In today’s DIY culture, self-service environments put us at ease — we love to be empowered to help ourselves. Personally, I prefer to pump my own gas and construct my own frozen yogurt when I want a cold treat. There’s always the option for someone to do things like this for me, of course, but while that option is nice (and many times more efficient) I like the self-service option because there’s a certain pleasure in doing things yourself. It’s a transparent process where you get in line, get your stuff done, and you’re out. No explanations, no fuss, and no worries that your order has been lost in the system.
Helping You Help Yourself
Self-service is the preferred option of many, and it’s what we have become used to. Whether it’s paying “sweat equity” for lower prices or preferring to customize your services, this trend contributed to the consumerization of IT, and it is rapidly gaining speed with migration to the cloud. As more and more consumer products focus on self-service, people who were previously using full-service options found that there were products that empowered them to help them help themselves.
Self-service has touched everything, especially consumer electronics. Everyday people are solving their personal IT issues at home over the weekend, and then going into the office on Monday wondering why everything took weeks or months to materialize at work.
Take Your House to Work
“I set up a backup to one of those cloud services over the weekend for my pictures and files. Why do I have to get permission for someone to archive my emails at work?” Sound familiar? It’s a pretty common complaint of IT services: Why is it taking so long for someone else to do it when I could do it myself?! Accenture did a study in 2011 that found that 45% of people felt that their personal devices and software at home were more useful than the resources they were given at work. With companies demanding so much of their employees, employees are now demanding the tools to get the job done.
The power of the cloud is helping companies bridge this gap between the ease and independence enjoyed in home offices, to the at-work environment. Self-service options enabled by the platform services help increase mobility, teamwork, and data access.
Check out TIBCO Cloud Bus to see how your company can improve employee work life with the cloud.
