I was excited to discuss sustainability on ServiceNow’s panel at Climate Week in NYC.

ESG is such a layered topic. The premise may be straightforward – organizations must do all they can to mitigate climate change – but there are so many moving parts. In fact, the first question that Maria Hart, Director Alliances ESG Business Development, of ServiceNow put to us was ‘What makes ESG (environment, social, and governance issues) such a complex, difficult challenge for organizations to solve?

Maria’s colleague, Geeta Jhamb, Senior Advisory Solution Architect, Risk Practice, of ServiceNow presented that in many cases, ESG is the responsibility of a designated team – but in fact, its success depends more on the engagement of the functions on the front line. It is down to the people who own the data to drive the program. It is true. More importantly, it is not as big of a priority as it should be, and there is work to be done by the people to demonstrate its relevance and importance.

How can this argument be made? How can sustainability be moved up on the agenda at board level?

The forces fueling the ESG fire

So, what’s driving this surge in ESG consciousness? Several factors combine to create a flame of change.

A regulatory tsunami

The biggest cause of is regulation. Organizations need to recognize an alphabet soup of laws, guidance, and codes of practice, and it’s getting more and more complex. For example, in 2022, the European Commission adopted a proposal for a directive on corporate sustainability due diligence (CSDD). It includes due diligence and auditing around the sourcing of products. Developments like this simply can’t be ignored.

Brand reputational risk

The negative risk of sustainability on a brand is a major factor. There is an inherent trust associated with a brand, and a lack of commitment to sustainability from the brand, can imperil the trust of its customers.

The war for talent

People gravitates towards employers with values they respect. An organization that doesn’t demonstrate commitment to high ESG standards is going to be a less attractive employer as organizations that do prioritize ESG.

The investor imperative

In our talk, Geeta said that 60% of EU organizations, regardless of the nature of the product or service they seek, are including ESG requirements as part of their RFP process. Shareholders and other investors also expect to see organizations making formal pledges to ESG standards before they commit funds. In short, conforming to ESG principles is clearly not just a box-ticking exercise: it could mean losing out on business, or funding, or both.

A long-term approach – Building an ESG foundation

With so many different imperatives to act on ESG, it’s very tempting for organizations to jump right in. But in my view, simply jumping into the ESG fray without a strategic roadmap can lead to confusion and inefficacy. Here’s where a data-driven, technology-enabled approach comes into play:

Here’s an example I used in our discussion. Let’s call it a shoe manufacturing company based in the US. The raw materials used to produce shoes were a big factor in the business, and the IT team wanted to be prepared because they knew that eventually they would be expected to provide reports including evidence of provenance.

The power of data

Our advice to the CIO was that two types of assessment would be needed. The first was a qualitative assessment: what was the organization’s readiness to embark on this kind of journey? The second was more quantitative: what data do you have that’s measurable? Specifically, as far as IT was concerned, it related to the IT assets and the associated relationships of those assets. Were they aligned in a way that was ready to be measured?

In fact, in the context of sustainability, IT is a two-edged sword. Yes, it provides the data that organizations need to assess their positions and act; but on the other hand, it’s also a significant consumer of resources. It’s said that if IT were a country, it would be the third largest in the world in terms of CO2 emissions, and it accounts for 3%-3.5% of total emissions and growing.

Cross-functional collaboration

Is this a reason for gloom? In my view, no. Instead, it’s a call to action – a demand to place upon us to use IT as effectively as we can, mitigating against its sustainability overheads while at the same time putting it to best use. This means interacting and integrating with other functions in the corporation, including finance, HR, and operations, to create a new foundation for ESG. Because, just as IT is itself the bedrock on which all those business functions are based, so ESG itself will only be effective when it’s built on something that brings all these organizational constructs together.

From insights to action

In our discussion, Geeta pointed out that implicit in this argument was the need for a platform. An effective IT platform, she argued, should bring together data, ultimately yielding information made available to users to gain insights. It should provide a basis for an organizational change management strategy, from which workable policies can be developed – policies that can be tracked in practice, to ensure that teams are doing what’s needed and expected of them in pursuit of ESG goals.

While the challenges may seem daunting, the rewards of embracing ESG are significant. Improved brand reputation, talent acquisition, investor confidence, and even operational efficiency are just some of the benefits of prioritizing sustainable practices.

In the next article of this series, we’ll delve deeper into practical steps organizations can take to embark on their ESG journey, providing actionable strategies and tools to navigate the path towards a more sustainable future.

Ready to unlock the potential of ESG for your organization? Explore how our ServiceNow partnership can help you develop a winning ESG program. Click here to find out more about how the world works with ServiceNow, and about partnering with Capgemini on an ESG program.

Optimizing major processes is saving enterprises millions of dollars per year by improving cash flow and generating other benefits, from better compliance to better engagement with customers, employees, and candidates. But process optimization across complex corporate systems can quickly become a quagmire, resulting in stalled optimization initiatives or incomplete realization of value.

Our experience shows that by following a certain set and sequence of steps to actionable process transformation, organizations can get the best results from their optimization efforts.

The need to understand and adhere to best practices is particularly important for organizations intending to leverage AI and automation to improve processes. That’s because although AI-driven automation can streamline processes, the same technology can make things more complicated if the solution is not properly designed or the deployment isn’t carefully planned and executed.

Core challenges of process optimization

Companies have worked to improve processes for decades, and the difficulties in achieving their ambitions can usually be attributed to these root causes.

Complexity: Within the enterprise, processes are transversal, typically spanning multiple departments and systems – each with their own priorities, requirements, culture, and established way of doing things. This level of complexity can make it challenging to know where to start optimizing and how to optimize in a way that works for different stakeholders – and benefits the whole organization.

Lack of transparency: In terms of the processes themselves, complexity and silos can make it difficult to gather the data and conduct analyses end to end. The more complex and opaque the processes are, the harder it can be to tie those goals to strategic business objectives.

Subjectivity: Often, we see decisions about process improvements made based on gut feelings and partial or outdated analyses, rather than analyzing data that reflects the current state.

These hurdles usually occur together, and can prevent enterprises from successfully leveraging process optimization for the greatest ROI.

Follow an optimization strategy to maximize value

We’ve found the following best practices most helpful in achieving business objectives and creating lasting improvements.

1. Focus your decision making on the value to be delivered. Successful companies set up a dedicated governance with the right roles, ways of working, tools, and decision architectures to drive business value.
2. For companies that are in the early stages of the journey, prove the value of these efforts (usually measured via ROI) on one or two priority areas.
3. Establish a team that will focus on this work and embed it into the ongoing operation of the company.

A value-focused mindset starts with selecting the right problems to solve and considering what success will look like once the problem is fixed. Will the workforce be more productive? Or will there be significant cost savings by eliminating excess inventory or reducing services currently acquired from a third party? Some efforts can even lead to additional revenue generation or cash flows improvements.

The expected value of successfully improving processes helps prioritize and sequence the multiple use cases considered. It also helps justify capacity allocation across the different teams that need to come together to deliver this work. And ultimately, it clarifies who in the organization needs to approve and recognize the value to declare its realization completed.

By following this guidance, early-stage adopters are more likely to select a use case that yields the hard-hitting ROI that guide organizational investments into the continuation of the journey to improved processes.

Setting the scope for process optimization projects

There are many areas of the organization where process optimization efforts can generate major value. While some areas, like finance and procurement, are well understood, others are starting to get more attention.

Specifically, we see companies working on many following innovative solutions across functions:

• Real-time supply chain planning
• Smart manufacturing plants
• Engineering design management
• Redesigning HR for experience and efficiency
• Master data management streamlining

There is no limitation to what processes can be addressed with this approach – the only requirements include having:

• Access to accurate data
• Contribution from process owners and/or experts to generate the analysis and insights
• Processes with a large volume of activities and significant associated cost.

For example, a global consumer products manufacturer recently utilized process improvement to avoid food waste and decrease costs. The company had finished goods in its warehouse beyond the date that could be sold to end-clients. The company used data to highlight when planned production was not in sync with current demands. For products that approached their limit date, an AI solution recommended some next best actions – including transferring to other warehouses with higher demand, a discounted selloff, or ultimately a donation.

Another organization, a global retailer, improved the effectiveness of its supply chain planning process by using innovative technology and data insights. Initially, supply chain planners were using several diverse systems to pull information together on product demand, supply planning, and orders with vendors. Process mining technology allowed for consolidation of that information in one knowledge model – reducing the effort to pull information from diverse systems and assisting in interpretation of the content. This helps spot planning delays and supply risk in near-real time, so planners can act immediately and avoid impact.

Making process optimization part of the fabric of the organization

After demonstrating early successes, companies typically encounter the next major challenge on their journey, which is how to adopt this approach across the enterprise. The ultimate goal is to embed this into the ongoing operations and management of the company, so that these efforts evolve from projects to business-as-usual activities. To make this a reality at enterprise scale, organizations must consider the following aspects.

• Governance and funding mechanisms – ensure business and IT leadership are on board and jointly make decisions to guide efforts
• Center-of-Excellence – enable the rapid scaling and sharing of knowledge and capabilities.
• Technology stack selection, implementation, and updates – identify the most important tools and techniques that help resolve the most pressing issues
• Value realization and measurement – leverage the value mindset to drive the identification, prioritization, and execution of effort

Process optimization that delivers maximum value doesn’t start with a specific technology in mind. Instead, it’s about taking the right approach to evaluating processes for efficiency, developing smarter ways of working, and bringing in automation and other technology when it can add measurable value.

Process optimization should be continuous. That’s because as you improve processes, your organization will uncover new issues and identify new ways to solve them. Saving those learnings in a centralized process excellence hub supports future process refinements.

Enabled by an impactful governance and targeted funding mechanisms, accelerated and continuous process improvement can become part of the organization’s culture, making process optimization easier to implement with greater returns on effort.

People who work in government strive to offer efficient, personal, and empathetic service to their constituents. But, they’re often forced to do so in an environment built on aging technological infrastructure, with limited resources and tight budgets. This significantly impacts their ability to do their jobs efficiently.

Capgemini’s Contact Center As-a-Service, powered by Amazon Connect, is a cloud-based end-to-end solution designed to resolve these issues and help contact centers offer a new customer experience with the power of artificial intelligence. This type of generative AI learns the properties and patterns in existing data and uses it to create original content, like text, images and video. Other prominent examples of generative AI include ChatGPT, DALL-E, and Google Bard.

With Capgemini’s Contact Center As-a-Service, agencies can offer their constituents a true omnichannel experience across voice and chat, with built-in multilingual support and real-time analysis of customer interactions. Here’s how:

5 Benefits of Contact Center As-a-Service for public sector agencies

1. Serious cost savings

According to a Total Economic Impact report by Forrester, deploying Amazon Connect leads to an average cloud subscription cost savings of 31 percent. In addition, the average organization experiences a return on investment (ROI) of 241 percent within three years, thanks to reduced labor and technology savings and increased operating income.

2. Shorter hold times

Public sector agencies often receive a high volume of repetitive inquiries, but there are only so many agents available to answer these calls. It’s a recipe for long wait times.

Capgemini works with public sector agencies to deploy chatbots on Amazon Connect. These chatbots use natural language processing to quickly provide accurate information to constituents. This shortens wait times and frees up human agents to handle more complex queries.

This boost in efficiency allowed a national provider of health guidance and information services to offer near real-time coordinated care and significantly accelerate its triage and decision-making.

3. Personalized interactions

Capgemini’s Contact Center As-a-Service enables public sector organizations to use voice and chat when interacting with their constituents. This provides more options for citizens and empowers them to choose the communication method they’re most comfortable with.

This is a significant benefit on its own, but it can be game changing when an organization serves a diverse population with different language preferences. By interacting in their preferred language and communication method, constituents feel heard and respected.

Amazon Connect also offers personalization through various other features. For example, whenever an agency needs to share important information, like an emergency alert or public health notice, Amazon Connect can quickly automate and personalize these communications for audiences. Amazon Connect’s AI can also analyze historical data and predict potential issues or service requirements. This gives agencies the ability to reach out proactively to constituents who might require more assistance, and address concerns before they escalate.

4. Increased citizen satisfaction

Amazon Connect chatbots can offer step-by-step guidance and automated assistance when filling out forms for licenses, permits, and benefits for constituents visiting their local agency website. This makes the application process easier and minimizes errors.

These features improve a person’s experience with their local government, whether they interact with an agent or through self-service. The easier it is for constituents to get what they need done, the more satisfied they are with their local agency.

For example, after Capgemini implemented Amazon Connect for a large metropolitan police force, they nearly doubled their satisfaction rate measured by a post-call survey program.

5. Improved efficiency and resource allocation

True self-service capabilities significantly reduce the load on an already-strained workforce. Instead of spending time tracking down information, agents can deploy chatbots to find answers and resolve a caller’s needs quickly.

As an open platform, our Contact Center As-a-Service easily integrates with CRMs, ERPs, and other custom solutions to aggregate customer profiles across these disparate systems and provide real-time analytics. Access to this data is essential for informed decision-making by government leaders.  Access to better data also empowers agencies to identify trends and better understand citizen sentiment so they can iterate and improve their services and offerings.

Serve your constituents with Contact Center As-a-Service

By embracing AI, organizations can rewrite the narrative of customer service and make public sector contact centers more efficient, personalized and innovative. Learn more about how Capgemini and Amazon Connect can help you unlock these benefits for your organization.

Modern systems boost efficiency and cut costs while delivering better service for constituents.

Imagine the following scenario.

A local government agency finds itself grappling with a daunting challenge: overwhelmed by a surge in citizen inquiries and facing budget constraints, it struggles to provide efficient and personalized services. Long wait times, incomplete information, and frustrated constituents have become all too common.

This scenario may be familiar for those working in public sector call center management. But it doesn’t have to be.

Public sector organizations that do not have an omnichannel contact center solution struggle to provide an efficient, empathetic, and agile experience that benefits their constituents and relieves their city’s budget and resource limitations. This breakdown in technology and communication is the primary challenge facing public sector contact centers today, and its ripple effects are numerous.

1. Siloed systems lead to bad customer experiences

Public sector contact centers often rely on aging technology infrastructure, composed of various vendors and systems, most of which don’t communicate well (or at all) with each other. As a result, information gets updated in silos, creating more work for agents who are already strapped for time.

For example, public sector agencies often receive high volumes of repetitive inquiries about services, policies, and procedures. Without a connected system, agents don’t always have a clear view of the customer journey. This results in a manual routing process with agents repeating the same information over and over, as constituents get transferred from agent to agent until they get what they need.

This is demotivating for agents and creates aggravation for constituents who wish they could get the right information quickly.

Public sector organizations also frequently manage application processes for services like permits, licenses, and benefits. Constituents often make errors in completing these forms, in print or online. This leads to follow-up calls and correction work that wastes agents’ time and irritates constituents.

A centralized solution, allows for greater visibility across teams, enabling a better customer experience. A unified view keeps agents on the same page and helps them route callers to the right resources efficiently. This reduces call time and improves resolution rates – a win-win for agents and customers.

Open platforms integrate with CRMs, ERPs, and custom solutions to aggregate customer information across multiple interactions. They also leverage AI-powered search so agents can quickly get up to speed. These solutions also offer chatbots and self-service features that enable constituents to solve their needs on their own, reducing call volume and providing much-needed relief to a workforce that’s already strapped for time and resources.

2. Lack of accessible options limit constituent reach

Accessibility is important for any organization, but especially so for public sector agencies that need to serve all citizens.

Most public agencies serve a diverse group of citizens that speak many different languages. This creates a service gap for constituents who deserve access to the same services as everybody else but may not be able to understand important announcements or feel confident submitting applications for benefits, licenses, or other services if documentation isn’t offered in their native language. It also creates a strain on the agency’s workforce, who may not have the resources — human or financial — to hire sufficient translators to service these constituents.

With modern contact center solutions, multilingual support is no longer a pipe dream – it’s a reality. Built-in translation features and multilingual chatbots, powered by artificial intelligence, give public sector agencies the ability to meet the demand for increased inclusivity and accessibility.

3. Limited data leaves managers in the dark

Government agencies require real-time data to make timely and relevant decisions.

But without comprehensive analytics that track and connect citizen interactions across their customer journey, public sector agencies are limited in their ability to understand citizen sentiment, identify trends, and optimize their services.

Centralized, omnichannel contact center technology tracks customer interactions across various intake systems and aggregates it in real-time for decision-making backed by data, not assumptions.

The solution: A new customer experience with Contact Center As-a-Service

Public sector agencies have outgrown the technology that previously served them, and now face an urgent need to modernize.

Imagine a new scenario. A concerned citizen, Maria, seeks information about a new community initiative. When she calls her local government, her call is routed to an AI-powered virtual agent, capable of understanding her query and providing detailed responses.

The interaction is swift, accurate, and, most importantly, tailored to Maria’s needs. The days of long hold times and vague answers are replaced by a seamless, satisfying experience.

Government employees reap the benefits of this new experience, too. Operational efficiency skyrockets, allowing the agency to handle a higher volume of inquiries with the same resources. The once-strained budget sees relief, as costs are trimmed through reduced agent workload and optimized resource allocation.

This kind of future is possible today, and a growing number of organizations are making it a reality with Capgemini’s Contact Center As-A-Service, fueled by Amazon Connect. This next generation omnichannel contact center solution is built on Amazon Web Services and powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning. It is easy to implement and manage, cost-effective, and future-forward, leading to radical time and labor savings almost immediately.

Learn more about how Capgemini’s Contact Center As-a-Service can move your organization forward and meet your citizens’ needs with efficiency, personalization, and innovation.

The interplay between humans and machines defines production capacity for the manufacturing industry. As we stand on the brink of a new era dominated by artificial intelligence, there is a transformative player emerging in the arena: Generative AI (GenAI). One of the most promising facets of GenAI is enhanced human-machine interaction (HMI), as GenAI augments human capabilities, making complex machinery more intuitive, safe, productive, and cost effective.

The dawn of GenAI in HMI is not just about incremental improvements but is a substantial shift in how we interact with technology. Traditional interfaces, often rigid and limited to specific inputs, are being replaced by adaptive, multi-modal interfaces powered by GenAI. These interfaces span the gamut of human communication methods – text, images, mixed reality, speech, and haptics – and are tailored to understand and predict user needs, making technology more inclusive and efficient.

Imagine stepping into a manufacturing plant where the machines are no longer just objects capable of an extremely limited number of actions but are instead dynamic partners capable of conversational dialog. An operator, regardless of their technical expertise, can issue commands in natural language, receive guidance through augmented-reality visuals, or get real-time feedback via haptic gloves. This is the promise of GenAI-enhanced HMI.

The crux of GenAI in HMI lies in its ability to learn and generate new content or responses by analyzing vast amounts of information. It uses this ability to create interfaces that adapt to the user, rather than forcing the user to adapt to the machine. For instance, a GenAI system could analyze thousands of hours of operational data to understand the most common issues an operator faces. It could then automatically and autonomously generate a simplified interface or an interactive guide to help mitigate these issues, effectively lowering the barrier to operate complex machinery.

This leads to several tangible benefits. For one, safety is significantly enhanced. By providing intuitive interaction methods, GenAI reduces the likelihood of operator error, a leading cause of industrial accidents. Operators receive warnings and guidance in a manner that’s easiest for them to comprehend and act upon, whether that’s through visual alerts in their smart glasses or vibrational patterns in wearable devices.

Cost reduction is another major advantage. Training time is slashed because operators can learn on the job with the aid of AI-generated guides and real-time assistance. Furthermore, because GenAI-powered HMI can adapt to users’ knowledge levels, the need for frequent retraining as systems update is reduced. This adaptability also means machinery can be operated more consistently at optimal performance, reducing wear and tear and extending the lifespan of expensive equipment.

Moreover, the flexibility of GenAI-driven interfaces allows for a broader range of operators to engage with technology. People with different abilities, languages, and learning styles can all operate the same machinery with equal proficiency, democratizing access to technological operation and creating a more inclusive workforce.

As we delve deeper into the technicalities, it becomes evident that the integration of GenAI in HMI is a multi-layered solution. For instance, in text-based interfaces, natural language processing allows operators to input commands or queries in their language, and the system can generate the necessary actions or responses. In the visual domain, GenAI can process images from the machine’s environment and generate augmented reality overlays to guide the operator in real-time.

In mixed reality, GenAI can create immersive simulations for training purposes or to visualize complex processes, which would otherwise be abstract and challenging to grasp. Speech recognition and generation enable hands-free operation and interaction, which is crucial in environments where manual input is impractical or unsafe. Finally, haptic feedback, informed by GenAI, can simulate the tactile sensation of operating a physical control, providing a more intuitive understanding of machine status or environment.

The true power of GenAI lies in its ability to augment human knowledge and capability. It allows individuals to operate beyond their standard capacity, making them more adept and versatile in a variety of situations. This is not just about making machines smarter; it’s about enhancing human potential. By offloading the need to memorize complex procedures or navigate complicated interfaces, GenAI frees up cognitive resources, allowing humans to focus on more creative and strategic tasks.

GenAI is revolutionizing HMI by creating interfaces that are as diverse and adaptable as human communication itself. This innovation is enhancing safety, reducing costs, and democratizing access to technology. The advanced user interfaces developed through GenAI represent the pinnacle of this technological renaissance, embodying the synergy of human intuition and machine precision.

This enhanced interaction is not merely a convenience; it’s a leap forward in how we conceptualize work and capability. By bridging the gap between human intent and machine functionality, GenAI is setting the stage for a future where technology is not just a tool but an extension of our own capabilities, reshaping industries and redefining what it means to work alongside machines. This, indeed, is the quintessence of GenAI’s power: an ally in the quest for excellence in modern manufacturing.

As we navigate the complexities and opportunities presented by GenAI-based HMIs, the journey towards integrating these advanced systems requires not only understanding their potential but also addressing the accompanying challenges. If you’re intrigued by the possibilities of enhancing your operations with GenAI technology, or if you have questions about how it can be tailored to your specific needs, Capgemini is here to guide you through every step of the process. We invite you to reach out to us to discover more about our innovative solutions and how they can transform your business. Whether you’re looking to understand the ethical implications, manage data effectively, or navigate to a comprehensive system solution, our team of experts is ready to provide the insights and support you need. Contact us today to explore the future of human-machine interaction and how cutting-edge GenAI technologies can be a game changer for your organization.