Perhaps one of Nexthink’s most endearing qualities is that it has never been a “drink the kool-aid” type of company. Yes, we are proud to be the leading experience management platform in IT, but that honor is most championed from outside, not within.
From its beginnings, Nexthink has been used by enterprise IT to narrow the gap between what employees expect at work and what they receive. Our solutions platform has enabled IT professionals to become truly proactive and agile in the way they solve end user computing problems and manage digital transformation projects.
I met with Nexthink’s CEO & Co-founder, Pedro Bados and several of our executives to learn how Nexthink’s patented technology has been helping hundreds of IT departments crush their most frustrating obstacles, and to understand what businesses today can do to improve their Digital Employee Experience (DEX).
I think we have something special here
Eighteen years ago, Nexthink was just an idea, unlocked from a breakthrough in Bados’ research in advanced artificial intelligence at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland. One of the outside reviewers of Pedro’s project was an IT director at a famous watch company, who said the research was so innovative that if it could be turned into a product, he would buy it.
Taking his cue, Pedro acquired two patents and Nexthink was born. It didn’t take long to see this idea deliver some serious business results.
“There’s always been an inherent contradiction in IT—employees experience their digital work environments far differently than how IT perceives them. CIOs are understandably hyper-focused on delivering projects on time and on budget, but that doesn’t have to come at the expense of poor computing experiences”, notes Bados.
“I remember one of our first clients, a large telecom enterprise, spent a month trying to figure out why their subnet kept crashing, why only a 1/3 of their workers could connect to their network, and what apps employees were using when the disruptions hit—they couldn’t answer any of these questions”, recalls Chief Strategy Officer, Yassine Zaied. At first, Zaied was hesitant Nexthink could help. “The customer had some of the biggest players in tech support looking into the issue, so I initially panicked and wondered if we could deliver”. Yet Zaied’s hesitation quickly vanished—just 24 hours after deploying Nexthink on their customer’s devices, IT discovered that a single version of their antivirus software kept connecting to the wrong server and causing the disruption. “I was completely blown away and thought this is something really, really special we have here” recalls Zaied.
“We find that IT too often gets stuck looking at problems in isolation, they focus on their networks, machines, and apps, but in silos. Instead, we want to help IT see their infrastructure through the eyes of their employees, and solve multifaceted issues which span from their devices to their data centers and back again” adds Bados.
Making the right moves based on real-time experience data
Nexthink is often used by IT departments when they are mid-crisis—a deployment goes awry, or employees bombard the helpdesk with tickets—and our platform is quickly put to the test.
Samuele Gantner, Nexthink’s Chief Product Officer recalls how one customer, a North American insurance company, made a software update overnight that almost turned disastrous. The update was made on the company’s VoIP call center, an application which 2,500 insurance agents actively used. Yet this change didn’t carry over on all employee applications and by next morning the company’s agents flooded the helpdesk, panicked by the disruption.
“Without us, their IT department was faced with two terrible choices: continue with the software update (which was clearly not working) or roll it back (which would most likely cause more downtime and potentially cost the company millions). From Nexthink’s dashboards, IT was able to drill-down and discover that only 1 in 10 agents were experiencing problems with their VoIP. Acting on this insight, IT then used Nexthink’s remote actions to carry over the software update for those users that missed out the first time.”
Based on research by Vanson Bourne, we know that IT disruptions can cost a company of 10k employees up to $25 million per year, but figures like these only represent the tip of the iceberg. Jon Cairns, VP of Technical Services, recounts that many enterprise IT departments are dealing with high stakes projects, the ramifications of which can extend well beyond salary costs. “Tech disruptions in a hospital can mean life or death for patients, or a defense agency, the ability to bring criminals to justice—our experience platform is a game-changer for so many enterprise organizations, something that protects their bottom line and safeguards against externality costs.”
Now more than ever
If anything, 2020 has proven that IT’s role is more relevant now than ever before and that employees depend on the same digital experience at home as they once had in the office. “To be honest, nothing has really changed, the situation has just accelerated a need that we’ve all known. Employees are now saying: I deserve a better digital experience!” says Zaied.
But flexible work has certainly placed many IT departments in an uncomfortable situation. Digital workers that once sat onsite could be managed as a single entity, but now they require distinct security and operational support working from home. “One CIO told me that before COVID hit he used to have 6 offices to manage, but now he’s looking after 30,000!” says Bados.
Nexthink’s customers have made the transition to remote work look flawless thanks to our platform’s readiness modules, popular integrations, and on-screen messaging features which are highly effective at collecting employee feedback and sharing important communications.
Gantner adds, “Our customers are able to quickly diagnose problems thanks to our comprehensive Digital Experience score system and dashboarding, and our latest enhancement, Nexthink Experience, helps IT managers prioritize issues and act on them without having to do the heavy lifting”.
Using built-in guided playbooks, IT has access to hundreds of steps that allow them to resolve problems conclusively and without any operational delays. To learn about the different ways Nexthink is solving common IT problems in the modern digital workplace, contact a representative today.
Related posts:
- The DEX Show | Podcast #1 – Holistic Technology Experience Management w/ Andrew Hewitt
- Forging Ahead, Nexthink’s Fight for Smarter IT & Better Digital Work Experiences
- 9 Powerful Quotes That Perfectly Capture The Future of Digital Work
- 5 Examples of Powerful Stories in Digital Experience Management
