A few months ago, I was speaking to a prospective customer who said they wanted a partner who could provide a “curated experience” for their Workday support path.
But what exactly does a curated experience mean today compared to what it used to mean before the days of SaaS and BPaaS?
What a curated experience used to look like
In the past, systems were developed internally by teams of developers and could be tailored specifically to meet the needs of the business.
While very costly and not incredibly agile, this did provide users with a system that aligned 100% to their business process needs. If you didn’t like the way a given process worked, you could just change the code—or (more likely) pay to have it changed.
What a curated experience looks like today
This kind of customization isn’t possible today because today’s systems share a code base. For example, all Workday tenants are built on the same code structure. So inevitably, a curated experience is going to be different.
But it’s still possible.
At the technology level, creating a tailored experience is about how the system is configured. And while there is still effort involved to align the configuration with the business process needs, it’s easier to modify a configuration than the actual code.
But even more, today’s curated experience is about humans.
What immediately comes to mind for me as a comparison is the level of service often provided by a sommelier.
A sommelier could very easily suggest the most expensive bottle of wine, or whatever the restaurant most needs to get rid of that day. But a true expert will ask questions to make the most personalized recommendation possible.
The incredible power of just being human
So, how does this translate to the worlds of SaaS and BPaaS?
Again, it’s about humans.
Nealy any project can be put into a template of repeatable steps that, if followed, lead to success.
The key differentiator is the human element that any project manager, engagement manager, or similar key point of contact puts into the effort.
Merely by asking questions and often just being human, a service partner can provide an experience that feels curated and is ultimately more successful than other projects that lack this level of engagement.
When service partners engage with their customers as humans, those relationships can live well beyond go-live into the support journey. And this is exactly the curated experience people are looking for.
