Hilmar Becker, Country Manager, F5 Brazil, says the end of technological silos collaborates with the breaking down of organizational silos.
In 2024, more and more Brazilian companies are looking to transform themselves into ‘Customer Centric’ organizations.
This is a pillar of the digital economy that is not always fully achieved.
One of the reasons for this is the survival of silo-based organizational models – departments and teams that communicate much more internally than with their peers in other areas. This structure stands out for the difficulty of converging employees from different areas towards a common goal: to delight the customer.
Overcoming silos continues to be a challenge for many companies. A 2018 study by consulting firmMcKinsey based on interviews with 2,135 US C-level executives indicates that, for this universe, the fact that silos persist in their companies is the biggest barrier to digital business expansion.
According to PwC (a 2019 report of 956 U.S. companies), 61% of respondents agree that collaboration between diverse teams is essential for business.
Still, only 36% said they were effectively promoting the integration of information and processes between teams originally organized separately.
The result of this reality is a company that looks backwards and does not reach the speed essential to the digital economy.
Siloed organization is supported by digital systems that are also designed, implemented and managed in a logic of departmental or function-based silos.
Workflow processes are slower, critical information isn’t shared with the right timing and repeated tasks are performed by multiple teams without one knowing the other is doing it.
This confusion frustrates the customer/user, who often suffers the effect of information that has to navigate through several silos and systems until it becomes an answer. This picture is the opposite of the ‘Customer Centric’ company.
For European Consulting eConsultancy – a study conducted in 2023 with 650 companies – 29% of the corporations interviewed had already managed to carry out this transformation. These companies were effectively working on new foundations, reaping the profits from accelerating business processes.
Those who live this achievement are, in parallel with cultural changes, actively eliminating digital silos. The goal is to further accelerate the ‘Customer Centric’ culture, freeing the consumer/user from having to visit ‘n’ Apps or WebSites to perform a task.
It is the era of digital interdisciplinarity. AI, Machine Learning and behavioral analytics create an extremely complex and distributed digital platform. It is pure software running in ‘n’ environments and managed from a single point.
For the client/user, however, none of this complexity appears. What arrives for them is the charm of a digital experience without scares and without friction.
Conversational AI environments like ChatGPT, Gemini and Bing Copilot are the most visible face of this transformation. It is now possible to interact with software platforms as if a ‘human’ conversation were taking place, through voice or text messages.
Instead of jumping from one site to another or from one app to another, the idea is to ‘talk to the Internet’ to get what you are looking for in the digital economy – an experience akin to an unlimited mix of content and services, dynamically created to answer any question or meet any need that specific user may have.
The premise of this change is to break down the barriers between websites/Apps (organized as silos of information and business logic) and offer a much superior user experience.
It is in this context that Conversational AI platforms dismantle the barriers that exist in the traditional digital structure of companies. These new technologies understand the user’s needs and can connect the person to the best resources, content and services from across the Web.
The columns of this concept are:
- Users First: Interacting with the AI platform provides a personalized and streamlined web experience.
- The Web Hub: Conversational AI platforms become the meeting place for all assets that are online.
- Rethinking business: With this model, the consumer’s gaze will no longer focus on a particular page or App. This requires the reinvention of advertising models on the Internet.
These platforms represent a fundamental shift in the way each person experiences the digital world – promising a future in which the web will be more integrated, responsive and attuned to individual needs.
The user who interacts with ChatGPT, Dolly or GPT-4 does so through LLM (Large Language Models) as the foundation of a dialogue that goes far beyond silos or the “n” platforms that support the silos.
Conversational AI platforms are like the best party hosts, facilitating dynamic interactions between users, content creators and existing digital services – delivering everything on a platter to the customer, without friction and without delays.
The Conversational AI platform acts as the ultimate connector, the central hub, driving user engagement for digital content creators and aggregators, as well as digital service providers.
Conversational AI also leverages content and APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) to foster a cohesive relationship.
This new platform model is akin to a wrecking ball, shattering traditional barriers of the digital world and creating a more connected and responsive web experience than ever before. The web is no longer a hodgepodge of disjointed interfaces and experiences – it’s a unified, adaptive environment that is constantly learning and evolving with every user interaction.
As the web moves into this new model, it’s not just about improving the user/consumer experience – it’s about totally reimagining the ways digital content and services are structured, delivered and monetized. It is the end of technological silos, an advance that collaborates with the breaking down of organizational silos.
This evolution integrates conversational AI platforms, content creators, service providers, government regulatory agencies, network providers, cybersecurity and infrastructure specialists. It is a new era in which symbiotic relationships between different elements strengthen the Brazilian Customer Centric company.
