THE DIGITAL WORKPLACE IN THE COGNITIVE ERA

THE DIGITAL WORKPLACE IN THE COGNITIVE ERA

POSITIONING FOR THE FUTURE: INTELLIGENT IT FOR THE ANYTIME, ANYWHERE WORKFORCE

IN ASSOCIATION WITH:

CONTENTS

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 The Digital Workplace: Empowering Users and Enabling the Agile Enterprise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 The Anytime, Anywhere Workplace in the Cognitive Era. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Case Studies in the Cognitive Enterprise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 How Cognitive Capabilities Will Enable the Digital Workplace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Watson at the Support Desk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Enabling the Cognitive Workplace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 The Workplace of the Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 The Cognitive Transformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

" There is a shift from 'one size fits all' to a more personalized experience in IT support and service. At the same time...the infrastructure-as-aservice model has revolutionized the way IT resources can be deployed.

--Richard Esposito, General Manager, IBM GTS Mobility Services

INTRODUCTION

There is a tectonic shift in the way we work. We expect the same kind of intuitive, tactile experience with our workplace technology that we now take for granted with our smartphones, tablets and gaming systems. We expect our devices to talk to each other and update automatically. Virtual meetings should be as easy to set up as a video chat, and whatever we need to do our jobs should be as easy to tailor as a streaming music or video application.

"In the workplace, there is a shift from `one size fits all' to a more personalized experience in IT support and service," says Richard Esposito, general manager of IBM's GTS Mobility Services. "Users want to choose their own devices, and they expect the kind of experience they have with consumer devices. At the same time, the idea of renting versus buying has transformed the way most organizations pay for new IT infrastructure. The infrastructure-as-a-service model has revolutionized the way IT resources can be deployed for many of our clients."

Perhaps the most dramatic change to the digital workplace comes from the potential for cognitive support to combine intelligence and sentiment for a true sense-and-respond experience. Cognitive systems will change the workplace in ways we haven't yet imagined.

There is no question that technology gives us more choices and better tools. Yet what most of us want is less complexity and, if we are paying for it, lower costs. Planning for the workplace of the future means striking the right balance between finding the right tools for each user today and accessing an infrastructure that can expand with the intelligence and the power of the technology of the future.

We will explore some of these shifts in the workplace through a series of publications beginning with "The Digital Workplace in the Cognitive Era."

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The digital workplace merges work and life--a virtual space with applications, services and information on demand. For users, this means access to the technology they need, when they need it, on whichever device they prefer to use. Employees expect their enterprise systems to be as engaging, exciting and intuitive as consumer devices. Technology research company Gartner calls this a shift from technology-literate people to people-literate technology. At the same time, companies now have more exquisitely detailed data about how their products and services are used than they ever had before, thanks to a vast network of sensors and advanced analytic tools. Cognitive systems can parse all that data and learn what employees need to do their job better--even if they don't yet know it themselves. Cognitive systems will deliver the ability to visualize vast amounts of data, curated and analyzed, for a unique task and a unique user. The workplace of the future will embrace emerging new cognitive and analytic capabilities. These tools can provide insights into how employees engage most e ectively, what the best technologies are for each task and each individual, and help provide a seamless work environment--an environment that will help to attract and retain the best talent. Success in the growing mobile, digital world requires a deliberate business and IT strategy that allows you to provide cognitive capabilities that set your digital experience apart every time in the context of the moment. When businesses design around this revolution, instead of simply accommodating it, whole industries can shift.

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" Think of it as the composable workspace. You pick up your device and compose your workplace around your role in the organization and what you need to accomplish. --Pat Bolton, IBM Distinguished Engineer and Chief Technology O cer for Workplace and Mobility Services

1 Attention to Eight Building Blocks Ensures Successful Digital Workplace Initiatives, Carol Rozwell and Achint Aggarwal, June 15, 2016, G00274167 Gartner

THE DIGITAL WORKPLACE:

EMPOWERING USERS AND ENABLING THE AGILE ENTERPRISE

The digital workplace is not a place at all. As a grand vision, it is technology that merges work and life--a virtual space with applications, services and information on demand. Gartner defines the digital workplace as a way to create a corporate culture of autonomy, accessibility, accountability and empowerment.1 For individuals, this means access to the technology that they need, when they need it, on whichever device they prefer to use. "Think of it as the composable workspace," says Pat Bolton, IBM Distinguished Engineer and chief technology o cer for Workplace and Mobility Services. "You pick up your device and compose your workplace around your role in the organization and what you need to accomplish."

Most of us are already relying on an arsenal of digital devices to work in a virtual environment, and we know there is great potential for improvement. Creating and supporting the digital workplace is a challenge and an opportunity for every organization. It is an opportunity to leverage technology to enhance the employee experience, facilitate connections and foster data-driven decision making throughout the organization. It is also an opportunity for organizations to leverage the talent of their workforce with cognitive technologies.

The challenges include curating and dynamically updating all of the knowledge that will enable the workplace of the future and then identifying which data is most useful to each user. Cognitive capabilities can help organizations with the enormous task of managing the corpus of knowledge that represents a business and provide a mechanism for personalizing data that will become more expansive, more refined and more responsive as it learns.

Employees already expect their enterprise systems to be as intuitive and responsive as consumer devices. At the same time, companies now have more exquisitely detailed data about how their products and services are used than they have ever had before, thanks to a vast network of sensors and advanced analytic capabilities. Cognitive systems can parse all that data, learn what employees need to do their job better--even if they don't yet know it themselves. They can do it in nanoseconds, and they can help automate routine tasks.

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WELCOME TO THE COGNITIVE ERA

Cognitive systems can ingest vast quantities of di erent kinds of data, learn from their interactions with data and people, reason with purpose and interact with humans naturally. They represent a leap from the deterministic information systems that preceded them, explains John E. Kelly III, senior vice president, IBM Research and Solutions Portfolio. Cognitive systems are probabilistic. They can take all the data we ask them to look at--structured and unstructured--and generate hypotheses, reasoned arguments and recommendations, along with a measure of the probability or confidence level of any recommendation generated, says Kelly.

Cognitive systems have the potential to augment our ability to understand--and act upon--complex systems, such as the human genome, enterprise systems or optimal work habits. Many organizations are struggling to draw meaningful conclusions from the unstructured data they already have, but cognitive computing represents a giant leap forward in addressing this challenge. Its ability to process a vast amount of information, learn from that information, provide conclusions and act on those conclusions in fractions of a second is far beyond any other technology available today.

Cognitive computing is enabling a new class of products and services that sense, reason and learn about their users and the world around them. As cognitive computing becomes more embedded in consumer and enterprise systems, it has the potential to change how companies deliver products and services, engage and interact with customers, and how employees learn and make decisions. Applying advanced analytics and automation to predict potential issues and enable systems to be corrected proactively will enable businesses to keep employees productive and keep customers engaged.

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" The real transformation is in applying cognitive intelligence to the digital workplace to make the enterprise competitive.

--Ajay Jotwani, Vice President of Digital Workplace Services, IBM

Cognitive computing is an opportunity to put the growing universe of customer and corporate insights into the hands of workers whenever they need it and wherever they may be. Doctors at Memorial Sloan Kettering, for example, are training Watson, IBM's cognitive platform, to assist doctors in treating cancer patients. Watson can take information about a specific patient and match it to a huge knowledge base of medical journals and documented treatments and outcomes for similar patients. A cognitive assistant can find patterns and present options that can both personalize and broaden the information available to medical professionals when making treatment recommendations. The insights from cognitive assistance can help patients and doctors make more-informed, evidence-based decisions.

These same tools can provide insights into how employees engage most e ectively, help select the best technologies for each task and each individual and help provide a seamless work environment. Imagine having an intelligent assistant draw on the recorded knowledge of your profession as well as real-time data from your environment, helping to inform your decisions and describe probabilities to your range of choices for a given task. Imagine that assistant can also then learn over time, through real-life interactions with you and others in your profession, expanding knowledge and o ering more precise assistance.

"The digital workplace empowers users; it enables enterprise agility and is a key contributor to productivity," says Ajay Jotwani, vice president of IBM's Digital Workplace Services. "The real transformation, however, is in applying cognitive intelligence to the digital workplace to make the enterprise competitive," he adds. As with the Fourth Industrial Revolution, every enterprise will need to embrace the change to grow its market position.

The workplace of the future will be designed to ensure ubiquitous, personalized and secure access to emerging new cognitive and analytic capabilities. Cognitive systems will learn continuously how best to engage with users and enhance productivity. They will provide the ability to visualize and more e ectively use vast amounts of data, curated and analyzed for a unique task and a unique user. And they will be open to whatever new platforms, applications or devices we may need to do our jobs in the future.

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Cognitive assistance on a human scale

Personal profile:

Work location, preferences and other relevant information to give context to the questions the user is asking.

News and alerts:

Pertinent information sent to user since the last time they logged on.

Learning on the job:

Watson will learn from other agents if unable to answer a question.

People:

Connect person to other users or super-users who can assist.

Conversation recall:

Remembers previous searches to provide new solutions.

System updates:

Recognizes upcoming updates that would impact the user.

Relevant tickets:

Retrieves past questions from the user and relates them to current events.

Knowledge and productivity tips:

Leveraging user profile to send useful information on timely basis.

Source: IBM Client Care Services: Service Engagement Guide, 2016;

THE ANYTIME, ANYWHERE WORKPLACE IN THE COGNITIVE ERA

We are in an age when the line between consumer and enterprise technology is disappearing. Digital communication enables employees, their organizations, their partners and their clients to engage with one another in voice, video and written communications at every touchpoint. In fact, employees expect their enterprise technology to be as intuitive and user-friendly as the latest smart device or application.

Instead, many users are left wondering: If the personal assistant on their phone can recognize their voice, their gaming system can learn and remember their preferences, and their GPS can reroute them to avoid tra c, why does their workspace feel like it's stuck in a time warp?

Employees have been compensating by using their own devices in the workplace for years. Now, some small businesses are even adapting smart-home devices--the kind designed to play music and learn your lighting habits--to predict sales and gather business intelligence.

As cognitive applications spread through many professions--from retail to healthcare to manufacturing--users will expect the same dynamic, personalized and context-aware environment in all their workplace interactions. Cognitive capabilities will enable the workplace of the future, but it's important that organizations first develop and enable the infrastructure, data and security to create a cognitive user experience for professionals.

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