Meet the Awards 2023 Finalists: Unisys

In the run up to the SDI Awards 2023 gala dinner and prize-giving on 30 October, we’ve been asking our finalists about their experiences, reasons for entering and hopes for the future. Here’s the story from Unisys:

Finalist – MSP of The Year 2023

What made you decide to enter the awards? 

With SDI being a globally recognized organization, advocating the highest levels of performance and service within our industry we saw clear synergy with Unisys. At Unisys we take pride in providing an exceptional end user experience to our international client base and, naturally, we are eager to showcase our achievements, and nothing does that better than including the prestigious SDI Awards.
Additionally as part of the wider SDI community, having the ability to collaborate with industry peers, share our knowledge, celebrate achievements together is really important to us and a huge part of our Global Service Desk culture.

What part of the awards process did you enjoy the most?  

We loved the whole process, even the presentations to the SDI judges! Not only was it an excellent opportunity to showcase what we do within the Unisys support universe, but also a fantastic team building opportunity for our team to come together from all corners of the world and demonstrate teamwork at its best! From putting together presentations, dance clips, employee testimonials and client feedback videos, he had a lot of fun in showcasing what we do best! We are simply thrilled to have been selected as a Finalist in 3 SDI Award Categories: Best Managed Service Provider, Best Service Transformation and Team Leader of the Year.

In the last 12 months, what has been the most successful initiative your team has implemented to help your business improve its performance?   

Experience, Experience, Experience. In the last 12 months our continued focus on experience based service, has allowed us to introduce 14 unique XLAs (Experience Level Agreements) in our production environment tied directly to the output of Digital Experience tooling leveraging device data insights and sentiment data to truly understand, improve and evolve the experience of the people we support!

What are your top 3 tips to make a service desk successful?  

 1. Our people are our greatest asset! We believe our team members are the most important part of the organisation. We constantly invest and focus on actively training and developing our talent. We recognize and celebrate each and every team member. Our strength comes from our passion for teamwork and global diversity.

2. We look at the bigger picture and always put end user experience (EUX) first! We are constantly evaluating how we can deliver more value to our clients. This also includes focusing on our SD agent experience and equipping our team with tools and processes which enable exceptional and seamless support journey for our end users.

3. We embrace technology to its fullest. From multi-lingual AI support tools, through augmented reality smart hands support, customer-facing knowledge portals, to self-help guides and FAQs, our goal is to provide our end users with seamless support and a variety of options to find what they need saving them valuable time to focus on their business goals

What one thing do you think really makes you stand out as a service organization? 

Every day, we push the boundaries of what’s possible. We go beyond better to unleash real change. We work with organizations around the world to encourage performance and enhance profitability.

At Unisys, we apply positive pressure to the possible, pushing beyond simply “better” to unleash real change. Because we’re here to ensure that people and organizations reach the next breakthrough. And the one after that.

As masters of the purposeful pivot, breaking old thinking to build anew is in our DNA. We show up with steady hands, lively minds, and an open dialogue on the latest ideas and approaches. With robust solutions, innovative experiences and undaunted associates, we ensure our clients gather momentum, gain a competitive edge and step confidently into the future. And though we manage some of the most complex and highly regulated technology systems in the world, we don’t let red tape stop us from thinking differently.

Because progress is never finished.

How are you preparing to evolve your service desk over the next few years? Please share your most exciting plan with us!   

We are continuing on our strategic 3-year roadmap to innovate and drive increased levels of End User Experience (EUX) combined with high focus on Unisys Associate Experience.

Our Global Service Desk team is focusing on shifting to a mature EUX model enabling the end user to support themselves based on persona and tool set up enabling optimal experience anytime, anywhere.

Roadmap examples include:

• Enterprise Personal Assistants are Bots that continually assess and build knowledge through natural language processing and machine learning.

• User sentiment analysis allows for a more in-depth understanding of users’ sentiment and expectations for improvements.

• Leveraging Generative AI throughout our service offering, enabling and empowering our agents to focus on high value, complex activities whilst also delivering efficiency and productivity to our customers. This ties into our strategy of working smarter and focusing on technology as an enabler, not the answer. Examples include Knowledge Management ingestion, user self-help and proactive case creation.

If you could choose any celebrity to work on your service desk, who would it be?  

What a great question! We would go with Warren Buffet.
If anyone understands the stakes and what our clients trust us with when we deliver services for them it’s him.

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it. If you think about that you’ll do things differently” .

What does it mean to your team to be a finalist in the ‘MSP Of The Year’ category? 

We are humbled and thrilled to have been selected as a Finalist in 3 SDI Award Categories: Best Managed Service Provider, Best Service Transformation and Team Leader of the Year.

We simply cannot wait for the SDI Awards 2023 event and the opportunity for more networking with our industry peers, knowledge sharing and celebrating with our colleagues!

To be a finalist in the SDI Awards is a fantastic recognition of our hard work and a huge credit to our fantastic, global team. We continue to develop and mature our service year-over-year and our commitment to service improvement continues to strengthen us, both as a team and as a world-class service desk.

We are delighted to be recognised by a globally renowned organisation like the Service Desk Institute.

What advice would you give to anyone entering the awards next year?  

⦁ Keep it simple
⦁ Believe in your abilities and share your success stories, no matter how small or large
⦁ Embrace the process and don’t forget to have fun

What would you do to celebrate if your team won ‘Best Service Desk 2023’?  

⦁ Spread the word
⦁ Enjoy the moment
⦁ Drink champagne

Then…take every opportunity to share this great success with our associates across the entire organisation, via our internal Yammer & external social media sites such as LinkedIn, through service review meetings and company-wide communications. We would also share this prestigious recognition by thanking our clients for their continuous support and partnership which helps us to be a world class support organization!