CX Archives - MAST Consulting Group | Most trusted Cyber Security Partner https://mastcgroup.com/tag/cx/ An independent Advisory firm assisting customers in identifying, mitigating and managing their business and Cyber Risks. Thu, 01 Feb 2024 18:40:47 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://mastcgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/cropped-Untitled-design-27-32x32.webp CX Archives - MAST Consulting Group | Most trusted Cyber Security Partner https://mastcgroup.com/tag/cx/ 32 32 We need to talk about empowering retail’s real heroes: Frontline staff https://mastcgroup.com/we-need-to-talk-about-empowering-retails-real-heroes-frontline-staff/ Thu, 01 Feb 2024 18:40:42 +0000 http://localhost:8080/mastech/?p=1043 American author Seth Godin once gave an interesting take on retail: “People do not buy goods and services; they buy […]

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American author Seth Godin once gave an interesting take on retail: “People do not buy goods and services; they buy relations, stories, and magic.” In other words, the retail experience has a strong correlation with “how” the product is positioned, managed, and sold at the store. Under this premise, the frontline employees essentially become the custodians of retail experience. And a reputable study agrees — according to PwC(1), employees are responsible for 71% of the experience. 

However, has the digital transformation in retail been consistent with this notion? One in four frontline workers does not think so, as per Forbes’ survey(2). While digitalization has permeated across the retail value chain, optimizing several functions, its impact on retail employee engagement has been rather limited. With digitalization set to grow, retail brands that intend to drive superior experience will need to adopt technologies aimed at upskilling, enhancing productivity, and increasing the digital dexterity of frontline employees.

Empowering employees through full-stacked platforms

When MAST Consulting recognized the need for greater employee engagement, it approached it from a multi-dimensional viewpoint, exploring how every employee interaction can be optimized. The first priority was to give brands a single-window holistic view of all employee touchpoints, followed by creating connected digital experiences. The objective was to maximize their productivity, optimize their workflows, provide them with valuable insights, and in turn stoke their creativity. All these culminated in the development of our RIAA (Retail Intelligence and Analytics App), which is a full-stacked, app-based platform with many first-to-market value propositions. 

Connected employee engagement

Following the pandemic outbreak, employee experience is being emphasized from all quarters. Leaders are adopting empathy-driven strategies, wherein transparent communication has become key. In-house apps allow employees to stay connected, collaborate, and coordinate tasks efficiently, in real-time. Instant messaging also reduces unnecessary, manual interactions, thus enabling employees to keep their focus on retail’s critical aspects such as customer experience. 

Streamlined operations

Retail is a people business, which comes down to providing the right product to the right person at the right time. This task will require employees to stay organized, triage their tasks, and be prepared to address customer queries with accurate insights. Algorithms in connected platforms will analyze operational data and enable insight-led scheduling and task management, thus streamlining frontline functions. An employee will be alerted of the task that needs to be performed at a particular time, along with all supporting information. App-based platforms also gamify the scheduling function, engaging employees as a result. 

AI and automation

Data-driven insights through AI analytics will enable frontline staff to maximize their productivity and make the right decisions. Store-wide integration of data across touchpoints will alert, in real-time, any operational anomalies, so that rectification can be swift and the retail experience is smooth. For multi-outlet brands, data-driven insights are an opportunity to perform accurate retail audits, by comparing two or more store data. Leaders can also identify functions that can be automated, and further minimize repetitive tasks, enabling frontline employees to dedicate their time and focus to the retail experience. 

A culture of accountability and empowerment

The most enticing value proposition of intelligence and analytics apps is the culture of accountability, transparency, and empowerment they create. This culture is conducive to greater talent attraction and retention, which further add to a brand’s bottom line. In fact, a study(3) goes as far as to suggest that companies that engage employees have customer loyalty rates 233% higher than those that don’t. Such numbers cannot be ignored, to say the least. 

And leaders, for their part, can continuously enhance workforce productivity due to the open-API platform’s ability to course-correct and allow seamless integration with future technologies. Even if a worker leaves, the replacing one can easily operate at optimal capacity from the get-go, thanks to the app’s user-friendly interface. It is such possibilities, along with the impact they can have on the retail experience and organizational bottom lines, that make a compelling case for engaging frontline staff through intelligence and analytics apps like RIAA. Click here to learn more.  

  1. https://www.pwc.com/us/en/zz-test/assets/pwc-consumer-intelligence-series-customer-experience.pdf
  2. https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/industry-blog/retail/2021/10/19/empowering-retails-real-superheroes-frontline-workers/
  3. https://www.verint.com/Assets/resources/resource-types/white-papers/aberdeen-employee-engagement-paving-the-way-to-happy-customers.pdf

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Construction will drive Socio-Economic positives through Digitalization https://mastcgroup.com/construction-will-drive-socio-economic-positives-through-digitalization/ Thu, 01 Feb 2024 18:38:58 +0000 http://localhost:8080/mastech/?p=1040 The construction industry contributes 6% of the global GDP(1); and with accelerating urbanization, this share is set to rise further. For […]

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The construction industry contributes 6% of the global GDP(1); and with accelerating urbanization, this share is set to rise further. For such a critical economic sector, the industry wasn’t at the forefront of digital transformation, until recent years. However, this has now changed dramatically; and accelerated digitalization and tech adoption define the post-pandemic construction sector.

IoT enabled networks of sensors, advanced BIM, AI, ML, drones, and AR & VR; are the new tools unlocking value across the construction value chain. A recent study(2) has found that such Proptech innovations could result in global savings of $0.7-1.2 trillion yearly in the early design phase, and $0.3-0.5 trillion in life-cycle operations; over the next ten years. But even these sizable monetary advantages pale, against the positive socio-economic impact of the sector’s enthusiastic adoption of emerging tech.

Opportunities and challenges

One concern about digitalization in construction is that it is inconsistent. While automation is reducing workforce risks and increasing productivity; supply chains and inventory continue to lag even among bigger players, despite the example of progressive companies who are using smart logistics, RFID labelling, and advanced ERP solutions. Addressing this imbalance could have great socio-economic implications – from more affordable housing, to a boost to economic growth and employment. Some of the more important enhancements that digitalization is unlocking in the construction industry include:

  •  Digitalization is making next-gen BIM possible: Building Information Modelling (BIM) is allowing stakeholders across the construction value chain to identify weaknesses, as well as opportunities for optimization. A significant enabler of data-driven operations and management, emerging BIM is transforming everything from early design stages, to the post construction building life-cycle.
  • Implementing sustainable and cutting edge construction tech: The use of drones, 3D printing, and automation, are unlocking better productivity and time bound construction – in an industry notorious for delays in projects. Some of the most significant advances are being made early in the construction process, with site-mapping, design, and planning being streamlined by emerging technologies. This is not to say that other functions do not have tech-enabled advantages to leverage. 3D printing and pre-fab construction are ushering in an era of carbon-neutral construction – something that seemed virtually impossible, not long ago.
  • Improving safety of onsite workers: Construction accidents are much more commonplace than in other industries, and this is true of the MENA region as well. The rise of wearable technologies has the potential to make a huge difference – through advanced alarm systems, communication headsets, proximity sensors, and heart rate monitors. Digitalization is also allowing safety protocols, to be standardized, implemented, and monitored, more effectively.

What MAST brings to construction

Data centers, analytics, and digital platforms are now a critical aspect of the construction sector. MAST Consulting’s Customer Intelligence and Analytics App (CIAA) uses data mining and collation, to unlock actionable insights for all stakeholders. Archiving the huge amount of historical data generated by construction – using license-based or open-protocol, and features like SNAPLOCK or WORM, and data compaction – is enhancing data accessibility, integrity, and security, with both cloud based and on-premises solutions. SD-WAN technology is transforming connectivity, enabling the effective optimization of remote sites from a centralized location. Blockchain-based authentication is set to introduce even greater decentralization, collaboration, and security, in the immediate future.

Empowered by digitalization, the MENA construction industry will have growth rate of 4.1%(4), by 2022. In essence, tech adoption in construction will emerge as one of the central drivers of economic diversification in the region, and redefine socio-economic outcomes, such as quality of life, affordable housing, employment, and investment returns.

Reference

1.Weforum      

2. BCG

3. Global data

About MAST Consulting and MAST Consulting Group

A profitable home-grown UAE start-up, with a global footprint, MAST Consulting is a technology advisory and consulting firm headquartered in the UAE, with unique expertise in driving the end-to-end digital transformation of businesses, across sectors. With over 100 clients in the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent, and Africa, and over 80 years of cumulative global experience, MAST Consulting brings best practices from the consulting and the technology world under one umbrella. The company’s client portfolio includes an impressive list of market leaders, namely Panasonic, Hitachi, DIFC, Al Futtaim, Dubai Holding and Danube, among others.

Original Post : Construction will drive Socio-Economic positives through Digitalization (linkedin.com)

Published on November 10, 2021

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Employee empowerment is the gateway to great retail CX https://mastcgroup.com/employee-empowerment-is-the-gateway-to-great-retail-cx/ Thu, 01 Feb 2024 18:37:20 +0000 http://localhost:8080/mastech/?p=1037 According to Bob Thompson, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of CustomerThink.com, less than a third of all CX initiatives end up being successful(1) […]

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According to Bob Thompson, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of CustomerThink.com, less than a third of all CX initiatives end up being successful(1) in terms of tangible benefits. Yet, the CXOs behind these less than successful initiatives seldom give up, because irrespective of the success or the lack of it, they continue to see CX as crucial to business outcomes. This is particularly true in the retail industry, whose CX rulebook is the most dynamic.

The most effective retailers in the contemporary marketplace continually rethink CX. Any potential initiative must work for both online and in-store retail experiences, as part of a larger omnichannel strategy — or in the words of Jason White(2), Retail Practice Lead at Pexip UK and Ireland, “Ensuring that your online and in-store offerings work in harmony has never been so important.”

Employee Empowerment is critical to effective CX

So, if a sizable number of CX strategies are ineffective, what constitutes a successful omnichannel retail strategy? There is no wrong answer to this question, as every strategy works in a certain scenario, for a specific timeframe, and with a particular customer base. Lately, for instance, user behavior and expectations have evolved considerably, requiring brands to invest more resources into the retail experience. However, for any such strategy to work, brands need to have a robust foundation. And employee empowerment is a critical pillar of this foundation.

 Educator and Author Stephen Covey, in his book ‘The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’(3), explains it best: “An empowered organization,” writes Covey, “is one in which individuals have the knowledge, skill, desire, and opportunity to personally succeed in a way that leads to collective organizational success”. From a purely retail standpoint, this translates to the empowerment of frontline staff, customer representatives, marketers, and salespeople, through the right tools, in-house strategies, and skills.

CX falters without empowered employees

Imagine you formulate a terrific CX strategy to drive seamless experiences, but your employees are not well-informed about it; imagine you launch your most ambitious, laborious, and expensive CX initiative to date, but employees entrusted with implementation have no clear direction — you are set up for failure from the get-go.

 At MAST Consulting we’ve observed that such scenarios are not uncommon in retail. We often encounter retailers who disproportionately focus on external systems, overlooking the internal systems and processes associated with employees. In fact, retailers are often receptive to the adoption of new technologies, experimentation, and out-of-the-box strategies; only to downplay employee empowerment. When a small fraction of the total CX investment can enable employees’ upskilling and enhance their productivity, we believe it calls for retailers to rethink their priorities. Employee empowerment through full-stack solutions suite

MAST Consulting has formulated its Retail Employee empower solution (RIAA) to improve retail merchandising and marketing, while providing real-time value. RetailE includes employee empowerment-centric features such as:

  •  Scheduling and task management: Outdated in-house operations involving whiteboards and spreadsheets leave room for discrepancies, in scheduling and task management. Optimization not only depends on simplifying processes but also adopting cloud-based scheduling, which can help retail managers effectively designate tasks, define specific roles, and enhance accountability, in retail spaces.
  • Product placement management: Retailers must ask themselves: Why do shoppers come to the store if they can shop the same products online? It is to see, touch, and feel the products. Retailers must optimize the product placement to tap into this touch-and-feel factor. Insight-led product displays and layout strategies can exert a powerful influence on shopping decisions. Spatial analysis of shelving, the use of schematics and planograms, and collation of observational activity and sales data for analytics, contribute to effective insights.
  • Advanced reporting tool: Ready access to a suite of custom reports and graphs, relating to your business, can support retail decision making; while ensuring that the reportage is course-corrected and made more insightful for all future intents and purposes.
  • Market intel: The combination of AI and analytics can help employees turn massive amounts of operational data into actionable insights that can be utilized to create hyper-convenient retail experiences. Insights are the biggest empowering factor that employees lack, in contemporary retail operations.

MAST Consulting’s RIAA gives employees a degree of autonomy over creative and non-executive decisions, which can foster their decision-making abilities and productivity. Needless to add, empowered and productive employees have been linked to organizational bottom-lines and brand differentiation by many studies. Notably, when Harvard Business Review(4) examined the results of 105 studies, which included data from more than 30,000 employees from 30 countries; to establish a strong correlation between employee empowerment and multiple business positives. At MAST Consulting, we believe this impact is even more pronounced in the retail industry.

Original Post : Employee empowerment is the gateway to great retail CX (linkedin.com)

Published on October 24, 2021

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Foolproof or flawed: Where does your security posture stand? https://mastcgroup.com/foolproof-or-flawed-where-does-your-security-posture-stand/ Thu, 01 Feb 2024 18:34:29 +0000 http://localhost:8080/mastech/?p=1032 In 2015, addressing the Women in the World conference, Amy Pascal, former Head of Sony Pictures, had this to say: […]

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In 2015, addressing the Women in the World conference, Amy Pascal, former Head of Sony Pictures, had this to say: “There was this horrible moment when I realized there was absolutely nothing I could do”. The moment in question was when Sony came under a cyber-attack(1) that put many people in the show business in an uncomfortable position. Fast forward to 2021 and the threat of a cyber-attack looms large, across virtually every sector that is exposed to digitalization.

Unlike in 2015, cybersecurity is no longer a human-scale problem — because enterprises now have a host of internet-facing applications, devices, assets, etc., which present innumerable ways that they can be breached. This is to say, the risks have outpaced ways in which the infosec teams can secure the enterprise through hands-on involvement. But thanks to technology, a sizable chunk of responsibility can not only be automated, but can also be made foolproof.

Integration for better visualization

As MAST Consulting Group set to formulate its Integrated Managed Security Platform (IMSP), we laid additional emphasis on transparency. This approach stemmed from our belief that a security posture is only as good as the level of visibility into asset inventory and attack surface; we cannot protect what we cannot account for. By factoring in data from all internet-facing components in the attack surface analysis and leveraging cutting-edge analytics, CISOs can gain continuous visibility into security issues. All cyber risks can thus be consolidated into a single reportable model.

Thereafter, the security posture carries scope for seamless integration, with new solutions and upgrades, such as SOAR, SIEM, UEBA, etc. Insight-led decisions can help CISOs predict attacks and detect vectors before they can go beyond the unpatched software vulnerabilities (CVEs). But most importantly, enhanced visualization enables CISOs to effectively analyze the scope for automation and edge towards a zero-assumption operating model.

Automated security posture: The unmaking of human-centric errors

To err is human. But sadly, the vectors can make you pay a hefty price for the slightest laxity. While most vectors target the organization’s loose ends in security posture, some target humans’ innate tendency to commit errors and be inconsistent. This is where automation can add a new dimension to CISOs’ efforts, through error-free asset discovery, 24/7 monitoring and anomaly alerting, and inventory management, among other laborious, repetitive functions that are time-consuming. MAST IMSP uses specialized AI and gamification strategies to automate several critical CISO functions. We enable a broad set of use cases that can automate the security postures in organizations of any size and niche.

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, as digitalization increased with remote working, the need to scale automation capabilities in security postures has garnered more consensus. In a comprehensive survey(2) of senior IT and IT security professionals, a resounding 55% of respondents cited the lack of automation as the #1 challenge in security operations and management, reflecting their inability to manually analyze and respond to the deluge of information generated by today’s increasingly complex security infrastructures. Disparate toolsets, obsolete technologies, and skill gaps are among the primary hindrances to optimally automated security processes.

MAST IMSP: Seamless integration, optimal automation, quantifiable value

At MAST Consulting Group, we have a risk-scoring approach to conduct an empirical assessment of security threats linked to all internet-facing assets. We leverage tested-and-proven methodologies like NIST, CISS, and Microsoft DREAD, to assess risks and act on them. Such cyber risk quantification and risk-based vulnerability management practices have enabled the creation of MAST IMSP, which has helped clients achieve real-time visibility of their asset inventories and attack surfaces, and mitigate vulnerabilities proactively.

Such resilient security postures not only reduce cyber risks but also increase the uptime of underlying infrastructure. And this can have far-reaching implications for business outcomes. MAST IMSP has had a quantifiable impact on business process optimizations, uptime of mission-critical applications, compliance to social and corporate governance targets, and accomplishment of long-term organizational vision.

That said, one outcome that has particularly encouraged us to continue innovating is the satisfaction of employees operating with foolproof security postures. This outcome is of great consequence considering a majority of CISOs are unhappy, to say the least; according to a survey(3), 91% of CISOs suffer from moderate or high stress. In the same survey, more alarming is the finding that the stress has affected the ability of 27.5% of CISOs to do their jobs. There are plenty of studies linking low employee productivity with anything from poor customer experiences, to the pressure of bottom lines.

There are instances wherein cyber-attacks have led to disastrous outcomes, undoing years of industry reputation. This is especially true in light of the increasing shift to customer-centricity. Data privacy and security have been among the most talked-about subjects in recent years, with brand reputation inextricably tied to them. And with digitalization expected to keep the momentum and reinforce the need for better cybersecurity, there has never been a better time to foolproof your security posture.

  1. https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-31434419
  2. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210224005176/en/78-Lack-Confidence-in-Their-Company%E2%80%99s-Cybersecurity-Posture-Prompting-91-to-Increase-2021-Budgets
  3. https://media.nominet.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/12130924/Nominet-Cyber_CISO-report_FINAL-130219.pdf


Published on October 31, 2021

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The Digitalization of Healthcare: Enhancing a critical service with tech-led innovation https://mastcgroup.com/the-digitalization-of-healthcare-enhancing-a-critical-service-with-tech-led-innovation/ Thu, 01 Feb 2024 18:31:46 +0000 http://localhost:8080/mastech/?p=1029 The quality of healthcare available to patients is one of the most fundamental measures of how developed a society is, […]

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The quality of healthcare available to patients is one of the most fundamental measures of how developed a society is, and with good reason. It’s an area of human activity that is constantly innovating and evolving to find new cures, develop new therapies, and invent new procedures, so patients get the highest standards of service and attention. However, this eagerness to adopt breakthrough technologies has not always been apparent in the industry’s approach to digital transformation. As recently as 2018, a study found that the healthcare firms were about a decade behind other industries, in the adoption of customer engagement technologies.

Fortunately, the regional industry, in the Middle East, has realized that digitalization is an important enabler, to putting the ‘care’ back in healthcare. The pressures experienced by healthcare providers, during the COVID-19 pandemic, proved to be a catalyst for a sharp increase in digitalization. According to a recent report the Middle East and Africa e-health market is valued at $989 million in 2021 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 12.8%, until 2026 a year. The benefits will reflect better access to healthcare, ease of delivery, data-driven analysis, greater standardization and integration, and much more.

Digitalization empowers both patients and healthcare providers

Healthcare is an industry that inherently relies on accuracy and speed, for services to be seen as being of high quality. This could relate to diagnosis, accessibility of records, administrative processing, or personalization of the patient’s experience. Digitalization plays a very crucial role in optimizing these and other factors, for the benefit of both patients and healthcare providers.

For instance, the ability to instantly access a patient’s history can help doctors accurately diagnose their issue, and the medical facility to organize the resources it needs, to service them. AI-enabled detection and analysis is taking such capabilities to the next level, reducing potential errors and ensuring that early signs of a disease are not missed. From the patient’s perspective, digitalization makes their entire experience far more seamless, with appropriate tools filtering through and organizing every detail about the data their interactions with healthcare services have generated in the past, as well as the information that is most relevant currently – from health-related data, to payments, or tertiary services for in-patients.

Some of the primary enhancements that digitalization enables in healthcare include:

  • The impact of AI on healthcare: From the next generation of imaging tools, and algorithm-aided diagnosis; to mobility-based access to records and data; the combination of AI analytics and cloud-enabled storage will have multi-faceted effects on healthcare, moving forward.
  • Seamless integration, transparency, and communication: As explored earlier, the accuracy, speed of access to data, total transparency, and the ability to share information between stakeholders – including patients – is a powerful enhancement, which digitalization enables in healthcare.
  • Standardization of healthcare delivery: One of the most apparent effects of digital transformation, across industries, is the ability to deliver consistently high quality outcomes. This is especially crucial in healthcare, which is an area that is urgent need of democratization – in terms of the best possible quality in services being made available at all price points.
  • Remote healthcare: The shortage of skilled medical workers – including doctors, radiologists, and other imaging professionals – is a major bottleneck for the healthcare sector. It limits the services available to patients in underserved areas, as well as the number of patients each healthcare facility can service. Remote, AI, and ML enabled healthcare is an emerging capability, which is set to revolutionize the way healthcare is delivered.
  • Enhanced patient experiences: As with every customer-facing industry, Customer Experience (CX) is now a critical measure of success in healthcare as well. With patients sometimes experiencing a high level of stress, providing them with up to the minute and transparent information, and real-time access to 24/7customer service, is vital to their peace of mind. Digitalization enhances the patient’s ability to access information, and have their service requests responded to seamlessly, to a game-changing extent.

Middle East Healthcare is being transformed by digitalization

Digitalization of healthcare in the Middle East is currently occurring at an accelerated pace. The KSA and the UAE are leading the region in digital transformation, across sectors. And this is reflected in the digital transformation of healthcare in the two nations as well. The impact of AI platforms on healthcare workflows is expected to 10% to 15% productivity gains, in just the next two or three years(3). Wearables, and App-based healthcare, are growth areas that are expected to make major inroads into the industry.

 In this context, industry players such as the MAST Consulting Group have an important role to play, especially in the integration of healthcare services, and making them accessible from flexible App-based platforms. MAST consulting’s MAS B2B Apps and solutions division is already delivering solutions for workflow management, inventory, addressing regulatory requirements, connectivity tools, and other core business functions, across the healthcare value chain. MAST apps are also compatible with the stringent data collection and management guidelines, healthcare is mandated to conform to – while maintaining a single profile for patients across the UAE, with their full health history and details. MAST Consulting’s solutions are able to digitize, centralize, and secure patient data, in full compliance with Health Authority standards, across the region.

 Future-ready Healthcare is the optimal option for all stakeholders

The appetite for innovation, in the Middle East, currently sets the region apart in digitalization; with positive cascading effects apparent in sustainability, people-centric development, resource management, governance, and numerous other aspects of social organization. Areas such as education and healthcare cannot be looked at as ‘services’ alone – because of their massive impact on the standard of living, which a nation or society experiences. In the case of healthcare, this can be a literally lifesaving impact.

 As an industry that addresses a basic human need, healthcare needs to – simultaneously – act in the best interest of its customers at all times, while generating the maximum possible profit for the service provider. Recent developments indicate that digitalization is the enabler, which will allow healthcare to not only reconcile these two priorities; but also optimize them at the same time.

About MAST Consulting Group

The USP of MAST Consulting lies in its ability to help businesses from Concept to Realization – all the way from providing a roadmap to businesses for their digital transformation journey to assisting those that require further support by recommending third party vendors and solutions, as well as helping with the implementation of those solutions. The Services division supports the Consulting practice with managed services, resource augmentation services, strategy, marketing, and advanced analytics, across all major industry verticals.

 MAST Consulting is a part of the MAST Consulting Group, a UAE-based holding company comprising MAST Consulting, MAS Tech General Trading LLC, and MAST Advisory Services, together offering a gamut of services, from consulting to system integration as well as feasibility advisory.

Original post:  The Digitalization of Healthcare: Enhancing a critical service with tech-led innovation (linkedin.com)

Published on September 6, 2021

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Leading the right organizational CX transformation https://mastcgroup.com/leading-the-right-organizational-cx-transformation/ Thu, 01 Feb 2024 18:21:43 +0000 http://localhost:8080/mastech/?p=1026 “How do you define customer experience (CX)?” This question has elicited different answers over the course of the past decade. […]

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“How do you define customer experience (CX)?” This question has elicited different answers over the course of the past decade. However, lately, following the COVID-19 outbreak and associated momentum in digitalization, the answer is more dynamic than ever. Driven by a drastic change in consumer behaviors and expectations, CX now corresponds to many rapidly-evolving factors like disruptions, policies, data regulations, and demographics.

At MAST Consulting, we perceive this to be a “great reset” not just in terms of the pandemic but in terms of CX too. Brands are currently running the risk of creating discord between customer experiences and expectations. So, CX naturally warrants more attention. And what happens if brands afford this focus? If history is any indication, during the great recession in 2008, companies that prioritized CX realized three times the returns(1) compared to the companies that did not. Here are our recommendations for brands hoping to rewrite their CX rulebooks.

Bridge the silos; collaborate across departments
While organizations might have strategic differences, one aspect that finds overwhelming consensus is the need to enhance intra- and inter-departmental collaboration and break down silos if any. These efforts are largely top-down, requiring active participation from leaders and the c-suite. The first order of business is creating an organizational CX vision that truly encapsulates how the brand wants to be perceived by its customers. For example, Toyota could work towards delivering superior driving experience, while Microsoft could be more inclined towards developing UI. Regardless of the nuances, organizations cannot downplay collaboration. At MAST, our client CXOs are partnering with in-house data and marketing teams to monitor changing customer behaviors and customize their campaigns accordingly.

Quantify customer perceptions, measure progress of CX initiatives

The current dynamism in the CX space calls for agility, consistency, and hyper-personalization. Such multiple objectives can be accomplished if brands can quantify how customers are interacting with them. This, in turn, necessitates brands to shift their disproportionate focus from conversion-related KPIs like average order value (AOV) and revenue per visitor (RPV) to more CX-centric KPIs like Net Customer Value Growth (NCVG), which is the difference between the number of new customers added in a given period minus the number of customers lost during the same period. Even referrals from existing customers imply the success, or the lack thereof, of CX strategies. These parameters can be used to measure progress, subsequently.

CX and EX are two sides of the same coin

In recent years, and especially following the pandemic outbreak, employee experience (EX) has generated substantial research. Organizations are increasingly focusing on employee wellness and engagement, driven by reliable studies linking them to many positive outcomes. By one estimate(2), companies that actively engage employees have customer loyalty rates 233% higher than those that don’t. It is therefore unsurprising that HR technologies have witnessed substantial uptake lately, especially after remote working became a norm, requiring HR professionals to increase their dependence on digital collaboration tools and in-house communication apps for better engagement.

Data is crucial; data security, more so

Big Data is the centerpiece of every tech-driven CX strategy. But cookie-cutter strategies in the use of data and analytics can do more harm than good. Present-day customers are well aware of the vulnerability of their data. Data transparency and accountability are therefore pivotal for successful CX planning and implementation. In a survey(3), 63% of customers said they are willing to share more personal data with a company that offers a great experience. Such findings led the MAST Consulting Group to build a dedicated Cyber Security Lab — because, to quote Brand Strategist Bernard Kelvin Clive, “In a digitally connected world, a byte of data can boost or bite your brand.”

All the aforementioned factors will, in themselves, be crucial to post-pandemic CX transformation. But all the factors are interdependent, and if achieved as part of a holistic CX strategy, they can lead to a collective, positive impact. If, however, one aspect is compromised — say, data security — it could undo all the CX success that the brand has achieved thus far. This is the approach that we took in the development of the MAST Consumer Happiness App, a comprehensive solutions suite where customers can get a host of services like e-warranty, product support, maintenance, etc., while brands get consumer intelligence to create impactful CX strategies.

All in all, customer-centricity will continue to remain the primary prerequisite for a successful CX. But what moves the customers and resonates with them will be dynamic. Brands that keep pace with the dynamism will always find opportunities for product/service differentiation, which can help them gain a competitive edge in crowded markets. With digitalization proceeding at a breakneck pace, and with customer-centricity being a corollary of digitalization, superior CX will be the holy grail for every brand going forward, regardless of business models and touchpoints.

 About MAST Consulting and MAST Consulting Group

MAST Consulting is a technology advisory and consulting firm headquartered in the UAE, with unique expertise in driving the end-to-end digital transformation of businesses, across sectors.

MAST Consulting services are crafted to offer Consulting and Advisory Services on Critical Infrastructure and Risk associated functions of the organization, with their service coverage area starting right from IT Infrastructure all the way to Data Center, Business Application and a secure computing environment. The company offers end-to-end solutions to enterprises focused on Digital Transformation , Customer Experience, Enterprise Risk management (People, Process & Technology), Data Center Infrastructure (distributed and hybrid), Cloud adoption, Sustainability governance and more.

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