Digital Employee Experience: The Olympic Sport We Never Knew We Needed

If you are anything like me, my current nightly routine includes tuning in to see the daily highlights from the Olympic games happening in Paris right now. Who won gold? What’s the current medal count? Did Simone Biles crush her floor routine?

As my newsfeed fills with alerts of the latest winners and feel-good profiles of the athletes, I can’t help but wonder what the digital employee experience (DEX) would be like as an Olympic sport. Companies would vie for gold by competing for the fastest IT ticket resolution, scoring extra points for proactive – or even preventative – IT approaches. Those who implement AI/ML would be the fan favorites. And the true winners would be the end users.

The DEX Opening Ceremony: A Display of Digital Brilliance

Imagine the grandeur of the Olympic opening ceremony, but with a digital twist. Companies parade their state-of-the-art technology, from AI-driven chatbots to seamless cloud integrations, showcasing how they revolutionize the digital workspace. The torchbearer, perhaps Lakeside Software’s visionary founder Mike Schumacher, would share his insights on the latest trends in IT and AI (like in his recent American City Business Journal article).

Event 1: The IT Ticket Resolution Sprint

The first event, the IT Ticket Resolution Sprint, measures the speed and efficiency with which companies resolve IT issues. Just like sprinters on the track, IT teams race against time to troubleshoot and fix problems. Points are awarded not just for speed but also for the effectiveness and user satisfaction. Extra points if the IT team can avoid the ticket all together.

I’m confident Lakeside Software would take home the gold for this event. With more than 10,000 data points coming from endpoints every 15 seconds, SysTrack can easily identify issues before they become tickets and take some of the burden off L1 technicians. In fact, for one multi-national bank, we identified an influx in help desk calls related to a Bitlocker recovery key. The bank’s IT team created an automation using SysTrack to avoid 800 tickets per month moving forward.

Event 2: The Proactive IT Hurdles

In the Proactive IT Hurdles, companies must demonstrate their ability to foresee and prevent IT issues before they occur. This event is all about seeing potential pitfalls with predictive analytics and machine learning and jumping over them before they disrupt the race. Competitors showcase their ability to maintain seamless operations by identifying and addressing problems before they affect the end-users.

Lakeside Software has long been the G.O.A.T in proactive IT, so it’s no surprise we’d take home the gold in this event as well. With the industry’s best data, we provide a single source of truth for endpoint data across the entire IT estate to simplify a complex environment into a dashboard view. Our customers can identify and address potential issues and challenges in IT operations before they lead to service disruptions or impact the performance of systems. For one global healthcare company, we established proactive outreach for VPN, high uptime, low WiFi signal, and other common issues. With 25+ proactive automations, the customer reduced 30,000 incidents across the organization.

Event 3: The AI/ML Innovation Showcase

The AI/ML Innovation Showcase is a crowd favorite. Here, companies display their cutting-edge use of artificial intelligence and machine learning to enhance the digital employee experience. From providing personalized user support to identifying anomalies across the estate, the possibilities are endless. The judges look for innovation, implementation, and the tangible benefits to employees. The company that best integrates AI/ML into their DEX platform wins the top spot on the podium.

There’s no surprise here who I’d select as the winner. Lakeside Software wins gold again. We have the only AI-powered DEX platform, so there isn’t much competition in this event. With our embedded AI engine, our customers can predict problems before they happen with anomaly detection and use plain English to ask a question and get a real answer with natural language queries. Plus, IT technicians have a “little buddy” at their side to help troubleshoot complex issues with our built-in GenAI capabilities. For example, a private hedge fund managing $30+ billion in assets increased the efficiency of its help desk with the built-in Intelligent Support chatbot for its L1 engineers and the ability to query data at scale using natural language to pinpoint issues faster.   

The Closing Ceremony: Honoring DEX Excellence

The closing ceremony is a celebration of digital excellence, recognizing the companies that have pushed the boundaries of innovation and efficiency. Winners are applauded not only for their technological achievements but also for their commitment to creating a better digital workplace for their employees. Considering Lakeside was just named a Leader in End-User Experience Management as well as the Technology Company of the Year, I’d predict Lakeside would win the medal count and be the star of the closing ceremony.  

The Real Champions: The End Users

While companies compete for glory in my fictional DEX Olympics, the true champions would be the end users. A superior digital employee experience empowers individuals to perform at their best, fosters job satisfaction, and creates a more harmonious work environment. As companies continue to innovate and excel in this arena, the ultimate victory is a happier, more productive workforce.

So, as we continue to enjoy the excitement of the Olympic Games in Paris, let’s also envision a future where the digital employee experience is celebrated with the same fervor and dedication. Because when companies strive for excellence in DEX, we all win.