ABOUT OSAIC
Osaic, Inc. (previously Advisor Group), is one of North America’s largest providers of wealth management solutions. The financial services company directly employs over 2,000 and supports over 11,000 independent financial advisors across every state in the USA.
THE CHALLENGE
Understand IT experience of large, distributed network of independent financial advisors
Osaic provides a complex array of IT services to a large network of independent advisors with a commitment to “Open Architecture”, meaning advisors have access to the systems they prefer, with integration and services managed centrally. The Workplace Technology team manages a complex ecosystem of applications for a diverse range of users, however they lacked a channel for measuring how technology was performing for users, and where to target investment.
As a regulated financial institution Osaic is continually required to bring in technology changes to comply with new Federal Government regulations, causing issues for end-users that are difficult to pinpoint or validate.
Further, the company was growing rapidly through acquisition, resulting in a technology infrastructure and end-user experience that was becoming more and more fragmented and difficult to manage.
THE SOLUTION
Proactive measurement of Digital Employee Experience (DEX)
Todd Logan, VP of Workplace Technology at Osaic, had experienced first-hand the value of accurately measuring IT Experience while in a previous role, and wanted to bring this approach to Osaic.
However the methodology he had used previously – a dedicated team annually surveying and interviewing over 600 people from 25 business areas – was not an option, and Logan needed a more scalable solution. Following detailed research, he identified Voxxify as the ideal solution to meet Osaic’s needs.
For Logan, the powerful but user-friendly design of the platform helped ensure the insights were accurate and actionable: “The survey is quick and easy for employees, prompting them to give extra detail and comments if they so choose. Dashboard features like AI prioritization and heatmaps by role, location and technology help me slice and dice the data to create targeted action plans.”
And with a response rate in excess of 40%,he was confident that the insights accurately reflected the key issues that were impacting employees across the entire business.
THE BENEFITS
According to Logan, Voxxify was transformative for him in his role: “It allowed me to quickly see what’s working well, what isn’t, and where the priorities are both at a high level and for specific locations and user groups.” It enabled him to shape an IT roadmap that was putting users – and, ultimately, customers – at the center.
Service Improvement: Data driven approach to aligning laptop specs with end user needs
Laptops emerged as a key issue for several user groups, as Voxxify’s heatmap and X-Grid highlighted problems that specific role groups were reporting with battery life. To investigate further, Logan correlated role and location data from Voxxify with his desktop monitoring tool, and discovered there were significant groups of users with only 25% battery life!
This gave him the information he needed to build a compelling business case for investment: “These folks are on the road meeting clients 3-4 days a week, and they need all day battery life. Instead they were constantly looking for places they could plug in which really got in the way of doing their jobs. Without the survey I wouldn’t have discovered that. Telemetry data alone paints an incomplete picture.”
Based on this analysis, Logan secured additional funding for improved laptop specs based on a new, workstyle-matched standard, and carried out a targeted refresh for high priority user groups.
Compelling Storytelling to unlock investment
The combination of quantitative and qualitative data in the Voxxify insights enabled Logan to use “storytelling” to communicate more effectively with the C-suite, helping him secure targeted investment. “The C-level people are going to be bored to tears if you just show data, data, data. You have to take all those individual parts, put it together into a story as to why this matters and why we need the investment.”
Positive engagement with end-users
The IT team found that end-users were very interested in sharing their experience, and valued being asked for their feedback. Logan noted, “Overall people appreciated it. I mean, we had a 46% response rate to the survey, which is unheard of for IT. People really wanted to voice their opinion, and appreciated being asked about it. That mattered a lot to them.”
Trusted Partner – IT Experience on C-Suite agenda
Logan notes how Voxxify enabled him to position IT as a trusted partner of the business. “The execs appreciated it as well – they understand if technology isn’t running well it impacts customer service, which ultimately impacts the revenue and success of the company.” Logan noted.
Understanding impact of compliance on user experience
As a financial services company, Osaic needs to deliver technology in line with SEC and FINRA compliance regulations. Traditionally, this impacts negatively on user experience, but with Voxxify’s innovative approach enabled the Workplace Technology team to anticipate pain points that could be resolved or avoided through investment, training or something as simple as communicating better with employees.
THE TAKEAWAY
Customer-focused approach elevates Osaic IT as a trusted business partner
Using Voxxify insights, Logan was able to implement a systematic, customer-focused approach to IT planning, enabling his team to deliver meaningful service improvements, many of which were cost-neutral for the business.
Cost-efficiencies were achieved through reallocation of resources to projects that aligned better with user needs, resulting in more efficient utilization of technical talent. In other areas, the team secured additional investment for key services such as the Service Desk and a targeted overhaul of laptop specifications and refresh policy for specific user groups.
Logan is passionate about combining an empathetic, user-centered approach to IT service delivery with a rigorous, fact-based methodology for more effective resource allocation. This all comes from a laser-focus on business value, which for financial services is centered on customer service: “Voxxify gave us a comprehensive understanding of what’s working well, and what needs more attention for our customer-focussed employees. It gives me what I need to tell the story, secure resources and align on what will ultimately deliver maximum business value.”
