How to successfully execute Touchless Transition?

Businesses worldwide have swiftly switched to “Work from Home” operating model in wake of the recent pandemic to ensure business continuity while safeguarding their workforce. This has primarily been possible due to the technologies enabling work from home alternative. And ever since, WFH alternative has been on a meteoric rise if one were to infer from the recent studies shared by Gallup and Stanford.

Switching existing operations from office to WFH model was swiftly accomplished barring the initial logistics and technical interruptions since it involved established processes and procedures being extended remotely with the help of digital tools.

Utilization of the same Touchless approach for end-to-end business process transitions from one vendor to another or setting up a green field process still remains relatively untapped, although the underlying technology has been around for quite some time now and have been utilized in pockets throughout the industry to manage some of the transition activities such as transition governance meetings remotely.

This is essentially because of the fact that transitions are intricate and have traditionally required extensive interdepartmental engagement and collaboration between internal and external stakeholders spread across the globe. Historically, inclination has always been towards In-person Workshops and On-Job-Trainings (OJT) to avoid risks and issues that may arise due to gaps in knowledge capturing and transferring.

Also, Touchless transitions entail an array of unknown and unforeseen risks from both client as well as vendor’s perspective besides the inherent risks & issues associated with any process transition. Especially in today’s dynamic environment where business is confronted with resource (people & logistics), cost and safety constraints with no playbook to fall back on.

The fundamental requirements for Touchless transitions to be successful would be effective and unique communication methods, extensive collaboration and excellent network. It will require transition managers to act increasingly as network architects and role models for the new ways of working. The change in “doing things” will require change management effort from all functions actively working towards a successful transition. The key to successfully executing Touchless transition lies in proactively assessing and managing risks and change as a part of project management.

Hexaware understands the need for a well-orchestrated touchless transition in order to achieve optimum quality with minimum disruption of work.  A unique combination of customized Transition Methodology, Technology Levers & Collaborative Approach enabling Hi-Touch activities remotely as per business needs.

Touchless Transition: Key Hi-Touch Activities

In a Touchless model, all the activities right from requirement gathering, sourcing, on boarding of delivery teams, training, OJT to Go Live and delivery in Home-Office environment get managed remotely with the use of online collaborative tools and technology. And this approach can be applied to multi-location or incumbent transition.

Touchless Transition: Key Risks and Mitigations

An effective risk management strategy is a crucial component of Transition Excellence. Hexaware recognizes the presence of risk in all phases of the transition and the need to explicitly manage it through mitigation, avoidance, transfer or sharing. Some of the key mitigations that we focussed on were basis the risks we foresaw delivering completely Touchless Transitions:

Instil Agile Planning and Governance to manage project cost, quality and schedule in a rapidly changing environment

• Establish Robust Transition plan – specify tollgates, tasks, planned and actual dates, responsibilities
• Institute Agile Transition Governance model to enable real time reviews, evaluate potential delays and mitigate risks

Opt for Right resource mix and technology levers to shave off the initial learning curve off any tools, technologies or processes

• Align resources with vertical expertise resp. in domain, technology & platforms for enhanced KT and reduced learning curve
• Conduct customized virtual foundation training sessions for the team on specific domain, client culture, values and nature of business

Fortify the Culture of collaborations and communication to set and manage expectations of project and delivery teams on the “rules-of-engagement”

• Advance calendaring & scheduling Key SMEs calendars for documentation, delivery & support events, set protocols for interactions and online collaboration, security awareness
• Utilize Knowledge Capture tools to reduce efforts and improve Quality of Outputs
• Prepare and share quick start guides with clearly articulated remote work policy along with a plan, communications program, budget, training and support to project and delivery teams

Invest in Dynamic Technology and Infra Solutions and adequate UAT planning for “anywhere-employees” to perform their tasks effectively   

• Opt for customized Cloud solutions and Online tools for collaboration, employee monitoring & time tracking, BOTs enabled MIS & Reporting, diminish downtime and GDPR compliance risks
• Conduct surveys to understand if the delivery team will have adequate online access and IT Infra
• Deploy Hybrid IT Infra setup – Remote work Devices – User Owned or Company provided devices, Broadband for speed and stability, Dongles/ Mobile hotspots as backup, applications and licenses, Installation support and end-to-end testing
• Provision Hexaware’ s ‘Office-at-Home ’ for secure remote access to office environment though hosted desktops via any modern devices or OS within hours

Robust Security and Compliance measures should be a key focus area in designing any Transition solution leveraging best in class-technology

• Boost security with mandatory device protection and two-factor authentication on end point devices
• Secure Acceptable usage policies sign off from the Users on Hardware, software, network services, and support

These key measures will help those businesses which have recently embraced remote transition as well as those who may already have existing remote transition models and would like to significantly upgrade their effectiveness to minimize impact to their customers, workers, suppliers and thereby move to the completely Touchless Transition model.

To conclude, Touchless Transitions need to be devolved yet more networked, agile yet more structured. The success of the approach is in the effectiveness of planning and execution. Organisations are keen to embrace the touchless approach as it provides the most cost efficient, engaging and productive environment we have yet experienced.

Throughout history, crisis of many forms – Natural, Social, Political or Economic – have challenged humanity. Our resilience and adaptability has helped us come out of crisis stronger and laced with new means to thrive in the new world. We would, in retrospection, see that the limitations of social distancing too opened up a lot of possibilities including that of setting up new businesses and migrating existing ones remotely.

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