Blogs

James Chambers, Head of Operations

Certainly one of the buzzwords that has defined the last 10 years has been “digital transformation”; consulting firms have built entire practices aimed at ushering in the next generation of software, and companies big and small have adopted mobile-first approaches to selling, services, and consumerism.  The term digital transformation is a nebulous, ambiguously broad idea, but at the heart of it is the concept of leveraging software to replace antiquated ways of doing business.  The companies that have entrenched a more definitive place in this realm however are the SaaS based offerings that are engineered with slick interfaces, underpinned by powerful APIs to connect otherwise disparate systems, and which often utilize components that provide some manifestation of AI and/or ML.

Historically the idea of digital transformation has been encumbered by high costs, long and complex implementations, immeasurable ROI, and failed execution; this was especially true in the “early days” of on-prem initiatives.  The perception is not too dissimilar today, even as systems have moved to the cloud.  Software providers may claim that integrations into existing tech stacks require mere minutes by leveraging access from centralized authentication methods and other backend mechanics, but such installations often mark the beginning of the more complicated and time-intensive work that follows.  This includes the configuration of systems to mirror the processes of the company (i.e., mapping fields, building rules, and managing users), the enablement of hundreds of employees to utilize the new systems correctly, and the interpretation of the outputs. Before engaging in such an undertaking, one should ask whether the target organization is simply hopping on the digital transformation bandwagon with blind optimism, or whether there is a deep, and data-driven understanding of the enterprise’s operations and processes that reveal where investments and changes are truly needed.

Retain is uniquely positioned to be that tool for decision makers and leaders to get an unparalleled level of visibility into what is working and what is not (and hence, may actually need transformation).  First we built a platform that doesn’t need a heavy-lift to deploy, rather Retain is a lightweight browser-based extension.  Once installed across the user-base, Retain acts as a passive aggregator of workflow data; this data has a richness to elegantly solve the complex challenges that more intensive implementations have failed to do adequately. Retain provides a multitude of value drivers including, and not limited to: 

• Providing insight into time-spent with accounts (and ultimately Cost-to-Serve)
• Mapping steps of a workflow to identify the most streamlined process
• Computing ROI for asset development and prep
• Facilitating anomalous activity detection (internal processes)
• Serving as an input into capacity planning

These are achieved by systematically ingesting data in a manner grounded in trust, relating this data in meaningful ways to other systems-of-record, then outputting it into powerful visualizations.  Being equipped with these datapoints provides a level of precision to help guide which investments are needed across the organization.  As a change leader or other executive spearheading a digital transformation, it is critical to be able to answer the following questions with certainty as a precursor to kicking off a multi-million dollar change initiative. 

• Do we know whether we are spending adequate time serving our most valuable customers?
• Do we know which activities are most important in securing a renewal (or other outcome)?
• Do we know why some support analysts are more efficient at closing tickets than others?
• Do we know which systems are slowing down my SLAs?

If answering the above questions is a challenge, then let Retain unlock these and dozens of other process-centric queries. In mere moments you’ll begin to get insights to enrich and inform your view of your organization and de-risk your digital transformation projects. Contact us at Hello@retain.ai