Bring enterprise mobility to life with FutureNow thinking

In today’s dynamic landscape, innovation is no longer a luxury, but a necessity. And innovation is about much more than slotting the latest headline-grabbing tech into an existing stack of enterprise mobility solutions. 

It’s about looking for ways to do things smarter, faster and more cost-effectively.  It’s about making work easier, wherever the work may be happening. Most importantly, it’s also about finding ways to improve the employee experience and the customer experience – two of the foundational elements of any organisation’s success. 

Innovation starts with people, as the team at the Optus FutureNow can attest from years of tailored ideation and strategy sessions that give our enterprise and government customers the chance to explore the latest technology and apply it to their real-life business issues.

More precisely, it’s about getting the right people together at the right time – and asking the right questions.

Optus FutureNow sessions recognise the value of learning from parallel industries and integrating best practices. 

Depending on the scenario, some of the right people in the room may come from the Optus partner ecosystem of global leaders in their field. For example, experts from Akamai may be on hand to advise on the mobile threat landscape and employing strategies to manage risks effectively. 

One of the core strengths of Optus FutureNow is identifying how the integration of mobility-powered solutions can transform processes and outcomes. To date, FutureNow sessions have successfully guided numerous enterprises in identifying and solving their real-life business challenges. So how can the team help you?

Image Source: FutureNow, Optus

Here’s some examples of how Optus FutureNow has helped businesses in recent times:

• To get the most out of a FutureNow session, consider leveraging input from people from other business units, not just your IT team. This proved particularly effective for one Optus customer looking at how to best improve the experience and efficiency of their frontline workers. Where IT had previously been focused on the technology, input from HR proved transformational in creating a new solution that leveraged mobility to boost productivity and ensure equity of access to enterprise tools. 
• In another FutureNow project, a major super fund was grappling with a high number of support calls from customers who were struggling to reset passwords on the company’s app. Just one collaborative FutureNow session provided space away from day-to-day demands for key stakeholders to brainstorm and devise a streamlined password reset process, ultimately significantly reducing call volumes and enhancing customer satisfaction. (You can bet that call centre agents were also delighted to see the back of those repetitive queries and complaints– a double win for both the customer and employee experience.)
• In another example, FutureNow helped a major health service harmonise digital experiences across their different sites, transforming manual roster management into a self-service mobile-enabled system, thus improving efficiency and reducing errors.

Image Source: FutureNow, Optus

While it may be tempting to think that most issues can be solved by technology, in fact it is the human dimension which needs to be front and centre, says Ash Blake, the FutureNow Lead at Optus. It’s all part of the human-centred design approach that guides all customer sessions at the Optus FutureNow Lab. 

"Human-centred design is a pivotal aspect of our work at FutureNow. This approach ensures that solutions are not only technologically advanced, but also tailored to the real needs and experiences of users.”

Whether focused on long-term strategy or more immediate problem solving, the key steps in the approach taken during any FutureNow session include: 

1. Identifying the issue: Understanding the root cause of the problem through stakeholder engagement and needs assessment.
2. Looking at what’s already there: Evaluating existing processes and tools to build on what works.
3. Brainstorming ideas: Facilitating creative sessions to generate innovative solutions.
4. Human-centred design: Focusing on the user experience to ensure that any solutions are practical and user-friendly – and deliver real results to the humans involved at every step along the chain.

Buying or building a specific tool to solve a problem is not necessarily the solution. This approach is often based solely upon insights from specific users, and not the wider community.

So, while some users may have had great results with AI as a personal productivity tool, the same may not be true in a broader organisational context. Scaling it will require careful planning and an understanding of best practices – the pros and cons of which need to be teased out collaboratively. For ultimate effect, you may even need to build in friction to slow some processes down. 

Lastly, Ash Blake recommends that clarifying your organisation’s vision can also deliver great dividends. “One major retailer we worked with had considered IT as a cost centre – the business would come to the team with their requirements, and IT would be expected to deliver to these. Now, their whole way of thinking has changed and IT is considered a strategic capability across the business.” 

Watch Welcome to Optus FutureNow video.

Optus FutureNow sessions blend aspirational thinking with a grounded approach, helping organisations navigate digital transformation. By focusing on human-centred design, we ensure that solutions are both visionary and practical.

Book a complimentary session with Optus FutureNow today to explore how your organisation can tackle challenges, maximise opportunities and grow.

Register for your complimentary session now.