Consolidated User Interface

Over time, most organisations end up with fragmented applications instead of a unified system that delivers a logical, end-to-end process. Each application is typically developed over time and in response to specific business needs and only handles part of the overall process. Further, because each was developed by a different project team, they all behave and look very differently.

All of this has a negative impact on staff productivity, consistency and customer service standards and satisfaction. It also causes high training costs where that training is not about how to provide better customer service or sell more, it is about how to navigate and use the various applications.

A consolidated user interface (UI) represents an all-encompassing solution to these problems. It can be created for a fraction of the cost of a wholesale system replacement, with very little of the significant risks traditionally inherent in such an undertaking.

A consolidated UI traverses multiple applications, transforming fragmented processes into logical, end to end workflows. Consolidated UIs provide a consistent, coherent and usable experience for people; they communicate with existing applications through a layer of middleware that also enables these applications to talk to each other.

The consolidated UI delivers a single view of the customer, giving management visibility of the enterprise’s activities and performance, and an easy way for staff to deliver consistent high value services.

This new architecture preserves your existing investment and mitigates risk in large scale system replacement. It is truly the epitome of the 80/20 rule; over 80% of the benefits achieved for less than 20% of the cost and risk.

The consolidated user interface also provides a layer of abstraction that enables changes and replacements to be made over time to the legacy applications. As changes are made to the back end applications, such as retirement and incorporation of the functionality into the middleware layer, there is zero impact on the user interface.

The diagram below shows how many organisations look with their multiplicity of applications across customer processes:

A typical system map

The diagram below shows how the enterprise-wide user interface works with middleware to provide a built-in migration path over time. Legacy applications can be retired or changed with no material effect on the user experience.

Consolidated UI

When do I need a consolidated user interface?

If you see any of the following in your workplace, then your organisation can benefit from a consolidated / enterprise-wide user interface:

The end-to-end procedure to complete a customer process is not logical or efficient
Key sales staff are tied up with administrative tasks, significantly reducing their available time to sell
Additional staff layers are in place to absorb the increased administrative overhead
Staff perform the same functions in very different ways, causing variations in compliance, consistency and quality of service
Staff take 6 — 12 months to get up to speed on all the different systems, because they all work differently
Lots of applications are in use, each has a very different user interface, and each is difficult to use
Each system was developed in response to a specific business need at the time, and so by definition, only handles a small part of an end-to-end process
Staff often need to re-enter the same data between systems
A single view of your customer is not available because data is spread among different systems
The systems don’t talk to each other
Staff workflow is reduced to data entry, with no clear relationship to individual and business goals

The consolidated user interface can apply to a business unit or to the entire enterprise.

The benefits of a consolidated user interface

A PTG Global designed consolidated user interface delivers the following to the business:

A single, usable interface that spans the existing legacy applications
A clear line of sight between strategy, KPIs and application behaviour
A single view of the customer, with all history and servicing functions available
A user interface that reflects the entire business, reinforcing the full range of products and services, supporting product knowledge and cross/up-sell
The entire workflows for all customer sales and servicing functions are reflected, guiding people clearly on how to do their job, also known as ‘just in time training’
A consistent, high performance interface that takes only a few hours to learn
A scalable, flexible structure that allows change to be made without requiring wholesale redesign

A PTG Global designed consolidated user interface has the following advantages for the IT strategy:

Investment in the existing system is preserved. The middleware provides a wrapper to integrate the disparate systems
There is a built-in migration strategy. If some of your applications are not up to the task, then they can be replaced over time with no effect on the user interface
As the legacy applications are upgraded / replaced, there is no change in the user interface. Since the UI has been designed correctly, any changes are smoothly integrated and cause no wholesale changes
The abstracted UI provides consistency because it is stable over time. You don’t need to keep re-training people as you make updates to the way it works

You can read more about an enterprise-wide / consolidated UI here.

Email PTG Global at info@ptg-global.com or call 1300 660 973 to learn how we can deliver an easy to use, consolidated user interface that drives performance.