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New Zealanders shun digital fatigue in favour of feeling empowered

New Zealand – March 10, 2021

  • 57% of New Zealanders find using technology for work empowering and enabling vs. just 23% finding it fatiguing and oppressing (64% vs. 15% for leisure)
  • Most want flexible and remote working to stay (55%) but are less keen for video conferencing to replace business travel (37%)
  • Nearly half (49%) miss feeling empathy from or for others as well as physical interactions, while small talk and the atmosphere created by group events are similarly missed

New research from Infosys (NYSE: INFY), a global leader in next-generation digital services and consulting, has found New Zealanders’ relationships with technology flourished in 2020, with minimal online fatigue despite the reliance on digital throughout the pandemic.

The research leveraged WONGDOODY’s human experience research platform, “The Sounding Board”, to survey 200 respondents across New Zealand in November 2020 – showing that by this time around half of New Zealanders were working from home. A further three quarters stated their use of tech for work and leisure had increased since March 2020, with a similar proportion reporting their usage was still increasing.

Overall, it seems smart tech is now bringing New Zealanders more joy, flexibility and empowerment than ever before, albeit recognising some shortcomings of virtual interactions such as reduced empathy and honesty. Furthermore, the pandemic accelerated adoption of digital services across banking, entertainment, retail, and grocery shopping for 45-55% of New Zealanders. Smaller increases were observed across government services, education, health and wellbeing services - indicating a potential opportunity for those providing these services.

The report follows the expansion of WONGDOODY, an Infosys company presence in Australia and New Zealand, with the acquisition of Melbourne-based creative agency Carter Digital. WONGDOODY delivers human-centric digital experiences powered by insights from The Sounding Board, a proprietary research and insight tool that gives enterprises access to customised communities. This capability complements the digital innovation platforms and services offered by Infosys. Bringing these capabilities together will see real-time organisational data connected to experience design, ultimately delivering seamless digital interactions to customers.

The Sounding Board also allowed respondents to freely contribute their own ideas and opinions. This uncovered a trend of rising expectations of speed and ease, with more responsive chatbots and greater integration also called out as potential improvements across digital services. In fact, ease and speed of use online was identified as a key driver of brand loyalty by three quarters of respondents, followed by transparency with customers which just under half selected. Providing human contact for troubleshooting interestingly ranked slightly higher for brand loyalty than digital contact.

Andrew Groth, Senior VP and Region Head at Infosys Australia and New Zealand said; “digital offers diversification and scale at a speed that’s just not possible in a physical environment, but the bar is high for effective experiences and customers will go elsewhere if their expectations are not met. To counter this, enterprises must be agile in their efforts to create seamless experiences that integrate with real-time organisational data - behaving as a live enterprise. Better yet brands will co-create with customers to provide increasingly human digital experiences as this is where current and future competitive advantage lies.”

In terms of what makes experiences more human, just under half of respondents pointed to integration with other apps, predictive and personalised tech, as well as interactive elements. This is further reflected in quotes from respondents who, when asked to describe how they would improve digital services, imagined ‘a kind of mini me’, tech that can ‘anticipate my needs’, and a world where ‘everything is inter-connected’.

Respondents also indicated that technology has made experiences more accessible. Over half stated they would like to see the continuation of free or low-cost access to work and leisure opportunities, with a similar proportion selecting more accessibility opportunities for a range of abilities and/or income.

Commenting on the research Professor Kimbal Marriott, Department of Human Centered Computing, Monash said; “over the next 5 to 10 years we’ll see the blurring of the physical and virtual. Augmented reality will reshape that relationship by overlaying the virtual on the physical, as will tangible computing which will see us interacting with physical objects as the computer interface. More AI and chatbots are also on the horizon, and I expect the impact of this on those with disabilities to be profound.”

Customer Experience to Human Experience research report on Infosys New Zealand website

 

About Infosys

Infosys is a global leader in next-generation digital services and consulting. We enable clients in 46 countries to navigate their digital transformation. With nearly four decades of experience in managing the systems and workings of global enterprises, we expertly steer our clients through their digital journey. We do it by enabling the enterprise with an AI-powered core that helps prioritize the execution of change. We also empower the business with agile digital at scale to deliver unprecedented levels of performance and customer delight. Our always-on learning agenda drives their continuous improvement through building and transferring digital skills, expertise, and ideas from our innovation ecosystem.

Visit www.infosys.com to see how Infosys (NYSE: INFY) can help your enterprise navigate your next.

 

About WONGDOODY

WONGDOODY is an award-winning creative agency and the global experience-and-design platform for Infosys. The company is recognized for branding, retail, and consumer insights. With offices in Seattle, New York, Los Angeles, Melbourne, London and across the globe; WONGDOODY clients have included Amazon, Honda, and a wide range of Fortune 500 companies.

 

Safe Harbor

Certain statements in this release concerning our future growth prospects, financial expectations and plans for navigating the COVID-19 impact on our employees, clients and stakeholders are forward-looking statements intended to qualify for the 'safe harbor' under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements. The risks and uncertainties relating to these statements include, but are not limited to, risks and uncertainties regarding COVID-19 and the effects of government and other measures seeking to contain its spread, risks related to an economic downturn or recession in India, the United States and other countries around the world, changes in political, business, and economic conditions, fluctuations in earnings, fluctuations in foreign exchange rates, our ability to manage growth, intense competition in IT services including those factors which may affect our cost advantage, wage increases in India, our ability to attract and retain highly skilled professionals, time and cost overruns on fixed-price, fixed-time frame contracts, client concentration, restrictions on immigration, industry segment concentration, our ability to manage our international operations, reduced demand for technology in our key focus areas, disruptions in telecommunication networks or system failures, our ability to successfully complete and integrate potential acquisitions, liability for damages on our service contracts, the success of the companies in which Infosys has made strategic investments, withdrawal or expiration of governmental fiscal incentives, political instability and regional conflicts, legal restrictions on raising capital or acquiring companies outside India, unauthorized use of our intellectual property and general economic conditions affecting our industry and the outcome of pending litigation and government investigation. Additional risks that could affect our future operating results are more fully described in our United States Securities and Exchange Commission filings including our Annual Report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2020. These filings are available at www.sec.gov. Infosys may, from time to time, make additional written and oral forward-looking statements, including statements contained in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and our reports to shareholders. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements that may be made from time to time by or on behalf of the Company unless it is required by law.

 

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