CIOs, Here Are 3 Innovative Information Tools You Need to Watch

Knowledge is at the core of every organization’s success. From operations to marketing to HR, the way people access and share information in your company plays a large part in whether you’re leading or trailing the competition.

Yet, as most business leaders can attest, facilitating an efficient flow of knowledge through different departments and teams is easier said than done. The traditional ways of sharing information in a company—paper printouts, binders, PDFs—are difficult to monitor, often impossible to search through, and a hassle to update. The solution? Leaving the past behind and investing in emerging technologies to provide employees with the right knowledge, right when they need it.

As the overseer of any company’s technology suite, the task of finding these tools to enable knowledge at the point of need falls on you, the CIO—simultaneously making you the overseer of workplace knowledge, too. By deploying the best information tools and strategies for your company, you can facilitate a higher level of customer engagement, create a dynamic work environment, and exceed business goals.

With that in mind, we dug into Deloitte’s Tech Trends 2016 report and found three innovative tools and strategies every CIO should watch:

Augmented reality and virtual reality

Augmented and virtual reality technologies place users in a simulated, interactive world. VR fully immerses users by employing their posture, gaze, or gestures, whereas AR blends digital components with the physical world by overlaying contextual information to enhance what users see.

Today’s businesses are using these technologies in a variety of ways: taking video conferencing to the next level by simulating one-on-one interactions and transporting workers to training environments where they can safely practice dangerous scenarios without risk. On the customer service end, AR and VR solutions can be used to provide workers in the field or on the phone with task-specific information, such as a virtual diagram that overlays a mechanic’s field of vision.

Want to make AR and VR part of your company’s digital strategy? Start with a single-purpose case to measure the impact on communication, collaboration, or process efficiency. If it’s effective, scale up from there.

Analytics

Analytics is all about informing fact-based decisions with insights collected from data. Most organizations have access to a wealth of raw data; it’s simply a matter of putting this data in the hands of the right people.

For example, health insurer Anthem is exploring new ways of using predictive analytics to better understand their members by piloting a program that guides consumers through call centers. Data from these exchanges is used to build predictive models around member dissatisfaction. Using these models, Anthem can proactively reach out to dissatisfied members and improve their call center process to provide the right information faster to customers.

Analytics has been identified as a top investment priority and as the IT investment that will deliver the greatest business impact. To utilize this powerful tool to improve the flow of information, you need a team that can aggregate, explore, and analyze your data, as well as a platform that provides insight into how information is shared and used by your key stakeholders.

Right-speed IT

Right-speed IT is the new buzzword for “finding the appropriate balance between agility and stability in IT.” While this is more of a strategy than a tool, it can greatly enhance the speed at which you invest in new tools and innovate internally.

At the core of this strategy is creating a system that enables IT to operate at different speeds based on the need of the current initiative—instead of sacrificing agility for stability, you can strike a balance catered to each department or project. For example, technology solutions provider CDW developed a process for each department in which the IT team is guided by a solution framework that considers architecture, security, controls, deployment, and associated metrics, not just the speed of the delivery model.

How are organizations creating these frameworks? One way is via collaboration tools, which allow members from different departments to work side-by-side with IT. This type of teamwork can lead to productive discussions, bring together new perspectives, and encourage groups to approach problems from different points of view.

There is a wealth of constantly evolving information tools—the key is to find and leverage those that will work best for your organization. Tapping into new AR and VR technologies to provide immersive learning experiences, utilizing data to inform future decisions, and creating a need-specific IT framework for your company are just a few ways to make sure everyone—from executives to employees to customers—can access and share the information and ideas they need to succeed.

Interested in learning how Inkling is changing the way businesses share knowledge? Request a demo here.