your vision for the future IT
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: professionals focus on work?
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that what that does is it elevates
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: support desk staff to work on the more complex issues,
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: the issues that the agents can't solve or maybe don't
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: need to solve because maybe there's more risk involved or
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: there's greater impact if something were to go haywire. And
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: so I think it allows the support staff to really
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: upskill and level up and start to focus on those
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: higher tier support issues.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: Let me finish by asking you for some practical advice
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: for those CIOs who are seeking to move decks from
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: an improvement initiative to something that's enduring, to something that's
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: really an executive culture changing priority.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: The advice that I give clients is to just start
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: small and not try to think of like everything in
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: the kitchen sink all at once, etc., And so I
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: advise folks to pick one really good cross-functional experience. So
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: we mentioned onboarding earlier. Onboarding is a great example. Another
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: good example is time to shift start productivity, which is
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: a mouthful. But it's basically how quickly can employees start
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: their day. And so that's a great one because you
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: can look at that at scale or you can look
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: at it in a very like focused way. lens, like
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: say for a frontline experience. So if like you're a
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: retail organization or you, you know, have shifts, employees that
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: have shifts and shift starts, what I advise is you
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: focus on, take one experience, you bring together the functions
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: that play a role in that experience. You map that
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: experience end to end, and then you start to identify
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: what are those signals or those metrics, whether it's coming
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: from the device, the software, the network, the employee, what
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: are those signals across that journey?
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: And then what is good look like?
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: What do we want that outcome to be? And what
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: needs to be fixed? Where's the friction in that journey
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: that needs to be addressed to get to that outcome?
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: And so I think starting there and starting small and
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: identifying what works for your organization, identifying how looking at
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: that DEX view can help can really deliver value for
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: your organization, I think that that then gives you the
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: ability to, okay, that was good.
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: Now let's scale.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: Let's add another experience or let's bring in another business
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: unit to start to look at something. So start small
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: and then scale. Phenomenal.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: And maybe give The Wave a read as well.
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: Yes. Everybody read The Wave.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: Who knows? I might be able to go to the
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: show notes of one of these shows at least and
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: maybe follow a link. It's been a pleasure.
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: This was fun. I like it.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: Thanks, Kristen.
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: Thanks. That's it for this week's Deck Show. We'll be
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: back next week. And if you don't already.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: Be sure to follow the show so you don't miss
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: an episode.
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: Until next time.